THE GOD EATER

”You have ten seconds to think about my proposal. After ten seconds, I either get them for a hundred years or I kill all of them here and now,” he said with a tone of finality.

Tepid Scholar didn’t get what he wanted, but he could only sigh and inwardly lament his fate. Then he turned to the other Dao Lords and began to discuss with them.

Normally, Black Chain and Harem King had no right to speak during the discussion. After all, they didn’t have any stake in this matter. So the discussion was mostly between Martial Will and the other 3.

However, Black Chain suspected what Loki wanted to do with the divine beings he was borrowing and didn’t want Loki to have his way. So he joined the discussion and spoke up about refusing to let Loki have his way.

”You can’t let him have those divine beings,” Black Chain said vehemently.

”I am sure he wants to use them to invade the Gemini younglings’ worlds. So many of them will die while he will benefit from their death.”

”If you keep the divine beings and use them to invade worlds in cooperation with the Gemini younglings, you will get the benefit he is after.”

”That’s new information,” Tepid Scholar said, understanding what Loki’s goal had been all along.

But then he shook his head and said, ”Unfortunately, it is too late now. He has us in a chokehold. Either we give him what he wants, or we lose everything.”

No one spoke up for Tepid Scholar, so the Dao Lord of the Four Directions Sect turned to the most stubborn Dao Lord he knew and said, ”What about you? Will you let him benefit at your expense? These are divine beings that you spent years to create.”

”Give it up. We’ve lost,” Martial Will said despondently.

Black Chain couldn’t say anything anymore. Instead, his eyes turned to the frozen Rank 8 cultivators, and he began to consider how to get them killed, so that Loki wouldn’t get his way.

Meanwhile, Sword Maestro was saying, ”I have learned something from this resounding failure, though. It is that we should abolish the alliance system in our sects.”

”It is a good idea in that something like this, where 21 Rank 8 cultivators can fall with nearly every Rank 7 cultivator in the sect, won’t happen again,” Tepid Scholar said in agreement. ”But without alliances, our divine beings won’t be able to combine their Cave Heaven, making them weaker.”

”There is also the matter of the life leech,” Heavenly Eye said to remind them. ”If Rank 8 cultivators can form an alliance to make weaker divine beings work for them, they might not be able to afford paying 10,000 years every ten years.”

Before they could continue to argue about the merits and demerits of the alliance system, Martial Will asked them, ”What use is it? What use is any of this?”

No one answered the question.

The older Dao Lords like Heavenly Eye and Tepid Scholar didn’t answer because they didn’t know what to say. But Sword Maestro didn’t answer because he didn’t understand the question.

”What do you mean?” Sword Maestro asked in confusion. ”Isn’t it a good idea to prevent our divine beings from being taken down all at once?”

Martial Will, shaking his head, replied, ”We can’t recruit mortals anymore. In 100 years, every mortal disciple in our sect will be dead. We will only have Rank 5 mortals who can reincarnate for a while before their minds collapse.”

”But that won’t be enough to embed our sects within a world. Without enough mortal population, any super world with our Domains can stop anchoring our Supreme Metac at any moment.”

He chuckled as he said, ”That’s just the start of it. It gets worse.”

”Now we are about to lose 90% of our divine beings. If we try to make up for the deficit by helping the Rank 5 mortals to advance, without the replenishment of mortals, it would mean that we would run out of mortals completely in the next 100 years.”

”At the end, what will we have for our effort? We will each have around 30 to 40 divine beings. Will that be enough to sustain us in the upper realm when our competition is gaining lifespan from billions, tens of billions, and even hundreds of billions of people?”

At this point, he burst out laughing, ”Hahahaha.”

It was not a laugh of amusement. It was a laugh of sorrow. He didn’t have tear glands, but if he did, he would shed a tear in sorrow.

As he laughed, he said, ”The worst part is that we don’t have a hundred years to plan. We only have 1 year. In fact, it is only a little more than ten months now.”

”Can we prepare enough divine beings to sustain us in ten months? If not, what use is any of this? What use is a sect?”

By now, Sword Maestro had understood the scope of Martial Will’s question. And just like Tepid Scholar and Heavenly Eye, he didn’t have an answer to the question. But this didn’t mean he was willing to let this go.

”What then?” he asked Martial Will. ”Should we just give up?”

”Give up? I don’t know that word,” Martial Will said, shaking his head. ”I only know how to fight.”

”Clearly, knowing how to fight is not good enough to be a Dao Lord in this time and age. Unfortunately, it is all I know.”

”So if I must go down, I will go down doing the thing I know and love. I will go down fighting,” he said, bursting out laughing again.

As he laughed, he withdrew from the discussion and closed the rift. He left the entire issue behind him without looking back. Clearly, he didn’t want to bother with stuff like this anymore.

Tepid Scholar sighed again to relieve his inner tension. It didn’t work, but he could only soldier on despite the discomfort.