Chapter 11600 — Where Did This Wild Card Come From

Within the Inner Royal Court, no one could take on twelve alone, standing single-handed against the Twelve Palaces of the Court Guard.

Not even the Prince of Qin.

This was the confidence of the Night Central Palace!

The leader of the group was a short man with a thin mustache, his eyes glinting with a cautious sharpness. He addressed Wei Baizhan with keen interest, "Never seen you before. Where did this wild card come from?"

Wei Baizhan stood with one hand in his pocket and cocked his neck. "Enough with the chatter."

As the words fell, his other hand suddenly became a black shadow, launching a surprise strike at his opponent.

The corners of the mustached man's mouth curled upward.

The scene of Wei Baizhan instantly killing Xiang Feng moments ago had been witnessed in full by all of them; naturally they knew Wei Baizhan was no man for formalities, striking at the slightest disagreement, and they had long been prepared for it.

A broad, imposing figure appeared before him in time, neither dodging nor flinching, and took Wei Baizhan's surprise blow head-on.

Boom!

The violent blast of qi swept across the entire field; fortunately, every last one present was an expert, or the mere aftershock would have sent a good number of people flying.

"Hm? There's something to you."

Wei Baizhan let out a faint murmur of surprise.

Having tempered himself alongside Wei Zhao in the Realm of Sin for ten thousand years, his strength was already far beyond what it once was—after all, his extraordinary talent was plain for all to see, to say nothing of the various fortuitous opportunities Wei Zhao had granted him.

Compared to before, he was now stronger by no less than ten thousand times!

He was now a bona fide Heaven-Rank Venerable!

By his own reckoning, such strength was more than enough to walk the Inner Royal Court with impunity; the only ones who could pose a threat to him were probably a select few like the Prince of Qin.

He had not expected his opponent to actually block his strike.

In truth, his opponent was far more shocked than he was at this moment.

Taking that blow head-on, the man had been driven back a full twenty meters!

The aura that had been incomparably formidable just moments ago suddenly withered by a large margin.

The Twelve Palaces all started in alarm.

After all, in terms of defense, this man was indisputably the strongest among them; even when they sparred amongst themselves, knowing each other's strengths as they did, breaking through his defense was no easy feat—so how had he ended up in such a state after a single exchange?

It seemed Xiang Feng's death just now had truly not been in vain.

The mustached man looked at his broad, imposing comrade. "Chou Zuo, how are you holding up?"

The towering figure grunted, "I can still hold on."

His tone sounded rather strained.

Seeing this, Wang Lai shouted from the rear, "What the hell are you dawdling for? Finish him off now! Otherwise, once Elder Xiang gets here, every one of you will be in trouble too!"

A collective shudder ran through the crowd.

Xiang Feng was the descendant Xiang Zikui valued above all others, and now that he had died right before their eyes, Xiang Zikui would certainly fly into a rage on the spot.

When that happened, the killer before them would of course have no hope of survival, but if his wrath spilled over onto them, they would fare no better.

The only way was to dispose of the man before Xiang Zikui arrived, for then there might still be a chance to soothe his fury.

Otherwise, the consequences were unthinkable.

"Mao Seat, Shen Seat, Xu Seat—execute Plan One. The rest of you, prepare to follow up!"

The man with the handlebar mustache immediately began to take command.

At his words, three swift, nimble figures darted at Wei Baizhan from different directions, though their force was hardly substantial—striking and withdrawing at once, their probing intent plain to see.

At the same time, the others began to draw a net of encirclement around Wei Baizhan, ready to step in and join the fight at any moment.

As they moved, the aura behind each of them flickered into the shape of beasts, their ferocious aspect gradually laid bare.

Wei Zhao watched coldly from the rear. "The Twelve Zodiacs?"

Ten thousand years of tempering had made the aura around him ever more return to its unadorned essence, so that in the eyes of others he cut an utterly unremarkable figure.

Anyone of insufficient cultivation could not possibly sense how formidable and terrifying he had become.

And so, even at this moment, the attention of everyone in the Night Central Palace remained fixed on Wei Baizhan.

Their reasoning was simple.

Wei Baizhan was the pillar Wei Zhao had brought in; so long as they could eliminate Wei Baizhan, the crisis of the day would unravel of itself.

As for Wei Zhao himself, he was not worth mentioning at all.

Among the whole gathering, only the man with the handlebar mustache kept constant watch on Wei Zhao's every move.

He was the leader of the Twelve Halls of the Palace Guard, and by nature possessed the ability to seek fortune and shun disaster.

Even if a man of his cultivation could not perceive the terrifying depths of Wei Zhao, he could still faintly feel the threat emanating from him—only, for the moment, he truly could not imagine what threat Wei Zhao might pose to them.

At the same time, the various factions were also watching the situation at the Night Central Palace from afar.

After a year of silence, Wei Zhao's presence and influence in the eyes of the various factions had, to be sure, dwindled greatly from what it once was.

Yet Wei Zhao's sudden return to the martial world was still enough to stir up a few ripples.

Especially among those forces headed by the Prince of Qi's estate, who had in some measure betrayed Wei Zhao, his every move remained a matter of considerable concern to them.

The Imperial Study in the royal palace.

The Son of Heaven of Zhou gazed at the real-time projection before him, a trace of gravity showing between his brows.

"This man seems to be called Wei Baizhan, does he not? I rather think I remember him."

Back when he had been weighing whether to invest in Wei Zhao, he had carefully studied the intelligence concerning Wei Zhao, which naturally included Xu Anshan and the others of Wei Zhao's faction.

Wei Baizhan had not stood out among them, merely flashing past in the record.

In the Son of Heaven's understanding, Wei Baizhan was at most a cannon-fodder underling beneath Wei Zhao's banner, of limited strength and limited value.

Yet now it appeared that this judgment of his had been egregiously wrong.

"I never imagined Wei Zhao had such hidden dragons and crouching tigers at his side. Had I known, I would have courted this Wei Baizhan."

The Son of Heaven could not help feeling a touch of regret.

In his reckoning, Wei Baizhan could never have been Wei Zhao's underling; he had simply been playing the pig to eat the tiger all along.

At this moment, a middle-aged man in scholar's robes before the Son of Heaven spoke up: "This Wei Baizhan is indeed no weakling. If he could be subdued, Your Majesty would gain wings to the tiger, and the certainty of accomplishing the great enterprise would rise by several degrees."

The Son of Heaven hastily cupped his hands and sought instruction: "Does the Grand Preceptor have a good plan to teach me?"

A word more: the middle-aged man was named Hou Chuang, and had been newly appointed as one of the Three Excellencies, the Grand Preceptor, half a year ago.

He was now the foremost strategist at the Son of Heaven's side, and on all matters great and small within the Inner Royal Court, the Son of Heaven consulted him.

It was by his counsel that the Son of Heaven's influence in the court had greatly increased; though he still bore the shackles of a puppet Son of Heaven, matters were far better than before.