"Then swear it... Swear first, and I'll give you the item..."
Elder Ma huddled inside a steel fortress of Soul Tools and spoke under crushing pressure.
His voice squeezed through layer upon layer of protective barriers and Soul Tool cannon barrels, muffled as if he were shouting through a stack of quilts.
At this point, he had no better choice.
Soul Masters of the Sun Moon Empire relied so heavily on Soul Tools that they were generally weaker in individual combat than their counterparts from the three former Douluo nations.
For decades, this had been the unspoken sore spot of the empire's Soul Master community, a weakness its leaders did everything they could to conceal.
Elder Ma was an eighth-level Soul Engineer and a genuine Titled Douluo, but he knew better than anyone how much of his strength came from his Soul Tools.
How could he be confident facing a powerful Evil Soul Master who might be a Titled Douluo, alone and in a place like this?
Worse, his greatest vulnerability—the siblings Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen—was still in the other man's hands.
If either child lost so much as a hair, Jing Hongchen would turn the entire Sun Moon Empire upside down.
And in this situation, Elder Ma was supposed to risk his life fighting the man to the death?
Not a chance!
That would be throwing his life away, and Elder Ma had no intention of doing it.
At his age, he understood one thing better than most: lose your life, and you lost everything. You could find another treasure and recover your dignity, but death was final.
The seconds ticked by.
Under immense pressure, Elder Ma waited for the other man to swear the oath.
His bony hand was clenched tight, cold sweat seeping between his fingers