Chapter 11648 — The Three Ancestors Still Won't Move
Outsiders could not grasp the weight of that sentence. They had to understand that, for the great upheaval to come, the Prince of Qin's Estate had already made preparations and contingency plans on every front, and among the potential adversaries involved were not a few quasi-deity powerhouses—perhaps even deity-level ones!
Under such circumstances, the current open rivals within the Inner Royal Court—the Prince of Qi's Estate included—held no real priority in the eyes of the Prince of Qin's Estate's highest decision-making circle. At best they could be counted as stepping stones for a single phase.
Yet now, Elder Qin had outright ranked Wei Zhao as the number one priority!
However highly they had thought of Wei Zhao, never once had they imagined his tier could reach such a height!
The crucial thing was, the Prince of Qin had not refuted it.
At this moment Wei Zhao, the man at the center of it all, had no idea his rating in the Prince of Qin's Estate had been raised to such a level. Looking at the bedraggled Prince of Qi before him, two words were plainly written across his face.
Confusion.
He had considered that this Prince of Qi might have some problems, but he truly had never imagined the problems could be this big.
Before Wei Zhao could speak, the Prince of Qi hissed in a low voice, "Three Ancestors, will you still not strike?"
The moment the words fell, three profound and mighty surges of power burst forth from the building behind him, instantly locking Wei Zhao in a tight grip.
Only then did everyone realize that the building behind the Prince of Qi was none other than the ancestral shrine of the Prince of Qi's Estate.
The next second, Wei Zhao was forcibly dragged into the shrine by those three forces—so immense that even he could not resist.
What had been a chaotic battlefield suddenly fell silent, every gaze fixed hard upon the ancestral shrine of the Prince of Qi's Estate.
Unfortunately, even the Prince of Qin and the others could not see through the shrine's shroud.
Truth be told, the paired duels between the Ten Great Sins and the Eight Peerless Guards were spectacular to watch, whether in intensity or in tier.
At any other time, any single one of those matchups would have set the entire Inner Royal Court abuzz.
Yet now they could only serve as a sideshow. The minds of every great figure would rather hover outside the shrine than turn to anyone else.
As for the Prince of Qi, though his person was in a sorry state, there was not the slightest hint of disadvantage between his brows—rather, a faint smugness of a scheme brought to fruition.
Inside the shrine.
Wei Zhao's whole body was bound by ropes given form by power, the three ropes held in the hands of three old men.
One tall, one short, one gaunt—precisely matching the portraits of the three ancestors of the Prince of Qi's Estate.
"Boy, you've got real nerve, daring to barge into my Prince of Qi's Estate and run wild!"
The tall old man gave a cold snort. "Every age brings forth its talents. I must say, I'm genuinely curious what the world outside looks like these days!"
The short old man chuckled. "What else could it look like? Look at how easily this boy's been trapped by us—clearly his fame outstrips his strength. Don't mind all the noise out there now; it's nothing compared to our day."
The gaunt old man, however, cursed, "Save your blasted commentary! Old Thirteen, would it kill you to stop putting on airs? I can see your legs shaking!"
In truth, for all that the three of them held absolute initiative on the surface, each was already giving everything he had.
And each was more shaken than the last.
As ancestors of the Prince of Qi's Estate, their strength was restricted and could not be fully unleashed—yet within this shrine at least, they could still exert seventy or eighty percent of it.
With the three of them joined, even a Heaven-Rank Great Perfection Venerable would normally be trapped tight and helpless.
Yet Wei Zhao, a mere mid-stage Earth-Rank Venerable, appeared on the surface to be trapped by them, when in reality it was Wei Zhao who had launched the offensive.
The dragon soul split into three, each striking at one of the old men.
For all the strength of the three ancestors of the Prince of Qi's Estate, the instant the dragon soul touched them, they all felt a primal fear in unison.
Every hair stood on end; their flesh crawled.
It was as though some lower creature had suddenly laid eyes on an existence at the very top of the food chain!
"What's going on? What's going on?"
The three ancestors of the Prince of Qi's Estate were on the verge of losing their minds, instinctively trying to release the ropes—but bizarrely, they could not let go.
On the surface, they had trapped Wei Zhao; in truth, Wei Zhao had them under control.
Inconceivable.
Unwilling to accept it, the three made ready at once to withdraw the energy ropes and start over.
But they could not withdraw them at all.
By now the situation had evolved into a contest of cultivation between the two sides.
Only this cultivation was not cultivation in the ordinary sense. After all, at the Venerable tier, one directly commands the power of rules. In terms of sheer force alone, every capable Venerable is inexhaustible—unless their own vitality is spent, there is simply no possibility of their power running dry.
This contest of cultivation was, in essence, a contest of each side's understanding of the nature of power.
Whoever understood it more deeply held the advantage in wielding power, and thus naturally held the upper hand in the clash.
And judging by the scene before them, superior and inferior were plain at a glance.
The dragon soul split into three, and despite being outnumbered, it had pressed almost to the chests of the three ancestors of the Prince of Qi's Estate!
The three ancestors were horrified in unison.
As ancestors enshrined by the Prince of Qi's Estate through the generations, they were old monsters through and through, their credentials even deeper than those old monsters who had emerged from the Inner Royal Court.
Across such vast ages, and themselves the finest of the finest, carefully cultivated by the princely estate, their understanding of the nature of power ran far deeper than that of ordinary cultivators.
To say nothing of the profound legacy the Prince of Qi's Estate had passed down through the generations.
Legend had it that the Prince of Qi's Estate had once received a fortuitous gift bestowed by a deity-level powerhouse.
By any measure, Wei Zhao facing them should have known only one-sided annihilation.
Yet now it was exactly the reverse.
This kind of clash was originally the most risk-free and unsolvable of killing fields.
No matter how one flaunted their might outside, no matter how many tricks or trump cards they held, once dragged inside there was nothing but execution awaiting them. Not a single named expert of the Inner Royal Court today—old monsters included—had the slightest possibility of breaking it.
Who could have thought it would flip on its head with Wei Zhao?
Still, the three ancestors of the Prince of Qi's Estate were no dead fish, and especially in this shrine, their home ground, while their strength was restricted, they also gained an enhancement on another plane.
So long as the ancestral shrine of the Prince of Qi's Estate stood, they were undying beings.
Thus, even though they held the lower hand at this moment, it did not mean they would lose because of it.
On the contrary, once it settled into an all-out war of attrition, compared to Wei Zhao, alone and unsupported, they were all the more likely to laugh last.
That was their confidence.
"Boy, I have a proposal—how about we pause for a moment first?"
The tall old man spoke suddenly.
Wei Zhao grimaced in astonishment. "Huh? You can call a timeout in the middle of this thing? You think this is a competitive match?"