Chapter 3670 — Dangers upon Dangers
The Blossom Guardian Page 1 of 2
My god! What in the world is going on here?
An extremely ominous premonition surged through Wei Zhao's heart, and in the very next instant the sky seemed to darken, his whole body engulfed in an enormous shadow.
Looking up, he saw a giant eagle circling in the low air some fifty or sixty zhang above the canyon—by rough reckoning its wingspan easily exceeded five zhang! In the parlance of the mortal world, that was a full sixteen meters; hovering there over the canyon, it gave Wei Zhao a feeling of something blotting out the heavens and covering the earth.
For a fierce bird of such dimensions, anyone could guess without a moment's thought that it was no ordinary creature: talons like golden hooks, beak like a blood diamond, gleaming with a cold light in the rays of the setting sun and striking terror into all who beheld it.
Even a cursory glance was enough for the savage, overbearing aura of the thing to tell Wei Zhao that this giant eagle was at least a Foundation Establishment spirit beast—and as for its actual strength, he sensed it was at least two grades above the Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard he had fought for his very life and blasted into a corpse!
In other words, the creature overhead was likely a powerful spirit beast of at least the mid Foundation Establishment stage!
Compared with it, the flying spirit beasts once kept in the rear-mountain hall seemed as docile as quails, and their strength was nowhere near so absurd; Wei Zhao had no doubt that if any of those flying spirit beasts met this thing in the air, they would all be slaughtered in an instant.
Faced with a fierce bird of such caliber, Wei Zhao had not the slightest confidence in standing against it. The one thing he thanked his lucky stars for was that, before descending, a passing thought had made him stow the Heavenly Thunder Pig into the jade pendant's space in advance instead of leaving it above to stand watch for him.
Had the Heavenly Thunder Pig really been up there now, never mind keeping watch or sounding warnings—it would probably have become this fierce bird's snack by this very moment.
But now, though the Heavenly Thunder Pig was safe enough, the one in danger was Wei Zhao himself!
The giant eagle's pair of sharp eyes, keen as a ghost's, had plainly already fixed upon Wei Zhao; after all, a living, breathing man standing on a cliff face made for an all-too-conspicuous target!
My god! How am I supposed to survive this?
Watching the giant eagle circle once at low altitude and then immediately prepare to dive straight toward him, Wei Zhao's heart turned cold.
Against a spirit beast of the early Foundation Establishment stage like the Nine-Tailed Cloud-Piercing Leopard, he had at least had the confidence to maneuver and kill it, but the thing above his head was at least mid Foundation Establishment—if he truly crossed blows with it, he would most likely be killed in a single move!
And what mattered even more was his present predicament: the only reason he could keep his footing steady on the branch at all was thanks to those two loops of vine rope about his waist, and even that had been hard-won. In such a situation, never mind a mid Foundation Establishment giant eagle—even a random early Foundation Establishment spirit beast might well be more than Wei Zhao could handle!
But no matter what Wei Zhao thought, the giant eagle overhead had already decided to make him today's supper. His frame might be somewhat small relative to its vast bulk, but the flesh and blood of a human cultivator had always been delicious, and its spiritual qi content far surpassed that of other spirit beasts—a rare and precious tonic that could not be counted on to come along often.
Folding its wings and drawing in its feathers, the giant eagle plunged straight down at Wei Zhao, in an instant crossing a distance of dozens of zhang to appear directly above his head; the golden talons beneath its belly came clawing at him trailing a fierce, sharp energy, and the immense force generated in that one instant surpassed every divine weapon and treasure blade Wei Zhao had ever seen!
Bang! In his haste Wei Zhao threw his back hard against the rock, paying the price of injury as he pressed himself flat into the cliff face; this limited his movement, but at least he could still counterattack—better that than losing his footing and being snatched away outright.
At the same time, Wei Zhao clenched his hand into a fist and, back to the rock wall, launched a Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist, the searing, fire-hot fist intent instantly meeting the giant eagle's incoming golden talons.
The Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist was now the second most powerful technique in Wei Zhao's arsenal, second only to the Twenty-One Stance Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm, his strongest killing move.
Though it was somewhat inferior to the Twenty-One Stance Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm, its advantage lay in not draining his true qi dry within a single move; on this cliff where he had neither sky above nor ground below, Wei Zhao had to save a bit of true qi for self-preservation.
Otherwise, he would not even need the enemy to exert itself—once he unleashed the Twenty-One Stance Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm, leaving aside whatever it might do to the giant eagle, he himself would be the first to capitulate, or simply plummet, his life or death left to the heavens.
The fist intent of the Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist was like a long-dormant volcano erupting all at once—not only tremendous in power, but ceaseless and unending; against an ordinary early Foundation Establishment expert, this single punch alone would have been enough to wound them.
But the problem was that what he faced now was a giant eagle of at least the mid Foundation Establishment stage. The Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist might be domineering enough for an ordinary early Foundation Establishment expert, but for this born overlord of the skies before him, it was still far from enough.
Wei Zhao had not truly placed much hope in this punch to begin with; it was purely out of a cultivator's pride that he refused to simply surrender without a fight. Yet utterly beyond his expectations, faced with his Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist, this fierce bird that looked so invincible actually chose to shrink back!
"What's going on here? Could this thing be nothing but a gaudy pillow puffed up with empty bluster?" Wei Zhao could not help but wonder in astonishment.
Once strength reached the Foundation Establishment level, the spiritual intelligence of nearly all spirit beasts was already no different from that of humans, and it was no surprise for all manner of human-like thoughts to appear. Yet a leopard cannot change its spots; by ordinary reasoning, no matter how strong these spirit beasts grew, they would hardly abandon their innate love of valor and combat—least of all a giant eagle, a combat-type spirit beast born for slaughter.
If this giant eagle truly were as powerful as Wei Zhao had guessed, with strength at or above the mid Foundation Establishment stage, then faced with this Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist, it should not have chosen to dodge, but rather to answer in kind and crush him outright with a single talon.
But regardless, the giant eagle had indeed retreated before the Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist—and then, in the next instant, it fiercely beat its wings at Wei Zhao!
Whoosh—!
At such close range, what did it feel like to be struck by the furious wingbeat of a pair of wings five zhang across?
What it would do to others he could not say, but Wei Zhao felt he was on the verge of dying: within the gang wind stirred up by the giant eagle's wings there was also an indescribable force, slamming into him with the weight of several tons, making his internal organs begin to shift as though being torn apart.