A Behind-the-Scenes Deal Between Adults

"King, I understand what you're worried about."

Bai Ze looked at the still-hesitant Lu Chen and immediately voiced the concern in Lu Chen's heart.

"You're merely worried that we're too powerful, and that once we leave the Small World, we'll be hard to control."

Hearing Bai Ze's words, then thinking of Bai Ze's abilities—

Although the Small World was currently suppressing Bai Ze, he could still see through Lu Chen's thoughts at a glance.

Lu Chen became even more conflicted.

Just then, Bai Ze raised his head and formed hand seals.

The additional mark on his brow appeared, flying toward Lu Chen with the power of his soul.

"King, this is my soul mark. I am willing to give up my blessing and retain only this mark. Now you can rest easy, can't you?"

"With this mark, my life and death will be under your control. Please, you must agree to us. This is the last chance for our demon beast race."

The people behind Bai Ze stared at his soul mark, their gazes flickering without end.

A choice between freedom and life showed in their eyes.

For them, Lu Chen's decision was already their final chance to turn things around.

Ten minutes later.

The Sky Devouring Rat made his decision. Forming hand seals, he offered his own soul mark to Lu Chen.

"Forget it. We're going to die anyway, so we might as well join in and earn the merit of following a dragon."

The Sky Devouring Rat's words echoed in everyone's ears, bringing them a warning.

No matter how they planned to choose, they had been passive from the very beginning. The choice had always been in Lu Chen's hands.

"Sigh..."

The demon beasts still making their choice all let out sighs. Forming hand seals, they offered their soul marks to Lu Chen.

Eighteen different illusory spirit marks floated together, continuously flashing with lights of every color.

Beneath the glow of those lights—

Lu Chen thought of the villagers in his village.

From the day they were born, those villagers had also struggled every day just to survive.

Yet half a year ago, because he had opened the Secret Realm, they had been killed by cultivators.

Looking at the people before him, Lu Chen felt something stir within him.

Perhaps when the villagers had been killed, it had been just like this.

Their desire to survive had spilled out, hoping that someone could save them.

If a stranger had come to save them back then, those villagers would not have died.

Thinking of that, Lu Chen could not help sighing. "Sigh... Forget it, forget it."

"Since I'm already in the same boat as you, I might as well help you."

Bai Ze swiftly raised his head and looked at Lu Chen in disbelief. "King, is that true?"

"It's true. Get up, all of you. I promise you that if I have the ability to save you when the time comes, I definitely won't abandon you."

Hearing Lu Chen agree in person, Bai Ze led everyone in a heavy kowtow toward him.

The eighteen marks before Lu Chen also entered his brow along with their kowtows.

The eighteen lights attached themselves precisely to the Fire Phoenix's wings. With seven-colored flowing radiance, they made the Fire Phoenix image on Lu Chen's brow even more lifelike.

"King, these are our soul marks. Now you no longer need to worry that we'll harm you."

Bai Ze watched the marks merge into Lu Chen's brow and slowly spoke.

"Sigh... Why did you have to do this?"

Lu Chen shook his head.

What Bai Ze had said before was indeed what had kept him uneasy all along.

Only now, as he sensed the soul marks in his heart, did he feel slightly relieved.

"We did this willingly. We thank our king, and we thank Lord Wind Dragon."

Bai Ze glanced at Wind Dragon and clasped his hands before his chest, expressing his gratitude toward Wind Dragon.

"Sigh... The world was full of unforeseen turns."

In Wind Dragon's eyes, everything that had just happened had been a transaction understood without words.

He did not expose the intentions of Bai Ze's group.

What Lu Chen needed most right now was the strength of these demon beasts.

Everyone in this transaction had their own purpose.

By coincidence, everyone received what they needed most.

It was only that Wind Dragon had accepted the truth of the matter in Lu Chen's stead.

After the brief interlude ended, Lu Chen turned his gaze back to the rift.

Wind Dragon said, "Little Lu, what was the good news you mentioned just now? The Heavenly Pool and the Small World have already begun merging, and the rift is the connecting point between the two spaces. Hadn't we already figured that out?"

"No. Previously, it was only a one-sided fusion. Now, the spiritual energy of both has begun to flow through each other. As the spiritual energy pillar of the present world, the Yuan Yang Twin Fish Plate absorbs spiritual energy far faster than the small one does."

Lu Chen condensed two different kinds of spiritual energy in his hands, one azure and one red.

He raised his head toward the Tower of Time and spoke again.

"This means I now possess an inexhaustible source of innate spiritual power. I no longer need to worry about exhausting the spiritual energy within my body."

Lu Chen waved the spiritual energy in his hands forward, and the azure-red energy spiraled onward.

"This means that I alone can activate the Tower of Time. My goal of becoming the ruler of time is about to be realized."

Listening to Lu Chen, the people around him felt that offering up their souls earlier had been an incredibly correct decision.

Under the current circumstances, Lu Chen's Heavenly Pool was already far more vast than the Heavenly Pools of old monsters like them.

What Lu Chen lacked was only cultivation experience, only the tempering of time.

As long as there was enough time, his becoming one of the world's top combat powers was just around the corner.

Wind Dragon watched spiritual energy continuously surge from Lu Chen's body and slowly said, "Little Lu, do you mean to activate the Tower of Time right now?"

"I want to try it first. If I happen to activate the Tower of Time, wouldn't I become a controller of time?"

"Let's go. We'll take a look and see what conditions are still needed to activate the Tower of Time."

"I think my body's endurance is now enough to support me spending several hundred years in one of its worlds."

With that, Lu Chen gripped the Primal Chaos Greatsword firmly and waved the people around him away.

He led Wind Dragon toward the area where the Tower of Time had already appeared.

Watching Lu Chen leave, the others hurriedly carried Bai Ze back to Beast King's Mansion.

They continuously poured all the spiritual energy in their bodies into Bai Ze, cleansing his meridians.

Red Fox stretched out her hand and set up an illusion around them, making it seem as though everyone was chatting.

An hour later.

Bai Ze spat out a small clay doll from his mouth. The clay doll bore the likenesses of eighteen demon beast leaders.

Looking at the clay doll, the eighteen demon beast leaders each sprayed a mouthful of Essence Blood onto it.

Bai Ze swiftly formed hand seals, and the images on the clay doll began shining with eighteen different lights.

The lights flew out and connected to the brow of every demon beast leader.

"It worked?"

"Yes, it worked."

"Our futures are now tightly bound to the king's. If one survives, all survive; if one perishes, all perish."

The demon beast leaders looked at the light on their brows, and smiles began appearing on their faces.

"Hahaha, this scene was extracted from Bai Ze's mind. It looks real enough, doesn't it?"

An elderly man held a huge paintbrush and took credit before the others.

"Haha, it does. It looks exactly like it. I nearly thought the one up there was me."

The Sky Devouring Rat recalled the scene from before and burst into laughter.

"Sigh... You're celebrating too early. That scene has already become reality."

Bai Ze looked at everyone, concern on his face.

"Reality? Didn't we put on an act just now? None of us demon beasts were in your painting."

The Sky Devouring Rat was still immersed in the earlier scene.

"Sigh... That scene just now was what really happened."

"It was only that it was exactly the same as the scene painted by the Brush Immortal. Darkness Riot has truly arrived."

Bai Ze looked at them, his expression growing increasingly bitter.

"Fuck, you damned Brush Immortal. Why is your painting ability such a crow's beak?"

The Sky Devouring Rat's mood was instantly extinguished by Bai Ze's words.

"Doesn't that mean that if events don't change, I, the Nine Revolutions Sky Devouring Rat, really will die like that?"

"Yes. Judging by the current development, the king's final strength won't be enough, and the Small World won't form."

Bai Ze looked at the miserable Sky Devouring Rat. In that scene, he was the one who had died the most horribly.

"If that happens, all of us will die beneath Darkness Riot."

The Sky Devouring Rat leaped up from the ground and shouted, "Then what are we waiting for? Hurry up and discuss countermeasures. We can't let anything happen to you!"

"Quick, quick, quick! Get moving."

The normally laziest Sky Devouring Rat learned that he would be the first to die.

His emotions became exceptionally tense, and he kept urging everyone to discuss their next move.

Tower of Time area.

Lu Chen stood amid a patch of weeds.

As he looked at the Tower of Time, the gap between expectation and reality was enormous.

This entire area was only several zhang wide, just enough to contain the Tower of Time.

The Tower of Time had looked imposing from afar, but in Lu Chen's eyes now, it was like a dilapidated old building.

"Why is it so small? Was the Tower of Time really treated with such contempt by them?"

Dissatisfaction filled Lu Chen's voice as he raised the Primal Chaos Greatsword with both hands.

He swung his sword...

All the weeds around the Tower of Time were cleared away.

"Eh, could this Tower of Time merely be a fragment?"

Only when Lu Chen approached the Tower of Time did he discover that this tower, nearly a hundred zhang tall—

Was broken and battered beneath its foundation. It did not even have a base.

Wind Dragon was also somewhat surprised as he looked at the Tower of Time. This was his first time coming so close to this place.

"Sigh... Never mind. Let me see how this Tower of Time works."

Lu Chen looked at the Tower of Time, toward which his favorable impression had plummeted, and began searching for a way inside.

Wind Dragon pointed to a handprint carved on a stone stele and said, "Little Lu, do you think it's that?"

"Hm? I'll try it."

Lu Chen looked at the handprint on the stele and was just about to place his hand over it for comparison.

A powerful suction force erupted from the stele and directly seized Lu Chen's left hand.

The spiritual energy in Lu Chen's Heavenly Pool was continuously drawn into the stone stele.

"Brother Lu, what's wrong? Why is your spiritual energy being consumed so quickly?"

Sensing the changes in the spiritual energy within the Heavenly Pool—

Nantian Wan'er's voice entered Lu Chen's mind.

"I'm fine. I'm testing the Tower of Time. The spiritual energy consumption is rather enormous."

Lu Chen continuously sensed the power in the stone stele as he replied to Nantian Wan'er in his mind.