Lin Feng’s eyes narrowed as he considered the woman in front of him. It was very difficult to properly localize her personality. After hearing her tale, he finally understood why.

Over the years, she had been many things. Slaughterer of millions, benevolent goddess, loving mother, the princess of an empire… she had many masks and much experience in donning them.

It made her unpredictable. A most troublesome trait for one’s opponent across a negotiation table to possess. It wrapped her in a shroud of obscurity.

He took another sip of the tea in his hands, stabilizing himself and thinking of what he wanted most from her and how to pressurise her into giving her agreement.

Putting down the cup, he said, “I want the Shinju.”

Veins popped on the corners of Kaguya’s eyes and her pupil less white irises contracted as her Byakugan activated.

A pressure much vaster than before bore down on him, slamming him to the ground.

“Don’t push your luck, boy. You want me to hand over a thousand years of effort with a mere word? You wanted full disclosure so I’ll tell you, the Shinju is absolutely essential in my plans to ascend to the Realm of Demiurge.

“Housing a microcosm requires an extremely intrepid body and only by merging with the Shinju can I achieve it. You want me to just give it to you? Wishful thinking.”

Lin Feng fought against the pressure and gritted out, “With our principle protecting us, you cannot modify our souls into becoming your loyal thralls. The only hope you have of controlling us is to torture us into insanity and then remoulding our consciousnesses via mundane psychological conditioning. Our wills are too strong for your clone to manage it without your frail body predeceasing.”

“Ha-ha. I think you have forgotten that I am connected to all my clones and the other three are currently on their way. If one isn’t enough, then four?”

Lin Feng paled as the prospect of being tortured for four times the duration appeared in his mind. His will wouldn’t be able to stand up to that.

Suddenly, Pakura, who was unaffected by the pressure, spoke up: “You might be able to torture us to insanity, but to do that you would need to discard two or even three clones and have them sent into reincarnation. That would mean a delay in your plans as you wait for them to grow up. Zetsu and his plans won’t stand still waiting for you. We want… half of the Shinju.”

Kaguya shot her a look and let up on the pressure before asking Lin Feng, “I felt Samehada’s Aura from you. I see that you have managed to subdue the sword and merge with it. If you tell me how you managed to do it and use the same method to refine the Shinju, of course with my help… then I’ll let you have half of it.”

Finally relaxing, Lin Feng nodded and said, “Deal.”

The mindscape rippled as the first clause of the soul contract was finalized and turned into matching intricate tattoos on the backs of their left hands.

Lin Feng explained, “I have a special soul that allows me to use a technique to purify a soul of all its residual consciousness and turn it into a pill. Consuming the pill lets me assimilate the soul.”

Kaguya nodded. “That’s why you were able to subdue Samehada… it is a tiny piece of the Shinju and not of the world will as you speculated. That’s why it has the ability to absorb chakra.”

Lin Feng said, “Since you aren’t helping us collect the tailed beasts and are only giving the information about them and we have to collect them ourselves, getting into conflicts with Zetsu in the process, which is helpful to you… I feel we need to add a condition to this. I want there to be a non-aggression clause between us. This will also help us trust each other more.”

Kaguya nodded in a refreshed manner. “Deal.”

The mindscape rippled as the second clause of the soul contract was finalized and turned into matching intricate tattoos on the backs of their left hands.

“Finally, we want all the Will fragments and Dao and Principle fragments stuck as kekkei genkai in the world.”

Kaguya said, “Let me give you a counter-offer. I can’t give you the principle and Dao fragments that originate from me or my bloodline… I need them for my own cultivation.

“There are many Grasping Principles realm and Dao seeking realm cultivators, especially male, who practise by having large harems and thousands of descendants. After the progeny inherit their fragmented principles and Daos, they each interpret them differently. For example, each Mangekyo Sharingan has a different power. After their death, their souls merge with the progenitor and their understanding of the Dao helps his cultivation.

“So, in exchange, I will help you extract and concoct the rest of the kekkei genkai into a Grasping Principles pill which will be greatly helpful in your future sensibility of principles.

“Also, from your Karmic bond, I have realised that the best thing for both of you would be to progress together. If there is too much of a gap between your cultivation, it will harm you. The girl will easily be able to reach Shattered Void realm with your help as it only needs accumulation of energy, but for the Grasping Principles realm, soul cultivation is very important and she is far behind you in that respect.

“So, I will take her in as my disciple and use yin-yang inversion technique to convert her yang chakra to purely yin chakra and then teach her my soul cultivation method to condense her nascent divinity using it. It will leave her unable to use physical reinforcement… but that won’t matter after your bodies are strengthened after merging with the Shinju.

“Right now, she is practising the same soul sutra as you but that is a waste of potential for the karmic bond and the best results will occur if both of you practise complementary soul sutras. That’s where I come in.

“I will teach her while you go and get Hidan… and in the ten years that it will take for me to recover, both of you can collect the tailed beasts and cultivate to the Grasping principles realm, using your karmic bond to comprehend the principle of Karma. I would suggest that both of you assimilate an equal number of tailed beasts to balance yourselves out.

“After I return, we can collaborate to concoct Zetsu, who is the Shinju’s consciousness, into a pill and assimilate with the Shinju in the decided proportions. Then I will take control of the immature World Will and jack into the reincarnation cycle and recreate it according to my Dao.

“I will gather the souls of all sentients on the plane and invest them into my new system, proving my Dao and taking this plane as my microcosm and basing my Divine State on it, thereby ascending to the realm of a Demiurge.

“For that, I need to thoroughly strip away the Karma principle from the world and that is where you two will come in. It will help your cultivation too so it’s a win-win situation. So, how about it?”