Chapter 4424 — Swift Elimination
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
If one looked down from midair through layer upon layer of sea fog, one would at this moment behold a most bizarre spectacle: over the vast, boundless sea, wreckage littered the rear in every direction, while on the waters ahead, Sailboat Number Five kept tracing all manner of strange courses—now zigzagging, now serpentining; in short, never deigning to travel in a straight line, twisting in whatever way it could.
And yet it was precisely this bizarre, contorted course that made it seem to have grown a heavenly eye, so deftly avoiding every reef, passing even the great whirlpools that kept welling up close along their edges. The scene looked perilous indeed, thrilling to the extreme—yet Wei Zhao, the one steering the ship, was steady at heart.
This round of the contest had indeed unfolded exactly as everyone had anticipated: before even the halfway mark, the thirty-two escort agencies were all but wiped out entirely. Everywhere Wei Zhao passed, wreckage appeared from time to time, together with carnivorous monstrosities churning in the waters—and as for the escorts themselves, not even their corpses could be found; thoroughly and utterly, not a bone remained.
Without the jade pendant's warning, Wei Zhao himself would likely have followed in everyone's wake, filling the bellies of those fierce, bloodthirsty carnivorous fish. Of course, there is no such thing as "if" in this world—and truly, without the jade pendant to rely on, Wei Zhao would never have rashly stepped forward to take the field.
"Twenty-one ships." Wei Zhao silently reckoned in his heart. That was the number of wrecks he had seen along the way, meaning that in this round of perilous-domain sailing, at least twenty-one escort agencies had already been eliminated. And that was counting only what he had actually laid eyes on; add in those he had not seen, and the total had likely drawn close to thirty!
Such a towering elimination rate was truly outrageous. What was more, Wei Zhao noticed that among the wrecks were no few high-ranking numbers—Number Two, for instance—which meant that even a traditional powerhouse like the Divine Wind Escort Agency had gone down in defeat along with the rest.
"A contest this dangerous—normally no one should be able to finish it. I wonder who designed it," Wei Zhao could not help saying, somewhat puzzled.
On this point he felt it most keenly—not only because of the wrecks he had seen along the way, but above all because of the route he himself had taken, which, on recollection, looked strange however he considered it. The complexity and peril of this sea route far exceeded anything the ordinary mind could imagine.
Without the aid of a cheat like the jade pendant's warning, forget about a contest—even slow, painstaking exploration a little at a time would have taken at least a month or more to barely eke out a single passage. Otherwise, however many came, all would die. In short, this was simply no place to hold a contest.
Wei Zhao was muttering inwardly when, all at once, after a turn, from not far ahead came a sound unlike the ordinary wind and waves. Listening closely, it was unmistakably a ship speeding along ahead!
Wei Zhao started in surprise. Just who might it be ahead—some master who could genuinely race across such a sea route? And judging by the speed, it was not slow in the least!
Because the sea fog obscured his view, Wei Zhao could not make out the number of the ship ahead; even his spiritual sense was blocked. But at least one thing could be judged: it was certainly a contest vessel, for who else would be so idle as to come sailing in such a perilous place?