Chapter 3774 — A Challenge by Name
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
But in the eyes of a forceful figure like Shangguan Tianxia, only a brutal, primordial contest of the sort where ten hounds are whelped so that one mastiff may emerge could truly select the most promising newcomers.
Throw ten pups into a cave and let them slaughter one another; the one that survives to the end is bound to be the strongest of them all. Such is the law of nature: cruel and simple, yet supremely effective.
And yet, though he held the proposals of the Council of Elders in contempt, Shangguan Tianxia, as the exalted Pavilion Master of the Soaring Skies Pavilion, could not possibly involve himself in every last trifle; to do so would earn him a reputation for reaching his hand too far.
The only reason he had spoken up this time was that these people had made far too much of a fuss over the assessment rules. The august Council of Elders had spent half a day debating a trifling matter of the Welcoming Pavilion, and Shangguan Tianxia simply could not stomach it. That was why he had spoken out, a blow to the head to bring them to their senses.
Of course, behind all this lay the various backstage maneuverings among the titans. Some restless souls wished to make a mountain out of a molehill and thereby expand their influence, while he, Shangguan Tianxia, was determined to suppress any such stirrings. Such matters, however, were not for outsiders' ears.
Leaving aside how the upper echelons of the Council of Elders schemed against one another, once Shangguan Tianxia had opened his golden mouth, at least this much was beyond dispute: with no corresponding rules to protect them, how to break this awkward deadlock was a problem left for the newcomers to solve themselves.
Ordinary newcomers, held back by various misgivings, dared not be the first to issue a challenge, but those who were truly strong could never be bound by so petty a nuisance.
Otherwise, if no one dared to break the deadlock for a long while, then it could only mean that this year's Welcoming Pavilion harbored no formidable figures. At the very least, it certainly had no peerless prodigy of the caliber of Gongyang Jun, the current Hall Master of the Law Enforcement Hall.
Sure enough, the awkward deadlock did not last long. In less than half an incense stick's time it was broken, and the one who first initiated the challenge was unexpected, yet entirely reasonable: none other than Meng Zhou of the Azure Cloud Pavilion.
Meng Zhou was the first to take the stage. His aggressive gaze swept slowly across the face of every Azure Cloud newcomer, and each one it passed over could not help shrinking his neck, quite unable to meet his eyes.
That domineering feeling of looking around and finding no one daring to stand against him was precisely the scene Meng Zhou had dreamed of ever since entering the Welcoming Pavilion, yet had never managed to bring about. What did it mean to steal the spotlight? This, this was truly stealing the spotlight!
Meng Zhou could not help laughing complacently, strutting about with a swagger that defied description.
"What is this fool so puffed up about? If Wei Zhao, as the leader, were not in Cave Dwelling No. 1 and unable to initiate challenges against others, would it even be his turn? Truly, when the tiger is absent from the mountain, the monkey proclaims himself king!" Qiao Hongcai cursed bitterly.
Across the whole of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, those whose strength surpassed the other newcomers by a margin and who had the confidence to break the deadlock were in fact only two: one was Wei Zhao, and the other was Meng Zhou.
As for the rest, like Xiao Che and Li Zhengming, though they too held an enormous advantage over the other Azure Cloud newcomers, they were, when all was said and done, merely at the peak of the Heaven Grade. Even if they were stronger than other peak Heaven Grade experts, that was still not enough to constitute absolute domination.