THE GOD EATER

He pointed at the red glowing mountain that looked like a giant piece of burning coal and said, ”As you can see, I already have the divine crystal I need to advance. So I don’t need more divine crystals for the moment. This is why the offer of protection is my most important demand.”

”I will become a Dao Lord soon, and as a fresh Dao Lord, I will be weak. As it happens, many Dao Lords also hate and would like to kill me. This makes the offer of protection even more important to him.”

”Not only does your offer of protection affect my life, but there is also not much you can offer me aside from your services. At least, you can’t offer me more Supreme Metacs. I have too many of those,” he said with a chuckle.

He thought he was being universally funny, but only three Dao Lords found him amusing. These three were Green Fire, Immobile Mountain, and Carefree Immortal. As for the other five, they didn’t think he was funny at all.

Black Chains, with a black face, and the other four were all glaring at him. He didn’t think that they didn’t laugh at his joke since they were the butt of the joke, so he tried to be respectful and end the joke.

Loki, struggling to keep a straight face, said to them, ”If you have something more valuable to me than what I asked for, you can offer it to me. I am nothing if not open-minded.”

Green Fire took up his offer and said, ”I have celestial metal. I am guessing you will need it to repair that hammer relic of yours.”

Oh. What does it look like?” Loki asked in interest. ”Can I see it?”

”Here it is,” she said as she tossed down a small golden fragment.

This time, the item that was dropped was really small. It wasn’t just small compared to the size of Dao Lords like the divine crystal was. It was also small compared to a human.

When he caught the golden piece of metal, it was about the size of his fist. He was ten meters tall and five times taller than most humans, so the piece of metal should be as big as a human head.

The golden metal was also dense and tough. As his claws scratched it, he failed to create a mark on its surface.

After examining it, he asked, saying, ”I’m guessing that this is very valuable.”

With a snort, Martial Will said, ”It depends on who you ask.”

Upon hearing this, Loki frowned and asked, ”What do you mean?”

Before Martial Will could speak, Green Fire interrupted, saying, ”Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he is talking about.”

Martial Will ignored her and said, ”First of all, celestial gold can be found all over the third heaven. It is one of the things that hasn’t been destroyed or decayed since the days of the ancient cultivators, so that it can be easily found compared to divine crystals.”

”Secondly, we don’t have much use for it. Aside from using it to advance, we rarely use it.”

”At least, I don’t use it at all for anything else. So if you ask me, something that can be easily found and doesn’t have much of a demand should not be considered rare or valuable.”

”You fool,” Green Fire said as she grumbled. ”The fact that it is not valuable to you doesn’t mean it is not valuable to others.”

Heavenly Eye also said, ”Clearly, it is valuable to him. We could have used it to cheat him.”

But Martial Will remained unrepentant and stubborn as he said, ”I know. I just don’t want to have to go looking for celestial gold. I haven’t hoarded it, and I don’t want to start looking for it now.”

He didn’t want to inconvenience himself, and he didn’t want others to have a good time either, so he ruined the chance of using what he considered a common metal.

Hearing this, Loki nodded and said, ”In that case, let’s forget about bidding with celestial gold. We will use divine crystals and years of protection like I initially planned.”

Then he said, ”Does anyone have more questions?”

”I do,” Black Chain said with a grave tone. ”I want you to change your oath.”

”Is that so? What will the esteemed lord of the Blessed Heaven World want to change about my oath?”

Black Chain replied, ”I want you to give us what we buy now. I don’t want to wait many years before we receive what we paid for.”

As if they were working together, Carefree Immortal spoke up, saying, ”That’s a good idea.”

”What if something were to happen to you and you die? Doesn’t that mean we would have given you the divine crystals and the years of protection in vain?”

Green Fire also said, ”There is no need to worry about us not fulfilling our part of the deal. We will swear a Dao Heart and a Dao oath to pay what we promise.”

When Loki saw more and more Dao Lords speaking up one after the other in support of this suggestion, he knew that they were about to make another attempt to pressure him. He didn’t think their attempt would work, but he found the whole thing bothersome, so he decided to put an end to it early on.

He interrupted them, saying, ”I can’t change the oath either. The possibility of losing what you paid for was engineered to be another source of motivation for you. If you don’t want to lose what you paid for, you will have to do your best to protect me.”

”Plus, if I amend the transaction and give you what you paid for now, I will have to bear the risk of something happening to you. What if I give you the Supreme Metacs and you die? What am I supposed to do?”