Chapter 4448 — A Named Challenge
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
Cheng Haonan and Long Kuiba were stunned for a moment, and only then did it belatedly dawn on them what had nearly happened. Privately, they gave Wu Baoliang a covert thumbs-up; had his answer not hit the mark, the lot of them would by now be lying dead on the spot.
It was plain enough that in those brief moments Hai Wuliang had toyed with the thought of killing them. After all, cutting down a few devil cultivators would win prestige and renown for the Four Seas Escort Agency—a windfall dropped into his lap, and no man turns down such a gift.
On the other hand, though, Hai Wuliang was in no mind to let slip the chance to deal with Ling Yi; that was why he had suddenly put the question.
If Ling Yi were easy to handle—if his own men could settle the fellow—then there would be no need for Wu Baoliang and his companions, and he could slaughter the devil cultivators without a moment's hesitation to make his name. But if Ling Yi proved hard to handle, and his own men could not settle him alone, then the matter called for careful weighing.
Fortunately, Wu Baoliang's wits had been quick and his answer clever enough, and so they had narrowly escaped disaster, sparing them whatever decision Hai Wuliang might otherwise have made to their detriment.
The reasoning was simple. Since Ling Yi could cripple a master at the peak of the early Nascent Soul stage, an ordinary Golden Core expert clearly could not deal with him—at least not with absolute certainty. So if Hai Wuliang still wished to move against Ling Yi, he could only borrow Wu Baoliang's hand; and that being so, he naturally would not act against them.
In the end, the hatred of Ling Yi outweighed the benefits of slaying devil cultivators, and the decision Hai Wuliang reached let Wu Baoliang and the others scrape through by the narrowest of margins.
"Might I ask, Chief Escort Hai, how you plan to arrange things?" The moment the crisis passed, Cheng Haonan could not wait to press the question.
"Tomorrow is the final round. Its content differs little from past conferences—a full day of challenge matches," Hai Wuliang disclosed.
"Oh? Then may I ask, Chief Escort Hai, what are the rules of these challenge matches?" Long Kuiba followed up at once. It was not only for the sake of dealing with Ling Yi; knowing the rules in advance—even by a single night—would let him prepare all the more thoroughly, and that in turn would affect the final standings.
"The fifth round is called the Escort Agencies' Free Challenge," Hai Wuliang said, glancing at the three of them. He made no particular effort to conceal it; it made no difference to him whether they knew early or not. "When the time comes, every agency will have two chances to challenge another agency, and two chances to answer a challenge. Each bout is staked at one hundred points—the winner takes a hundred, the loser forfeits a hundred."
"Such high stakes?" Long Kuiba's eyes lit up at once. Win all four bouts and a man could take a full four hundred—especially if the points were plundered from the opponent's tally, the swing in one exchange making the gap all the wider.
Never mind that Qingtian Escort Agency now stood alone at the top, four hundred points ahead of the runner-up; if this final fifth round were played well, even Longzhou Escort Agency, with only a hundred and ten points to its name, might yet overtake them!
"Just so. Everything before was mere skirmishing; the last round is the true main event. That has always been the rule of the Southern Continent Escort Gathering. So you may seize the chance to challenge Qingtian Escort Agency," Hai Wuliang said with a nod.
"Challenging Qingtian is no problem—but what if that Ling Yi refuses to take the field?" Cheng Haonan and the others exchanged glances, uneasy.