"Reshape a physical body? You actually know a way to do that?" Wei Zhao was thoroughly skeptical.

"Of course! I am the great Nine Infants—would I really stoop to inventing such nonsense just to fool a mere human?" the Nine Infants said hastily.

"Then why haven't you done it yourself?" Wei Zhao countered, still without the slightest sign of belief on his face. For any primordial spirit, reshaping a physical body was the one thing above all others—a temptation that surpassed everything else. Were such an opportunity truly to exist, anyone would pay any price for it; even that blasted thing was forever pining for it. He did not believe the Nine Infants could resist such a lure.

"Uh... that's because my kind is unique—it happens to conflict with the method I know of. Otherwise I'd have reshaped my body long ago. Why would I still be cooped up in this wretched place?" the Nine Infants said with a sigh.

It was not lying. The Nine Infants were an incomparably powerful race, but the very gifts that made them so powerful inevitably came with shackles that could never be broken—and it had suffered precisely that bitter fate.

Still, it believed this was an irresistible temptation for Wei Zhao. Any primordial spirit would be moved by it—including this unfathomable human before it.

Yet the outcome was bound to disappoint. Wei Zhao had not the slightest interest; wearing a look of utter indifference, he said, "That's no use to me. I still have my original body—whenever I want, I can return to it."

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!" all eight of the Nine Infants' intact heads cried out in unison. It assumed Wei Zhao simply did not believe it and had blurted out that brainless nonsense on the spur of the moment. An original body he could return to at will? How could that be?

It was true that the cultivation world spoke of primordial spirits leaving the body, but the restrictions were exceedingly complex. A primordial spirit absolutely could not stray too far from its original body; under the present circumstances, even if Wei Zhao did have a body waiting on the shore, it would be useless. He could not return anymore—and besides, there was no original body of his at all.

"Don't believe me? Heh. I can separate my primordial spirit from my flesh whenever I like—split when I want to split, rejoin when I want to rejoin. Watch closely." Wei Zhao pursed his lips toward Duanmu Yu's body, and with a single thought sent her primordial spirit out.

Duanmu Yu had been motionless before; the moment her primordial spirit returned, she came back to life, staring at Wei Zhao with a strange expression. "Why did you stuff me back in again?"

"Uh... circumstances forced my hand. Are you all right?" Wei Zhao was startled by her reaction. He had feared that a primordial spirit entering and leaving his jade pendant space so often might leave some aftereffect and injure her.

"Nothing's wrong, exactly—it's just that Sleeper Lotus Protector, the one you've got locked up in there, wouldn't stop yammering at me. From the very first glance it started pouring out its grievances, trying every trick to get me to plead on its behalf. So annoying..." Duanmu Yu said, half amused. To think how magnificent and proud Sleeper Lotus Protector had once been—and now Wei Zhao had reduced it to this state. Truly, words failed.

"What? Sleeper Lotus Protector? It's with you?" The Nine Infants was greatly alarmed. Duanmu Yu could not possibly have fabricated this to bluff it, for it had never once mentioned the words "Sleeper Lotus"—it had only said there was a Protector and an Envoy.

"Oh? Seems you're not such a bad master after all—you do care about your subordinates," Wei Zhao said, exchanging a glance with Duanmu Yu.

"How is that possible? Just what are you?" The Nine Infants could not believe it. There had to be some trick to this, yet for the moment it could find no flaw—it could only half believe, half doubt.

Yet even in its half-belief, the abilities Wei Zhao had displayed were enough to open its eyes wide. A mere human, and he could imprison Sleeper Lotus Protector—and, as he claimed, separate his primordial spirit from his body at will, split when he wanted to split, rejoin when he wanted to rejoin.

"Nothing sacred—just a primordial spirit from elsewhere," Wei Zhao said with a faint smile.

The more he behaved this way, the more unfathomable he seemed in the Nine Infants' eyes, the harder to grasp—and the more it dreaded him.

"Hmph. You really do keep your cards close to your chest," the Nine Infants snorted coldly. It was already growing restless, even frantic. It had dominated the River of Divine Consciousness for so many years and had ruined countless fine cultivators; never before had it suffered such frustration as this.

This human primordial spirit looked weak—no more than the great perfection of the Foundation Establishment stage, by the look of it, and ought to have been beneath its notice. Yet from start to finish, the great Nine Infants had repeatedly come off worse. It could not even deal with a mere human primordial spirit?

In its fury, the Nine Infants could not help but feel an impulse—an urge to simply devour Wei Zhao's primordial spirit outright!

In the end, though, it held back. The less simple Wei Zhao appeared, the less it dared act rashly. What if this fellow really was a tiger playing the pig, and in trying to devour his primordial spirit it accidentally got itself swallowed instead?

Besides, come to think of it, it rarely encountered such an interesting human primordial spirit. Even if it did have a means to deal with Wei Zhao, the Nine Infants would honestly be a little reluctant to part with him.

"You flatter me." Wei Zhao found the Nine Infants' conflicted look rather amusing. It was a legendary, ferocious, terrifying primeval spirit beast, yet this creature was genuinely rather interesting—not wholly devoid of conscience. Were they not locked in a fight to the death, they might well have been able to have a proper exchange.

But Wei Zhao was in no hurry. Though he could do nothing about the Nine Infants, the Nine Infants could do nothing about him either. From here on, it was a question of who had more patience—who could keep their composure longer.

For Duanmu Yu's sake, Wei Zhao would never simply walk away. So he had to wear down its temper bit by bit, until at last it recognized reality and agreed to send the two of them away.

The Nine Infants fell silent for a long while again, then suddenly said, "How about this—since Sleeper Lotus has already been taken by you, I can let you replace it. I'll appoint you as my new Protector. What do you say?"

"Make me your Protector? What's in it for me?" Wei Zhao found this utterly bizarre. This creature clearly had no way to deal with him, yet it still opened its mouth to make him its underling. Had all those brains of its gone to water?

"I hear you've got a grudge against the Brain-Eating Worms?" the Nine Infants said with an air of mystery.

"How do you know that?" Wei Zhao was instantly taken aback.

"Simple enough. I am the master of this entire land of primeval trials—my divine consciousness blankets every corner of it. Whatever I wish to know absolutely cannot escape my perception," the Nine Infants said smugly.

"Then how is it you didn't know I'd captured Sleeper Lotus Protector?" Wei Zhao exchanged a glance with Duanmu Yu, both of them unconvinced.

"Uh... it's different. Its Mirrored Flowers and Water Moon is an illusion realm of its own, able to shut out all outside divine perception. And my control over this whole trial ground depends somewhat on the abilities of the plant-type spirit beasts. Wherever it is, I can't quite hold sway," the Nine Infants said, rather embarrassed. (To be continued.)