123 Wraith Contract. (2/2)
The other person to arrive was a tall and slender woman with a buxom figure and a large scar that diagonally across her entire face. She had short brown hair that only hung down to her ears and deep green eyes, compared to the delicate and luxurious robes of Tian Zheng and the others, she was clad in what appeared to be a robe made from the skin of a silver bear, its head resting on her right shoulder. Li Yang looked at the two people but wasn't able to recognize either of them, Fang Ying whispering to him in a low voice.
”The bald one is Yuan Peng, he's the future patriarch of your Yuan clan. That woman over there is Cui Xiuying, the future matriarch of the Myriad Beasts Sect.”
Li Yang nodded his head faintly in understanding, examining the two new arrivals as they walked over. The eyes of the two people landed on Li Yang, Cui Xiuying tossing him a brown interspatial ring with a casual smile.
”Take it, the Demonic beast parts inside it ought to help you with your cultivation, consider it my thanks for saving my cute lil' disciples when they were in a pickle. Also, I like your robe, you should come over to my sect, we'll treat ya better than the needlessly prim Yuan clan ever could.”
Li Yang caught the interspatial ring, and after making sure that neither it nor its contents carried a tracing mark, stored it into his own interspatial ring. He was currently clad in the violet wolf robes that he had gotten quite fond of in this life, they were far closer to the clothes of the Myriad Beast sect than the neat robes of the other clans and sects. Yuan Peng spoke up with a light chuckle before Li Yang even got the chance to open his mouth.
”Heh, interested in my Junior Brother, are you? But sorry, we've made sure to properly train and guide him, so there's no way he'll go over to a sect filled with your ilk, he'll join me in bringing the Yuan clan to new heights. Junior Brother Yang, it's good that you protected your fellow disciples, I will make sure that the clan rewards you handsomely when we return.”
Li Yang slightly raised an eyebrow, casting a sideways glance at Yuan Peng. While the Yuan clan hadn't been bad to him, it most certainly hadn't been as good to him as Yuan Peng was making it seem. Guide and train him? When had they ever done anything of the sort? But as he couldn't be bothered to point it out, he simply cast a sideways glance at Tian Zheng, who nodded his head and stood up.
”Well then, it seems like we now have enough people here to enter the volcano and see if we can't get our hands on that treasure. But before that, I would like everyone here to join me in signing a Wraith Contract, it'll allow all of us to work together far more smoothly.”
Tian Zheng took out an ashen scroll that seemed to be made from thinly sliced bones. He also took out a vial filled with thick red blood, dipping his finger in the blood and using it to write down a few paragraphs on the ashen scroll.
A Wraith Contract was one of the stranger types of artifacts one could manufacture, it was almost like a small array contained in a scroll. By signing the contract with some of your own blood, a small wraith would latch onto you and make sure that you followed what the contract stated, eating away your soul should you go against the contract. It was an indispensable item for when one wanted to negotiate or trade between larger clans. People who had trained their souls quite a bit could resist the wraith, but Tian Zheng did not believe that any of the people here had souls that strong.
Li Yang, Fang Ying, and the future clan leaders all gave the scroll a quick read over, making sure that Tian Zheng hadn't added anything strange to it. Once they were certain that the contract was good enough, they extracted some blood from their fingers and signed the contract with their names, an invisible clump of energy latching onto their souls. After the contract was signed, Tian Zheng turned to Li Yang.
”Brother Yang, do you think you could surround the volcano with an array?”
He wanted Li Yang to surround the volcano with an array partly to make the battle easier and partly to see if he had any other arrays that they didn't know about. But Li Yang quickly shook his head, disappointing Tian Zheng.
”Not gonna happen. The beast inside already knows that we're here, do you really think that it'll let us get close enough to draw up an array? And if you want me to draw up an array that is large enough to escape the notice of the beast, you would have to give me the blood of every single cultivator present, as well as every single Spirit Stone and other resources they have in their interspatial rings. Of course, that also includes the lot of you.”
Li Yang had just drained the last of his resources to draw up the array needed to carve a path through the Devil's Grasp Vine, he currently only had the three secondary hearts as well as the resources he just received from Cui Xiuying and Xiong Xieren. Tian Zheng and the others let out a light sigh after receiving the response, Cui Xiuying's gaze landing on the volcano.
”Figures, would've been too nice and easy if we could just draw up an array strong enough to deal with that thing. Guess that means the only option left is to charge it before it charges us.”
Tian Zheng nodded his head and put away the table and the chairs. With the strength of the beast, it definitely already knew about them gathering here. But since it hadn't attacked them already, it was clearly very reluctant to leave the volcano just yet, it probably wanted to eat the treasure first and then kill them all. But treasures that could cause such a commotion were not simple things, eating them was far from easy, so it likely had to either wait or prepare a few things first. As such, now was the best time for them to charge it if they wanted the treasure to remain intact.
The six people, and one wolf, all looked at each other, nodding their heads in agreement. The hundreds of other people that had also gathered by the lake also knew that it was about to begin, all of them pulling out their weapons as they began to seethe with excitement, wondering just what sort of beast and treasure they would find inside the volcano.