Chapter 11647 — That Aside

But the problem was this: the mole knew the Eight Peerless Guards' intelligence in such precise detail—just how high must his standing be within the Prince of Qi's Estate?

The more one thought about it, the more terrifying it became.

Yet after that brief shock, the Eight Peerless Guards quickly regained their composure. One by one they radiated their various negative emotions while scrutinizing Wei Zhao with looks of lofty condescension.

Among them, the weathered old man who appeared to move with difficulty spoke up. "So you're Wei Zhao?"

Wei Zhao sized him up in turn. "And you're Feng Jue?"

Feng Jue gave a disdainful snort. "In an age without heroes, the mediocre make their names. A mere early-stage Earth Rank Venerable—a child—and he can stir the Inner Royal Court to such a storm. The times truly have changed."

Faced with such undisguised mockery, Wei Zhao showed not the slightest ripple of emotion.

Seeing him unmoved, Feng Jue could not help but feel a twinge of disappointment.

Mockery was one prong of their psychological assault. Whatever reaction Wei Zhao gave, the Eight Peerless Guards could use it to discern the weaknesses in his emotional state and thereby determine the direction of their main attack.

After all, the key to their being granted the name "Eight Peerless" lay not merely in the fact that each of them had mastered one branch of power to perfection.

The more crucial point was that they could carry out precise emotional detonation.

Once such a detonation succeeded, even old monsters far stronger than themselves could be slain in an instant.

But now Wei Zhao had shown no reaction at all, leaving them with no opening to exploit.

Just then, a tall, bloated figure suddenly appeared behind Feng Jue.

"That's no way to speak to my leader—it's downright rude."

Before Feng Jue could react, the man had already wrapped him in a bear hug, followed by a clean, crisp takedown.

Boom!

Staring at the bizarre sight of Feng Jue planted headfirst into the ground, the Eight Peerless Guards were, for a moment, at a loss for how to respond.

Behind them, the assembled high-ranking members of the Prince of Qi's Estate all turned ashen with shock.

"How did he get in?"

After all, the instant Wei Zhao entered the Prince of Qi's Estate, the estate's formation had already been running at full power, sealing the inside and the outside into two entirely separate worlds.

All to prevent the Ten Great Sins from reinforcing Wei Zhao.

Who could have imagined that Li Qinghe would simply slip in like this—and the crucial point was that he had done so utterly unnoticed. No one on the scene had the faintest idea how he had gotten in!

Nor was that all. When the rest of Wei Baizhan and his companions appeared unhurriedly behind Wei Zhao, the entire Prince of Qi's Estate fell into a deathly silence.

Trouble.

The assembled high-ranking figures all turned, as if by prior agreement, toward the Prince of Qi behind the gauze curtain.

The fighting had not even formally begun, and already such an accident had occurred; a course everyone had assumed was assured had in an instant turned hazy and uncertain once more.

Yet the Prince of Qi gave no sign of his stance—he did not even raise the gauze curtain.

Wei Zhao looked toward the Prince of Qi and said, "Shall we drink first, or fight first?"

The Prince of Qi answered with a cold snort. "And you think you're worthy to drink with this prince? You really take yourself for somebody."

"Fine, then. We fight first."

At a single glance from Wei Zhao, Wei Baizhan and the others lunged at the Eight Elites Guard like wolves and tigers.

Ten Great Sinners against the Prince of Qi's Eight Elites Guard—one to one still left two men to spare.

Fortunately, the Prince of Qi's estate had no shortage of skilled hands, and bolstered by the formation of their home ground, with the Eight Elites Guard holding off eight of the Sinners, dealing with the remaining two was no great problem.

But there was one crucial precondition: the Eight Elites Guard could not falter.

The moment the Eight Elites Guard faltered and failed to take down these fiends one-on-one, the rest of the Prince of Qi's skilled hands would be in dire straits.

The Prince of Qi's estate became a battlefield in an instant, chaos visible everywhere.

Strangely enough, however, Wei Zhao, the center of everyone's attention, was at this moment left entirely alone; even the elite hands of the Prince of Qi's estate deliberately steered clear of him.

And so Wei Zhao strolled unobstructed to stand before the Prince of Qi.

The two sides faced each other across the gauze curtain.

The various wills and intentions coiled above the Prince of Qi's estate immediately stirred with excitement.

The Prince of Qi had acted very rarely before this, yet was universally acknowledged as unfathomably deep; rumor in the streets held that his strength was not beneath that of the Prince of Qin—only that no chance had ever arisen to verify it.

Now the chance had come.

Likewise, the various parties held all manner of conjectures about Wei Zhao's present strength, and this was the perfect opportunity to see what he was truly made of.

Neither side spoke; yet within mere seconds each one's aura climbed to its peak, and a duel of summit against summit was poised to erupt.

It began!

Wei Zhao's figure flashed explosively, piercing through the gauze curtain in an instant, opening with a single Arrow-Step Kill.

The Prince of Qi's eyelid twitched, and his figure retreated wildly.

Yet fast as he was, Wei Zhao was faster still; a dragon's roar rang out, wreathed in dragon soul, as Wei Zhao drove one palm squarely into the Prince of Qi's chest.

Then his expression shifted into something faintly strange.

The Prince of Qi grunted and flew backward, smashing through five walls in a row. Though he finally steadied himself, his dignity had plainly taken a battering.

That was it?

The assembled big shots were stunned.

They had expected the Prince of Qi's strength to at least come close to the Prince of Qin's legendary level, if not match it.

And in their eyes, Wei Zhao still did not measure up to the Prince of Qin.

In other words, the two should have been evenly matched—yet here the Prince of Qi had collapsed at the first touch, a cheap counterfeit through and through!

"Surely not..."

The four men of Qin, the Prince included, all wore expressions of disbelief.

The Prince of Qin especially had crossed blows with the Prince of Qi before. Even if their rivalry had never been as equal as the rumors made out, he had at least respected the man's strength.

Whatever else, even if the Prince of Qi was doomed to lose to Wei Zhao, he should not have lost in such an absurd fashion.

The whole scene was ridiculous no matter how one looked at it.

Then Bai Shizu said, his tone strange, "Could it be that the problem isn't that the Prince of Qi is too weak, but that Wei Zhao is too strong?"

Everyone was taken aback.

The Prince of Qin and his companions turned grave at once.

That exchange had looked simple and direct, with nothing complicated about it, but when they tried to analyze it in earnest, men of their perceptive caliber found themselves unable to see through the true nature of Wei Zhao's palm strike.

It had seemed like a simple stroke of dragon soul, yet the more they analyzed it, the more unfathomable the meaning within revealed itself.

Nor was that all. In every movement Wei Zhao made, even the most inconspicuous detail of his bearing, there was a quality of natural perfection.

As though it had been polished by countless ages.

"The great Way is simple? How could that be?"

Elder Qin blurted out in shock, breaking his usual composure.