Wicked Beast

041 Wicked Beast

They said this demon fox had been captured in the great mountains south of Bashu and was being sent to the Royal Capital as an offering to His Majesty, the new emperor.

Something went wrong just before it reached the Royal Capital, and it escaped. The Demon Hunters then chased it all the way east.

This was secret information Chong Li had obtained through her fellow disciples at the Sky-Toppling Observatory.

Over the past two days, more and more Demon Hunter teams had come from the south. After passing through Baishi Village and briefly inspecting the scene, they continued north in pursuit.

The atmosphere was rather grim, but in truth, it served no purpose at all.

Ming Shu sat alone atop the arrow tower, continuing to fiddle with the Life Book. He wrote down some of his thoughts about this demon beast and demon spirit, but received no new feedback.

He had even activated the fortune-telling ritual, but all he could obtain was a weather forecast for the next few days.

Cloudy skies turning clear?

Ice and snow melting?

Warm spring and blooming flowers?

Thank you so much!

It was only when he drew the demon fox in the center of the hexagram, forming a new ritual, that he began to wonder whether offering the demon fox as a sacrifice would produce a major response.

He never expected it to actually work—a contract!

After "prophecy" and "sacrifice," there was now a new ritual function: "contract."

They said the demon spirits in the north had all been selected from the Demon Locking Pagoda, and the more powerful a demon spirit was, the harder it was to tame.

The pirates on Qunwa Island, for example, carried demon spirits that were all extremely weak frogs.

They were weak in strength, weak in body, and had low limits, but there were many of them and they matured quickly. After the pirates bred them on a large scale, they began carrying them around from the tadpole stage.

Once they transformed into frog-type demon spirits, they could be quickly tamed and their power borrowed. The results were merely average, however, and their strength was limited.

As for the other demon spirits, one needed sufficient personal strength to beat them into submission and tame them. Only then could one forcibly obtain the demon beast's blood, mix it with one's own, and prepare a blood seal of enslavement.

Compared to that, Qunwa Island's method could already be considered one of the gentler schools.

The ritual in the Life Book, however, leaned more toward equality and mutual benefit. Of course, this was only equality on the surface. In reality, all authority and the right of interpretation lay with the Life Book.

They were all in Ming Shu's hands. If he said it was an equal contract, then it was an equal contract.

If a demon beast forcibly broke the barbarian enslavement blood seal, the demon spirit would suffer a loss of more than half its strength, and its condition would become extremely weak, requiring a long time to recover.

And when that blood seal had first been designed, its creator had never considered that it might one day need to be removed.

Ming Shu's contract, on the other hand, could be easily dissolved—provided he operated it through the Life Book.

After unexpectedly obtaining this ritual, Ming Shu's thoughts changed as well. Before, he had merely hoped to protect his existing property and keep the demon fox from destroying it.

Now, he was practically eager to lure it home.

The next day, he had Zhao Siqi take over the town's affairs, while Old Zhao and Little Zhao led people to the northern valley to help resume production and carry out reconstruction.

They took most of the pirates who possessed demon spirits with them. The rest were handed over to the patrol guard unit.

Ren Yuan, Zhao Dun, Zhao Chuan, and the others each led teams to expand the search and patrol areas.

Instead, the inner core of Baishi Village was left empty. Only he himself remained, sitting atop the arrow tower.

This arrangement still was not enough. He had Chong Li help guide the other Demon Hunters farther north, toward Langya Prefecture. They casually created a few traces of the demon fox and increased the density of patrols and searches in the north.

After the ice and snow melted, the white demon fox would find it even harder to hide outside.

Moreover, although the earlier reports had not stated it outright, it was certain that the demon fox had suffered severe injuries. Otherwise, they would not have sent Chong Li and Ren Yuan, Demon Hunters with third-rank strength, into action.

To have escaped all the way from near the Royal Capital, the demon fox's strength had to be more than third rank.

At the same time, he had Old Zhao catch several wild rabbits from the mountains, saying that he wanted to eat roast rabbit. He had them kept in the village first.

There had been no reports of the demon fox eating people along the way, so for now there was no need to worry too much. It was a pity that he had no Spirit Medicine; otherwise, the other party would probably have come running over even more eagerly.

Waiting by a tree stump for a rabbit required patience.

Ming Shu had already arranged the ritual. He wondered whether his current strength would allow him to sign a contract with it directly.

A few more days passed, and new news came from the north. The demon fox still had not been found, but a Demon Beast Hunter team from the barbarian tribes had appeared.

The Demon Beast Hunter team was not made up entirely of barbarians. Quite a few people who had migrated there from the Central Plains were among them as well.

It was not only Langya Prefecture. The nearby Sishui Prefecture, Jimo Prefecture, Qi Prefecture, Beihai Prefecture, Donglai Prefecture, and the others had all been thrown into chaos by the Demon Hunters and Demon Beast Hunters.

Sure enough, after waiting several days, Ming Shu saw a new prompt on the Life Book.

Although he had not seen anything approaching, the line "Demon Spirit: Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox" had appeared in the Life Book, proving that the Life Book had not malfunctioned.

The other party's origins had also far exceeded Ming Shu's expectations.

He had thought he was picking up some trash, but instead he had run into a major boss?

Should he still make a move?

The Life Book should not deceive him.

There was no longer any chance to hesitate or regret it.

Ming Shu leaped down from the arrow tower and landed in the courtyard. Not far from him stood a bamboo cage containing several rabbits. A flash of white light appeared.

A demon fox appeared before Ming Shu.

The demon fox glanced at Ming Shu, and his entire body seemed to be frozen in place. Unable to move, he could only watch helplessly as it ate all the wild rabbits in the cage.

What alarmed Ming Shu even more was the sentence he saw in the Life Book—

"Such a nuisance. To put on this act for you, do you know how much suffering I endured along the way?"

It was contempt, mockery, and disdain.

Was it trying to hypnotize him as well? Ming Shu felt his spiritual world being struck again and again.

Was this demon fox targeting him? Why would it do this? Why go to such lengths to travel from the great mountains of the southwest to the Eastern Sea?

The Life Book continued deciphering—

"To come here and serve as a guardian beast for your household, I had three tails' worth of power sealed by the Great Demon Cave, then another three tails' worth sealed by that old Supervisor. Hmph, one day I'll definitely get back all the suffering I endured along the way."

It had come to help him? Was this any way to help someone? He could not even afford to support such a mighty being in his household.

How was he supposed to cooperate with it in this act?

After finishing its meal, the demon fox ambled over and circled Ming Shu once.

Ming Shu no longer hesitated. He silently circulated the spiritual power within his body, activated the ritual, and forcibly formed the contract, sealing away all its power and placing the authority to undo it in his own hands.

A hexagram formation suddenly lit up beneath the demon fox's feet. Light enveloped it, and it froze as well, unable to make a single move just like Ming Shu.

One human and one demon remained locked in this stalemate.

Wicked beast! Ming Shu really wanted to curse it that way in his heart, to bolster his own momentum, but he could not make a sound at all.

At the same time, that very cry exploded in both his heart and the demon fox's body—Wicked beast!

It was the Supervisor's voice!!

The demon fox collapsed limply onto the ground, its body continuously shrinking.