THE GOD EATER

Chapter 1172: The Bribe.

When he caught them focusing on him, he smiled, looked them straight in the face, and said, "Who will force me to make the oath?"

"No one is going to force you to make the oath, yet," Tepid Scholar interjected.

"But we will if we must," Sword Maestro added.

"Yes, we will," Tepid Scholar said in agreement. "However, before we go to the use of force, we would like to see if we can incentivize you to make the oath with benefits."

"I see. So this is a bribe," Loki said as he nodded in understanding. "I like bribes."

"Who doesn’t?" Harem King said with a snort.

He ignored her and said, "As it happens, I need something from you lot. I need to have a meeting with your Rank 8 cultivators in the Second Heaven."

"What for?" Martial Will immediately asked suspiciously.

Loki replied, "I just want to talk to them. I can promise not to kill them. No, I can swear not to kill them."

"Do you intend to convert them to your sect?" Tepid Scholar asked.

"Of course not," Loki replied without hesitation. "Why would you ask that?"

Harem, chuckling with mirth, said in reply, "Maybe it is because you’ve been doing foolish things to expand your sect recently?"

"Anyway, I don’t intend to recruit them. I am not that foolish," Loki said with exasperation.

"I know that it is impossible to recruit divine beings from other sects. If I wanted to recruit divine beings, I would have asked for a meeting with all of your divine beings, not just the Rank 8 ones."

"Frankly, I feel insulted that you would suggest such a thing," he added with anger.

"Good. I intended to insult you anyway," Harem King said without remorse.

Before the situation could escalate in an unfavorable direction, Tepid Scholar interjected quickly, saying, "It is not actually impossible to recruit a divine being to your sect."

"As long as you have the same Supreme Metac for their pathway, you can help them switch over to your sect. But if you don’t have the Supreme Metac for their pathway, you will never be able to control them."

"Nothing else will work. Even if you make them swear an oath to join your sect, the transfer will be in name only. They will still be under the control of the Dao Lord of their pathway," Tepid Scholar said pointedly.

Then Tepid Scholar added, staring intently at Loki, "I am telling you all of this so that when you fail to recruit them, you won’t get angry and try to take your anger out on the Blessed Heaven World."

"How many times do I have to say it?" Loki asked in frustration. "I don’t want to recruit them."

"As long as you allow me to meet with all of your rank 8 cultivators ten days from now for one day without calling them back or interfering, I swear in my Sao Heart that I will not interfere in the ascension of the Blessed Heaven World, will not harm any of the rank 8 cultivators intentionally, and will release them after the meeting."

Upon hearing the oath, Tepid Scholar smiled and said, "That’s good to hear."

As for Harem King, she snorted as she said, "It is good that you’re being reasonable. If not, we would have resorted to using force."

"What have I done to offend you?" Loki turned to her to ask.

"You know what you did," she said with bitterness.

"I don’t know. I really don’t know."

"You sent your avatar to kill me. I seized the avatar and sold it to Heavenly Eye. How is any of this my fault?" he asked in confusion.

"If you want to blame someone, blame Heavenly Eye. She bought your avatar. She was also the one who killed the avatar."

"I thought you two were allies. Talk to her about it. I’m sure she will listen if you tell her how much your Emotion Supreme Metac means to you."

In response, she snorted and turned away from him.

Their conversation ended on their own terms. Everyone withdrew their Divine Spirit and stopped communicating.

At least, that’s what it looked like to Loki. In the same divine constellation, the Dao Lords had combined their Divine Spirit into another spiritual stream and were communicating with each other.

He wasn’t part of this spiritual stream, so he couldn’t tell they were chatting, and he couldn’t tell what they were talking about. Still, even though he was excluded, he could guess one or two things they would discuss without him.

"What do you think he wants to meet the Rank 8 disciples for?" Heavenly Eye asked pensively. "I have a feeling that his request is not simple."

She hadn’t said a single word during the earlier meeting with Loki. She had spent the entire time listening to him and watching him closely. But as soon as Loki was out of hearing range, she began picking his request apart.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared her pessimism. They were either as suspicious of her or simply angry with her.

"And why would you think that he is suspicious?" Martial Will asked with a hint of mockery.

"Could your suspicion have anything to do with how you knew that he possessed a Divine Spark and was hiding it? Or is it because you know he is hiding something right now that you’re not telling us?"

"That’s a dead horse," Tepid Scholar said, cutting him off. "It is too late to complain about it now."

Martial Will wasn’t satisfied, but he knew that Tepid Scholar was right. So he just snorted and let the matter rest, for now.

But Heavenly Eye still explained her reason, saying, "No, I don’t think he is suspicious because I know he is hiding something. I am suspicious because he should be hiding something we don’t know."

"Think about it. He is recruiting disciples by increasing their lifespan. It was a joke when he started it. But it is no longer a joke now that every Gemini Dao Lord is doing it."