Chapter 4200 — I Surrender!
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
And while Wei Zhao surveyed his surroundings, those Golden Core experts around him were likewise quietly watching him—or, more accurately, watching the veiled Huang Xiaotao at his side!
In the North Island's Threefold Pavilion, female cultivators were already few and far between, and those who could reach the Golden Core stage were rarer still. Across the entire field, Huang Xiaotao was the only woman competing in the inner-sect tournament; apart from her, there was only Shangguan Lan'er in the stands, watching the spectacle. Whether she liked it or not, Huang Xiaotao could not escape notice.
"How did that Huang Xiaotao suddenly become an early Golden Core expert—and why is she with Wei Zhao?" Xu Lingchong blurted out in astonishment.
He knew every Golden Core expert of the Threefold Pavilion, yet for all his calculations, it had never once occurred to him that Wei Zhao would find such a partner. It genuinely caught him off guard.
"That Wei Zhao really is a lecher through and through—he'll even take a disfigured woman. The man has no standards at all!" Meng Zhou sneered from the side.
"Hmph, I say he's a cornered dog jumping the wall—forced into a dead end, so he grabbed whatever partner he could. I've no idea when Huang Xiaotao formed her core, but judging by her aura, she broke through only recently, and her strength must be very limited." Xu Lingchong curled his lip in mockery. "Heh heh, two early Golden Core cultivators—they won't even know how they died later. Let's just sit back and enjoy the show!"
Amid the crowd's murmurs, the inner-sect tournament finally began in earnest. The first day's matches were one-on-one, with opponents decided by public drawing of lots.
Curiously enough, Wei Zhao—the famed newcomer king of the Welcome Pavilion—was the very first to be drawn onto the arena, and his first-round opponent was a formal outer-sect disciple from the Azure Cloud Pavilion, Yu Dayong.
Yu Dayong was an early Golden Core expert who had lately risen to prominence in the Azure Cloud Pavilion; before this he had been utterly unknown, and no one had ever paid him any attention. By contrast, Wei Zhao, the newcomer king who never stopped generating talking points, was far more of a draw.
Almost every eye in the hall was fixed on Wei Zhao—some gazes amused, some contemptuous, some indifferent. Everyone wanted to see with their own eyes just how much this newcomer king was really worth.
Wei Zhao stood on one side of the arena with his hands clasped behind his back, his expression calm—and then, once Yu Dayong stepped onto the platform, his formerly placid aura abruptly surged with mad ferocity. One moment it had been still waters; the next, towering, sky-high waves. The onlookers' faces changed in an instant.
Feeling that terrifying aura, Yu Dayong's expression immediately betrayed a flicker of hesitation and inner struggle. They were both early Golden Core, yet comparing the two presences—how could they possibly look like cultivators of the same tier?
"First round of the inner-sect tournament individual battles: Wei Zhao versus Yu Dayong—begin now!" the referee announced at once. This... this referee was actually a Nascent Soul expert, and at this moment he was not suppressing his strength in the slightest, but displaying it in full!
This was also the first time Wei Zhao had seen a Nascent Soul expert in the Threefold Pavilion. As for the other big shots, they never displayed their strength in normal times, and his golden finger could not be used to appraise those above his level, so he had no idea at all of the true strength of Shangguan Tianxia and the others—he only knew that their auras were deeply intimidating.
Below the arena, the crowd's expressions turned solemn all at once. They meant to observe Wei Zhao's strength carefully. Yu Dayong of the Azure Cloud Pavilion was not strong, true, but Wei Zhao was, after all, only early Golden Core. Surely the two should be able to trade a few blows.