Chapter 11698 — He Was About to Cry

All he could do was pull a miserable face and silently beg his teammates on either side for help.

Yet every last one of them suddenly found something fascinating to stare at—their own noses or their own navels—and collectively played dead.

Fortunately, Xiao Tiao chose that moment to speak. "Wei Zhao hasn't lost control yet. That said, letting him run loose like this really is a problem. Once you're in there, don't hurt him—just work with the others to pin him down. I'll bring a team in to take over shortly."

Yu Kuai felt as though he had just been granted a pardon.

Given Xiao Tiao's weight, now that he had spoken, who among them would not, more or less, show him some face?

Sure enough, both Vice Principals Chu Yunfan and Di Feihong gave slight nods.

Yu Kuai shot Xiao Tiao a look of gratitude and immediately flashed into the black prison.

The instant he was inside, Yu Kuai closed in on Wei Zhao.

"Fast as expected!"

Every eye in the room lit up at once.

As a textbook speed-assault specialist, Yu Kuai's swiftness had made a name for itself even across the entire Heavenly Dao Academy. At his level, raw speed had come to stand above the rules themselves.

Even an expert well versed in speed-type paradigms would find it hard to contend with him in that regard.

And now, even with the boost of berserk Thunder Flash, Wei Zhao had failed to shake him off—Yu Kuai had him locked down outright.

To be sure, Yu Kuai had not thereby taken Wei Zhao down.

Every ounce of his talent had been poured into speed; the other facets of his ability were bound to have gaps. Otherwise he would not be a speed-assault specialist on a security squad—he would be one of the Academy's banner combatants.

But he was not alone.

For a well-drilled security squad, merely having someone to stall Wei Zhao's rhythm was more than enough.

"Control!"

The two control experts struck at once, seizing the opening while Wei Zhao was pinned from the front by Yu Kuai, and launching their assault from the left and right rear together.

Life Prohibition and Resonant Pulse erupted in tandem.

Strictly speaking, this ran against the security squad's usual strategy.

After all, for a standing squad, control was always the scarcest capacity. Unless absolutely unavoidable, they would always seek to maximize control duration.

Right now, throwing out both control techniques at once was plainly a waste.

But what they wanted was absolute certainty!

Wei Zhao had only ten layers of true essence anyway. So long as either technique landed on him, what followed would no longer hold the slightest suspense.

In the end, it came up empty again.

"What's going on?"

Watching helplessly as Wei Zhao and Yu Kuai vanished from sight at the same time, the security experts could not stop their eyelids from twitching wildly.

A sure thing, both control techniques committed together—and it still came up empty?

They turned their heads.

Forty meters away, Yu Kuai was pinned to the ground beneath Wei Zhao's single foot, and for all his thrashing, he simply could not break free.

Wei Zhao looked down on him from above, one finger extended, and a profoundly dangerous dark crimson glow swiftly gathered at its tip.

Thunder Flash!

Yu Kuai's face went white with dread.

He had no idea how he had ended up in this position.

A moment ago he had clearly been the one tying Wei Zhao down—and now it looked as though Wei Zhao had allowed it to happen on purpose.

His instincts screamed that this Thunder Flash was far more powerful than the original. At such close range, if he took it squarely, heaven only knew how many layers of true essence would be shaved off him.

And the crux of it was: who could guarantee there would be only one Thunder Flash?

So many so-called common-sense assumptions simply did not apply to a demonically deviated monster. If the man really was using Thunder Flash like a casual jab, then Yu Kuai might well die here today.

Meanwhile, the rest of the security squad could not even react in time—they had not yet made out the specifics of the situation.

The black prison's suppression of their perception was not as extreme as it was for candidates, but their direct perception range was expanded tenfold at most—roughly thirty meters.

The spot where Wei Zhao and Yu Kuai stood fell squarely within the blind zone of everyone's perception.

Outside the arena.

At the sight, a savage light flashed through Di Feihong's eyes. "The evidence is conclusive! Kill him without mercy!"

He was about to step in himself then and there.

At least from the look of things, Yu Kuai's situation was genuinely perilous, and Wei Zhao undeniably gave the impression of having lost control.

If he used this opening to wipe Wei Zhao out, it would be entirely justified—no one could find a word to say against it.

But Chu Yunfan blocked his path. "Vice Principal Di, calm yourself. It hasn't come to that yet."

Di Feihong's expression darkened at once. "Hasn't come to that? By Vice Principal Chu's logic, must we wait until Yu Kuai dies at his hands before it counts as 'that'? Is the life of a fine expert of my Heavenly Dao Academy so worthless in Vice Principal Chu's eyes?"

At those words, many of those present turned to look at Chu Yunfan.

They might not be so easily stirred to emotion, but if something really did happen to Yu Kuai this time, and the root of it was merely that Wei Zhao had caught Chu Yunfan's fancy, then many among them would truly be disillusioned.

Even if you are a vice principal with real authority, you should not play it this way!

Chu Yunfan's expression did not change. "Wei Zhao has not lost control yet. Vice Principal Di, how about a bet with me?"

Di Feihong gave a cold snort. "I never gamble with the lives of my Academy's finest experts!"

Meanwhile, in the arena.

"I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead..."

Yu Kuai thrashed wildly while bracing himself for death.

Yet strangely enough, though the Thunder Flash kept gathering force, it never descended.

Even so, anyone in Yu Kuai's position at that moment could not help but feel their scalp crawl.

Just then, a faint energy light—so fine it was all but imperceptible—shot silently toward Wei Zhao's position.

"Oh, goddamn Atomic Blast? Fang Qingpin, you bastard!"

Yu Kuai snapped back to his senses and immediately let loose a stream of curses.

Atomic Blast was the signature paradigm of Fang Qingpin, the squad's output specialist. It was invisible to the naked eye and carried zero visual impact, but because its detonation occurred at the atomic level, its power was far beyond what common sense could reckon.

As a colleague from the neighboring security squad, Yu Kuai knew all too well just how devastating the thing was.

Even if it was not aimed at him, even if he were merely caught in the aftershock, he would still have a layer of skin peeled off.

At the same time, he realized that Fang Qingpin striking so ruthlessly now meant two things: he had picked the right moment, and he must have received orders from someone important.

After all, a single Atomic Blast like that could vaporize Wei Zhao on the spot if things went badly—and this was a man Chu Yunfan had explicitly declared he would protect. Without some backing behind him, would Fang Qingpin dare act so boldly on his own initiative?

As the Atomic Blast closed in, Wei Zhao abruptly raised his hand, and the Thunder Flash gathered at his fingertip met it head-on.

BOOM!

The blast wave swept through the entire black prison in an instant.

Never mind Di Liankong and those candidate rookies—even the security squad members were blasted apart, scattered and covered in dust and grime.

Fang Qingpin was aghast. "How is that possible?"

On the face of it, Wei Zhao had used Thunder Flash to cancel out his Atomic Blast, blocking the attack by clashing power against power—which fit most people's understanding perfectly.

But the problem was this: against his Atomic Blast, a power clash was utterly useless!