Chapter 11646 — Beneath the Table
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
Yet Wei Zhao did not hesitate in the slightest. Under the gaze of every faction, he stepped straight through the gate.
As for Wei Baizhan and the rest of the Ten Great Sins, they remained lounging where they stood, showing not the slightest inclination to follow him in as guards.
"Is this overconfidence? Or is he truly a fool?"
The great lords of every faction were all struck dumb.
This whole situation had been beyond their comprehension from the very start.
In fact, the senior ranks of the Princely Estate of Qi were far more astonished than they were. Wei Zhao had actually walked in alone, utterly unguarded!
"Does he think today is truly just a simple meal? Surely there is no one in this world that foolish?"
The crowd did not understand, but inwardly they could not help feeling relieved.
Today's situation had been genuinely dire. After all, the enemies of the Princely Estate of Qi were not limited to Wei Zhao's faction alone.
By any normal course of events, even if the Princely Estate of Qi won by relying on home advantage, it would surely be a pyrrhic victory—after all, Wei Zhao's pack of wolves and tigers was no sham.
With both sides wounded, would the other rival factions—including the Princely Estate of Qin—give them room to catch their breath and recover their strength at leisure?
The worst outcome, and the most likely one, was that with the Princely Estate of Qi gravely weakened, someone would simply sweep them away in a single stroke.
This was the main reason the men of the Princely Estate of Qi were so pessimistic.
But now Wei Zhao had walked willingly, alone, into the jar—that changed everything.
So long as Wei Zhao was swiftly taken down, the Ten Great Sins outside would be a heap of loose sand without a leader, and dealing with them then would be far simpler.
Entering the Princely Estate of Qi.
The first thing Wei Zhao laid eyes on was not the senior leadership, but eight men and women, old and young, of bizarre appearance and uncanny aura.
These figures were by turns perverse, desolate, lewd, or mournful; each and every one carried an extreme negative emotion of their own.
Normally, anyone touched by even one of these would at best end up depressed and withdrawn, effectively cut off forever from normal society.
Yet strangely enough, though the aura emanating from these eight was utterly negative, each of their primordial spirits was unusually stable, untouched by these extreme negative emotions—steadier, even, than a normal person's.
Beyond that, the pure, refined energy emanating from the eight was equally striking.
Every single one of them was an early-stage Venerable of the Heaven Rank!
No wonder the Prince of Qi was so confident. Under normal circumstances, with a lineup like this, they would be a force of indiscriminate slaughter within the Inner Royal Court.
Wei Zhao named them off with great interest: "Shadowless Gale, Blazing Flame that Burns the Heavens, Immovable Boulder, Living Waters of Ten Thousand Births, Wood That Gives Life, Light That Pierces Darkness, Sound That Beguiles the Heart, Death That Sends the Soul Onward."
The crowd had been indifferent at first, but at these words their expressions all changed at once.
Wei Zhao went on. "I hear the Princely Estate of Qi specially raised the Eight Ultimate Guards, each given a title—Ultimate Wind, Ultimate Fire, Ultimate Earth, Ultimate Water, Ultimate Wood, Ultimate Light, Ultimate Sound, Ultimate Fate. Any one of them is a master who has distilled all there is to know in their field. Are you planning to open my eyes for me today?"
The crowd's faces turned all the darker.
Even within the Princely Estate of Qi, the Eight Ultimate Guards were an extremely secret existence; apart from the Prince of Qi's own faction, almost no one knew of them.
And now Wei Zhao recited them off like a connoisseur counting his treasures.
The implication behind this was truly enough to make one's blood run cold.