Chapter 3897 — The Danger Arrives
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
As the two talked, Qiao Hongcai had already succeeded in subduing the cub, at the cost of a dozen savage claw wounds all over his body. Time was short, after all; every extra second here was another second of danger. Measured against that, paying only this much in injuries was already a bargain.
He mixed the cub's blood with his own, smeared it onto the spirit-pet talisman, and pressed the talisman to the cub's forehead. Success or failure in this gamble all came down to this single act.
In theory, a low-grade spirit-pet talisman could bind a spirit beast up to the peak Heaven rank. But that was only in theory. The higher the beast's grade, the greater the difficulty of binding and the lower the success rate—an unchanging truth since ancient times.
A low-grade spirit-pet talisman used on a grade-less or Yellow-rank spirit beast was all but certain to succeed. But once it came to the Heaven rank, the success rate had already dropped below forty percent. However well one prepared beforehand, whether it ultimately worked still came down to luck.
The reason a spirit-pet talisman could bind a spirit beast was that its effect was essentially that of powerful brainwashing. Once the master-binding succeeded, a mental link was established between pet and master, making the beast wholly obedient.
Others—including high-grade spirit beasts—might be able to kill it, but none could make it submit, and even the hierarchy of intimidation between spirit beasts would lose its effect.
Such was the advantage of the spirit-pet talisman, but the drawback was that it placed no small mental burden on the master. After all, in brainwashing the pet, the master himself suffered the side effects, and this mental link persisted long-term. With two or three more spirit pets, the master's mind would likely collapse.
Beyond that, a spirit pet bound by a talisman would to some degree have its spirit nature erased, so its true strength was a notch below that of a wild spirit beast.
Wei Zhao and Xiao Che waited anxiously for a full half-incense stick's time before they heard Qiao Hongcai exhale a long, foul breath. "Done."
By then the cub had fallen completely unconscious, but both Wei Zhao and Xiao Che could plainly sense that the wild, untamable ferocity it had carried was gone, replaced by a measure of the docility peculiar to a spirit pet.
It was a bit of a shame, but also unavoidable. To gain something, one must lose something.
"Here it comes!" Just as the three were about to withdraw in haste, Wei Zhao's eyelid suddenly twitched, and at once the sky seemed to darken as a massive shadow fell over their heads.
In the end, they could not escape this calamity. The adult Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle had returned!
Feeling the crushing might of this sovereign of the skies, Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai could not help but freeze. A single casual beat of its wings snapped countless mighty trees in midair—what a terrifying display of power!
"You two go, now! I'll take the cub—split up, move!" Wei Zhao, in his alarm, rapped out his orders.
With the cub at his side, he could draw the Golden Eagle's attention, and Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai would not be in too much danger. As for himself, with the great Ghost Thing watching over him, his life was naturally not a concern.
Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai were both startled. To touch the cub at a moment like this was sheer recklessness—indeed, by Qiao Hongcai's own reckoning as the cub's master, there was no need to bother with the cub at all now; the three of them should simply flee for their lives. (To be continued...)
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