Chapter 3715 — Riding the Tiger

"Junior Brother Lin, you nearly scared us to death just now!" The long-suffering senior brother and the others crowded around Wei Zhao, complaining in jest.

Truth be told, they had been sick with worry down there below the platform—not only on Wei Zhao's account, but on their own as well.

For all that the long-suffering senior brother held the higher nominal status, Wei Zhao was the backbone of their little band. If anything happened to Wei Zhao, a handful like them could never hope to stand against the likes of Meng Jueming—and their days from then on would be truly miserable.

Wei Zhao smiled faintly. "Ha... I told you long ago, I know what I am doing. I would not act rashly."

The long-suffering senior brother and the others exchanged bitter smiles. Given the way things had looked just now, how could they not have worried?

Qiao Hongcai, however, gave a chuckle. "After all, our Wei Zhao is the leader—a perfect god-level performance is nothing to him at all! This outcome was entirely within my expectations, which is why I was not the least bit worried."

Xiao Ran glanced at him from the side and drily added, "Right. You merely trembled when you spoke, that is all."

"My heavens! That was exhaustion, I tell you—not worry that our leader Wei Zhao would run into trouble!" Qiao Hongcai yelped.

Wei Zhao and the others could not help but smile. Apart from sheer nervousness, who the hell gets so exhausted that their voice shakes when they speak? The man was plainly saying one thing and meaning another!

Compared with the easy laughter of Wei Zhao's group, the faces of Xu Lingchong, Hu Yunfeng, Meng Jueming, and the rest were now exceedingly grim.

Remember, they had just been mocking Wei Zhao before the eyes of the whole crowd, each of them loudly declaring that he had overestimated himself—and now? Wei Zhao had come down light as a cloud with a perfect god-level score, and those very words had naturally turned about into sharp slaps laid across their own faces, stinging their cheeks, stinging to the very marrow!

For a man to slap his own face so briskly and so savagely—truly a rare sight in this world.

And while all the newcomers clustered around Wei Zhao's perfect god-level score and each other's assessment points, marveling and sighing with emotion, the Law Enforcement Hall experts on the platform—who by all rights should have finished and gone—were sunk in a mire from which they could not pull free, every face stamped with an incredulous dread.

What in the world were those fools still doing up there? Had they lost the nerve to face him, and so did not dare come down?

By now the face of young master Xu Lingchong was dark enough to drip water. In his view, dealing with Wei Zhao should have been the work of a lifted hand; he had assumed that even if Wei Zhao did not die this time, he would at least leave half his life behind—yet never had he imagined that Wei Zhao would not merely walk away whole, but walk away with a perfect score that left every eye staring. How was a man to bear the shame?

Losing face before these newcomers would have been bad enough, but the crux was that he had just boasted to Shangguan Lanzhi in person, pledging his word that he would finish Wei Zhao off and vent her grievance, hoping thereby to win a measure of favor with the little princess—and now look. He had gone to steal a chicken and lost the rice instead; far from gaining her favor, he had let her witness a comedy at his own expense!

The illustrious young master Xu could not even deal with a trifling newcomer like Wei Zhao—the joke had grown very large indeed.

Little did they know that their Miss Shangguan Lanzhi was at this very moment delighted in her heart: as expected of my junior brother, he has truly carried forward my own magnificence!

Stung into a rage by his humiliation, young master Xu could only redirect his fury onto the Law Enforcement Hall experts on the platform—had they not bungled the job, how could he have fallen into such an awkward position?

What he did not know was that those few on the platform were not afraid to come down and face him; at this moment they simply could not come down!

Twenty times the pressure—this had utterly exceeded the limit of what they could control. The whole of the Law Enforcement Hall's pressure formation had begun to run at full power of its own accord, and their role had ceased to be that of masters of the formation; like the newcomers before them, they had become victims crushed beneath it!

Twenty times the pressure from the very start, and still it was surging upward beyond all control!

Pfft! The Law Enforcement Hall experts all spat blood at once, and this horrifying sight gave everyone below a start—even the fury-filled young master Xu froze, at a loss to understand.

What was going on? They had only been tasked with regulating the pressure, for heaven's sake—did they have to make themselves vomit blood over it? This was absurd!

Yet at this moment no one could answer their questions. The Law Enforcement Hall experts still on the platform were now utterly riding the tiger, unable to dismount; with pressure beyond twenty times bearing down on their heads, this was simply not something experts of their caliber could withstand.

Resistance was out of the question; even had they wished to rise and flee the field, they had the will but not the strength. Even a single further word, even the slightest slackening of their spirits, might leave them gravely wounded.

Every heart was seized by despair—at this rate they would truly die beneath this pressure formation running at full power!

The one man in the whole arena who knew what was really happening was Wei Zhao, and at this moment he felt not the slightest sympathy for them. After all, these people had just been trying to finish him; had the ghostly thing not lent its aid, he would at the very least have paid the price of grave injury today.

And now it was these men's turn to eat the fruit of their own deeds!

Though they had no notion of what exactly was happening up there, Xu Lingchong and Hu Yunfeng and the others below did finally sense that something was wrong—but sensing it was useless, for apart from the Law Enforcement Hall's own experts, outsiders like them could not possibly know how to regulate the pressure formation.

To rush up blindly would end in only one way: dying alongside those Law Enforcement Hall experts!

Watching the several men above grow more gravely wounded by the moment, perhaps a breath away from dying on the spot, everyone in the arena suddenly felt a shudder at the heart—an incomparably mighty aura had swept from afar, racing toward them all.

Wei Zhao was startled. An aura of such power was not far removed from those three elders he had seen last time in the rear mountain hall!

In the blink of an eye, a young man piercing as a sword's blade appeared abruptly atop the high platform. The pressure of over twenty times bore upon him, and it seemed utterly useless; not the slightest sign of strain could be seen upon him.

The young man swept his keen gaze once over the crowd below, and every person his eyes fell upon—Xu Lingchong and Hu Yunfeng included—could not help but tremble, treading as though upon thin ice, as if one careless moment would see them slain by that gaze.

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