Chapter 4459 — Victorious Again

Yet no sooner had he finished speaking than his thoughts drifted to distant North Africa. Back then, fighting in the jungle, tactics had been everything, and these stratagems of Wei Zhao's were nothing more than tricks worn threadbare in those days, only that no one on Yunjie Island used them.

Thinking of North Africa inevitably brought Yuning to mind. He wondered whether she was faring well in the mortal world, whether the others were well too, and whether they had received his letters.

He shook his head and cast off these melancholy thoughts, for the match in the arena was still underway.

"To have Young Hero Ling's aid is a blessing my Qingtian Escort Agency earned over several lifetimes, and the young master's blessing as well," Steward Song said with feeling, at the same time casting a pointed glance at Qi Wenmo.

Qi Wenmo scratched his head in embarrassment. By comparison, his own earlier performance as the young master had seemed far too callow. It was not that he was weak; it was simply that this fellow Ling Yi was a freak of nature, absurdly formidable in every respect, and an ordinary man truly could not compare.

"What are you panicking for? There are still four of you, and only four on the other side—what is there to panic about? Take them down in one concerted effort!" Wu Conglong, still unwilling to accept his fate, kept bellowing from below the arena, still hoping to stir up morale, still hoping for a reversal.

Yet to everyone watching, this could only invite mockery. Any clear-eyed observer could see that the Wuma Escort Agency's cause was lost; to still be talking tough at this point was utterly pointless.

Four against four was true enough. But the other side had one Golden Core consummate cultivator, two at the peak of late Golden Core, and one at late Golden Core, while the Wuma Escort Agency had one at the peak of late Golden Core and three at late Golden Core. The gap between them was far more than a little.

Had their morale still been soaring as usual, that would have been one thing—perhaps they really could have fought out a miracle. But the crux was that morale had now sunk to freezing point. What did they have left to fight with?

The course of the match afterward unfolded exactly as everyone had expected. Lacking strength and lacking morale, the Wuma Escort Agency had utterly lost its edge and was simply pinned down and battered by the Qingtian Escort Agency on one side.

Only when the time of one stick of incense ran out did it end. The four escort fighters the Qingtian Escort Agency left on the arena were still wholly unscathed, while the Wuma Escort Agency, having come on so aggressively, lost two more fighters. In the end, at the grievous cost of three lives, they concluded the challenge they had initiated themselves.

Without losing a single soldier, the Qingtian Escort Agency, though it had begun in farce, had easily laughed last. This scene truly made every jaw in the hall drop, and the crowd could not help but talk among themselves.

To utterly crush the Wuma Escort Agency, famed for its hard, iron-blooded style—even a traditional powerhouse like the Sihai Escort Agency might not manage such a thing, or at least would be unlikely to do it without losing a single soldier. Yet the Qingtian Escort Agency had done exactly that.

This duel was less a gap in strength than an outright crushing victory of intellect. From first to last, Wu Conglong had been toyed with in the palm of Wei Zhao's hand, without the slightest power to resist.

Yet precisely because of this, the Qingtian Escort Agency was held in even higher regard by those merchant guilds. Not only did the guild leaders not look down on them for the Qitian escort fighters' flight at their entrance—on the contrary, they all nodded in approval.

After all, an escort's duty is close protection, not brute force and head-on clashes, no matter the means employed. Whoever ultimately keeps the escort safe is a good escort; conversely, if you fight head-on and men die and the escort is lost, what is that?

Say it nicely and it is bravery; in truth, it is plain recklessness.

This was no life-and-death vendetta. An escort's task is close protection; all else is secondary.

On the scoreboard, the Qingtian Escort Agency gained a hundred points, bringing its total to an astonishing seven hundred and seventy, and the gap had not narrowed—it showed a tendency to widen further and further.

By contrast, the Wuma Escort Agency, which had initiated the challenge, was left with a pitiful sixty points after a hundred were deducted. Not only were they dead last among all the escort agencies, but they also faced the awkward prospect of being eliminated outright if they lost even one more match.

From a hard bone feared by every escort agency to one now visibly about to follow in the Wanli Escort Agency's footsteps—Wu Conglong's mood was truly gloomy unto death. Yet all of this was his own doing; who had told him to challenge the Qingtian Escort Agency of his own accord?

"Chief Escort, are we... are we still going to challenge the Qingtian Escort Agency?" asked the deputy who had earlier been ordered to make preparations, cautiously, from the side.

Crack! Wu Conglong slapped the deputy to the ground and roared in hysterical fury, "Challenge my arse! Have we not lost miserably enough? Do you really want to be eliminated?"

Though it was a fit of shame turned to rage, Wu Conglong had not lost his reason after all. His most important task now was to ensure he was not eliminated, not to hound the Qingtian Escort Agency.

Otherwise, if he lost another match and was truly eliminated, his Wuma Escort Agency would become weak trash just like the Wanli Escort Agency, never again able to win any decent large contract, and from then on able only to live by drinking the sea wind.

The cautionary example lay right before their eyes. For a time, those escort agencies that had been itching for a try, harboring the same idea as the Wuma Escort Agency—such as the Yongxing Escort Agency, comparable in strength to the Wuma Escort Agency, which had also meant to use the Qingtian Escort Agency as a stepping stone to leap to the heavens in one bound—now began to hesitate.

True, the Qingtian Escort Agency had not displayed truly overwhelming strength in this battle, far from enough to inspire dread and despair. But if other escort agencies were to take the field in their place, they could not guarantee they would perform any better than the Wuma Escort Agency—what if they met the same fate?

Seeing the heads of the various escort agencies sunk in hesitation and struggle, Wei Zhao smiled faintly. This effect was in fact just right: it let him take points easily without frightening the other agencies away and making them abandon all thought of leaping to the heavens in one bound. Otherwise, if they were so frightened that no agency dared to challenge them, that would be another kind of loss.

After all, the fifth round of the Escort Agency Championship only granted each agency two rights to challenge and two rights to be challenged. Whether to challenge and whether to use up all these opportunities was left entirely to each agency's own plans; the assembly made no compulsory rule.

As for the Qingtian Escort Agency, the two rights to challenge were of course held in its own hands to decide. But whether the remaining right to be challenged could be used depended entirely on whether other escort agencies would keep coming to challenge. If they were all frightened off, that right to be challenged would be pure decoration, naturally rendered void.

On the Qingtian Escort Agency, this problem did not yet show itself too plainly—after all, it had only risen abruptly this once, and its strength had not truly taken root in people's hearts. (To be continued)