Trials of the tomb. (1)

Yao Jun's group observed the girl in front of them with sharp eyes, she didn't radiate any sense of danger, but her cultivation realm made it so that she carried with her a feeling of suppressive power even if she was just standing there. Yao Jun searched his memory, going through the various people he had met and the more famous people that he had read about. But it all came up blank, so he was confident that he had never heard about this girl, much less met her.

Much less had to be said about him, he was far from famous so it sounded extremely unlikely that she recognized him from something. So neither of them should know each other, yet she had taken the initiative to walk up to him and ask to team up, despite Yao Jun's cultivation realm being quite a bit below hers. They had all reason to be suspicious, something the girl would have to be stupid to not realize, yet she continued to smile at him in her wily manner.

"Well, it sounds like quite a nice deal, doesn't it? You get to not only travel with a beauty like me, but you also get a strong ally."

The girl stretched out her hand while she enticed Yao Jun, all it would take to seal the deal was a simple handshake. But Yao Jun was already beyond the realm of just trusting people blindly, especially when it came to people who were stronger than him.

"And what exactly is it you stand to gain from this? Co-operation is based on equality, but that term doesn't seem to apply here, no?"

Co-operation without equality wouldn't be a partnership, it would be more akin to servitude, you might even end up as nothing more than a thrall if it was bad enough. The corners of the girl's mouth looked like they wanted to pull up further, her left foot rising slightly, but Ba-Shei flared up before she could raise her foot properly and take a step forward. She lowered her foot again while raising her hands to show that she had no ill-intent.

"Caution is a very good trait to have, it generally stops you from ending up with a spear lodged in your spine. What if I tell you that I'm willing to swear an oath that I won't attack you, won't get others to harm you, and that I'll even help you get through the trials? Of course, you'll have to swear the same oath, I'd like to avoid getting chewed up by your friends."

The girl lowered and stretched out her hand once more as she presented the proverbial olive-branch, but Sirius and the two others refused to lower their guards. And the same was especially true for Yao Jun, whose gaze only grew sharper.

"You can't really think that saying that will lower my suspicion, do you? It doesn't address the core issue, so it only makes it look like you're trying to tiptoe around the topic."

Not only had she splendidly danced around the equality issue he brought up, but the specific wording she used in regards to Yao Jun's companions also caught his attention. The girl allowed her gaze to roam across Yao Jun's face for a few seconds, an annoyed click of her tongue eventually escaping her now-pursed lips.

"If you've already guessed at the truth then you should just play along with it, a touch of subtlety and compliance goes a long way in making people more well-disposed towards you. Your three companions, they're all Divine Beasts, right? And those two are special even among Divine Beasts, no? They've already gone against logic and taken a step towards a higher realm, correct?"

She swept out her arm to gesture towards Sirius and the three others, somewhat reluctantly revealing the truth she had subtly tried to imply with her words. Yao Jun had indeed guessed that she knew a bit about his beasts from the wording she used earlier, but she hadn't expected that she would be able to tell that Sirius and Little Gray were special. After all, one of them held a God Gate while the other held two fragments of another God Gate, they had already left the realm of normal Divine Beasts by taking in a part of a minor universe's Origin Heart.

Of course, her revealing that she had figured out the truth was far from enough to alleviate any suspicions that Yao Jun had. She too also seemed to guess this, as she continued to talk before Ba-Shei and the others had a chance to question or even possibly attack her.

"Don't let my form deceive you, I'm actually a Demonic beast myself. And while they may have pulled back their aura as much as possible, there is no way they can hide it from me thanks to the difference in our realms. There might be a qualitative difference between us, but my quantity can still bridge a bit of that gap. So I already knew that they were Divine Beasts by the time you guys sat down."

In the past, his Demon God's Gate would have let Yao Jun instantly recognize this girl as a Demonic beast, even if she hid herself in a human form. But now he hadn't been able to discover a single clue about it so he wouldn't have known if she hadn't admitted it. It was a fairly obvious thing, but actually experiencing it made him slightly uncomfortable, he was just too used to being able to sense Demonic beasts at all times. But he simply squashed that uncomfortable sensation, maintaining his slightly sharp and cold gaze as he pushed the girl on.

"You're still dancing around the answer. If you have no intention of answering then you might as well just leave right now."

Just like she said, the difference in cultivation realm allowed her to bridge most of the gap that was created by Sirius and the others being Divine Beasts. As such, their Divine Beast status was not enough to create equality between his group and her, so she had yet to answer the main question he wanted to be answered, what did she stand to gain. The girl's pursed lips eased up slightly, she realized that the normal approach wasn't good enough so she decided to show a proper amount of earnestness.

"I want to make a bet, I want to gamble on you and your true identity. I must get to the sanctum in the tomb, I NEED to reach it and meet the ancestor of my race there, otherwise, we'll go extinct before long. And the best way to make such a thing more accomplishable is to acquire good allies that can help me. We Demonic beasts are always disadvantaged when it comes to things like this, but you haven't used them for their parts so you're an option that seems fairly safe."

A partnership between a human and a Demonic beast was actually something that was fairly difficult to achieve. The reason was extremely simple, a Demonic beast that was as strong as you would be an excellent resource for you. Even if the element didn't match your laws, just the pure energy its blood and flesh contained would be extremely beneficial to you.

And the same was true for the beast, eating a cultivator as strong as it would be like drinking a concentrated tonic that would greatly boost its strength and aid it in growing. There was simply more use in killing the other party than to work together, it was as if the two races were designed specifically to be enemies.

She had explained why she wanted to go into the tomb, and she spoke about why she had chosen on him as a partner. But even so, Yao Jun's expression didn't change. He simply continued to look at her in his quiet manner, the girl eventually spitting out a somewhat harsh breath when she realized that he wasn't satisfied with her simplified explanation.

"You really are an aggravating person, has anyone ever told you that? You're just at the early stage of the Earthly Deity realm in body and soul cultivation, and you haven't even started Qi cultivation. The three of them are only middle-stage Earthly Deities, but they can probably fight against middle-stage or even late-stage Heavenly Deities, no? They're Divine Beasts, after all, unfair beings blessed by the universe itself."

Her supposition about the strength of Yao Jun's companions wasn't entirely wrong, Divine Beasts were unfair existences that could easily fight others above their realms. But there was one fact she didn't know, and that was that all of Yao Jun's beasts had been trained in the technique he used in the past, Crumbling The Nine Heavens. Once they activated that technique, while the boost wasn't as great as the one he had gotten, they would still grow much stronger.

They hadn't been forced to go all out before in the past, but he felt confident that they should be able to kill late-stage Heavenly Deities on their own after a hard battle. If they worked together then they might be able to stand a chance against an early-stage Sovereign God, a Godking. Of course, these were just assumptions of his, and he would prefer it if they didn't end up in a situation where they were forced to confirm it.

The girl didn't stop talking after pointing towards Little Gray and the others, just mentioning the difference in strength between Yao Jun and them wasn't enough to serve as an answer. But it served as the prelude to her answer, so she felt that Yao Jun would still keep looking at her silently if she hadn't mentioned it first.

"They're that strong, and you're that weak, yet they follow and clearly revere you, why is that? They're Divine Beasts, so it's not like you can force them into servitude and reverence, at best you can only seal them. So it's heartfelt, they respect and follow you of their own choice, and they do so from the bottom of their hearts. As such, you clearly aren't as simple as you first appear, but what exactly could you be hiding to make Divine Beasts follow you so honestly?"

Divine Beasts had their own pride and beliefs, there was a reason it was incredibly rare for people to actually have Divine Beast followers. Of course, the fact that every single inch of a Divine Beasts body was extremely valuable was another factor, you couldn't make them follow you so you might as well just kill them and carve them up. But even with that general truth that had been followed for countless years, Yao Jun had three Divine Beasts follow him, their gazes practically filled with endless respect and worship as they guarded him. The situation was far from normal, especially when viewed from a Demonic beast's viewpoint, so the girl had already formed her own theories on it.

"I've got several guesses, but no concrete answers. Are you the reincarnation of some powerhouse they served in the past? Did you use to be much stronger but ended up temporarily losing your strength? Are you perhaps a Primordial Man, or even an Origin Beast in human form? Or perhaps you somehow have such divine luck that you managed to find all three of them right after they were born and have raised them ever since. I don't know the answer, but I'm betting that it's one of the first ones or something close to that at least. And if that is the case, then allying with you will be very helpful. That's where our equality comes from, my bet and your secrets. So?"

To find a Divine Beasts just after they were born, and an orphaned one nonetheless? Doing it once was one thing, it was in the realm of ungodly luck, but still plausible. But to do so three times with three different Divine Beasts, two of which had the chance to transcend their realm? That was beyond the realm of anything plausible, there was no way such a lucky being could exist in the universe.

So she made her bet, she gambled on the chance that Yao Jun's secrets ran so deep that even Divine Beasts would worship him. If that really was the case, the two were more than equal, at least for the moment. Yao Jun took in the girl's reasoning in silence, studying her expression for a few moments before his pupils slid towards Little Gray and the others.

"What do you guys think?"

Yao Jun had his own thoughts on the girl's words and reasoning, he personally wouldn't be against accepting her temporary alliance. He trusted the hunch he had that she spoke truthfully, and the oath would allow them to breathe a bit more easily as the worked together so there was definitely something to be gained here. But he wasn't on his own, and he wouldn't even be the one doing most of the fighting, so he wanted to consult with his companions first. And the one to give his input first was the one that Yao Jun least expected to speak up.

"I believe it is an offer worth accepting."