"What kind of nonsense is this?" Wei Zhao was baffled. What on earth was this creature trying to do?

"Very well then. A special toy deserves special treatment. Since you wish to see my true form, I shall show it to you." Before the seven-headed serpent had even finished speaking, two more black serpent heads sprouted from its sides. Not only that, it condensed an entire body—at first glance, its trunk was a match for the Ancient Giant Lizard, save for a pair of enormous, flaring wings upon its back.

"A hydra?" Duanmu Yu blurted out at the sight.

"No. Of its nine heads, five are black and four crimson, and its cry resembles a wailing infant. Though it is indeed a species of the Ancient Bizarre Serpent, it is not a hydra. If I am not mistaken, it must be the legendary Nine Infants!" Wei Zhao spoke in a low, steady voice as he once more assumed his primordial-spirit form. Perhaps it was simply that he was unaccustomed to it, but taking a primordial-spirit form in such an unfamiliar place always left him feeling exposed. Besides, only in this form could he absorb the last remnant of conscious energy from the Star-Ink Charcoal more quickly and recover his strength the faster for it.

"Oh-ho, you humans are not entirely without insight—rare indeed is the human who can recognize me at a single glance!" The Nine Infants burst into laughter at once, all nine heads cackling together in another merciless assault upon the ears.

"So it truly is the Nine Infants?" Duanmu Yu's expression shifted, then a flicker of understanding crossed her face. Legend held that the Nine Infants dwelt within the waters of misfortune, and this River of Divine Consciousness was plainly no ordinary river—to call it waters of misfortune was no exaggeration at all.

In that instant, Duanmu Yu felt an immense weight descend upon her. She was not one to be frightened easily, but the Nine Infants' pedigree was simply too great; since ancient times its name had rung with infamy. Even among those legendary ancient beasts of calamity, this creature was assuredly among the ranks of the named—and near the very front of them!

In the age when such beings flourished, humanity had yet to grow mighty; they were nothing more than food. That they had not been devoured to extinction was pure luck—one could only say their time had not yet come.

Faced with such a being, everyone, strong or weak alike, would involuntarily begin to tremble from the very depths of their soul. This was an instinct passed down through generation after generation of ancestors. Had it not been for this instinct of fear—had humans, upon seeing the Nine Infants and its kind, simply stood there dumbly instead of fleeing—the human race would have been wiped out long ago.

"You called me a special toy. What do you mean by that?" Wei Zhao regarded the Nine Infants. He, at least, was not frightened—his station was far beyond Duanmu Yu's. Setting aside strength, the breadth of experience he had gained on Cloud-Tier Isle alone was enough to keep him calm and collected. After all, no matter how formidable or infamous the Nine Infants might be, it surely could not surpass the likes of the Azure Dragon or the Vermilion Bird.

"Nothing much. I simply found myself bored and felt the need for a few toys to pass the time." The Nine Infants chuckled.

"And how do you mean to pass the time?" Wei Zhao frowned. Circumstances bowed no one; as things stood, if he and Duanmu Yu were to survive, they could only play along with this creature for now and seize some opening later.

"Heh heh. You humans, when idle and utterly bored, let your minds wander. Think too much and you risk losing yourself to madness. My problem is rather more serious than yours, you see—after all, you have only one head, while I have nine." These few short sentences spilled from all nine of the Nine Infants' mouths in a ceaseless chatter—another splitting headache of an ordeal.

"And what of having nine heads?" Wei Zhao asked, playing along.

"With nine heads, one thinks all the more. Since you too are a primordial spirit, you should know that when a primordial spirit's mind wanders overmuch, great trouble follows—at best the conscious mind backfires, at worst the primordial spirit collapses. So I devised an excellent way to while away the time: I study and refine techniques." The Nine Infants explained with great patience.

Wei Zhao's mind moved swiftly; he understood at once. "You want to test your techniques on me?"

"Precisely. That is exactly the idea. Since I have taken such pains to create so many fascinating techniques, it would be a terrible waste not to put them properly to use. Those humans before were all so feeble they crumbled at a touch—not worth testing anything on. As for my subordinates, apart from one Dharma Protector and one Special Envoy, the rest are equally useless—far too pathetic." The Nine Infants spoke with a tinge of regret.

At these words, Wei Zhao and Duanmu Yu both started, and could not help asking, "You are the one they call 'my lord'?"

Clearly, the Dharma Protector it spoke of was the Water-Lily Dharma Protector, and the Special Envoy the Brain-Eating Worm. Given the strength of those two, ordinary spirit beasts could never have subdued them, much less made them willingly bow down in submission. Yet this Nine Infants before them was the exception—a transcendent being inherited from the ancient era, and wholly capable of such a feat.

"Oh? You know of them?" The Nine Infants paused, then quickly caught on. "Of course. Every spirit beast in this place with even a little strength, enough to claim a patch of territory, is my subordinate, and whenever someone enters, they must bring me human tribute. It is no wonder you know."

"Let me ask you this: why do you want so many human tributes? Is it simply to have more human toys?" Wei Zhao exchanged a glance with Duanmu Yu and ventured the question.

"Of course not. To become my toy, one must at the very least have discovered the Spirit-Consciousness Grass. Those who cannot even find the Spirit-Consciousness Grass are either too weak or too foolish—how could they be worthy of being my toys? Such people are good for nothing but tribute." The Nine Infants paused there, and its next words sent a chill through them both: "Tribute is for eating, not for playing."

"Eating?" Duanmu Yu's face turned exceedingly strange in the midst of her shock. She turned to Wei Zhao. "Do you need to eat?"

"No..." Wei Zhao shook his head without hesitation. Even an ordinary cultivator in the Foundation Establishment stage could forgo food; as a primordial spirit, he needed to eat nothing at all. But he understood the Nine Infants' meaning, and smiled bitterly. "What it eats is probably not flesh and blood, but the primordial spirits of those people."

Primordial spirits did not need to eat, but because they existed alone, lacking over long periods the nourishment of a physical body's essence, energy, and spirit—and because even a casual exertion of power more or less depleted them—they required replenishment of conscious energy. Aside from heavenly treasures like the Star-Ink Charcoal, the most common source of conscious energy was the primordial spirits of other living things, found everywhere. Though this was not pure conscious energy, a being like the Nine Infants was plainly not one to suffer indigestion.