Chapter 4392 — Prison Break!

"Enough of your fucking nonsense—walk, or I'll pinch you to death!" The guard extended an impatient palm, and the man instantly fell silent, meekly following the two guards away.

Watching the dungeon door slowly swing shut, the crowd finally let out a breath of relief—especially Lu Bianren, whose life had hung by a thread moments before; he expelled a long breath of stale air. Had the guards hauled him off for whatever human experimentation they had in mind, it might have been a narrow escape from death—or perhaps not a shred of hope at all: ten parts dead, not one part living!

Yet while everyone else was settling their nerves, Wei Zhao was secretly overjoyed. In the instant the door had opened, he had clearly sensed that beyond these two skilled guards, no one else stood watch outside.

Reason bore it out. One top-tier Xuan Ascension expert, plus one peak late-Nascent Soul expert—more than enough to garrison this little dungeon. Any more manpower would be waste, utterly unnecessary.

And what delighted Wei Zhao even more was that the two guards had escorted the man out together. He knew not how far off the destination lay, but so long as both men left the dungeon—even for a brief moment—it was a heaven-sent opportunity!

He quietly gauged the timing: once those two guards had walked their prisoner far enough, there should be no one outside. This was the rarest of windows—miss it, and once Sun Hengbiao discovered in days to come that he was a Golden Core expert, such a chance might never come again.

"Anyone who doesn't want to die, get behind me now!" Wei Zhao bellowed without warning, and rose abruptly to his full height. It startled the dungeon's occupants badly; they exchanged bewildered looks. The guards had scarce departed—what madness had possessed this fiend now?

"N-no—no, boss, I swear I wasn't targeting Lu Bianren! It was his turn, and I even took it back on the spot—please, spare my life, spare my life..." Sun Hengbiao was so frightened he wet his pants on the spot. He had assumed Wei Zhao was about to settle scores after the fact.

Wei Zhao shot the fellow a glance, torn between laughter and exasperation. His face cold, he said, "Enough chatter. Those who don't want to die, get behind me—can't you understand plain speech? Then don't blame me when you lose your miserable lives!"

"Huh? You're not going to kill me?" Sun Hengbiao breathed easy, scrambled to his feet, and crawled and tumbled his way to stand behind Wei Zhao.

The others, though somewhat at a loss, dared not defy this fiend's will. If even a ruthless man like Sun Hengbiao had been brought to heel so obediently, what of them, whose strength fell far short of his? After a round of glances exchanged among themselves, they filed one by one behind Wei Zhao.

Lu Bianren stood at Wei Zhao's side, exceedingly puzzled at heart—he knew not what connection this fiend bore him, still less what scheme was brewing in that head, yet he dared not rashly open his mouth to ask. He could only stand by with the rest of them, Sun Hengbiao and all, watching with uneasy hearts.

"Shield yourselves with true qi, or die for all I care!" Wei Zhao barked again, and the top-grade pill-fire true qi bomb he had been gathering and compressing slowly surfaced in his palms.

It had not yet detonated, but the horrifying aura that leaked from it—were it even a thread—was enough to make every heart in the dungeon leap with fright. One and all, they looked at Wei Zhao as though at a monster, trembling with fear, scared out of their wits.

They understood not what technique this was, still less how such a thing had been condensed, yet that did not hinder their perception of danger.

Such a world-shattering, terror-laden aura could not possibly be a bluff. Even though all of them were experts above the Golden Core stage, once caught in its blast they would die without question. This one truly was a fiend whom no one could provoke!

By now, the crowd had more or less guessed Wei Zhao's intent. Amid their awe and dread, hope crept unbidden onto their faces.

Whoever it was, shut up in this sunless dungeon, living in daily terror of whether the next human experiment would pluck him away, would be scared out of his wits before long.

If there was a chance to flee the dungeon—even a sliver of a chance—not one of them would let it slip, Sun Hengbiao included. Human experiments might not use Nascent Soul experts now, but who the hell knew what the future held?

A place of such peril—of course one fled the moment one could! Otherwise, who knew when death would come?

The crowd hurriedly roused their true qi with all their might to shield themselves, every neck craned, awaiting Wei Zhao's next move. Yet hope was hope: many of the old-timers who had been locked up the longest were, at bottom, merely watching the show—they did not believe Wei Zhao could succeed.

After all, Wei Zhao was surely not the first to conceive the notion of prison break. Sun Hengbiao included, many had harbored such thoughts, and some had even put them into practice—only the results were plain for all to see: failure, every one.

The dungeon was reinforced by a dedicated protective array, tough as all hell; an ordinary Nascent Soul expert could not so much as scratch it—only a Xuan Ascension expert might. And this fiend—brutal as he was, and truly strong enough to thrash Sun Hengbiao, a mid-Nascent Soul expert—if one claimed he was a Xuan Ascension titan, that was dreaming too much.

Hopeful, yet dismissive—such was the temper of the dungeon's occupants at this moment. But after Wei Zhao abruptly struck, their eyes changed in an instant.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Rumbling, the earth shook and the mountains swayed; the crowd could not even count how many massive quakes had erupted—perhaps the shock of the top-grade bomb, perhaps the chain reactions it triggered. They felt only that heaven was falling and earth splitting, as though they stood in the midst of doomsday, panic-stricken and lost.

Many, even with true qi shielding them beforehand, were still wounded by the aftershocks; some were gravely hurt, nearly killed on the spot.

"It's open! It's really open!" Sun Hengbiao suddenly pointed ahead, shouting in wild joy. Amid the chaos, the others could not make out his words, but following the direction of his finger, the expressions on every face froze.

The dungeon was not completely shattered, but of one thing there was no doubt: the protective array reinforcing the walls had definitely been destroyed—for not far ahead, where darkness had reigned, a beam of long-lost sunlight was now streaming in!

Disbelief, stunned bewilderment, wild joy—even sobs. The faces of the dungeon's occupants at this moment were a spectacular sight to behold.