Worst of all, once they paid out that money, it would be tantamount to letting the Heavenly Baleful Valley pin their alliance's dignity to the ground and grind it into the dirt.
Envoy Zhang felt like dying right then.
What should have been a simple formality had left him with no graceful way out.
Finally, after discussing it, they decided they might as well fight them to the death!
Even if they failed to gain the upper hand, they could kill all those Core Disciples and keep the secrets from falling into the enemy's hands.
Then they could invent an excuse about a "heroic sacrifice." Even that would be better than swallowing this humiliation!
Just then, however, another disciple arrived aboard the Flying Boat.
This time, though, he brought not an Image Recording Stone, but a Message Transmission Talisman.
The message in the talisman was simple: "Among the multitudes of living beings, if I don't enter hell, who will? Since you're all so sincere, let's make it buy one, get ten free."
"Ransom one Core Disciple for a million Spirit Stones and receive ten Inner Sect disciples free."
Everyone's faces initially darkened when they read this. "Outrageous! Shameless! Utterly shameless!"
"They're even putting themselves on a pedestal and painting themselves as good people!"
But after thinking it over, the elders present brightened again.
If a million Spirit Stones could ransom one Core Disciple, with ten Inner Sect disciples thrown in, dividing it up meant each person cost less than a hundred thousand Spirit Stones on average. That actually seemed like quite a bargain!
Yet on closer thought, it still felt like a loss no matter how they looked at it.
"You're still paying that million, whichever way you slice it!"
"Wait!"
Someone suddenly realized something.
"They clearly just want to