Chapter 1363 — Underestimating Strength

"You want to shake me off? Not so easy. Either we join forces and kill this monster, or I stand by and watch you kill it." Elder Yu was no fool — he had thought of exactly what Wei Zhao was thinking. If he went out there now, and came back to find Wei Zhao gone, what then?

"How do you propose we join forces?" Wei Zhao asked.

"You lure the monster in front and let it chase you, and I strike from behind!" Elder Yu said bluntly.

"..." Wei Zhao felt embarrassed on his behalf. Elder Yu, could you be any more shameless? Let him be the cannon fodder while you sneak in a blow?

"Well? Not a bad plan, is it?" Elder Yu's hide had thickened to a certain degree; he felt not the slightest impropriety in his own words.

Even Lao Hei thought Elder Yu was going too far, yet Wei Zhao nodded and agreed: "Fine. I'll draw him off in front, and you strike from behind!"

Wei Zhao knew it was unrealistic to ask Elder Yu to lure the monster; given Elder Yu's character, he would never do something so dangerous. As for the sneak attack, the danger was much less.

Elder Yu was confident he could escape from the monster, and Wei Zhao was confident too, so he was not afraid of what the monster might do to him.

Having said so, Wei Zhao stepped toward the monster, while Elder Yu cautiously followed not far behind him, as though ready to turn and flee the instant things went wrong.

Qiu Lingshan and Chen Yutian exchanged a glance; neither of them moved. Wei Zhao had not told them to act, and staying put was the best course — otherwise they would only make trouble for him.

Wei Zhao and Elder Yu, one before the other, came to within a short distance of the monster. At that moment it was devouring James's corpse with single-minded relish, its mouth full of fresh blood — a truly frightful sight.

And this was also the first time Wei Zhao had observed the monster up close.

The monster had a coat of yellow mane and looked somewhat like a gorilla, yet not quite. It had furry limbs, walked on its hind legs, and fed itself with its forelegs; but it had no tail, and its face was utterly unlike an ape's or a monkey's — rather like a toad's, with bulging eyes, no nose, and a pointed mouth. A creature like this — it was hard to say just what it was.

The monster had clearly seen Wei Zhao approach. Perhaps it was curious: everyone else fled the moment they laid eyes on it, so why was this Wei Zhao walking up to it of his own accord?

Still, with human flesh to eat for the moment, the monster was in no hurry to attack Wei Zhao.

When Wei Zhao passed by its side, the monster merely glanced at him; but when he walked past it and continued down the corridor ahead, the monster abruptly flung down James and, roaring, lunged at Wei Zhao with bared claws and teeth.

This indirectly confirmed Wei Zhao's guess: it really was a tomb-guarding spirit beast. While Wei Zhao showed no intention of going deeper into the tomb, it ignored him for the time being; but the moment he pressed on, he met the monster's backlash — it even abandoned the food in its hands and came straight after him.

Wei Zhao's qinggong was no worse than Elder Yu's; how could the monster ever catch him? Though Wei Zhao was already certain that the creature's strength was unquestionably the peak of the late Yellow Rank, he had a strange feeling — as if even he were no match for it.

That feeling grew stronger still when the monster swung a paw at him. Wei Zhao had not the confidence to take that claw head-on.

Had he not still needed Wei Zhao to enter the tomb afterward, Elder Yu truly would not have minded stalling for time and letting the monster finish Wei Zhao off first — leaving Wei Zhao without the strength to contend with him for the Qi Gathering Pill and the physician's notes.

But Elder Yu also knew that with only Lao Hei and Yu Xiaoke at his side, getting smoothly into the underground palace would be difficult, so he had no choice but to keep Wei Zhao alive.

"Roar!" The deeper Wei Zhao went, the more furious the monster became, as though Wei Zhao had robbed it of something, and it gave chase.

The monster left its back to Elder Yu, as though utterly unguarded against him, which delighted Elder Yu. Wahaha — a monster is a monster after all; its intelligence was truly pitifully low. Turning your back on an enemy, wasn't that courting death?

So Elder Yu at once circulated his true qi, clenched both fists, and, aiming at the monster's back — at its very heart — smashed down, meaning to kill it in a single blow.

Elder Yu had no intention of tangling with a monster like this, so from the very first he unleashed ten-tenths of his power, fearing that one strike might not kill it and a second sneak attack would be troublesome.

"Bang!"

With a great crash, both of Elder Yu's fists landed square on the monster's back, at its heart. The full strength of an early Earth Rank expert had been poured into that ferocious blow. In his view, the monster was surely dead this time: a peak late Yellow Rank creature taking a strike from an early Earth Rank expert — how could it possibly live?

Never mind peak late Yellow Rank; even a peak late Mystic Rank expert would die for certain under such a punch, let alone a blow delivered by two fists at full strength.

But before Elder Yu could gloat, the monster whirled around and swung a paw at him. Elder Yu, caught unawares, was struck square in the chest and sent flying.

"Roar!" The monster seemed never to have expected that anyone would dare sneak-attack it. It flew into a fury, its eyes turning blood red, and, paying Wei Zhao no further mind, it strode off in the direction Elder Yu had flown.

"Pff—" The monster's paw knocked a mouthful of blood from Elder Yu's lips. Every bone in his body ached as though it had come apart, and terror seized him all at once: why wasn't the monster dead? And how could it possess such strength?

But he had no time to think further, for the monster was charging at him again. Elder Yu scrambled to his feet and ran, terrified the creature would catch him.

Wei Zhao frowned. Sure enough, the sense of danger the monster gave him had not been wrong. It was no ordinary peak late Yellow Rank; the rank of such a spirit beast could not be measured by the standards of ordinary humans.

Though Elder Yu had failed to kill the monster, the full-force blow of an early Earth Rank expert was no joke; it must have dealt the creature some injury — otherwise it could never have flown into such a rage.

"Roar!" The monster swung another paw at the spot where Elder Yu had fallen, but Elder Yu had escaped death by a hair, slipping away a step ahead of it. The monster could not pull back in time, and its paw struck the stone wall of the tomb, leaving a huge palm print in the thick stone.