As the two of them stood there in shock and doubt, another sound came drifting from the opposite direction—but this time it was no thunderous boom. Instead it was the wail of an infant, and in a place like this, the sound was enough to send a chill straight down the spine.

"What the hell is that thing?" Duanmu Yu instinctively edged closer to Wei Zhao. Even the toughest woman is still a woman, and cannot change a woman's nature or her weaknesses—and things like ghosts and monsters are nightmares to the vast majority of women. Even Duanmu Yu was no exception.

"A primordial spirit." Wei Zhao's eyelid twitched. At this point he no longer needed his divine sense to perceive it. It was already visible to the naked eye, because the mass surging toward them was in fact glowing with its own light. Wei Zhao knew this form all too well—it was clearly a primordial spirit.

It was just that a normal primordial spirit was only a small cluster, while the one before them was an enormous expanse. Clearly the true body of this thing was either enormous or immensely powerful.

"A primordial spirit? How could there be a primordial spirit in a place like this?" Duanmu Yu was stunned.

Wei Zhao was equally baffled. From the moment he and Duanmu Yu had fallen into this place, everything they had seen and heard had struck him as strange—they had found the root of the divine consciousness grass, and now this huge mass of primordial spirit had cropped up as well. What on earth was going on?

As the two of them stood there puzzling over it, a furious voice exploded without warning inside both their minds at once: "Ahhh! Greedy, foolish humans, you dare covet my treasure? I'll leave you with no place to bury your dead, ahhh!"

The voice came from the primordial spirit before them. And the moment it spoke, it was like a pack of children shouting in repetition—so loud that Wei Zhao's and Duanmu Yu's heads swelled a size and their skulls felt ready to burst.

"What do you mean, your treasure?" Wei Zhao forced down the pain and shot back.

"The root of the divine consciousness grass, of course! Every time I let you humans in, your first reaction is to cut the root of the divine consciousness grass—you can't even keep yourselves alive. And every last one of you is a hopeless case. Hurry up and hand over what you cut, and I might consider letting you die a little less painfully..." The mass of primordial spirit paused there, and then its voice leapt an octave: "Ahhh! Where is it? Such a huge divine consciousness grass root—don't tell me you cut the whole thing?"

"We didn't cut it." Wei Zhao spread his hands and shook his head. What he said was the honest truth—he really hadn't swung a blade. He had simply stowed the entire root of the divine consciousness grass into his jade pendant space.

"Impossible! A root that big can't just vanish on its own. Where did you hide it? Hand it over right now, or I swear I'll make you wish you were dead! Ahhh!" The mass of primordial spirit was clearly on the verge of losing its mind.

"There really isn't any. Look—the two of us standing here with nothing in our hands, we haven't even figured out what this place is. Where would we hide it?" Wei Zhao kept his hands spread, playing the fool.

The mass of primordial spirit fell silent. From Wei Zhao's guess, even if this thing wasn't the creator of this space, it was at least something like its master—nothing that stirred in here should be able to escape its grasp. Still, the existence of the jade pendant space was, in the end, an incomprehensible variable. No wonder it was stumped.

"It must have been you two! All this time, apart from you, I haven't let anyone in at all. Who else could it be but you? I'll give you one last chance—if you don't produce it now, don't blame me for being unkind. The taste of wishing you were dead—I guarantee you'll never forget it as long as you live!" the primordial spirit shrieked in threat.

"There isn't any, and that's that. You can search for yourself—could anyone really hide anything from your senses in this place?" Wei Zhao said, completely at ease.

Beside him, Duanmu Yu couldn't help but smile. At first she had been a little nervous at suddenly running into such an eerie mass of primordial spirit—after all, that terrifying pressure, like some beast of primeval chaos, was no illusion. Even if such a thing were only a wisp of primordial spirit, it was absolutely not to be trifled with. To her, it felt even more unfathomable than the Water Lily Guardian or the Brain-Eating Worm.

But now that Wei Zhao had cut in like that, the panic in Duanmu Yu's heart had vanished entirely. The Water Lily Guardian had been taken by Wei Zhao. The Brain-Eating Worm had been beaten by Wei Zhao into a sorry sight. And now, faced with this unfathomable, bizarre primordial spirit, she was sure Wei Zhao would have a way as well.

It was a trust that came from nowhere. Had Wei Zhao known, he would have been torn between laughter and tears—in his current weakened state, he would have thanked the heavens just to keep his life. How could he possibly have the strength to deal with this bizarre primordial spirit across from them?

"Nothing in this place can hide from my senses!" The mass of primordial spirit did indeed sound utterly confident about that—but then it went on: "Yet the root of the divine consciousness grass has vanished, the whole thing. I don't know how you did it, but make no mistake—it was certainly your doing! If I'm not mistaken, it must have been you!"

Before the words had faded, a grotesquely shaped head suddenly thrust out from within the mass of primordial spirit. At first glance it looked like a snake, but it had two ferociously flared ear-wings. What species it was, no one could say, but it genuinely gave off an ancient, primeval air.

Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback at the sight. This thing could actually condense itself into a primordial spirit body too? Although it was only a bizarre snake head, that almost tangible sensation was indeed that of a primordial spirit body.

At that moment, the bizarre snake head opened its bloody maw, and the river water that filled every corner around them swiftly condensed into an extremely fine yet immensely powerful vortex, racing toward Wei Zhao.

"A Leaf Like..." Duanmu Yu hurried to shield Wei Zhao, preparing to withstand the attack head-on with A Leaf Like a Mountain. In Wei Zhao's current weakened state, he could not possibly endure the blow—especially here, where there was nothing to push off against and they could only float, with no time even to dodge.

But before Duanmu Yu could even take up her stance, Wei Zhao had already pushed her aside. He saw it clearly: the target was unquestionably himself. Duanmu Yu staying at his side would only drag her into it, and she could be of no help at all.

Using the recoil from pushing Duanmu Yu away, Wei Zhao's body drifted for an instant—and landed exactly where he needed to be, just barely evading that slender vortex.

But it was not over yet. Immediately after, the other side fired off another vortex of the same kind. It did not look like much, but once it touched you it would tear open a bloody hole on the spot—and this time, Wei Zhao had nowhere left to push off from. (To be continued.)