THE GOD EATER

Then the guardian glared at him and said, ”Don’t try to play dumb with me. You’re hiding something, and you know it. Now, you can either tell me what it is under oath, or I’ll pry the information out of you using force.”

”Why bother talking with him?” Black Chain asked impatiently. ”If I were him, I wouldn’t say. So let’s just go straight to torture and using force.”

The spider-monkey was treating Loki exactly like he would treat himself if he were to find himself in this situation with a secret he didn’t want to reveal and some enemies who wanted to know the secret.

”And if torture doesn’t work, we can kill him. I’m sure that when we destroy this body of his, we will be able to see what makes his existence so special,” Black Chain suggested with a dark grin on his face.

The guardian didn’t reply to Black Chain. They continued to look at Loki while occasionally nodding in agreement with Black Chain.

When Black Chain finished with his helpful suggestions, the guardian said, ”So what would it be? You have a lot of potential, so I don’t want to unravel your existence by force. But if you don’t start talking soon, I will be forced to utilize every means at my disposal to get to the bottom of this mystery.”

Seeing as he was cornered, Loki sighed and said, ”Fine. I’ll talk.”

”It all goes back to when a powerful being forcefully broke into the Sea of Worlds. This being was in the form of an eye. They broke through the barrier of the Sea of Worlds and rushed down to enter my body.”

”The Sea of Worlds tried to stop them, but it failed. The eye tore a large crack that extended across the entire length of the Sea of Worlds. I tried to fight the eye too, but I also failed.”

”None of my attacks were able to touch the enemy, while the enemy could touch me. After the eye entered my body, it fused with my existence. Since then, I have never been the same.”

As soon as he finished talking, Black Chain burst out laughing. ”Hahaha! What a joke!”

Then he clapped and said, ”That’s a good story. Unfortunately, it is bogus. It is not good enough to fool us.”

”First of all, no powerful person can enter the Sea of Worlds without destroying the Sea of Worlds. There are no two ways about it.”

”Secondly, if such a thing had happened, why is no one else aware of it? Where is the large crack you spoke of?”

He was laughing, but his eyes were cold and full of malice. His voice was also dripping with scorn as he said, ”You must think we’re fools if you think we will believe this.”

As for the guardian, they were silent. They listened to Loki tell his story without interrupting, and they listened to Black Chain pick apart Loki’s story.

When both of them were done talking, the guardian finally said, ”Did this really happen? I want you to swear it on your Will, or what you people call your Dao Heart.”

In response, Loki nodded and said, ”I swear on my Dao Heart that what I just said happened.”

As soon as he finished making the oath, the world vibrated around them. It was as if his oath was a stone tossed into the waters of the world. The oath caused ripples to appear in the world, confirming the existence of the oath and its reception by the world.

Having felt the resonance of heaven and earth and confirmed that his oath was authentic, the two of them had nothing to complain about. They could stare at him now, waiting to see any sign that he was lying.

When they didn’t see his will shatter and his body collapse as an empty husk devoid of consciousness, they knew that he hadn’t been lying with that story.

”It can’t be,” Black Chain said in disbelief. ”How can something like that happen without anyone being aware of it?”

When no one answered his question, he raised the black chain in his hand and used it as a whip to strike Loki.

As the whip swept towards Loki, he yelled, saying, ”Answer me, impudent fool.”

But before the chain could hit Loki, an armored hand stretched forward and grabbed the chain. The hand grabbed the chain with such force that it was deformed and crushed in the grip.

While holding the chain, the guardian said to Black Chain, ”Listen and listen well. You have no authority here.”

”The fact that I’ve indulged you so far doesn’t mean that you have any authority over this fellow. You are as much a property as he is. You don’t own him. I own both of you on behalf of my god king.”

The guardian’s eyes were hidden behind their helmet, but even though their face wasn’t turned towards him, Black Chain felt as if the guardian was glaring at him with displeasure.

The feeling of being glared at was subtle, but it induced an uncomfortable feeling within Black Chain that was unmistakable. So Black Chain was able to tell that he was close to the edge of doing something he wouldn’t be able to return from.

The Dao Lord of Four Directions Sect listened attentively, like a child listening to a lesson in school, as the guardian said, ”Now, I can allow you to talk to him and question him. But you can’t hit him or damage my property. Do you understand?”

He immediately nodded and said, ”Yes, sir. I understand.”

At that point, the guardian seemed to look away from him. Without the pressure of that glare tampering with his mind, he was able to recover his senses.

The memory of what had just happened and how he had behaved flashed through his mind, bringing with it immense shame. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing earlier. He had just done them instinctively for some reason.