Chapter 1 The Right Move?

Seeing everyone stop their offensive, Solokin finally breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the fiery pain in his wounds all over his body.

Although the fight hadn't lasted long, the contrast in combat power was too great. He had been ganged up on the entire time, rubbed against the ground by dozens of burly men. His injuries were not light. If his own combat power hadn't been exceptional, an ordinary Super-A Grade would have been beaten into a pancake.

Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to hit the weaknesses of the Covenant, otherwise he would have been done for… Moreover, just knowing the Covenant’s weakness wasn't enough. He had to have the matching abilities to use it as leverage. In this situation, only a very few people in the universe could do this, and Solokin was one of them. No one knew how many possessed bodies he had or where they were hidden.

Moreover, the others were unsure if Solokin had any means of faking death, so they didn't dare to act rashly.

At this time, Solokin forced himself to endure the twitching of his nerves, suppressed the anger in his heart, and put on a stiff smile.

"Ahem, that's right. We're all old acquaintances, we should resolve today's misunderstanding in a peaceful way. Fighting and killing is so bad."

"What do you have to say?" The Oathkeeper stood with arms crossed, floating in space, his tone noncommittal.

Solokin's eyes darted around. "We can cooperate."

"Cooperate?" The Oathkeeper looked Solokin up and down.

"That's right, we are all old guys from the old era, and the past grievances have long since dissipated with time. We are not enemies now. Today's matter was a misunderstanding. My goal was actually just the Soul Flame, but I happened to stumble upon your secret. The biggest contradiction between us is your distrust of me, fearing that an outsider like me will leak information, so you plan to catch me..."

Solokin had calmed down at this time, and used the silver tongue he had honed over the years in the business world to negotiate.

He observed the faces of the others, paused, and continued:

"But now you can't stop me from spreading the information, and I'm worried that you'll be detrimental to me. We both have concerns, so cooperation is the best choice for both of us. If we can reach a peaceful consensus, we can avoid escalating the situation into a lose-lose situation."

"Then how do you want to cooperate?" The Oathkeeper asked, narrowing his eyes.

"It's very simple. You're worried about leaks and don't trust me to act outside, so why not just let me join the Covenant and become one of you? Wouldn't that solve the problem?"

Solokin grinned.

His core idea was simple: if you can't beat them, join them!

This wasn't just a temporary measure to save his life, but a well-thought-out result. Although this encounter brought life-threatening danger, after thinking about it carefully, it might not be a wonderful opportunity and a chance to explore the secrets of the universe.

He was already prepared to abandon the "Solokin" persona and originally planned to retire to the secondary dimension world for a while, but now it seemed that the Covenant organization might be a better place to go. Not only was there a group of old acquaintances to accompany him, but it also seemed to be brewing some big plan. By staying here, he could also pretend to the outside world that he was also resurrected.

After the initial shock, Solokin had developed a strong interest in the Sanctuary Resurrection. His other goal was to reduce the number of Super-A Grades in the universe, but now he had discovered that Super-A Grades had a way to be resurrected. He would not be able to sleep or eat well if he didn't find out what was going on.

At the same time, Solokin couldn't help but feel a little sour. He originally thought that most of the Primordial Ones had disappeared into the long river of history, and only he had survived to the new era. Although he didn't say it, he had always harbored a vague sense of superiority in his heart, thinking that he was the only one among the strong of his time who had the last laugh.

But now, seeing a large group of Primordial Ones alive, Solokin's superiority was gone, and he only felt sour in his heart. Especially when he thought about his many years of living in obscurity and cautiously, he couldn't help but feel jealous and envious of this group of resurrected people, so he became even more interested in the Sanctuary Resurrection.

"You want to join the Covenant?"

Everyone was stunned for a moment, their expressions becoming strange.

You haven't paid anything, and you want to share our fruits of victory?

How could you think so highly of yourself?

After so many years, how could the powerful Spirit Emperor in memory become so smooth?

The Oathkeeper frowned and pondered, not speaking, seemingly struggling.

Seeing this, Solokin added another fire, saying, "To be honest, I happen to have the idea of retiring. If the Covenant is willing to accept me, I won't come empty-handed. You should know that I am the head of the Infinite Consortium. I can bring a huge amount of funding to the Covenant. No matter what plan you want to carry out, you need money, right?"

He was also greedy for the secret of the Sanctuary Resurrection and was willing to spend a lot of money to obtain the qualification to join. If he could also enjoy this kind of benefit, his life would be more secure.

Hearing this, the Oathkeeper said quietly, "Letting outsiders join is not very controllable. You are hiding so deeply, we lack understanding of you, and it is difficult to trust you."

"I understand your concerns, but I am indeed very sincere. As for the saying of outsiders, I don't think it is rigorous." Solokin smiled: "We are all old acquaintances and have a certain understanding of each other's styles. We don't lack a basis for trust."

Baige suddenly shook his head and interjected, "No, we are not familiar."

Damn it! You roasted me back then!

Solokin almost wanted to swear, but he still had to keep smiling.

The Oathkeeper said slowly, "So many years have passed, you must have changed more than one identity. How do we know what changes you have?"

Hearing this, Solokin was silent for a rare moment, shook his head, "Everyone has some secrets. No matter what I have experienced before, now I am just Solokin."

He didn't want to reveal information about other identities. The Spirit Emperor and Solokin's personas were still relatively clean, but he had committed a lot of things under other identities. If they were exposed, they would become new handles, so he refused to expose the personas he had used. He also took this opportunity to appropriately express toughness in the negotiation, reminding the other party of the equal status in the negotiation.

The Oathkeeper thought for a while and changed the question, "Let's put this matter aside for now, and let me ask you first. You said you can sense the Soul Flame, but there has been no movement for so many years. Why do you suddenly want to regain this ability? If you don't explain this clearly, we can't believe your statement."

Solokin hesitated for a moment, then said in a deep voice, "Actually, I encountered a powerful enemy and wanted to deal with him, so I have to take back the Soul Flame and try my best to increase my strength."

"Who is that powerful enemy?"

"Black Star!"

As soon as he finished speaking, everyone's hearts trembled, and they hurriedly controlled their expressions, not revealing anything unusual.

The Oathkeeper suppressed the surprise in his heart and pretended to be puzzled, "Black Star? I know this guy. He has only risen in the past few decades and seems to be a top-tier powerhouse in the universe. It is said that his strength is unfathomable. How did you provoke him?"

As soon as this was mentioned, Solokin's face turned gloomy.

"He saw through my identity and came to extort me. I decided to settle the matter peacefully and agreed to his request. I cooperated with him at a loss, just to satisfy his appetite and prevent him from revealing it. But this bastard is too bullying. He took my money and wanted to expose my details and scheme against me behind my back. If I don't teach him a lesson, he will probably think I am easy to bully!"

This time Solokin's anger was not feigned, but a true expression of emotion. It was as if they were mortal enemies, and if Black Star was in front of him, he would stab him to death on the spot.

"So this is why you want to abandon your current identity and go into hiding?" Seeing that Solokin's performance didn't seem fake, the Oathkeeper couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

"That's right, I don't want to be noticed by the three major civilizations. He forced me to abandon the forces I had been managing for many years and run away in despair."

Solokin said hatefully.

He harbored great hostility towards Han Xiao, and even had the greedy idea just now of coercing the Covenant organization to help him deal with Black Star by threatening to leak secrets. With such a powerful and unexpected armed force, it would definitely catch Black Star off guard.

But after thinking about it carefully, he still dismissed this impulsive idea. After all, Black Star had the Emperor's teleportation ability, and he didn't care about being surrounded. At the same time, his threat would inevitably lead to the Covenant's dissatisfaction, and there was a chance that they would refuse to accept him.

Compared to the secret of the Sanctuary Resurrection, targeting Black Star seemed less important, so Solokin didn't want to lose big because of small things. Moreover, he had already learned a lesson from this encounter - since he chose to be a coward, he should be a coward to the end!

So Solokin didn't want to cause any more trouble. With the Covenant organization's big secret in front of him, he secretly decided to cancel the plan to deal with Black Star and retire peacefully. Anyway, he felt that there would be better opportunities in the future to make Black Star pay the price for his actions.

The Oathkeeper narrowed his eyes and suddenly said, "If you are being targeted by Black Star, then this is a risk. If we accept you, Black Star might find the location of the organization one day while tracking you, leading to our exposure, just like today."

Solokin hurriedly said, "No, Black Star doesn't have much obsession with me personally. He probably just covets my assets. You don't know, this guy is greedy, domineering, ambitious, cunning, and extremely shameless... His goal is to annex the assets of the Infinite Consortium."

If we hadn't been in contact with Black Star, we might have really believed your lies.

…But being shameless is true.

The Oathkeeper rolled his eyes secretly and pretended to be serious, "This is just your guess. You can't guarantee what actions Black Star will take. If you want to join the Covenant, you'd better solve this hidden danger first."

Solokin secretly felt a pain in the ass. He had planned to cancel the plan for the sake of stability, but he didn't expect the Covenant to force him to continue targeting Black Star.

However, in his opinion, the Oathkeeper's concerns were reasonable and he couldn't find any fault with them, so Solokin didn't feel anything unusual.

"To be honest, I don't have much confidence in dealing with Black Star alone. He is too strong..." Solokin said helplessly.

The Oathkeeper's eyes widened, "Don't tell me you want us to help you? Don't push your luck! If you really think you can threaten us at will by seizing a handle, we would rather be exposed and kill you."

He was so tough in his attitude just to prevent Solokin from thinking that the Covenant was connected to Black Star.

"Then what do you want to do?"

Solokin asked back, he felt that the Oathkeeper had said so much and couldn't possibly still be thinking of a lose-lose situation.

The Oathkeeper narrowed his eyes, and his tone suddenly softened, "In short, you can't leave for the time being. We have to ensure that your main body is within our sight, but we won't do anything to you. This is just a safety measure to prevent you from leaking secrets. As for the request to join the Covenant... we still need to consider it and weigh the pros and cons."

The members of the Covenant all heard the Oathkeeper's meaning of giving in and had different expressions.

"No, are we really going to accept him?" Baige pretended to be surprised.

"This is not a bad choice, otherwise, are we really going to let him leak the information?" The Oathkeeper turned his head and glanced at him, then glanced at the others, winked secretly, then turned back and said to Solokin, "This is my condition, if you don't accept it, then there is nothing to talk about."

Solokin weighed it for a while and found that he didn't have many choices. This result was already good, so he exhaled and nodded slowly:

"Okay, I agree to this condition. I am willing to be under your control temporarily, but you can't secretly set up traps to block spiritual fluctuations. Although this kind of thing is not very useful to me, as long as you show such signs, I will regard it as you not having the sincerity to cooperate and immediately tear up the deal and expose the information of the possessed bodies."

"Okay." The Oathkeeper nodded.

The two sides reached a consensus, and the atmosphere quickly eased.

Everyone gathered around, sandwiched Solokin, and went to the Covenant organization's fleet, planning to monitor this guy every minute and every second as a new entertainment activity besides playing cards.

Solokin obediently let everyone take him away, quietly wiped his cold sweat, and felt that this experience was like a dream, secretly rejoicing.

"Fortunately, my persuasion is not bad and I won a turning point..."

After everyone had gone far away, the Oathkeeper also breathed a sigh of relief. His plan was similar, and he also wanted to stabilize the other party first.

In fact, for the Oathkeeper, if Solokin was sincere in joining, then it didn't matter to accept him. There was no deep hatred between the two sides. They were old acquaintances of the same era and had common topics, which could also prevent leaks.

The Covenant was not an affiliated force of others, and it didn't need to report to Black Star to recruit new people. However, the Oathkeeper felt that it would be better to notify Black Star about this matter.

After all, Solokin and Black Star had conflicts, and the Oathkeeper was still biased towards Han Xiao. For him, the Black Star Army was a more important partner.

With this in mind, the Oathkeeper closed his eyes slightly and secretly used his spiritual projection to contact Han Xiao.

…

Black Star Palace, Commander's office.

The Oathkeeper's spiritual projection appeared in the field, and when he raised his eyes, he saw the burly figure processing documents on the seat.

Sensing the arrival of the Oathkeeper, Han Xiao looked up and smiled.

"Yo, Lao Qi, you're a rare guest."

The Oathkeeper didn't have the mood to chat and said in a deep voice, "Black Star, there was a sudden situation just now, and I think I need to notify you. This matter may seriously affect our plan."

"Then tell me, I haven't blocked your mouth." Han Xiao was not nervous and said jokingly.

"Just now, Solokin came to our door..."

The Oathkeeper told the whole story of what happened just now without reservation.

"Is that so? I thought my luck was bad enough, but I didn't expect yours to be not bad either."

Han Xiao was immediately happy. He didn't expect Solokin to be so brave and dare to break into the nursing home.

"You can still laugh!" The Oathkeeper said angrily, "What do you think we should do about this? If you have no objections, I will really take him into the Covenant!"

"Hey, what's the hurry? Isn't this very easy to solve?" Han Xiao waved his hand casually.

"What do you have in mind?"

"I think you have fallen into a misunderstanding. It can be understood that you are concerned and confused." Han Xiao put his hands on his chin and said with a light smile: "You are worried that he will leak information, but he doesn't know the connection between me and you. So in his eyes, exposing information can only threaten the Covenant organization, which is useless to me. If you change your way of thinking, you will know that this is actually good news for me."

"You mean..." The Oathkeeper's heart moved.

"I have never had the opportunity to secretly attack him, but now, you have helped me fix the prey and indirectly created a secret execution site. And Solokin doesn't even know that the handle he holds is useful to me. Just a simple play, and the problem is solved. This is the meaning of the existence of partners, in other words..."

Han Xiao smiled noncommittally, and a faint light flashed across the Netherworld imprint on the back of his hand.

"He's gone."