Her reaction made Leo's anger subside slightly. She was not someone he had a grudge with. He got triggered due to his trauma flaring up after her words and she had to bear the brunt of it.
Whatever he said wasn't false. Killing him had dire consequences. If he was the eighteen-year-old Leo from past life, it wouldn't have mattered. But he was hundreds of years old Leo with many connections. The biggest connection was the Heavenly Emperor's daughter, Zhao Lan Mei.
He was her aide and had done a lot of things in his past life to make her happy. Lan Mei would not get the same things in this life and the things she would thus do would lead to severe backlash. Nerissa did not have the means to face those.
Leo knew the Heavenly Sect like the back of his hand. Nerissa was a worthless disciple of the Heavenly Emperor. She had no achievements and was sent down to the lowest possible realm to cultivate in seclusion and reflect on herself.
Even by the end of his life, Leo had barely ever heard about her. All he knew was that the world she was managing was destroyed and she was then sent to another world in the same realm. There was no shortage of worlds in the lowest realm of the universe, so she continued to hop from one place to another. She was a failure through and through.
Nerissa's horrified expression was justified. At this point of time, she was just a young girl, barely even fifty years of age. It had only been a few years since she was banished to this world. It was such a remote place that nobody would ever know about it or her except her Master.
Nerissa was thus horrified to have found someone who knew so much about her. Was this a senior from the sect? Or was it an elder? Or was he someone sent to keep an eye on her? She did not know!
Leo took a step close to Nerissa and she retreated a step back. He knitted his brows and took quick steps in front of her and she repeated his actions, except she went back instead.
Leo stopped and did not bother getting close to her. He turned around and looked at the field of daisies with his hands clasped behind him. It was as if he was a dignified elder with great wisdom.
"Nerissa, I am not going to explain who I am and neither does it matter. What matters is the failure you've become."
The words cut Nerissa sharper than a blade and she felt her chest pain while a lump formed in her throat.
"Your failures, no, you, the talent you've shown, it's not even worthy of being an outer disciple of a third rate sect in the Celestial Realm, let alone the Divine Realm. Despite this, you've got a Master who has the power to shake the entire nine realms of the cosmos."
Nerissa felt her legs go numb and squatted down, hiding her face in her arms as she hugged her knees. There was nothing she had to say about this.
Leo turned around to look at her and continued, "What's happened has happened. I won't dwell on it anymore. Let's talk about the future since I don't have a lot of time left."
Leo took a step close to Nerissa. This time she did not back away. He squatted down in the same position as her to meet her eye level.
"Nerissa, I don't mean any harm to you. The me you're looking at now is due to your own actions. Had you been as respectful as I was to you, none of this would've happened. Do you understand now?"
Leo's tone had turned somewhat gentle. He wasn't angry anymore and spoke as if he was talking to a friend.
Nerissa had tears in her eyes and wiped them away.
Leo patted her shoulder and continued, "Try to be more respectful and reasonable. Stop looking down on people just because they aren't from the Divine Realm. The cosmos stretches to infinity, you may never know which person from what realm could rise and shake the entire Divine Realm. Do you understand?"
Nerissa nodded this time. It was a slight nod, but a nod nonetheless. She had also stopped crying.
"The reason why I wanted to see you was to discuss our future. You are the Administrator of my world and there are certain things which only you can do. Being a native, I need your help, and being an Administrator, you need mine."
Leo got up and walked towards a swing nearby, by a pond surrounded by the daisy fields.
He sat on it and began swinging.
"Nerissa, as you know, I cannot ascend to a higher realm without my world. It's either that or I destroy my world to sever my connection with it or form a connection with some other, better world," said Leo while gazing at his swinging reflection in the pond's still water.
Nerissa turned her head to the side and looked at Leo. He was sitting and swinging on her favorite spot. It made her uncomfortable to watch, but she didn't voice it out and listened. She had learnt from her previous lesson.
"I have no plans to leave my world. I'll be working hard to have it ascend. This way, you'll reap a lot of benefits along with me and break past your bottleneck. You'll have guaranteed ascensions as the world makes it to higher realms and won't be a failure of the Heavenly Sect anymore. You'll also make your Master proud if you take this world that's at the very bottom to all the way up there."
Nerissa's face was expressionless, but daisies began growing above her ash-gray hair, a sign that she was getting riled up by Leo's speech.
Leo stopped swinging and turned his head to look at Nerissa.
"I want a few things from you, Nerissa. And I know how to be reasonable. We'll sign a soul contract that has a condition that everything would be null and void if I do not make this world ascend within the next hundred years. What do you say?"
Nerissa's eyes widened. "What?" She spoke for the first time, in utter disbelief.
Leo smiled. "We'll also add the condition that I'll die if I don't fulfill the contract's terms."
"..." Nerissa went absolutely silent. She could not make heads or heels of the situation so far. Everything seemed too good to be true and she was unable to find any loopholes in the statements.
Leo looked at daisy fields in front of him and swung slowly. "I don't have much time left. I hope you make your decision."
Nerissa took a deep breath at this point. She had calmed down significantly, evident by the daisies on her head returning back to their previous state.
"What do you want in return?"
Leo had still not stated what he needed and this was a pressing matter.
Leo turned to look at her. "Glad you asked. I only want one thing and that's shared authority in this world."
"Huh!?" Nerissa exclaimed and took a step back. "You want to be an Administrator!?"
Leo nodded at first, then shook his head. "You're mistaking something here. I want the highest authority, not to be an Administrator. You'll forever retain that position while I am simply sharing the powers whenever I want."
Nerissa frowned and knitted her brows.
Leo knew this conversation would continue to get dragged out if he did not put some pressure. With seriousness in his eyes, he said, "Get the soul contract out. You may think you have a choice, but do you really? This is the only opportunity that gives you some shot at going back to the sect, otherwise you'll continue to rot in an unknown place far away from your homeland."
As Leo had said, at this point, did Nerissa even have a choice? Even she could not think of something better and not accepting this deal may probably be the biggest loss she would ever suffer.
Time was running out and Leo's figure was slowly turning transparent, an indicator that he couldn't be at this realm for longer.
Nerissa was truly taken by surprise and had no time to think things through. Placed in a do or die situation, she sighed and chose to accept Leo's conditions.
A golden scroll flew in front of Leo and made him. It was his genuine smile this time as he was truly happy to see it.
In black letters, the conditions wrote themselves on the scroll as Nerissa dictated it. In just a minute, the soul contract was signed and the two felt a tickle deep inside them. It was due to the tremor of their souls, indicating the contract getting established successfully.
To Leo, however, this did not matter. He only considered the contract established when he saw a blue screen in front of him and a cold mechanical voice repeating what was written on it.
[Ding!]
[You now share the highest authority of the Mystic Lotus World!]