Chapter 1308: Left, but Returned
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
All of a sudden, an abnormal phenomenon occurred!
Dark clouds began to gather above the Yggdragon’s White Grand Palace, with violent flashes of lightning accompanying the oppressive acc.u.mulation!
Above the Founder tier was the Annihilator tier! This was the tier known for causing widespread destruction with the flick of a finger!
The situation happening right before their eyes was none other than someone making a breakthrough from the Founder tier, something that would only appear when somebody had successfully crossed the threshold to the Annihilator tier!
‘Xia Fei?!’ Both Yggdragon King Yangguang and Chu Jingfeng had the same thought, but they were currently having a standoff against Four Great Sky Devils’ spirit familiars, so not one of them made a motion. Alas, unlike them, the young Yangji could not keep his composure.
!!
“Old Dragon King, don’t you have quite the guests here in your home today…”
It was Wing of the four spirit familiars who looked up and asked this, “I’ve met that person before. He’s the one who released me from the Sky Devil Tomb and also the one who took away Lord Paletooth’s armor.”
Medicinal Cauldron Prince’s spirit familiar, Gale, shrugged nonchalantly. “Flying Eagleplume and Paired Comet are nothing to us. What we need now is the metal tome.”
With that said, the Wing Gale Sea Calamity looked in unison at Yggdragon King Yangguang.
“We will believe Lord Old Dragon King’s words this time and will be taking our leave. Till we meet again,” Gale said to Yangguang, and he gave a polite bow.
Yggdragon King Yangguang said with a straight face, “Send them off!”
*Rumble*
Three simple words, yet they had been said so imposingly!
His voice rang clear. It was enough to shatter the hearts of the people around him!
Just as Yangguang said those three words, a chorus of b.e.s.t.i.a.l roars and cries echoed from the cosmos around him, like a tsunami cras.h.i.+ng in on them!
Yangguang was exhibiting his might to the Four Great Devils’ spirit familiars before him! They had entered the Eighth Universe, which was the Yggdragon’s territory!
The expression on the four’s, Wing Gale Sea Calamity’s, faces remained unchanged, and they merely let out a sharp whistle, yet this shrill sound was akin to a pa.s.serby whistling a pop tune, completely at odds with the angry roars of the beasts. However, it just so happened to cancel out all those cries.
Just like that, the four departed. Chu Jingfeng sighed and turned to Yangguang. “Those four, Wing Gale Sea Calamity, sure are powerful, what with them being the Sky Devil Lords’ true inheritors.”.
Yangguang snorted, “They’re surely up to no good with them seeking the metal tome. Let’s go look and see how Xia Fei’s doing first; we can talk about everything else after.”
…
…
At this moment, the black clouds, which had come to shroud the white grand palace, had reached their maximum density. This gigantic mountain, which reached well over twenty thousand miles high, was completely covered in thick blackness and terrifying thunderbolts, almost as though the mountain was on the verge of being overwhelmed.
*Whoosh*
Nine Soul Marks swiftly flew out and began surrounding the twenty-thousand-mile high mountain, becoming bigger and bigger as they circled around it.
All of a moment, the Soul Marks shrank together to form a strange Nine-faced ent.i.ty, and then a tenth Soul Mark appeared!
Compared to the nine Soul Marks at the Founder tier, the tenth Soul Mark representing the Annihilator tier was far larger, and the lines between the mark were even more profound, spinning around madly.
*Bang*
The soul mark disappeared sans a trace, and the black clouds had also parted. Even the thunderclaps ceased! A single ray of sunlight shot down, and it made the already magical white mountain even more mystical-looking, leaving half in white and the other half in gray.
Everyone rushed into the palace hall, only to find Xia Fei already awake with a lit cigarette. Meanwhile, Furball was gone.
“Xia Fei, you promoted!” Yangji laughed.
Xia Fei nodded.
The situation was obvious: Dragon Qi had helped Xia Fei escape from the fetters of the Founder tier, while Furball’s temperament had undergone a major transformation as a result of absorbing the Dragon Qi and leaving his master’s side.
‘It’s not such a terrible outcome. At the very least, Shatterstar didn’t attack his master and only left,’ Chu Jingfeng thought inwardly. This was already the best outcome that he could have hoped for.
Chu Jingfeng looked at Xia Fei, only to discover that he did not seem to be too disappointed. It was almost as though Furball’s departure had been a consequence that Xia Fei already accepted.
Yangji kept peppering Xia Fei with questions, but the answers the latter gave were all very simple. Everyone present knew that the crossing of the Annihilator threshold was anything but simple! It would never be as easy as what Xia Fei had made it out to be.
However, since Xia Fei did not wish to discuss this matter in detail, everyone could only keep quiet and not focus on it further.
“Come, let me introduce you two. This one is Chu Jingfeng, and he can be considered our friend,” Yggdragon King Yangguang said.
“‘Can be considered’?” Chu Jingfeng furrowed his brows. He had gotten in a fight with Yangguang back in the day, and though they now got along better than before, it appeared that this old dragon was still harboring some disgruntlement over that affair.
Xia Fei was stunned, gasping, “So you’re Grandmaster Chu Jingfeng? I’ve long been an admirer!”
Yangguang harrumphed coldly. “How is he considered a grandmaster; more like an idler if you ask me.”
Chu Jingfeng did not pay this side comment any heed and continued smiling at Xia Fei. “The Dragon Qi is something else. Now that you’ve managed to absorb as much of the energy from the Lasting Draconid Essences, and you’ve also transcended to become an Annihilator, this is a matter truly worth celebrating.
“Still, you were far too reckless with your usage of the Lasting Draconid Essence. You nearly met with a catastrophic disaster; you clearly have the Serpent-swallowing Whale secret manual, so why didn’t you follow what’s written and administer it accordingly?”
Xia Fei shook his head. “You know of the Serpent-swallowing Whale, too?”
“But of course! It’s me who wrote it.” Chu Jingfeng chuckled.
Xia Fei was startled. “So that’s why! Still, it doesn’t seem like the Serpent-swallowing Whale had any records of the Lasting Draconid Essence.”
“How’s that possible?! Let me take a look.”
Chu Jingfeng took Xia Fei’s Serpent-swallowing Whale and flipped through it several times before laughing. “My disciple was truly too careless. He only told me that he had given you the Serpent-swallowing Whale but not that you didn’t get the full version.”
With that said, Chu Jingfeng swiped a finger across his spatial ring and retrieved an even thicker book. He then proceeded to hand it over to Xia Fei, as he took that incomplete copy and stashed it away.
Xia Fei curiously browsed the book in its entirety. Sure enough, the full version of the Serpent-swallowing Whale was jam-packed with content, which was unlike the one he had had before. There was a much lengthy description of the Lasting Draconid Essence recorded on its pages compared to the incomplete version.
Chu Jingfeng remarked, “Speaking of which, I have quite the fated relations.h.i.+p with the Unrestricted Spiritualists’ grandmaster. I even know that those old coots of the Unrestricted Sect, who are still alive, can be considered acquaintances of theirs.
“On top of that, the relations.h.i.+p between Fuchen and that good-for-nothing disciple of mine is quite good, too. Fuchen once got heavily injured, and it’s Xu Luanbu who helped him on his road to recovery. The earlier copy of the Serpent-swallowing Whale is something that I gave to my disciple long ago; I had yet to complete it back then. My disciple gave this to Fuchen, who then gifted it to you, which is why you ended up with that unfinished secret manual.”
Xia Fei nodded before asking, “I wonder if Old Man Fuchen is doing alright?”
Chu Jingfeng answered, “Fuchen has already left. From what my disciple told me, he transcended to the Annihilator tier a step before you did; it seems like he has gone off to find Sima and Mosin, the final two inheritors of the Unrestricted Sect in the Annihilation Universe.”
Sighing, Chu Jingfeng said, “The Unrestricteds can be seen as pillars of Spiritualists, yet the only ones remaining are you, Fuchen, Sima, and Mosin. Who knew that there’d come a day when there’re just a handful of you guys? Life is truly too unpredictable.”
Xia Fei already knew well that there were very few Unrestricted Sect members left out there, which was why he had not been too surprised by this news. Instead, he asked, “Who were those earlier then?”
Everyone was shocked. Yangguang asked in a grave tone, “You sensed their presence?”
Xia Fei answered, “Yes. I seem to have met one of them in the past, too.”
Chu Jingfeng laughed and did not deny anything. “I know about that. You ran off to the Broken Wing Sky Devil’s tomb some time ago and released a strange creature. That’s among one of the four.”
Xia Fei was surprised and listened to Chu Jingfeng continue on.
“Saying that they’re people isn’t exactly accurate. I can’t grasp what kind of existence they are, either, but when the Four Great Sky Devils departed back then, they were worried that the Fiends would remain stagnant. As such, they each left a weapon. The Gale Sky Devil─Medicinal Cauldron Prince was a technical sort who’s not good at fighting, so he left a legacy of his.
“That Flying Eagleplume you have on you is Broken Wing Sky Devil’s war armor. You ought to know just how powerful it is.” Chu Jingfeng truly lived up to his reputation as a miscellaneous expert and had quite the abundant knowledge when it came to a variety of things.
Xia Fei nodded. The Eagle Feather was no doubt powerful, and with that armor, be it a soul or a physical attack, as long as it landed on the armor, either would be mitigated accordingly! Such a formidable existence was practically heaven-defying!
“Besides that, the Lord Sky Devils even created four spirit familiars, and they’re none other than those four who barged into the Eighth Universe earlier: Wing, Gale, Sea, and Calamity. They each took a word out of the Four Great Sky Devils and made those their names,” Chu Jingfeng said.
“spirit familiars? What’s that?” Xia Fei asked, curious.
Chu Jingfeng took a moment to think about what to say and explained, “Think of it as a kind of substantial spirit, nurtured from thin air. The use of the Four Great Sky Devils’ power, that technique may require Gale Sky Devil to explain properly. There’s no way I can explain it as well as he does.
“In any case, just think of them as spirits with their own bodies, like biological creatures cultivated in a laboratory.”
Spirit with physical bodies?
Xia Fei had seen spirits before, and from the earliest encounter with Phantom and now with Radix, neither had any physical form and was no more than a shadow following Xia Fei.
What kind of spirit could have their own body?
Furthermore, they were cultivated from scratch in a lab! The technology used was really incredible, worthy of the Four Great Sky Devils’ methods!
Chu Jingfeng paused for a bit before continuing. “Too bad that the Four Great Sky Devils’ spirit familiars are neither human nor beast, and their personalities are quite strange, too. While they ought to be listening to the Fiend’s racial leader, they’re too powerful and so there’s no way for the Fiend’s leader to control them.
“As time went by, the Four Great Sky Devils’ spirit familiars became the greatest scourges of the Fiends, causing trouble everywhere. The Sky Devils left their familiars in order to help the Fiends overcome any future difficulties, but that’s top secret information that others can’t know about. After all, a trump card should remain hidden till it’s used to attack potential enemies when they least expect it.”
“When the Fiends’ racial leader was left in a terrible fix by the spirit familiars and was truly helpless, he used the method of restraint that the lords had imparted, trapping the four into the tomb. It won’t be too late to let them out when the need arises.”
Xia Fei was stunned and immediately asked a follow-up question. “Was this because of that time when I broke my way into the Broken Wing Sky Devil’s tomb, unwittingly letting one of them out, that the Four Great Sky Devils’ spirit familiars are back in the world again?!”
Chu Jingfeng nodded. “That’s right, but you couldn’t be blamed for it, since you lacked the inside information back then.”
Gazing out into the distance, Chu Jingfeng said meaningfully, “Actually, letting those four spirit familiars out to cause a little trouble is good, too. This universe is already in pandemonium.”
Everyone could hear a howling in the distance after hearing that, as though someone was approaching at high speeds!
*Bang*
A white lightning streaked into the Yggdragon’s palace, stopping right beside Xia Fei.
Everyone was stunned, for this was no stranger; this was Furball!
He was a lot bigger compared to the Furball of the past and had a full body of white hair, which s.h.i.+mmered in light l.u.s.ter, looking very much like a firefly in the darkness.
His two eyes did get many times bigger than before as he swept a crafty gaze around. There was a slight smirk on his lips, an uncanny mimicry of Xia Fei’s.
“A Peak Holy Beast?!” Yangguang knitted his eyebrows and gasped.
Chu Jingfeng also pointed at Furball, intrigued. “He… He didn’t leave you?! How’s that possible? Your contract’s no longer in effect!”
Xia Fei thought nothing of it and reached out his arm for Furball to hop right up on, looking absolutely refreshed.
“Most likely because this little guy missed me,” Xia Fei pursed his lips and said softly.