Trigger warning: death and graphic descriptions of a corpse
When he heard Feng Yongrui's words, Lei Bei could not say anything and hung his head low.
Stan glanced at the distraught Lei Bei and looked around.
"...If you didn't mention this, I would've almost forgotten about it," Stan said.
"Do you really think the Cloud Realm will wage war on the Phantom Realm just because of this?" Stan asked, frowning.
"What? Are you worried right now?" Feng Yongrui teased.
"Well..." Stan knitted his brows even deeper.
"Even though she's my sister..." Stan whispered, sighing lowly. "There are times when I don't agree with her decisions. By doing something like this, she's putting millions of lives in the Phantom Realm at risk."
"Don't you hate your sister?" Feng Yongrui asked. raising an eyebrow.
"Hah, of course I do. But, after all, she is my sister," Stan scoffed. "Sometimes, I try to understand what's going on through her head. But I can't understand her at all. I mean, I get that the Shadow Demons are our enemies, but putting the entire Phantom Realm at risk doesn't sound very nice."
Feng Yongrui wanted to say more, but Lei Bei stopped pacing around and looked at Stan.
"Fine. I'm willing to work with you both," Lei Bei declared.
A smile immediately bloomed on Feng Yongrui's face and he looked at Stan triumphantly. The latter was also smiling, albeit a little mischievously.
"That's a good choice," Stan said.
"But I don't trust any of you," Lei Bei suddenly said. "So you both will have to listen to my terms. If you don't agree to them, I won't help you no matter what."
Stan sighed and opened his mouth. "Hah, do you think I'll believe someone like you? You get to say your terms and conditions, but you'll have to listen to me too."
Feng Yongrui nodded and quickly added, "Then we'll all listen to each other."
Stan and Lei Bei nodded their heads.
"Before that, I want all of us to make a Soul Oath," Lei Bei said, his face turning serious.
"A Soul Oath?" Feng Yongrui asked.
"Don't tell me you don't know what a Soul Oath is?" Stan asked, incredulous.
"I-it's not that," Feng Yongrui said hurriedly.
"Host, before you embarrass yourself any further, please let me explain what a Soul Oath is," the System said inside Feng Yongrui's head.
Feng Yongrui hurriedly listened to the System. Simply put, the Soul Oath was like an advanced version of the Promise Spell.
The Promise Spell bound two people under a promise and if one person did not fulfill his part of the deal, the Promise Spell would act up and hurt that person.
However, the Promise Spell had its flaws. Those who had more powerful magical prowess could find a loophole and break the spell; this meant they wouldn't be liable to keep their promise.
The Soul Oath, though, was different. It was a sacred spell that was actually pretty simple to do, anyone with a little bit of magical prowess would be able to complete this spell.
However, people rarely ever used the Soul Oath because this Soul Oath was a sacred spell that was held very seriously. There was literally no way to break a Soul Oath -- no matter how strong your magical prowess was, there was no way to find a loophole in the Soul Oath.
In other words, there was no way to nullify the Soul Oath.
Also, if you did not keep your promise, the Soul Oath would not just hurt you like the Promise Spell -- the Soul Oath would kill you in the most horrifying way imaginable. These weren't just rumors; once, there was a pair of merchants who were fighting over trading rights and whatnot.
The two decided to make a Soul Oath, and things went well for some time. However, one of the merchants fell sick and died. The other merchant, thinking this was a good opportunity (and thinking that the Soul Oath was nullified) broke the Soul Oath.
Two days passed after he broke the Soul Oath, and this merchant thought everything was fine. Who would've thought that in the dead of the night, the Soul Oath acted up, and killed him?
When people found his corpse, they could not help shuddering in fear. His skin was pierced in multiple areas, he was missing an eye and his hand was twisted in a grotesque manner.
His left leg was unrecognizable, seeming as if a tree root had stuck itself to his leg and merged with it completely. As for his right leg, there was a gaping hole in his calf, filled with yellow puss and maggots that swam around in the disgusting liquid.
After that incident, there was little to no one who dared to make the Soul Oath, or, even if they did the Soul Oath, no one dared to break it ever again.
After understanding what the Soul Oath was, Feng Yongrui quickly looked at Lei Bei and Stan.
"Hey, are you still spacing out? We've been talking to you for a while now," Stan said.
"Sorry, ahem. I know what a Soul Oath is... So, are we going to make a Soul Oath?" Feng Yongrui asked.
"Hah, I thought you didn't know what it was," Stan laughed. "What will our Soul Oath be about?" he asked.
The three of them began discussing their terms, what they wanted, and the Soul Oath would be about. After a lengthy discussion (during which Feng Yongrui had to stop the other two from fighting several times), the three of them finally came to a decision.
1) All three of them were not allowed to discuss or talk about today's events in any way (written, orally, etc).
This meant that if Stan was free, he couldn't tell Lilith about helping Lei Bei or that a person named 'Feng Yongrui' had helped him.
On the other hand, if Lei Bei managed to get out of here and return to the Shadow Demons, he could not tell anyone that he met Stan (and that Stan was the key to killing Lilith).
Lei Bei was allowed to tell Xu Chao that he had been caught by Lilith and that He Yi was a spy; Lei Bei was also allowed to tell Xu Chao about Lilith's plans on framing the Shadow Demons, but other than that, he wasn't allowed to talk about Stan or Feng Yongrui.
Of course, Feng Yongrui was also not allowed to tell anyone about Stan or Lei Bei.
2) Lei Bei would help Stan and Feng Yongrui to break the seal on Stan. In return, Stan and Feng Yongrui had to help Lei Bei get out of this place.
3) After breaking the seal on Stan, Feng Yongrui and Lei Bei would help hide his existence from others. Lei Bei was also not allowed to kill Stan after helping him.
Once the seal on Stan was broken, Lilith would find out about it and come rushing here, and, since she was connected to Stan, Lilith would be able to find him no matter where he was.
So, to help Stan, Lei Bei had concocted a plan -- he would use a particular spell (that belonged exclusively to the Shadow Demons) to transfer the connection between Stan and Lilith to an object. Instead of breaking the connection between them, Lei Bei would make it so that Lilith's life was connected to another object, for example, a rock.
If Lei Bei simply cut the connection between Lilith and Stan, Lilith would certainly find out about it and come to check on Stan. However, if Lei Bei simply transferred this "connection" to something else, Lilith might not notice the difference. She would think nothing was wrong.
This was the result of the three people's discussion.
Lei Bei and Stan were rather worried -- while Lei Bei's spell was quite advanced, it required a considerable amount of magical prowess. Also, there was no telling if Lilith would notice their abnormal movements.
What if she somehow found out that they were breaking the seal on Stan? What if she found out that her life was no longer connected to Stan?
There were too many what ifs, too many things that could go wrong... The two of them were worried on what might happen if something went wrong. After all, the plan they made was quite rushed and had a few loopholes.
As for Feng Yongrui, it would be a lie to say he wasn't worried. However, he had extra backup -- he had the System. If something bad really happened, he could always buy something from the System.
Although the System wasn't very reliable, as long as he had points, there was bound to be something in the System Mall that could help him, right?
Also, Feng Yongrui wasn't afraid of the Soul Oath. For others, the Soul Oath was something sacred, something that could not be nullified no matter what.
But who was he? He was someone with a System!
Not only that, didn't he just spend 39 points on those 4 volumes that the System made him buy? That manual... 'How to Break Free'... Feng Yongrui had checked it already, there was a section about how to nullify the Soul Oath for himself.
***
Would you dare to take the Soul Oath?
Comment below~~