After the ordeal of resisting the inquiry, Loki shook his head and said, "Someone who is at rank 7 who can spend that much on finding out who the killer is would surely be willing to spend more on a fight when they know who the killer is. So I don’t regret spending so much of my lifespan on them."
"But I must say that they surely are a bully. Like, how much did they spend on the investigation? They probably spent only 130 years of their lifespan, while I spent 1,300 years of mine. This is cheating."
"Fortunately, I didn’t try to use the Psychic Flame Metac to call the Divine Position and take it for myself. If I had, they would have surely interfered with the process and tried to stop me."
When he thought of what could have happened, he snorted and said, "Forget trying to stop me. I’m sure they wouldn’t have stopped there. With this much interest that they are showing, they would probably have tried to kill me to get back the Psychic Flame Metac."
He shook his head some more and lamented some more about how he was being cheated. But not once during this process did he stop eating spirit creatures.
He didn’t like that he spent 1,300 years of his precious lifespan to block an investigation into what he considered a perfectly legal murder. He felt that the murder was legal because he had paid the debt for the life of that mind hunter, so the loot he gained from the murder should be rightfully his.
Now that he is being maligned by an investigation that wants to paint him in the wrong light as a thief, it is his right to be displeased. It is also his right to want to stop the investigation from happening.
Finally, it is his right to be displeased that he had to spend 1,300 years of his lifespan to stop the investigation. However, he wouldn’t have been displeased as much if the other person had also spent 1,300 years of their lifespan to continue pressing for the investigation.
If both sides had spent the same amount of lifespan, he would have taken the loss as the damage for doing business. But the other person had spent ten times less than what he did. That couldn’t sit well with him.
Unfortunately for him, this wasn’t the end of this investigation. The rank 7 on the other side continued pressing for the inquiry a few minutes after taking a break. This time, it cost him 1,700 years of his lifespan to block them before they gave up.
After the inquiry ended, he said, "You know what. Now I’m not sure if it was worth it to block them. I’m starting to think that it would have been more cost-effective to just fight them."
"After all, how powerful could a rank 7 cultivator be? I may not be able to defeat one, but I should be able to make them give up in a fight, and I bet that I could do so with far less lifespan."
Just as he made this boast, the rank 7 cultivator began the third round of investigation. This time, Loki was hesitant about continuing to block the investigation.
After thinking about the pros and cons for a while, he said, "It is just some lifespan. I have too many secrets worth more than some lifespan."
"I might be able to force them to give up in a fight, but what if they bring helpers to the fight. Or what if they also want to know where I am? They could check everything I did since that murder, up to how I am devouring everything I see here in the second heaven."
So he decided to block the investigation. He grit his teeth and watched as his precious lifespan flowed away like water.
The ordeal was painful, but it still wasn’t enough to make him stop devouring spirit creatures like he had an eating disorder and was at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
A few minutes later, the third round of inquiry ended. This time, he spent a total of 2,600 years of his lifespan to block the inquiry.
When he thought of how many creatures he could have granted the potential to cultivate with all of the lifespan he had spent to starve off this person, he gritted his teeth and said, "Just you wait."
"Wait for me to advance to rank 7. When I do, I will show you how it feels to block someone determined to know your secrets."
Actually, he wanted to investigate the rank 7 divine being now, but he couldn’t do so because the cost of lifespan would still be at a ratio of 10 to 1. That means he would still have to spend ten times as much of his lifespan as they do.
So, if he stubbornly tries to investigate them now, the whole experience would be no different than when they were investigating him, and he would lose more lifespan than it was worth.
Besides, even if they didn’t block the investigation and let him see them, the information would still be ten times as expensive to acquire compared to investigating another rank 6 divine being.
Plus, he doesn’t want to fight right now. What he wants to do with his time for the foreseeable future is to eat spirit creatures and earn law fragments. So even if he manages to acquire the information about the identity of the rank 7 divine being, he won’t be able to use it now.
Unfortunately for him, this person seemed hell-bent on forcing him to give up. They initiated a fourth inquiry a few minutes after the third one had ended.
This made him sneer and say, "What are they trying to do? Are they giving me the breaks just so that I can have time to think about giving up?"
"Too bad for them. I am made of sterner stuff."