Chapter 2285 — The Strange Fellow Descends the Mountain

Sun Jingyan carefully surveyed the cave, and indeed saw nothing out of the ordinary. To be sure, apart from that pile of peculiar stones on the ground, there was nothing that could rightly be called a teleportation formation.

"Can this really be the place?" Sun Jingyan eyed the stones on the ground with suspicion. "Why does it look so worn and broken down?"

"That I could not say." Wei Zhao had only been guessing.

"How strange..." Sun Jingyan knitted her brows.

"Let us leave this place first." Wei Zhao had seen what there was to see and satisfied his curiosity; finding it all rather mediocre, he had no interest in staying any longer.

Sun Jingyan naturally had no objection. On the way back, Wei Zhao still carried her in his arms, and once again a ripple stirred in Sun Jingyan's heart...

"Heaven-Thunder Boar, do you know where the spider clan has gone?" They were nearly at the end of the mountain range now; seeing no trace of the spider clan, Wei Zhao could only pin his hopes on the Heaven-Thunder Boar once more.

"Oink, oink..." The Heaven-Thunder Boar shook its head. It pointed at the place with a foreleg, then waved a hoof.

Wei Zhao understood its meaning well enough: the trail ended here, cut off short. It could only follow the spider clan's scent this far, but could go no further.

"Very well." Wei Zhao smiled wryly. If even the Heaven-Thunder Boar could not find the spider clan, there was no point in continuing to search the area.

Yet before leaving, Wei Zhao was still unwilling to give up. He returned with Sun Jingyan and the Heaven-Thunder Boar to the spider clan's nest one more time, but to their disappointment, the spider clan still did not appear. All around the cave that served as their nest it remained utterly still, without a single spider in sight!

"Let us go!" Wei Zhao sighed, thinking to himself that this business was uncanny—in the space of a single night, everything had come to this.

The matter was very strange. Though nothing had happened as yet, there was no telling what might occur given enough time. In any case, Wei Zhao did not wish to linger in this eerie place.

"Where do we go now?" Sun Jingyan asked.

"Let us seek out the Fire Lion clan. The Heaven-Rank Spider said that apart from the main road up the mountain, there is only one other path down, and it is exceedingly perilous. If we took it, I fear we would be lucky to escape with our lives." Wei Zhao abandoned any notion of taking the risk. The spider clan had vanished, and the route map they had promised was gone with them. Wei Zhao meant to go and see the great Fire Lion; if it too had a route map, so much the better. Along the way he would fetch the Fireflow Divine Pellet and make inquiries about the spider clan's whereabouts.

"That will do." Sun Jingyan nodded.

Wei Zhao left a message on the cave floor, stating that he and Sun Jingyan had gone on ahead.

Though the spider clan had vanished without cause, Wei Zhao could not be sure whether they might return. To leave without a word would be rather rude, so he left word of his destination, which might serve as an explanation to the spider clan.

Once they had left the spider clan's territory, both Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan wore grim expressions. The affair was simply too uncanny, beyond anything they had imagined.

The road from here to the Fire Lion clan's cave was not one Wei Zhao knew well, but with the Heaven-Thunder Boar as guide, there was no problem at all.

Though they were in the middle vein of the Wulonghaote range, Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan did not relax. They feared that people of the Tagan family might come looking for trouble. What Wei Zhao did not know was that Old Six had been keeping watch near the summit of the upper vein all along, and had no intention of going to the middle vein.

Old Six knew well that the middle vein was home to two clans of spirit beasts. Unless he had nothing better to do with his time, he would not go and lock horns with those two clans.

These past few days, Old Six had circled back and forth several times near the upper vein of the Wulonghaote range, and had discovered the cave where Wei Zhao had once stayed. Inside the cave, however, he found nothing of value.

He did find a small iron box. Judging by its appearance, it should be a box for holding some precious item. If Old Six's guess was right, what the box had contained should be the great treasure his master sought!

But the treasure had already been taken, and the box was plainly worthless now. Beyond that, there were some fast-food wrappers in the cave. From this it seemed the cave's occupants had left not long ago, for neither the wrappers nor the iron box bore much dust.

With Old Twelve blocking the way below the range, Old Six was not afraid of anything. He need only keep watch over the upper vein; so long as someone blocked the lower vein, that was enough. If they truly encountered that formidable hand capable of splitting mountains and cleaving seas, then even if he and Old Twelve joined forces, it would be to no avail.

What Old Six hoped for now was that the one who had killed Old Thirteen was not the Zhang Naipao and his wife of whom Tagan Long spoke, but someone else entirely!

And best of all, that they had separated. If they had split up, then he could make trouble for that Zhang Naipao.

Old Twelve had been stationed with the Tagan family's guards at the junction of the mountain path all along, questioning every adventuring party that went up and down each day. But these people were all of low strength—most had not even set foot on the Yellow Rank, and the strongest were no more than Yellow Rank hands. Moreover, each party's numbers matched those recorded when they went up, so there was nothing worth investigating.

Though the Tagan family was the most powerful, that power was largely hidden. On the surface they were much like the other powers, only somewhat stronger, and it would not do to interfere with adventuring parties from other families and forces passing up the mountain.

After all, they could not seal off the mountain outright over a matter of the Tagan family's, and Old Twelve had no such intention; naturally the Tagan family would not take such a superfluous step either.

Only today, the situation was somewhat different! Suddenly, not far from the mountain exit, a strange cry rang out, and then a mad old man in tattered clothes, hair hanging loose and disheveled, came running down from the mountain. His late Heaven-Rank peak strength made no attempt at concealment, laid bare for all to see, and everyone present tensed at the sight!

Old Twelve's expression changed drastically!

A hand of late Heaven-Rank peak strength—the same grade as Old Six. Though he too was Heaven-Rank, he was only at the peak of early Heaven-Rank, far below the man before him. Could this be the formidable hand Old Six had written back about?

At this thought, Old Twelve's heart tightened. Though he had come from that place and possessed pure and refined mental techniques and martial skills, making him somewhat stronger than ordinary hands of the same grade, he still had little confidence in facing a powerhouse of late Heaven-Rank peak strength, several grades above his own.

After all, he did not know that the actual combat strength of this mad old man of late Heaven-Rank peak was not strong at all!

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