Hu Yanlie wasn't just standing there; his muscles twitching, a literal aura of crimson beast-fire passively melting the obsidian stone beneath his bare feet.
Lu Jianheng, the elegant Sword Lord, had a thousand-yard stare that could cut glass, his hands heavily bandaged, an icy-blue sword aura expanding and contracting around him like a heartbeat.
Even Wen Shiru, the scholar, was vibrating with a terrifying aura of malice, his glasses cracked, calculating the exact force required to kill everyone in the courtyard if they tried to make him do another pushup.
They didn't look like diplomats. They looked like a platoon of battle-hardened, heavily traumatized, blood-crazed gladiators who had just fought their way out of the deepest circle of hell and were currently looking for a reason, any reason, to snap someone's neck.
The senior elite disciples of the Azure Dragon Sect felt their arrogant smirks melt off their faces.
