Chapter 195 - 194: Jade Slip (3)
Chu Kuang’s eyes widened in outrage. "You want all of them?! If I hand over every token I possess, I will be dropped to the bottom of the rankings! I may lose my seeding!"
"You may lose your seeding, yes," Lin Yuan agreed calmly. "But you will keep your life. You can leave this realm alive and reclaim your seeding in the second preliminary round. You can fight your way back to the top. But if you refuse..."
Lin Yuan let the silence hang, heavy and lethal.
"...I walk out of this crater, I wait three days, and I hand these slips to Elder Xuanji. You will be dead before the sun sets."
Chu Kuang breathed heavily, his massive chest heaving. The humiliation was acidic, burning the back of his throat. He had spent twenty-seven days conquering this quadrant, hoarding tokens, ascending his cultivation, only to be stripped of everything by a man who had barely lifted a finger the entire trial.
But he had no choice. Lin Yuan held the absolute high ground.
"Fine," Chu Kuang spat, his voice trembling with a mixture of suppressed rage and profound defeat. "I concede. I will give you the tokens. But I am no fool, Lin Yuan. If I hand it over, what is stopping you from simply keeping the jade slips and reporting me anyway?"
"We will swear a Dao Oath," Lin Yuan stated, completely prepared for the stipulation. "A binding contract upon our very foundations."
Chu Kuang’s eyes narrowed, analyzing the proposal. A Dao Oath was one of the highest form of contract, as it’s tied directly into the Heavenly Dao.
"State the terms," Chu Kuang demanded, lowering his halberd.
Lin Yuan waved his hand, and the Heaven as Net, Earth as Web formation immediately dissolved, the invisible lightning grid fading into the ambient air. It was a gesture of dominance, showing Chu Kuang that even without the trap, Lin Yuan did not fear a physical reprisal.
Lin Yuan stepped forward, establishing the rules of engagement.
"I, Lin Yuan, swear upon my Dao Heart," Lin Yuan spoke clearly, ensuring Heaven and Earth registered his words, "that upon the conclusion of the Void Ascension Battlefield, and I have successfully returned us to the Grand Court, I will physically hand over these two specific jade slips directly to you, Chu Kuang. I will not make copies. I will not distribute their contents."
Chu Kuang listened intently, searching for loopholes.
"In exchange," Lin Yuan continued, his deep purple eyes locking onto Chu Kuang’s, "you, Chu Kuang, will immediately transfer sixty Dao Tokens to my possession. Furthermore, you swear upon your Dao Heart that for the remaining three days of this preliminary round, neither you nor any cultivator bearing the crest of the Chu Province will initiate an attack against me, track me, or conspire against me."
Chu Kuang scrutinized the terms. They were surprisingly straightforward.
Notably, Lin Yuan completely, deliberately omitted any mention of the Golden Diting cultivators.
This was a masterful stroke of precision by Lin Yuan. He desperately wanted to protect Jin Rou’s brethren, but if he explicitly demanded their safety in the Dao Oath, he would instantly reveal to Chu Kuang that he did care about them. That would give Chu Kuang leverage. It would prove that the sociopathic expression Lin Yuan did earlier was a bluff.
By demanding only the tokens and a non-aggression pact for himself, Lin Yuan maintained his flawless facade of absolute self-interest. He knew that by stripping Chu Kuang of all sixty tokens and leaving him at the bottom of the leaderboard with only three days left, Chu Kuang would be far too desperate and frantic trying to hunt down new tokens to waste time torturing hostages out of pure spite.
"Those are the terms," Lin Yuan finished, holding up the two jade slips. "Do you accept?"
Chu Kuang clenched his jaw, the muscles in his neck straining. To agree was to swallow the most profound humiliation of his life. But his ambition, his desperate need to survive and compete in the main tournament, overrode his pride.
"I accept," Chu Kuang growled.
He raised his right hand, pointing two fingers toward the silver sky.
"I, Chu Kuang, swear upon my Dao Heart to the terms laid forth by Lin Yuan. If I break this covenant, may the Heavens strike me down."
"And I, Lin Yuan, swear the same," Lin Yuan replied, raising his hand.
As the words were spoken, a profound, invisible weight descended upon the ruined crater. A faint, golden thread of karmic energy materialized in the air between them, snapping tight before dissolving directly into their respective chests.
The Dao Oath was sealed.
In the world of cultivation, breaking a casual promise to a mortal meant nothing. But breaking a formal, Heavens-witnessed Dao Oath carried a consequence that was extremely terrifying: The Demon Heart Tribulation.
Lin Yuan was intimately familiar with the tribulations of the mind. When he broke through to the Spirit Severing realm, he had faced the Obsession Heart Tribulation—a grueling, agonizing test where the Heavenly Dao weaponized his deepest obsession against him.
But the Demon Heart Tribulation was fundamentally different.
If a cultivator broke a Dao Oath, the karmic backlash would instantly spawn an inner demon within their spiritual sea. Unlike an obsession, which was an external pressure applied by the Heavens, the Demon Heart was a literal, sentient corruption born from the cultivator’s own broken word. It would silently eat away at their foundation from the inside out.
The punishment usually manifested during their next major breakthrough. Just as they attempted to bridge a critical realm, the Demon Heart would violently erupt, completely hijacking their cultivation, causing a Qi deviation. Their meridians would shatter, their mind would fracture into incurable madness, and they would die a screaming, agonizing death, entirely consumed by their own corrupted ambition. It was a fate worse than physical destruction, rendering a cultivator entirely irredeemable.
Both men knew the severity of the lock they had just placed upon their souls. Neither would dare to break it.
Chu Kuang let out a long, furious exhalation, the liquid-red aura of his Half-Step Transcendent cultivation dimming completely. He looked utterly defeated.
With a jerky, aggressive motion, Chu Kuang tapped his chest.
A torrent of glowing, golden light erupted from his collarbone. Sixty pristine Dao Tokens detached from his spiritual tether, swirling in the air like a school of luminescent fish, before streaming rapidly across the crater toward Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan stood perfectly still, allowing the golden stream of light to collide with his chest.
The tokens merged flawlessly with the singular token already hovering above his collarbone. The faint, golden glow surrounding Lin Yuan pulsed brightly, signifying the massive influx of tokens.
Then, Lin Yuan simply turned his back on the ruined camp,
"Remember our oath, Chu Kuang," Lin Yuan’s voice drifted back over his shoulder as he began to walk away, his robes gliding over the floor. "Three days."
As Lin Yuan walked out of the crater, disappearing into the desolate expanse of the Void Ascension Battlefield, a golden array panel materialized in the air before him, updating his ranking.
He glanced at it, a faint smile finally touching his lips.
6. Lin Yuan (Zhao Province) - 61 Tokens.