That said, picking out the strongest one from among tens of thousands of Fire Bats was no easy task. With the divine sense of these Foundation Establishment experts, they could scarcely lock onto the positions of the Fire Bats darting about at such speed, let alone carefully assess the strength of each individual bat.

For the others this was harder than scaling the heavens, but for Wei Zhao it was a trifling matter. In a single instant he had found the trail of the Fire Bat King. Most of the other Fire Bats were comparable in strength to early Foundation Establishment cultivators, and the stronger ones at most rivaled peak early Foundation Establishment experts. Yet this Fire Bat King, unremarkable in appearance and indistinguishable from the rest, possessed strength fully at the mid Foundation Establishment level or above!

An ordinary Fire Bat was already fast enough that the group had no time to react, but this Fire Bat King was several times faster still. Though it left a fiery arc trailing wherever it passed, its true position could not be deduced at all. One instant it might be right before their eyes, and the next it was already a hundred meters away—even the fiery arcs it left behind could not keep pace with such terrifying speed.

And that alone would have been bad enough, but the crux was that this Fire Bat King was exceedingly cautious. Every strike was a touch-and-retreat; often it would dart in for a single bite and then swiftly hide itself back among the swarm, leaving them no way to pursue.

At Wei Zhao's reminder, the others had not yet reacted, but two people did catch sight of the Fire Bat King's trail. When it came attacking again, the two struck almost simultaneously—none other than Leng Leng and Duanmu Yu.

In terms of strength, both women were already among the very best of the peak Foundation Establishment experts, and dealing with this Fire Bat King ought to have been no trouble for them. Yet this time both their attacks missed entirely, and in a moment of carelessness they nearly injured each other, though fortunately they withdrew their moves in time.

"So fast!" Leng Leng and Duanmu Yu cried out in unison. In other respects the Fire Bat King might not be formidable, but its speed was truly unmatched—even their moves and true qi could not catch it. What could anyone do against it?

Fortunately, there was still Wei Zhao!

Before the Fire Bat King could flee back into the swarm, a blue arc of lightning abruptly struck it. Wei Zhao's other techniques might have been useless against it, but however fast it was, how could it outrun lightning?

With only his current peak Foundation Establishment strength, Wei Zhao could not fully unleash his signature techniques. The Five Elements Eight Trigrams Killing Qi and the Thunder Burial—those two great killing arts—were pure wishful thinking. He could barely manage the Five Elements Killing Qi and count himself lucky for that. Beyond that, he could just about muster a bit of thunder and lightning power, but Thunder Burial was out of the question, and so was Thunderous Thousand Explosions. He could only barely manage a modest lightning arc.

A single lightning arc posed little threat to experts of his own level—at most it would numb the body for a moment. But against this Fire Bat King, whose strength rivaled a mid Foundation Establishment expert, it was just right.

Sure enough, the moment the lightning arc struck it, the Fire Bat King's body convulsed and it dropped straight to the ground on the spot. It did not die outright; it struggled briefly on the ground and seemed still able to fly up again. But the group would not give it another chance. Leng Leng stepped forward and delivered a single palm strike, and the Fire Bat King froze solid on the spot and perished.

This was the Shattering Ice Palm. Though not a major technique like Drawing a Prison on the Ground or the Ice Prison Mirror Shatter, it was likewise a unique palm art fused with shattering ice breath—Leng Leng's standard means of combat.

With the Fire Bat King dead, the swarm immediately fell into chaos. Leaderless, the bats fled in all directions by instinct. What had filled the sky a moment before vanished clean away in the blink of an eye.

"Phew..." The group gasped for breath, survivors of a narrow escape. Each was still shaken. At least three of their number had already perished beneath these Fire Bats, and many of the rest were wounded and bloodied. Had Wei Zhao not found and slain the Fire Bat King in time, even more of them might have died—perhaps the vast majority would have met their end here.

Worthy indeed of a Primordial Trial that came once in a thousand years. It had given them an unforgettable show of force right from the start.

"All right, let us go," Wei Zhao called to the group.

Qiu Lingshan and the others nodded in unison, but the other disciples of the Primordial Alliance had been frightened out of their wits by the Fire Bat swarm and all shrank back behind Wei Zhao's group, so that if any further danger arose, it would be Wei Zhao and his companions who suffered first, not them.

"A pack of petty wretches," Wu Chengtian muttered with a curl of his lip. If not for Wei Zhao's intervention, these people would have lost their lives; yet now they offered not a single word of thanks, and instead with ill intent hid themselves in the rear, using the group as minesweepers and scapegoats. It was truly infuriating.

"Exactly. If I'd known, Brother Wei Zhao should never have killed that Fire Bat King. We should have charged out ourselves and let them have their fill of fun with the Fire Bat swarm!" Ying Ziyu chimed in with a huff.

"Heh, they'd have been done for, most likely. If they were lucky they might have been teleported straight back, but the slower ones would have ended up like those three unlucky souls—scattered in pieces of charred flesh across the ground," Yu Bing scoffed.

The rest of the group exchanged smiles. The Primordial Alliance disciples heard all this and, though unconvinced, knew they were in the wrong and had no face to step forward and argue—otherwise, if Wei Zhao insisted on making them walk in front, that would be trouble indeed. They had not the nerve for it.

Before long, the group finally emerged from the long, narrow mountain cave, and the view before them suddenly opened wide—a lush, verdant primeval forest.

"Wonderful, we're finally out!" The group was overjoyed at the sight. They knew well enough that this trial ground, which appeared once in a thousand years, was bound to be fraught with peril, and that hidden within it might lurk things far more savage and dreadful than the Fire Bat swarm. But such is human nature: toward dark, narrow caves there is always an innate dread, and after enduring the threat of the Fire Bats, that dread had been magnified beyond all measure, so that they did not wish to linger a single moment longer.

"Hm? Why are there three paths here?" someone suddenly cried out.

Only then did the others take notice, and they looked at one another in bewilderment. The map Xin Yi'an had given them was exceedingly rough. Not only did it fail to mark the cave of the Fire Bat swarm, but even the spot where the transmission formation emerged was marked with only a single path. Yet before their eyes were three—three gravel paths, neither wide nor narrow, overgrown with weeds and brush, yet still clearly defined.

Wei Zhao looked at the scene and felt vaguely that something was off. By all reason, this place saw visitors only once in a thousand years—so how could there be three gravel paths that were plainly laid by human hands? Could it be that ancient disciples who had come here for trials in ages past had deliberately paved them? That would be an awfully high level of conscientiousness, would it not? (To be continued.)