Chapter 4483 — He Had the Same Tone

The strange, tense atmosphere lingered for the space of a breath or more. Only after it was confirmed that Wu Baoliang was truly dead did the presiding judge finally declare Wei Zhao the victor, and only then did the arena erupt with the astounded cries that had been pent up so long.

Whatever awe the crowd had once held for Wu Baoliang had now been transferred wholesale to Wei Zhao—and then some.

Winning one match could have been chalked up to luck, but now he had won two in a row, and even Wu Baoliang had been beaten to death—killed, no less, by his own technique. There was nothing left to say.

Among all the experts present, not to mention the many Gold Core-stage escort masters, even among those Nascent Soul-stage higher-ups, very few could truly overpower Wu Baoliang—and as for finishing him off with his own moves, that was utterly impossible. Yet this outrageous, heaven-defying feat had been accomplished by Wei Zhao before everyone's eyes.

Whew! Looking down at Wu Baoliang's corpse, Wei Zhao let out a long, soft breath. At last, his journey to the Southern Continent had come to a satisfactory close.

Much had happened along the way, and there had been no small number of unexpected gains and fortuitous encounters, but there was no denying that this assignment had dragged on far too long. Simply to hunt down one heretic cultivator, Wu Baoliang, it had taken months from start to finish—even Wei Zhao could not help feeling a little worn out.

Still, if he had not grown considerably stronger over those months, he would truly have been at a loss against a fighter comparable to a mid-Nascent Soul expert like Wu Baoliang. As things stood, it had all come together naturally. Not only was the mission completed smoothly, but mastering the Fury-Fire Thousand-Blast Fist had sent his strength surging yet again—a cause for celebration indeed.

Wu Baoliang's head had been taken, the purpose of this trip to the Southern Continent Escort Gathering had been achieved, and Wei Zhao could now retire with his honors. Besides, he had fought Wu Baoliang three times in succession. Even having won, in the eyes of onlookers his true qi must surely be severely depleted, and he should have little fighting strength left.

Yet Wei Zhao remained standing motionless amid the ruins of the platform, gazing at Cheng Haonan from afar, and said mildly, "I continue my challenge against the Dragon Boat Escort Agency."

The whole crowd was struck speechless. The looks directed at Wei Zhao could not help but turn somewhat peculiar. This fellow was not only outrageously powerful, but his temperament, it turned out, was just as domineering and overbearing. He had suffered a single loss at Wu Baoliang's hands, and now, not content with having beaten Wu Baoliang to death, his stance made plain that he meant to vent his wrath on the entire Dragon Boat Escort Agency!

What they did not know was that Wei Zhao had no interest whatsoever in going after the Dragon Boat Escort Agency. He merely wanted to use this opportunity to pull the weeds out by the roots and strangle this hidden danger, Cheng Haonan, along with them.

"Haha! Young Hero Ling is truly a man who repays both kindness and grievance in kind—what spirit!" Qi Mingyuan laughed heartily from his seat on the judges' panel. Had it been anyone else watching Wei Zhao act so willfully, they might have felt some private resentment in his position—but not Qi Mingyuan. He had always been blunt and straightforward by nature, and Wei Zhao's display was exactly to his taste.

A true man ought to strike decisively, to answer a grudge with a grudge. In this situation, were he in Wei Zhao's place, he too would inevitably choose to root out the danger entirely—so long as no one came to harm, it did not matter even if he lost points in defeat. That was the bearing the Sky-Pillar Escort Agency ought to have.

By contrast, Hai Wuliang, seated beside Qi Mingyuan, could not keep his expression presentable at all. The looks he cast at Long Kuiba and Cheng Haonan were already spitting fire; he wished he could swallow these two useless, contemptible wretches alive.

At the cost of offending several other judges, he had schemed to arrange this challenge by an escort-agency helmsman precisely to create an opportunity for the Dragon Boat Escort Agency to deal with Ling Yi and the Sky-Pillar Escort Agency.

Earlier, Cheng Haonan and his lot had sworn up and down that it was in the bag. And now? Not only had they failed to finish off Ling Yi and strangle the Sky-Pillar Escort Agency, but their opponent's morale had soared and their points had climbed ever higher. Was this not lifting a rock only to smash one's own foot?

At this rate, who could still stop the Sky-Pillar Escort Agency's rise? Would all the plans Hai Wuliang had envisioned before not become an utter joke?

For the Four Seas Escort Agency to rise again, there was one fundamental precondition: the Dragon Boat Escort Agency would finish off the Sky-Pillar Escort Agency, and then he would play his trump card and strike the Dragon Boat Escort Agency from the rolls—killing two birds with one stone. But now, with things as they were, even the first and most basic step could not be achieved. Even if he brought down the Dragon Boat Escort Agency, what good would it do?

The Sky-Pillar Escort Agency remained high above, its position unshakable by anyone, and it looked set to take the throne as the overlord of escort agencies—while his own Four Seas Escort Agency was on the verge of becoming history...

The outcome left Hai Wuliang wanting to weep but with no tears to shed, and there was nothing at all he could do about it. It was not as though he had a Gold Core-stage higher-up as mad as Wei Zhao under his command—and even if he did, the Four Seas Escort Agency had no chance to step forward and issue a challenge. He could only watch helplessly, able to do nothing.

The one small consolation for Hai Wuliang was that the Dragon Boat Escort Agency, having lost two matches in a row, had its points plummet by two hundred—exactly giving back the two hundred it had won earlier—so that his Four Seas Escort Agency had at last returned to fifth place. A blessing in misfortune, if ever there was one.

While Hai Wuliang sat there steeped in gloom, the Dragon Boat Escort Agency—the target of Wei Zhao's challenge and first in the line of fire—was in truly dire straits. Not only had it lost Wu Baoliang, that top-tier Gold Core great-perfection expert, but its points too now hung by a thread. The entire Dragon Boat Escort Agency was tottering in the storm.

There was no choice left this time but for Cheng Haonan to take the field himself. Even if he wished to avoid it, he could not—and besides, how could he evade a chance at vengeance that his opponent Ling Yi had delivered right to his door?

With a grave expression, Cheng Haonan slowly mounted the platform. This time, to accommodate the whole audience, the assembly had at last arranged to switch to a backup challenge platform. Its protective measures were not as stringent as the original, but so long as the fighters did not go blasting in every direction like Wei Zhao and Wu Baoliang just now, it should not be a problem.

"Since you are so set on dying, I shall be merciful and grant your wish," Cheng Haonan said coldly, looking at Wei Zhao.

So he said—yet in his heart he remained exceedingly wary. Wu Baoliang's strength had been a notch below his own, but the gap between them was slight. In particular, when the man unleashed that Raging Sand Thousand-Blast Fist, even he had been forced to respond with caution; one careless misstep and he would have suffered greatly—or even capsized in the gutter.