Shadow Thief

"The enemy's morale ratio is 16:31. The Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord will be in Fear Status for 4.5 seconds..."

"The Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord's passive Lord Skill: Heart of the Sky triggers, forcibly reducing the duration of any negative status effect and control effect by 1-10 seconds (depending on the priority of the control effect; the lower the priority, the shorter the effective control time)."

"The duration of the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord's Fear Status has been reduced by 3 seconds. The effective control time is now 1.5 seconds."

"Abnormal!"

Bai Xiaowen cursed and dashed past the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord.

1.5 seconds later, the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord regained its freedom. It became even more enraged, sweeping its wings and shattering two Skeleton Sword-and-Shield Soldier into fragments. Then, it leaped up, its claws reaching out to seize the other two Skeleton Sword-and-Shield Soldier.

Spirit Realm notification: "Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord's skill [Grapple] activated."

Crack!

The other two Skeleton Sword-and-Shield Soldier were instantly torn to pieces.

Originally, this [Grapple] skill, upon successful detection, would cause the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord to carry the opponent thousands of meters into the air before releasing its claws, causing the opponent to fall to their death.

However, the Skeleton Sword-and-Shield Soldier's Life Value was too low, and he was instantly killed by the grab, not even worthy of enjoying this combination of Grapple and free fall.

However, the four Skeleton Sword-and-Shield Soldier also bought Bai Xiaowen a precious second.

The Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord pounced forward, but its body suddenly froze, slightly stiffened by a bolt of lightning. Its eyes blinked, and it immediately spotted the Skeleton Mage secretly casting Lightning Arrow not far away. It roared angrily, the piercing sound waves spreading out and even causing ripples in the air!

The Skeleton Mage's movements became erratic, and even Bai Xiaowen felt dizzy, his movement speed reduced by 50%! This sonic attack was actually an area-of-effect attack.

Ten meters in front of Bai Xiaowen, a blurry shadow was revealed due to the sound waves. The Shadow Assassin, who had been invisible, was now exposed.

The Shadow Assassin, crouching low and moving stealthily, held a glass bottle in his left hand filled with blood-red leaves— the Treasure Leaf of the Dragonblood Tea Tree. In his right hand, he clutched two fledgling eagles, who appeared to be fast asleep.

Qi Ruifeng's question, "Why are there only a few Treasure Leaf left on the Dragonblood Tea Mother Tree?", has finally been answered.

Bai Xiaowen had already ordered the Shadow Assassin to go into Stealth mode and patiently wait for their opportunity.

When the female White Eagle bosses swarmed out to intercept the intruders, Bai Xiaowen focused on controlling the Shadow Assassin, bypassing the White Eagle bosses' area of effect, and heading towards the eagle king's lair.

Several close calls ensued; the Shadow Assassin nearly had his cloaking broken by the Juvenile Eagle, but Bai Xiaowen fired preemptively each time, drawing the Juvenile Eagle out of the way and eliminating them. Otherwise, Bai Xiaowen's team wouldn't have advanced any slower than Qi Ruifeng's, since there were three of them.

While the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord was launching a surprise attack to drive away Qi Ruifeng, the Shadow Assassin had already reached the vicinity of the Dragonblood Tea Mother Tree and picked most of the Treasure Leaf.

Subsequently, the Shadow Assassin also extended his reach to the hungry Eaglet in the eagle king's nest...

At this moment, the two Eaglet were also awakened by the piercing sound waves of the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord, opening their pale yellow beaks and chirping incoherently.

"This is bad!"

This sonic attack was a skill that Bai Xiaowen hadn't Insight, truly taking him by surprise! He wanted to quicken his pace and rendezvous with the Shadow Assassin, but both of them were severely slowed down, and that short ten-meter distance felt like an insurmountable chasm!

Bai Xiaowen activated the Eclipse Dominator Badge immediately.

"The Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord's skill ' Piercing Shriek ' has too high a priority; the [Eclipse] skill failed to remove the control effect."

Bai Xiaowen quickly used Mature Qinglian Seed, but the attempt also failed.

"Bah!"

Upon discovering that the fledgling eagle had been stolen by thieves, not only was the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord enraged, but even the Eagle King's consorts, who had been driving away other awakened beings, abandoned their respective goals and flew over! Among them, the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord, being the closest, arrived the fastest.

Bai Xiaowen exhaled, and the Four-Color Talisman in his palm flashed with light.

He has two choices.

The first option is to apply control effects to the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord. However, due to the passive lord skill "Heart of the Sky," the control effect will definitely be severely weakened.

The second option is to cast "Berserk Talisman" on oneself to gain immunity to control effects. However, can the 7-point priority of the Berserk Talisman match or even surpass the priority of the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord's sonic skill? The answer is no, because even the Mature Qinglian Seed) with a priority of 7 (base priority 4 + additional priority 3) failed to remove control effects!

These thoughts flashed through Bai Xiaowen's mind in less than 0.1 seconds.

Bai Xiaowen gritted his teeth, switched to the blue "Imprisonment" Spell Talisman, and turned to strike the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord.

After calculating the spirit ratio, the Binding Talisman theoretically has Imprisonment time of up to 6 seconds! However, due to the reduction of the abnormal skill "Heart of the Sky," the Imprisonment time is only half of that, at only 2.5 seconds.

Bai Xiaowen, however, smiled with relief.

"That's enough. You have resilience skills, and so do I!"

Bai Xiaowen's gaze swept across his personal panel, where an inconspicuous passive status appeared... Heart of Sincerity!

Heart of Sincerity (5 stacks): You have 50% resilience, which reduces the duration of all negative status effects and control effects by 50%.

This is the passive skill of the Kusanagi Sword, "Heart of Sincerity"! Every powerful enemy in the vicinity will grant 10% tenacity, stacking up to 5 times. Any enemy within 3 levels of Bai Xiaowen and of the Elite Tier or higher template is considered a "powerful enemy"!

This level difference refers to the "deficit," meaning that enemies who are more than 3 levels below Bai Xiaowen, even if they are of the Lord Template, are not considered strong enemies.

As for the "surplus", there are no restrictions. Enemies who are level 3 above Bai Xiaowen, such as Elite Tier level 7 or 8, will also be included in the list of powerful enemies.

At this moment, on Dragonbreak Cliff, there are three female White Eagle BOSSes of the Leader Tier, as well as a large number of Elite Tier Juvenile Eagle and the extremely ferocious Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord. The highest 5 layers of the Heart of Sincerity passive skill have long been fully stacked.

The duration of the severe slow effect from the piercing sonic wave skill is determined by distance. Bai Xiaowen was relatively close, so the theoretical slow duration was as long as 5 seconds! However, under the effect of the Heart of Sincerity, the duration has been reduced to 2.5 seconds.

When Bai Xiaowen cast the Spell Talisman, the slowing effect had already lasted for 1 second, with 1.5 seconds remaining.

While imprisoned, the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord watched Yu Jin as Bai Xiaowen's slowing effect disappeared prematurely. He sped up, covering the remaining few meters, and reunited with the Shadow Assassin! Only then was it free. With a roar, it unleashed deadly Wind Blade that completely enveloped Bai Xiaowen and the Shadow Assassin.

However, the cyan Wind Blade only passed through the air.

Bai Xiaowen's figure slowly faded and disappeared; he left the Great Rift space.

With Bai Xiaowen's disappearance, the Skeleton Mage, Rageclaw, and Shadow Assassin were also recalled. On Dragonbreak Cliff, only a few Awakened from various universities remained, becoming the targets of the Golden-Crowned White Eagle Lord and the Female White Eagle BOSS's wrath. After a chaotic scene, they had no choice but to return.