Chapter 4178 — The Man in Black Appears Again

At this moment, among the whole crowd, only Meng Zhou's expression remained unchanged; he simply watched Wei Zhao on the stage with perfect calm, and no one could tell what he was thinking.

As for the Nan Tianxiong and Nan Tianguan brothers, they exchanged glances, still shaken. After all, Su Zhaohe possessed the ability to kill opponents above his own rank—at the very least he was comparable to a peak early Golden Core expert—and yet Wei Zhao had still cut him down in a single move, like slaughtering a chicken. If it had been Nan Tianxiong in his place, the outcome would have been no better; and as for Nan Tianguan, who to this day had only reached Foundation Establishment grand completion, there was even less to say.

After today's battle, before their eyes Wei Zhao had truly become a figure they could only look up to. On their own, they would never dare provoke him again—that would be courting death outright.

Among the crowd, a man wearing a wide-brimmed bamboo hat that hid his face stared at Wei Zhao on the stage—unruffled as the wind and clouds, yet brimming with an overpowering air—and could not help but shudder. He shrank his neck and slipped away at once.

The man was no disciple of the Threefold Pavilion; he had mingled in with the crowd. Had Wei Zhao stood before him, he would surely have recognized the face beneath the hat at a glance—it was none other than that mid Golden Core expert he had encountered earlier at Husky Peak in the Tianwu Mountains!

Their last clash had left both sides gravely wounded; he had been forced into seclusion to recover for a full month, and only recently had his injuries barely healed enough for him to emerge. And the very first thing he did was report to Su Zhaohe the matter of Wei Zhao killing Su Zhaohu and the others—with one goal only: to borrow another's blade.

Wei Zhao's identity exposed, Su Zhaohe's public challenge before the crowd—everything was unfolding exactly as he had envisioned. In his mind, though he had been duped once by Wei Zhao's so-called dan-fire bombs and still felt a lingering dread at the memory, given Su Zhaohe's long-celebrated genius and strength, dealing with a mere Wei Zhao should not go far wrong, even if it proved less smooth than expected.

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined things would suddenly come to such a pass!

Su Zhaohe, an early Golden Core expert, was so utterly helpless before Wei Zhao. His own strength might surpass Su Zhaohe's, but only by a very limited margin—how could he possibly be a match for the Wei Zhao of today?

What baffled him even more was this: barely a month ago Wei Zhao had clearly been only at Foundation Establishment, so how had he suddenly become an early Golden Core expert? Could he have been concealing his strength all along?

Even a Ten-Thousand-Tribulation Golden Core Fruit would normally only be used to boost the strength of Golden Core experts—it could not possibly let a Foundation Establishment expert condense a core in one leap, could it? Such a thing had never been heard of, and was simply impossible!

Try as he might, the man in the bamboo hat could not puzzle it out, and in his heart, besides hatred for Wei Zhao, there now lurked a faint, inexpressible fear.

The Wei Zhao who had only been at Foundation Establishment had already fought him to a mutual ruin. Now Wei Zhao was early Golden Core, his strength likely surging more than tenfold—how was he supposed to manage that?

Ambush Wei Zhao when the chance came? The moment the thought surfaced, the man in the bamboo hat felt his own resolve falter. If he truly tried it, the odds were nine in ten that Wei Zhao would be perfectly fine while he himself followed in Su Zhaohe's footsteps.

But to simply watch Wei Zhao roam free and unfettered—his heart felt clawed by a hundred talons, and he absolutely refused to let the matter rest.

Seek revenge, and he might well be killed instead. Forgo revenge, and he could not swallow the bitter rage; with the knot in his heart unloosed, it might even hinder his future cultivation. The man in the bamboo hat was now truly caught between a rock and a hard place.

"Am I just to watch that brat Wei Zhao run wild?" the man in the bamboo hat muttered, pinching his chin in unwilling resentment. Just then, a hand suddenly came to rest on his shoulder without a sound.

"Who's there?" The man in the bamboo hat was scared out of his wits, nearly frightened into madness. He sprang a step forward, then turned to look behind him, still pale with shock—at a mysterious figure dressed all in black, whose true face could not be seen.

Cold sweat broke out all over the man in the bamboo hat. He eyed the figure warily. To appear behind him without a sound, less than a step away, while he—a mid Golden Core expert—had not sensed a thing; if the other had meant to kill, he would already be dead a hundred times over. This mysterious man in black's strength was unfathomably deep.

"I have a way to let you raise your strength quickly. Interested?" the mysterious man in black said mildly.

"Raise my strength quickly? There's such a good thing?" The man in the bamboo hat gave him a wary look, then sneered. "There's no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Your tricks are far too childish, sir—you underestimate me."

In the jianghu there was far too much scheming and double-dealing; one careless step and a man could fall into another's trap. As a mid Golden Core expert, the man in the bamboo hat had seen plenty of such things.

"Heh, quite the guard you keep." The mysterious man in black smiled, unoffended. Then his figure suddenly flickered, vanishing into thin air, and in the next instant he stood behind the man in the bamboo hat.

The man in the bamboo hat's heart lurched again. Compared with this mysterious man in black, the supersonic speed Su Zhaohe had displayed on the stage earlier was child's play, not worth mentioning.

And he confirmed one thing once more: if this man wished to kill him, it would truly take no effort at all.

Yet the mysterious man in black clearly had no such intent. He merely leaned close to his ear, spoke a single sentence, and turned to go.

And yet that one simple sentence changed the man in the bamboo hat's expression at once, and his attitude underwent a complete about-face. He nodded hurriedly in agreement and followed the mysterious man in black away, his face full of conviction.

A short while later, the man in the bamboo hat was in an underground secret chamber, injected with some kind of potion and circulating his energy to digest its power.

At the same time, directly above that chamber, in an elegantly appointed private room, the man in black was reporting with the utmost deference to a mysterious woman.

"I have already injected him with the potion, and taught him the knack for digesting its power," the man in black reported, head bowed.

"Good." The mysterious woman nodded as she went on arranging flowers.

"But, if I may make so bold as to ask, sir—what potion is this, exactly?" the man in black could not help asking in some puzzlement. This was the first time he had come across such a potion; he had never seen its like before, which, given his level and standing, was a rare thing indeed.

"Don't ask what you shouldn't ask. You've been with us long enough—do you not even understand these rules?" A note of displeasure crept into the mysterious woman's flat tone. (To be continued..) R527