A faint black gas drifted on the lizard's body, and the centipede that stuck close to it moved its body carefully too.

Although the lizard had passed out due to poison, its unique and powerful oppression as a middle-rank spirit beast was still released from its body.

Needless to say, it could curb its aura and momentum when it was awake, but it could not care about its surroundings if it was unconscious. Ou Yangming was rather alert as it was a middle-rank spirit beast, hence he dared not relax at all.

Under the centipede's control, the poison inside the lizard's body slowly reduced. As a result, the lizard's enormous body began to quiver, and it slowly opened its eyes.

The lizard was immediately greeted with a familiar human's face. Following that, countless thoughts crossed its mind.

It roared furiously and wanted to get up, but it realized that its limbs were powerless just as it turned its body halfway. As such, its body fell hard to the ground again.

The middle-rank lizard then stuck out its long tongue and made weird and appalling sounds.

Ou Yangming sneered and said, "You can stop thinking about calling out to your partners; your 3 followers have all died."

The lizard stopped making sounds. While lying halfway on the ground, it cast a strange yet cold look at Ou Yangming.

Any normal human would feel uneasy being stared at by such fearsome eyes, but Ou Yangming was not bothered at all. This was because he had witnessed too many similar looks throughout his short life journey.

Besides, anyone or any living being that had looked at him like that had been defeated by him.

He achieved what he did so far by rising steadily.

"Why did you go against us—lizards?" The middle-rank lizard stuck out its tongue and shouted.

Ou Yangming answered, "I wasn't the one that wanted to go against you; you were the ones that wanted to kill me."

The middle-rank lizard was stunned, but it was not resigned to the outcome. "Lu Zhenxie said that you were stopping him from handling affairs, and that we won't be able to complete our mission if we don't kill you, so we must kill you!"

"What mission?" Ou Yangming was slightly moved.

"A mission to find someone…" The lizard answered without any hesitation, "Sir Venerable One dispatched 6 small teams and about 100 members to search everywhere. Hmph, if you're tactful, come and rely on me, or you won't be safe if sir finds someone to blame!"

Ou Yangming smiled oddly. He already had the upper hand at the moment, where the lizard's life or death would only be a matter of his thought, yet the fellow still spoke carelessly. If other people did not know what was going on, they might think that he was held captive by the lizard instead.

"Heh, Sir Venerable One is probably Ghost-clawed Venerable One, right?" Ou Yangming asked.

"Hey? You know sir's name." The middle-rank lizard shuddered with fear and was in disbelief.

The Insects had countless powerhouses, and while Ghost-clawed Venerable One was one of them, it was not their greatest powerhouse. Therefore, the middle-rank lizard was rather afraid when an insignificant human cultivator mentioned its name.

Ou Yangming kept a smile on his face and continued to ask, "Why did Ghost-clawed Venerable One order you to be stationed here? Heh, does it know that the person it's looking for is nearby?"

The lizard fell silent for a brief moment. Its eyes flickered as though it was thinking about something.

"Looks like you're not willing to tell me…" Ou Yangming sighed.

The middle-rank lizard stared coldly at him. Even though it was captured alive, it did not look tamed at all. The Insects' endurance was totally different from that of the Humans, thus torturous methods that were usually used on humans would not be effective if used on insects.

Hence, since the middle-rank lizard knew it was going to die for sure, it naturally would not let Ou Yangming gain more information.

Ou Yangming sneered and suddenly stuck out his check to walk slowly toward the lizard. With every step he took, his aura somehow grew more intense. When he was almost in front of the insect, the appearance of the dragon and the phoenix even emerged in his mind.

The image was the scene of a confrontation between a real dragon and a phoenix. Ever since Ou Yangming saw it once from the little red bird's spiritual world, he remembered it well.

Whenever Ou Yangming visualized the confrontation, he could perceive a hint of the dragon and the phoenix's real intention and release the power.

This could be described using an idiom.

A fox exploiting a tiger's might.

The dragon and the phoenix might be fake, but their mightiness was legitimate.

Even when the 10,000 Beasts Venerable One sensed it, it regarded Ou Yangming with different respect and no longer looked into the matter where Multi-armed King Kong acknowledged him as its master.

It was worth noting that the lizard was only a middle-rank spirit beast. The Insects were known for their concealing abilities and endurance, but they also had the worst resistance against the auras of superior beings.

"Pow…"

The middle-rank lizard fell flat on the ground. It tried its best to stick out its chest earlier as it did not want to look timid in front of a human cultivator. Despite that, after facing the aura from the appearance of the dragon and phoenix, it became paralyzed as if it was spineless.

Moreover, when Ou Yangming twitched his nose and sniffed, he picked up a stench.

'This fella actually pissed.'

He was surprised because he did not think that the appearance of the dragon and phoenix would be so effective against an insect.

Ou Yangming instantly asked again, "Why did Ghost-clawed order you to come here!"

This time, the middle-rank lizard did not resist anymore. It answered without any delay, "Sir Venerable One said that that human will surely appear in this area, so we slowly formed an encirclement here because we must capture him."

"Who are you trying to capture?"

"I have no idea, but he's a human blacksmith from the lower realm," the middle-rank lizard responded quickly, "Sir Venerable One ordered us to watch out for anyone that behaves weirdly and report it to the Twelve Walkers so that they can judge."

Ou Yangming furrowed his eyebrows and raised another question, "What are the Twelve Walkers?"

"The Twelve Walkers are Sir Venerable One's bloodline inheritances, and each of them has a high-rank cultivation base."

Ou Yangming knew Ghost-clawed Venerable One certainly had a backup plan since it set up a trap, but he did not expect it to muster 12 high-grade spirit beasts in one go.

After all, high-grade spirit beasts could not be found everywhere.

The Trading Meet on the 10,000 Beasts Ridge was of a massive scale, and it was considered a rare event for the Beasts.

Even so, there were less than 100 high-grade spirit beasts gathered in front of the giant crystal wall. It was evident that every spirit beast that could reach that level was quite remarkable. They could not compare with top-grade spirit beasts, but Ou Yangming dared not say that he could defeat one if he encountered one.

Given that Ghost-clawed Venerable One sent out 12 high-rank spirit beasts in one go, Ou Yangming figured that it had used its greatest card.

"What other powerhouses are there apart from the Twelve Walkers?" Ou Yangming asked after some thought. He tried to fish something out of the lizard while looking at it with bright eyes. "Are there top-grade spirit beasts too?"

The middle-rank lizard shook its head and replied to him, "The Twelve Walkers are Sir Venerable One's best powerhouses. As for sir's top-grade bloodline, it was struck by the Heavenly Thunderbolts and died when it was advancing into a Venerable One 2 decades ago."

Ou Yangming was moved, so he asked again.

After some time, he found out about a hidden secret that he did not know before this.

There were still many high-rank spirit beasts in the Spiritual Realm, whereas the number of top-grade spirit beasts had been decreasing linearly.

Even if every influential force was watched over by a Venerable One, they might not have top-grade Spiritualists. Even if they had such powerhouses, they would not be willing to send them out for missions.

At the end of the day, top-grade Spiritualists were powerhouses that could become Venerable Ones.

If top-grade Spiritualists could become Venerable Ones, it would be notable achievements for dominant forces. Therefore, even the Humans' Nine Great Sects in Danzhou regarded them as precious beings, who could not be easily seen.

Ghost-clawed Venerable One had once invested all of its resources in a genius junior, who did not disappoint it and became a top-grade spirit beast. However, the spirit beast finally drew the Thunderbolts Disaster, which was quite a forceful disaster, when it was on its way to becoming a Venerable One.

Due to the disaster, the top-grade spirit beast could not endure it and finally turned into ashes.

This was why Ghost-clawed Venerable One's followers were in an outage period; 12 of them were high-rank spirit beasts, but there were no top-grade spirit beasts.

Ou Yangming was somehow relieved, and he began to think at once.

He had witnessed the mightiness of top-grade spirit beasts. Whether it was Ghost Mo or the Six-armed Giant Beast, he could not go against them. This was due to the enormous gap between their equivalent ranks, and he could not think of a way to make up for the shortcoming.

Pieces of equipment could allow a weaker party to defeat a stronger party, but if the original gap between them was too huge, as fine as one's pieces of equipment were, one would only be killed.

That said, since there was no top-grade spirit beast, could he make a difference?

"Woof…"

Big Yellow barked all of a sudden. When Ou Yangming turned to look, they were both highly-spirited.

After all, they possessed divine tools with Devouring abilities. If they could absorb the energies of the Twelve Walkers… No, even if they only absorbed the energies of 2 to 3 of them, they would be given new leases of life.

Fueling war through war was the best way for an upgrade.

Ou Yangming gritted his teeth and asked, "Tell me—how do you contact them?"

As he kept asking questions, the frightened lizard no longer hid anything and revealed everything it knew.

The eyes of Ou Yangming and Big Yellow gleamed brighter without them knowing.

A shrill shriek was heard from the lizard after half an hour. When the big yellow dog pulled out its claws from the insect's body, its aura and momentum seemed to have grown.