Chapter 11662 — What Happened Today

The whole hall erupted in uproar.

Granted, the situation had come this far and the outcome was plain for all to see—but strictly speaking, apart from the Eight Elite Guards, most of Prince Qi's Manor's remaining elite fighting strength had suffered no real damage.

It was mainly that the brutal slaughter of the Eight Elite Guards had been too terrifying a deterrent, the scene too one-sided; the surviving elite fighters had not even had time to be worn down before their spirit collapsed.

But they were still there, after all.

Had the gaunt old man raised his arm and called out at that moment, though the end might have been ghastly, it would not have been entirely without a chance to fight with their backs to the river.

Who could have imagined he would simply concede, and so decisively?

Had Wei Zhao frightened him numb in there?

For a moment the great lords of every faction let their imaginations run wild, and finally reached their conclusion: Wei Zhao was even more ungovernable than they had foreseen!

How else could Prince Qi's Manor have been cowed into such a state…

Then the gaunt old man's next sentence startled everyone all over again.

"As of today, Prince Qi's Manor is dissolved. Go and make your own way in the world."

The entire hall was dumbstruck.

The whole Inner Royal Court was in an uproar.

In the reckoning of the vast majority, even if Prince Qi's Manor lost this round, the worst that could happen was a change of master, or at most a tacit acceptance of a puppet installed by Wei Zhao—surely it would never come to outright dissolution on the spot?

Yet reality proved just that unexpected.

The gaunt old man glanced at Wei Zhao, then turned to Qi Zhuiyun: "Come with me."

With that, his figure flickered and vanished swiftly into the distance.

Qi Zhuiyun looked at Wei Zhao, his expression complicated: "Until we meet again."

Wei Zhao nodded: "Take care, Third Uncle Qi."

As the gaunt old man and Qi Zhuiyun departed one after the other, the rest of Prince Qi's Manor's finest looked at one another, wide-eyed and speechless, at a loss for how to react.

A second before, they had all been basking in the shade of a great tree; even if Prince Qi's Manor lost, they could still have gotten by.

At worst, a new leader.

But now Prince Qi's Manor was gone, and these pampered elite retainers of the manor had become in an instant a pack of poor wretches with no home to return to.

Every gaze turned as one to Wei Zhao.

Wei Zhao said offhandedly, "The Night's End Palace happens to be hiring. If any of you are interested, you can go sign up."

At once the eyes of everyone present lit up; they thanked him in unison and hurried off toward the Night's End Palace.

However the situation might develop hereafter, through today's battle they had at least recognized this much: Wei Zhao was unmistakably a thick tree to cling to.

So long as they kept close to Wei Zhao, they could at least have peace for a while.

With luck, they might even rise with him, as Wei Baizhan had—one dog ascending to heaven on the coattails of another.

What Li Qinghe and the others had been like before, they had no idea—but what Wei Baizhan's strength had been before, they all knew something of.

Leaping to this level in a single year—plainly it was Wei Zhao's doing.

Such was the power of example.

Watching the great tide of Prince Qi's Manor's elite pour toward the Night's End Palace, the great lords of every faction slapped their thighs in frustration, regretting they had not gone to watch the battle in person.

Otherwise, they could have staged a round of direct boss hiring right now.

Never mind anything else: these elite retainers of Prince Qi's Manor might not be the ace up the sleeve that the Eight Elite Guards were, might not tip the scales at the decisive moment, but without question they were premium fighting strength.

In ordinary times, luring even one of them over was no easy feat.

Now they were being bundled up and sold off wholesale.

The great lords of every faction could not help but feel a quiet dread.

If Wei Zhao really swallowed this whole wave of elite fighters, his bloc's overall fighting strength was bound to surge yet again.

By then, aside from the unfathomable Wei Zhao himself, he would command not only those mad beasts of the Ten Great Sinners but also this great host of core strength defected from Prince Qi's Manor—Wei Zhao's faction would have truly come into its own, with no substantive weakness left!

The crux was that at this juncture it was already too late for them to stop it.

Never mind how many elite fighters they might attract—the mere chance of provoking Wei Zhao was enough to make them weigh the matter carefully back and forth.

What if Wei Zhao, heedless of the warrior's code, simply led the Ten Great Sinners to their door?

Unthinkable.

In the end, the great lords of every faction, without prior agreement, all gloomily reached the same conclusion.

"The sky over the Inner Royal Court is truly about to change."

After all, Prince Qi's Manor was one of the Seven Great Manors, and by common consent a power that could stand shoulder to shoulder with Prince Qin's Manor.

By the reckoning of the vast majority, this was a top-tier force as immovable as thunder—however the times rose and fell, the Seven Great Manors were the anchor, the ones forever seated serenely by the fishing platform.

Many even believed that should the Inner Royal Court itself collapse, the Seven Great Manors would not.

And then today, Wei Zhao had opened their eyes for them in no uncertain terms.

The august Prince Qi's Manor had been shattered in a single wave, just like that.

In truth, if you insisted on the details, Wei Zhao himself was rather baffled by it all.

It was his people who had wiped out the Eight Elite Guards, yes—but everything that happened inside the ancestral shrine was truly not a scheme of his making.

The gaunt old man's final lapse into despair and cold indifference had, in fact, little to do with him.

It was just that the mood had been built up to such a pitch that even if Wei Zhao stepped forward to clarify, others would only take it for modesty.

At that moment, Zhang Tailing cupped his hands to Wei Zhao: "Young Hero Lin, let us part ways here."

This affair of Prince Qi's Manor had begun with his disciple, and in the end had forced him to kill with his own hand his last disciple, Li Hongshou.

Even setting aside those horrifying, blood-red ancient apes that came after, for a Daoist like him this had already been an ordeal impossible to erase, one that truly demanded time to digest.

But Wei Zhao called him back.

"Did the Daoist Master not promise to have a good talk with me about the resonance between Heaven and Man?"

Zhang Tailing could not help but look utterly taken aback.

He had promised, yes—but at the time it had been somewhat a matter of courtesy.

Besides, even if they truly meant to discuss it, surely there was no need to seize this very moment—why such urgency?

Yet Wei Zhao gave him no chance to decline gracefully, inviting him outright: "A chance meeting beats a formal invitation. Why not come to my Night's End Palace for a talk, Daoist Master?"

A peak Venerable of the early Heaven Tier was no common commodity, after all; even in today's Inner Royal Court, thick with old monsters, one did not simply run into such a figure.

Even if he could not bring the man straight aboard, a character like Wei Zhao would naturally not pass up the chance to seek some instruction.

All the more so since Wei Zhao was genuinely intrigued by the man's resonance between Heaven and Man.

Zhang Tailing hesitated a moment, then smiled bitterly: "Then this poor Daoist will impose upon you."

Watching Zhang Tailing follow Wei Zhao to the Night's End Palace, the great lords of every faction could not help but mutter to themselves once more.

Wei Zhao's faction was truly about to take off!