The Nine Infants' divine-consciousness energy was immense, enough to blanket the heavens and swamp the earth, and beside it Wei Zhao was countless times punier—like a lone skiff adrift on a boundless ocean, seeming certain to be smashed to splinters the moment any great wave swept over it.

The disparity was so overwhelming that the Nine Infants felt a flicker of contempt. From the methods Wei Zhao had shown earlier, it had instinctively taken him for a cunning hand at playing the pig to eat the tiger, and that was why it had been so wary and careful—why it had even stooped to haggling with Wei Zhao.

That the mighty Nine Infants should meekly bargain with a human cultivator—and a human cultivator whose strength on paper amounted to nothing more than the Foundation Establishment's great consummation, no less—was unthinkable by any past standard. The Nine Infants would have concluded it had gone mad.

Yet Wei Zhao's earlier display had forced it to harbor misgivings. With its life on the line, no caution could be too much, and in this the Nine Infants showed ample prudence.

While sweet words beguiled Wei Zhao, it studied his every movement, weighing advantage and peril without cease, until at last the Nine Infants reached its conclusion: this human could be killed!

Thus the present scene. The peculiar nature of primordial-spirit devouring dictated that one could not strike rashly—but once one did strike, it must mean absolute certainty. Plainly, the Nine Infants believed itself utterly foolproof now.

And judging by the look of things at this moment, there truly was no chance of its boat capsizing in some backwater. In terms of pure divine-consciousness energy alone, if Wei Zhao was one, then its own was at least ten thousand!

A Nascent Soul against Foundation Establishment—it already held a vast advantage in rank. Add to that its being the Nine Infants, whose divided heads each matched a Nascent Soul expert, nine in all together—what did Wei Zhao have to oppose it?

"Wei Zhao!" Duanmu Yu cried out in alarm. True, the small world of antiquity had conducted systematic divine-consciousness training since the Foundation Establishment stage, but rank was rank. Against a primordial-spirit duel of this order she was helpless; all she could do was pray for Wei Zhao.

For if Wei Zhao fell, she fell with him.

The Water Lily, off to the other side, was overjoyed. After being toyed with by Wei Zhao for so long, it had long nursed a bellyful of resentment; its earlier outing had ended in humiliation, having rushed out without grasping the situation—now at last it could vent its spleen!

"I said as much! Why would His Lordship be so courteous to this brat? Turns out he was building a plank road in the open while smuggling through the back road at night. Brat, you may as well die with your eyes wide open!" the Water Lily laughed.

Even as it spoke, the great wave came rolling in, and the outcome was beyond doubt: Wei Zhao was swallowed in an instant by that heaven-blanketing surge of divine-consciousness energy. In this most direct of primordial-spirit collisions, the death sentence had all but been pronounced.

"Playing the mystic, and this is all you amount to!" The last sliver of the Nine Infants' worry was swept clean away, and it relaxed at once.

The crux of primordial-spirit devouring lies in the many swallowing the few. It is like two armies facing off: though skill in command matters, what decides strength and weakness in essence is whether the host is many or few. The present case was as if its side had ten thousand troops while the enemy had but one man—and that man was surrounded on all sides. What need was there even to fight?

Victory was assured, and now the Nine Infants rather felt it a pity. A human primordial spirit like this was a rare find, and it had been devoured before it could be properly played with—a sheer waste of amusement.

Yet before it could even voice its sigh, the sight before it made its eyelids twitch. Wei Zhao had indeed been engulfed by its divine-consciousness energy beyond any doubt, but he had not capsized thereby. He was no lone skiff after all—he was an unshakeable reef, and no matter how the wind blew and the waves surged, that reef stood fast and immovable.

In truth, the reef not only stood fast—it met those gales and great waves head-on every time, and with each clash the force of the billows was invisibly whittled down a fraction. At first there was no sense of it, but once the clashes multiplied, something was plainly amiss.

It was like the two armies facing off: Wei Zhao, though alone and ringed by the Nine Infants' ten thousand troops, left the Nine Infants suddenly realizing that matters were far from simple. The enemy was surrounded—that much was true—but the enemy was no ordinary man; he was a veritable match for ten thousand!

Its ten thousand could throw themselves upon him and never kill him; they were merely rushing up to serve themselves as dishes. As time wore on, Wei Zhao remained unharmed, while the Nine Infants had suffered grievous losses.

Against Wei Zhao, its absolute advantage in quantity was utterly meaningless, for Wei Zhao held the absolute advantage in quality!

The Nine Infants was no fool. Seeing the wind turn, it hastily pulled back, forcibly withdrawing its divine-consciousness energy at the risk of backlash. Wounded it might be, but at least its life was not in danger; otherwise, at this rate, its entire primordial spirit would have been throttled to death by Wei Zhao.

"You! You were playing the pig to eat the tiger all along!" The Nine Infants, finally seeing it, paled in horror. Three of its nine heads had already visibly wilted—badly hurt—and only because it had fled on the instant; otherwise the losses would have been far worse.

"How was I playing the pig to eat the tiger?" Wei Zhao clapped his hands, half smiling, half not. This was the first time he had faced such a head-on primordial-spirit duel, and he had been rather nervous at the outset; but once he realized the balance of strength, he calmed at once. The experience of such a duel was rare and precious, and he still felt he had not had his fill.

"If I'm not mistaken, you are a Profound Ascension expert!" On every one of the Nine Infants' faces were written plainly four words: dread, terror!

"Good heavens! Is Your Lordship not mistaken?" The Water Lily, overhearing, was greatly startled.

"Truly?" Duanmu Yu could not help but stare wide-eyed as well.

"Oh? You know quite a lot—you even know of the Profound Ascension stage?" Wei Zhao said, somewhat surprised.

"Of course I know! I am, after all, a Nascent Soul's great consummation, forever groping toward the next tier—how could I not know of the Profound Ascension stage!" the Nine Infants snorted, though it no longer dared look at Wei Zhao with the faintest disrespect. Even as a Nascent Soul's great consummation, before a Profound Ascension expert it was mere dregs. Ignorance had emboldened it before; now that understanding had dawned, how could it dare be insolent?

"Tell me, how did you discover that I am of the Profound Ascension stage? Surely you are not just guessing?" Wei Zhao asked, curious now. On the surface, at least, he was a Foundation Establishment's great consummation through and through, and the process of projecting his primordial spirit had greatly weakened the whole of it—by any normal reckoning, not a trace of a Profound Ascension expert should show. (To be continued.)