Qi swearing was a dangerous business for most people. For me, I wasn't really sure what would happen.

My power was very different. I wasn't sure where my source of power came from. Whenever I had tried to penetrate the crack in my dantian, I was stopped by the same source of energy. It would take a lot more strength on my part to find out any more about my information.

If this pact helped me discover more about my energy, it would be more than worth it.

"whats your name wanderer anyway."

"Byren, his name was Byren

The seductress was quick to please before I could even get a word in; she was there always trying to gain favor.

"Well, Byren, you have done an oath swearing before, haven't you."

He sat down beside me. His face seemed to change at the drop of a hat. One second coming close in a friendly manner, the next changing instantly. The stench of negative karma overload was plain to see.

Unhinged can be either incredibly useful or completely and utterly impossible to predict.

That was also what was going to make him, so fun to deal with.

"Of course, what is your name anyway, O great disciple of the Ghost devouring sect."

He moved from his chair quickly. His arm outstretched, ready to hit me.

His slap was very well telegraphed, easily avoided in turn.

He calmed almost immediately, though. He pulled me to my feet, his gaze turning from madness to a steely visage, showing that he had a bit of intellect behind the karmic zeal.

"My name is none of your concern; you can just call me Ghost."

It took all my willpower not to laugh out loud. The ghost moniker was obvious for several reasons. It was also the moniker my grandfather went with for quite a few years, not that many people have connected him with it. Still, it was a famous name in the sect.

Obviously, my look was still a bit in humor, as he was quick to laugh with me.

"Cliche, I know, but there is no need for you to know anything else about me, the oath works either way. So please make it."

Stolen novel; please report.

Moving a bit away from him, I began the process of swearing the oath.

"I, Byren, do so swear, on my qi and cultivation, that I will assist Ghost, in any way he asks and keep quiet about all his activities."

With a little burst of power, the oath settled out in the open. Of course, it didn't take for me. Still, the fanfare made it look like it did.

"Good, now we have an actual powerful cultivator to help us, follow me."

We moved quickly through the house, down several sets of stairs. It was all very similar decorations like they had copied the design of one room, just over and overall throughout the house.

That was until we got below ground. The scenery and the karmic activity quickly rose. They had some fun summonings going on down here. The intricacies of the arrays were also incredible, set up by a golden core, at least that was why I couldn't sense it.

After quite some time walking downstairs, we arrived in a giant cavern.

It stretched out before us. The cavern glowing all the way into the distance, green glowing stalactites stabbed down towards us.

They were building an army.

Our group was in way over our heads.

There were hundreds of cultivators down there, each and every one of them going through a series of summoning rituals, creating both the constructs and the long term cores. They were then moved over to the other side of the cavern, where they were set into a simple formation. So far, there seemed to be about two thousand down there.

Each and everyone equal to the strength of a peak foundation building cultivator.

Further down, there were five behemoths, creatures with peak core formation capabilities, backing up the army.

Controlling this would be a lot of fun.

Well, the immense amount of karmic imbalance made sense now. The arrays they were using were wildly outdated and widely inefficient. The ghost devouring sect has a similar setup, but our production was far far greater. Souls were just a greater source of energy for more powerful and intelligent constructs.

Still, the force they had managed to create was genuinely impressive.

"This is our operation. The same thing is happening in several locations. All located near some of the outposts of the Floating stream sect, in which we will strike when the time is right, sending our legions of constructs through the portals we can create from taking over the towers."

I acted amazed at the scale of it all, but really I was more just surprised. It made sense that he wouldn't tell me the real plan, because while you would have to get rid of the tower itself to take away the floating stream sects ability to the portal to it, you could easily stop the reverse from happening, there were measures in several places that could turn off all access from towers with great ease.

So the lynchpin of their operations were certainly not the towers. Why had this area not got news of the retaking of the tower? There truly must be two different forces at work, with slightly similar goals. They had obviously made use of the techniques the golden core from the Ghost Devouring Sect brought, but they weren't in communication with this contingent.

They must have another way to get into the vulnerable areas of the Flowing Stream Sect unless every member of the Demon Hair Sect were stupid and hadn't studied even the basics of formations.

There was no way the Demon Hair sect would be able to be instated as a neutral sect if these operations were discovered.

So there was no way the people who had been requesting for neutral status were aware of them.

This army wasn't going to attack the Flowing Stream Sect. It was going to attack the Demon Hair Sect members suing for peace and wanting to rise to become a neutral sect.

This really had gotten interesting. It seemed I had to help a sect gain independence.