I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality

**Chapter 743: Oppressive Pressure**

A little earlier in time.

The three sixth-ring wizards from the other branch of the Colmar family had gathered early with their respective partners in a small palace on the other side of the plane. The palace’s decorations were identical to the banquet hall outside: cloudstone floors, carved pillars, and floating illumination crystals overhead with perfectly adjusted brightness.

Yet the expressions on these people’s faces were completely different from those of the guests in the banquet hall. Not even a trace of ease could be found.

“That old thing really went all out.”

A female sixth-ring wizard of the Colmar family held her teacup, her tone laced with unmistakable mockery.

She was the most senior member of this branch. The scaled edges of her robe rustled faintly with her movements. “He even invited several seventh-ring wizards. He must have used up every connection he’s accumulated over the years.”

Her partner was a tall, slender male sixth-ring wizard with mild features. Sitting beside her, his tone was far steadier: “It doesn’t matter. We’ve also invited elders from my family. We won’t lose out on seventh-rings. Besides, seventh-ring wizards are only here to stand as presence. They won’t actually intervene in an occasion like this. With seventh-rings on both sides, no one would be able to clean up the mess if something really happened.”

“The connections everyone has built up over the years are more or less equal. There’s nothing much to say about that.”

Another male sixth-ring wizard of the Colmar family picked up the conversation. His fingers tapped lightly on the armrest of his chair, the rhythm revealing irrepressible irritation.

“The key is at the sixth-ring level. What kind of people David and his wife can invite is what we need to pay the most attention to.”

“No need to worry about that.”

The male sixth-ring wizard sitting opposite him set down his wine cup, the corners of his mouth curving into a smug arc.

Deep purple runes were embroidered on the cuffs of his robe—the family emblem of his wife’s clan.

“I spent quite a hefty price this time to invite several helpers. They can definitely handle a little fellow who has only just become sixth-ring.” As he spoke, his gaze suddenly shifted slightly, and joy immediately appeared on his face.

“Perfect, they’re here. Let’s go meet them together.”

The teleportation array’s light flashed and extinguished on the small square outside the palace. Three figures walked out from the glow.

The one leading the way was almost unrecognizable as humanoid.

Its body resembled a constantly wriggling mass of semi-transparent gelatin, shifting slowly between pale green and deep blue. Tiny bubbles continuously rose and burst across its surface.

Yet no one present would underestimate it because of its appearance.

The second figure following closely behind maintained a complete lightning-elemental form.

It was a humanoid silhouette formed from high-density ionized gas, with fine crackling electric arcs constantly jumping around its body, causing the surrounding ground to flicker between light and dark.

Every flash of electric light carried an extremely unstable and dangerous oppressive force.

The last one was completely different in style.

Exaggeratedly robust muscles stretched his robe tight. A two-handed greatsword nearly as tall as he was hung at his waist.

He looked less like a wizard and more like a berserker who had just emerged from slaughter in some savage plane.

All three sixth-ring wizards exuded unmasked ferocious auras.

The Colmar male sixth-ring wizard greeted them with a face full of smiles, rubbing his hands together in front of him and adopting an extremely deferential posture.

“The three of you have traveled far. Thank you for your hard work! All the conditions we previously agreed upon have been fully prepared. We’re just waiting for you to inspect the goods.”

He eagerly led the three into the rest area inside the palace and personally poured each of them a cup of tea brewed with rare materials. “Later we’ll be relying on the three of you. As discussed before, there’s no need to actually take action. Just show your faces at the banquet and apply some pressure to the other side. It would be best if you can also ‘invite’ out the people David brought.”

He emphasized the word “invite,” and the meaning was self-evident.

Among the three, the wizard dressed as a berserker crossed his arms over his chest and let out a low, muffled “Mm” from his throat.

The slime-form wizard’s surface bubbled more densely, which counted as a nod.

The lightning-elemental one remained silently crackling.

After confirming the contract details once more, the berserker wizard in charge of negotiations finally spoke in a hoarse voice:

“Simply increasing pressure on the other side isn’t a big problem. As long as you pay the final installment, our contract ends.”

The Colmar sixth-ring wizard’s smile stiffened for an instant before returning to normal.

However, the corner of his eye twitched almost imperceptibly.

To hire these three, he had spent most of the private savings he had accumulated over the years and even used up a rather valuable favor from his wife’s clan.

Though it was a one-time transaction, the cost was so great that he had to repeatedly convince himself it was “worth the price.”

But if they could suppress the other side at this wedding and make the guests David invited back down, they could naturally take over as the main branch of the Colmar family afterward.

As long as they succeeded, the price was worth it.

“Of course, of course.”

He smiled, still enthusiastic, though a trace of hidden pain lingered in his voice.

“Then next, we should also go see what kind of people that little fellow David managed to invite.”

The teleportation array lit up once more. Several people left the palace together and appeared at the other end of the banquet hall.

A sufficiently large banquet hall naturally had multiple entrances and exits. The design had originally been meant to prevent the two branches from encountering each other early and clashing. Yet at the moment the wedding was about to begin, the crowds from both sides inevitably converged under the lead of their respective sixth-ring wizards.

On the other side, the seventh-ring wizards did not intervene.

Even the seventh-ring wizards invited by the different factions of the Colmar family simply gathered in the rest area as usual, conversing.

Some held teacups and discussed the recent military reforms in the Star Ring Federation. Others quietly exchanged research data from their respective planes. Still others simply sat with their eyes closed, resting.

Occasionally someone would glance toward the confrontation between the sixth-ring wizards, but only a glance.

In their eyes, friction between juniors was no different from ants fighting. It wasn’t worth setting down their teacups. Therefore, the true main force that needed to perform at this banquet was that group of sixth-ring wizards.

The three sixth-ring wizards from the other branch of the Colmar family led their side’s guests into the hall first.

Behind them followed a formidable procession of sixth-ring wizards—their partners, representatives sent by their partners’ families, and the three specially invited unfamiliar faces.

The moment the three appeared, the three hired sixth-ring wizards unhesitatingly released their auras.

The berserker-dressed wizard planted his greatsword into the ground. Just the overflow of its heavy force field left a ring of fine cracks on the cloudstone slabs.

The lightning-elemental wizard’s arcs suddenly surged violently. Crackling electric light exploded in the banquet hall, producing a blinding cyan-blue glow.

The slime-form wizard expanded its body to several times its original size. Its semi-transparent gelatinous form rose high, casting a large wriggling shadow in the air.

The combined auras of the three sixth-ring wizards intertwined and pressed unreservedly toward the central area of the banquet hall.

David had already left Jie Ming and Augusta and was now surrounded by several guests in the center.

As the protagonist of the banquet, the smile on his face had not completely faded, but his eyes involuntarily swept toward the opposing formation. His gaze quickly passed over the three unfamiliar sixth-ring wizards, then looked toward Jie Ming standing beside the flowerbed on his side. He shot him a meaningful look—clearly warning: Be careful, the ones they brought are tough opponents.

Jie Ming’s somewhat vacant expression finally returned to focus at this moment.

He had already completed his perceptual analysis the instant the three sixth-ring wizards released their auras, only then shifting his attention over.

It’s starting?

Jie Ming subconsciously glanced at Augusta beside him.

Augusta still wore that expressionless face, but a very brief “Hm” sounded from his nose.

“Then let’s end this quickly…”

Jie Ming set down the fruit juice glass in his hand, turned to face the three sixth-ring wizards who were freely releasing their pressure, and strode forward.

The moment he lifted his leg, Jie Ming unhesitatingly bloomed his own aura.

Boom!!!

The instant he unleashed his aura, the entire banquet hall seemed to press the pause button.

The power accumulated within Jie Ming’s body surged out all at once from its suppressed state, like a giant beast that had slumbered for hundreds of years at the bottom of the sea suddenly turning over.

Almost simultaneously, every wizard below sixth-ring in the hall stopped moving.

Someone had just raised a wine cup, but their hand froze in mid-air.

Someone was about to speak to the person beside them, mouth open, yet forgot what they wanted to say.

The sixth-ring guests who were the main participants in this confrontation were even more horrified to discover that their bodies were refusing to move.

It was the biological instinct when facing a natural disaster forcibly taking over muscle control.

Their brains screamed to move, but their legs were nailed to the ground, unable to take even one step.

Even the seventh-ring wizards in the rest area stopped their conversations.

Augusta’s hand holding the teacup paused in the air for an instant. Then she slightly turned her head. A trace of unconcealed astonishment flashed in her eyes.

A nearby seventh-ring wizard said something in a low voice. He did not reply, only watching Jie Ming’s back as the corners of his mouth slowly curved into a meaningful arc.

The three specially invited sixth-ring wizards at the very front, as Jie Ming’s primary targets, naturally bore the brunt of it.

The auras they had released earlier were crushed in the exact same instant Jie Ming unleashed his, a completely one-sided suppression. They felt as if an overwhelming tsunami had surged toward them with unstoppable force. Even the air they breathed became heavy and viscous. Every breath required several times more effort than usual.

It was also like staring directly into the abyss, as if what stood before them was not a fifth-ring wizard but some terrifyingly colossal existence.

The hand of the berserker-dressed wizard gripping his greatsword began to tremble uncontrollably.

He could feel every muscle fiber in his body roaring to flee, yet reason told him that the enemy in front was already so close that any escape attempt would be instantly captured.

The slime-form wizard fared the worst.

Its body directly lost morphological stability as Jie Ming approached. Irregular ripples crazily surged across its semi-transparent gelatinous surface. Small chunks of gelatin continuously sloughed off from the edges due to excessive stress, leaving wriggling residue on the ground.

The lightning-elemental one desperately tried to maintain its humanoid silhouette, but the ionized gas kept dissipating under the pressure. The crackling arcs turned into urgent explosive sounds.

Its outline was repeatedly crushed and re-condensed, like a candle flame about to be blown out by the wind.

Jie Ming arrived before the three.

His footsteps were light. Each step was unhurried, as if he were truly just a passerby who happened to glance this way. Then he stopped, smiled peacefully, and nodded.

That smile was like greeting a neighbor.

Gentle, polite, with curved eyes and the perfect upward angle at the corners of his mouth.

Then he walked straight past them.

Cold sweat dripped from the berserker’s forehead, rolling down his cheeks and into his collar.

Only then did the slime and elemental wizards realize they were breathing heavily. The stress reaction had been so intense that their souls were instinctively simulating respiration.

They still dared not move, like three statues temporarily nailed to the ground.

Jie Ming passed through the crowd and walked up to David.

He took out a recording crystal from his sleeve. “Congratulations on your marriage. This is my gift to you.”

He handed the crystal to David, said a few more words of congratulations, then turned around, walked back through the still-frozen crowd, and returned to stand beside Augusta.

The moment he returned to his original spot, Jie Ming withdrew his aura.

That overwhelming oppressive force retracted into his body like a beast returning to its nest, vanishing as if it had never appeared.

The air in the banquet hall became light once more. A breeze blew across the flowerbed, carrying away several fallen leaves.

Almost all wizards below sixth-ring in the hall exhaled at the same time.

Some discovered their hands holding wine cups were still trembling slightly. Others muttered curses under their breath, though the voices were too soft to tell who they were cursing.

The three hired sixth-ring wizards finally felt they could move again.

The slime-form wizard re-condensed its body. The gelatinous residue that had sloughed off was silently reabsorbed, yet even more and denser bubbles than usual kept rising across its surface.

Its sensory organs turned toward the Colmar sixth-ring wizard who had hired them. Its voice was hoarse and direct:

“Sorry, I can’t handle this matter. We’ll take our leave.”

The other two silently nodded as well.

The berserker-dressed wizard pulled his greatsword from the ground, leaving a shallow pit in the cloudstone slab. He no longer cared about it.

The lightning-elemental wizard’s arcs stabilized once more, but its silhouette had shrunk by a full size compared to when it first arrived.

The three returned the compensation they had received from their employer untouched, then headed straight for the nearest teleportation array without looking back. Their steps were quick. Though they appeared to be walking, it felt more like they were running.

Only when the teleportation array’s light lit up beneath their feet did the three finally breathe a sigh of relief, as if they had escaped.