Chapter 4468 — Some Glad, Some Sorrowful

"Damn it all to hell! That mangy Xuanying Escort Agency got the worst of it against the Qingtian Escort Agency, and what do they do but vent their spleen on the Sihai Escort Agency! The sheer nerve of it! Waaah-yah-yah-yah!" Hai Wuliang was grinding his teeth in a fury, yet his first reaction was not to hate Zhao Shanying but to turn a venomous glare toward Wei Zhao in the distance, cursing inwardly: 'Ling Yi—Qingtian Escort Agency—I won't let you off easy, I swear it! Absolutely not! Just you wait!'

Naturally, Wei Zhao had no idea the man could be so utterly absurd. To think that the head chief of a grand traditional powerhouse, a hegemon in his own right, could be so petty—and then to shift his anger onto Wei Zhao for no rhyme or reason—was enough to make a man laugh and cry at once.

Had Wei Zhao known what Hai Wuliang was thinking at that moment, his very first thought would have been that the man had gone mad beyond saving, a textbook case of delusional paranoia...

Of course, Wei Zhao would never know Hai Wuliang's thoughts, nor would he ever bother to pay them any mind. Hai Wuliang might be a titan of the Southern Continent Escort Alliance, a figure of hegemonic stature, but in Wei Zhao's eyes he carried no real weight at all—just a self-important passerby, nothing more.

Some were glad, some were sorrowful. After that death-grip duel between the Xuanying Escort Agency and the Sihai Escort Agency, the fifth round of the Escort Agency Championship rolled on.

Agency after agency took the stage in turn. Anyone who still had even the faintest chance of climbing higher refused to be left behind—after all, their ranking in this grand Southern Continent gathering would directly determine their business prospects for the next five years. This was their livelihood!

And among these matchups, the one who briefly stole the spotlight was neither the Qingtian Escort Agency nor the old-line giants like the Sihai Escort Agency, but rather Zhao Shanying's own Xuanying Escort Agency.

Small wonder. The Xuanying Escort Agency's arena bouts came thick and fast. After clashing head-on with the Qingtian Escort Agency and then the Sihai Escort Agency in quick succession, they had spent two of their active challenge rights—yet they still had two opportunities to be challenged.

Whether someone was pulling strings behind the scenes, or these agencies simply wanted to seize the moment while Xuanying was badly weakened and stomp them into the ground, the result was the same: both of their remaining challenge opportunities were used up in less than half a shichen.

Their opponents in these two bouts were hardly as flashy as the Qingtian or Sihai agencies, but they were no weaklings either—at minimum, agencies solidly ranked in the upper-middle tier. And Xuanying had already burned through a full ten Gold Core consummate experts; there was no way they could field such a formidable lineup again. In both bouts, they had barely a single Gold Core consummate to anchor their side.

Even so, the Xuanying Escort Agency still had the last laugh. The team Zhao Shanying had built with his own hands might not be a first-string lineup, but against these mid-tier agencies they still moved with effortless ease, flawless and unassailable.

Four bouts in all: apart from a narrow loss to the Qingtian Escort Agency at the outset, they won the next three—including the one against the Sihai Escort Agency. Xuanying's score shot up to four hundred twenty points. Before, their ranking had been precarious; now they had vaulted into the top five, sitting high in fourth place!

Of course, had the other major agencies not also racked up hefty scores, Xuanying's tally would have been good enough for a top-three finish by the standards of any previous tournament!

By contrast, the Sihai Escort Agency—host of this year's gathering—had already been languishing in third place after the first four rounds. Now, after taking that blow to the head from the Xuanying Escort Agency, even winning two straight afterward could not salvage their slide. With three hundred forty points they sat in fifth, ground firmly beneath Xuanying's heel.

Faced with this galling outcome, Hai Wuliang was fit to breathe fire from all seven orifices. Had there not still been the agency-heads' challenge for last place ahead—which he convinced himself was a chance to turn the tables, still believing he could command the whole board—he would likely have exploded on the spot, dignity be damned.

In truth, in the fifth round of the championship, the Sihai Escort Agency, like the other members of the Big Five, had fought only three bouts, spending two active challenge rights and one right to be challenged. As for that one remaining right to be challenged, it could only sit there as mere decoration.

After all, not every agency came on with the ferocity of the Xuanying Escort Agency, and not every agency head had Zhao Shanying's nerve. To make them actively challenge the Sihai Escort Agency—such a blatantly foolish act of handing over free points—they would sooner die.

By comparison, the Qingtian and Xuanying agencies, both of the Big Five tier, were far luckier. Precisely because they were more or less underestimated, neither of their two challenge opportunities went to waste—a full two hundred points delivered right to their door. The other members of the Big Five were so green with envy their eyes nearly bled.

Hai Wuliang especially. He had long since counted first place at this gathering as already in his pocket, and now, with the fifth round nearly over, he had not only failed to close the gap with the Qingtian Escort Agency—it had only widened. And now he had been ground underfoot by the dark-horse Xuanying Escort Agency. How was a man supposed to bear such humiliation?

Before this, public opinion had always been mixed on both the Qingtian and Xuanying agencies. Unlike the traditional giants such as the Sihai Escort Agency, which were held in the highest esteem, the talk that had long circulated in the streets was that these two were mere upstarts with no real foundation, enjoying nothing but a fleeting run of luck. But now, no one would cling to such foolish notions any longer.

The Xuanying Escort Agency had not merely surpassed the Sihai Escort Agency in points—more crucially, they had beaten Sihai face to face, directly, in the thoroughly weighty Escort Agency Championship, and done so after first fighting a hard bout against the Qingtian Escort Agency. If that still counted as having no foundation, then what did that make the Sihai Escort Agency?

So it was that the Xuanying Escort Agency's strength had now sunk deep into people's minds, enough to become the consensus of public opinion. Everyone now knew that this newly reorganized outfit of rough-and-ready fighters was a force absolutely not to be taken lightly.

And at the same time, it proved something else as well: that the Qingtian Escort Agency was even stronger!

The Sihai Escort Agency had become the stepping stone for the Xuanying Escort Agency, and the Xuanying Escort Agency in turn had become the touchstone for the Qingtian Escort Agency. The stronger Xuanying proved to be, the more it demonstrated that the Qingtian Escort Agency, at the blazing height of its power, was truly invincible against all comers.

After all, of all thirty-two escort agencies in the entire field, from beginning to end, the Xuanying Escort Agency had suffered exactly one defeat—and that was at the hands of the Qingtian Escort Agency. (To be continued..) R527