"Accept some of his wishes."
The thought of the man before him having the guts to threaten that entity within him had various worrisome ideas floating in Seth's head, but he decided to keep quiet and listen to what the clearly talkative man had to say.
"Can you Imagine what it means to threaten a being related or perhaps even the primordial fiend, you might think me a fool, but I assure you I am no fool.
I have heard ancient stories of its strength and might, but I have also heard rumors of its sufferings and helplessness. I know of its true desperations after all I was there to witness one of them."
"Though I knew it could destroy me, I was also confident in being able to relay a message on its presence and location before I died, and it definitely knew this which is why in the end it accepted a compromise," the grizzly hair man said with a snort, showing that whatever agreement they had arrived at wasn't to best of it's liking.
"For my silence, it gave me this," the Shurui said stretching out his hands as his throne rose up rapidly and quickly towered over Seth's"
"Your soul is mine to do as I wish. If you want to go any further in your cultivation journey, then you need my Permission."
"Your permission, how so," Seth asked.
"Just as you've observed, any trace of soul energy that gets into your body is taken by me, and as long as I keep doing this, your cultivation will never be able to progress," Shurui stated with confidence.
"So how do I get you to stop doing this?"
"Tchh," he snorted," fight for me, be my champion, Serve me, and in exchange I'll let you advance, and even as you progress in your ranking journey, I'll offer you assistance" Shurui's voice boomed.
This time Seth didn't fly into a rage, instead he calmly watched the old man and went about on an inquiry.
"You should be aware of my potential, yet here you are making an enemy out of me, aren't you scared of what I'll do to you when I get out of this"
"True, but why should I fear a being who for several iterations has failed to reach my measly level of power" Shurui mocked before getting into another fit o laughter.
"What do you mean by iterations," Seth asked noticing the man mention it the second time.
"What do you think," Shurui said, and when he saw Seth's blank look he burst into laughter.
"Young man, such things are far above your level of comprehension, and even then they are the last things you should be worried about given your current situation."
"Your fate is in my hand, if you feel that you have a chance for a comeback against me in the future, then go thinking that way, but I assure you that you'll never find it after I get my claws in you".
With those words, the man went into another mad fit of laughter, it seemed the thought of having Seth under his palm truly thrilled him, and as he laughed Seth could feel waves of an invisible force slamming into him.
That the man was provoking him was not an answer hard to arrive at, but Seth only glanced up at him and then the next second his figure disappeared, faded away like it was never there, only to appear a second later, and then disappear again.
.....
"Having control and ownership of his soul."
While Seth couldn't dissect much from Shurui's words, he could at least already determine that his claims of control of his soul were a lie, one proven by his recent actions.
The first time he left the dark space he appeared some distance away from the swirling portal, but then he once again moved himself beside the black portal and like last time was sucked into it despite his wishes.
With this action of his, Seth proved that despite him actually having some level of control in the dark space, he couldn't control himself when it came to the black portal, and after feeling it twice, he had arrived at a conclusion of the familiarity he had felt from the portal earlier.
Seth came to the conclusion that the black portal wasn't the work of Shurui, but rather that of the entity, the only reason Seth hadn't made the connection was because of how powerful the qi powering the black portal was.
Its quantity and quality were so intense that Seth had a hard time connecting it to the measly amounts of it he had rarely sometimes felt or used.
This discovery calmed Seth's fears of the entity letting someone else run amok in its territory.
At the moment, Seth stood on the dark red sea once more, intently staring at its red elastic surface like he could see the sea depth while in his mind he tried to figure out what the entity was up to.
If Shurui's story, were to be believed, then it meant the entity had succumbed to his threat and given him a way to control Seth.
"Succumb," as this thought came to Seth's mind he couldn't help but laugh.
The thought that the entity would bow its head or compromise just couldn't be processed by Seth.
Not to mention the fact that the entity should know that Seth himself would never accept Shurui's offer, a scene where the entity bowed its head was unimaginable.
With all these thoughts in mind, Seth could look at the sea and remember his final conversation with the entity.
["Now, unless you want to die today, I think its best I go back to sleep," the entity said, "and oh, I still haven't mentioned the price of saving the girl's soul, but don't worry, you're going to eventually find out."]
Those were the entity's last words, and at the time Seth hadn't put a lot of thought to it, but now he could only turn and look back at the black circle high in the sky.
"Is this the price he talked about" Seth wondered, rubbing his hand over his head.
"How am I supposed to deal with this, why must everything be so full of complications"
"Stop mopping and come here" Alexia's voice reached Seth once more.
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