Chapter 4

  The trees in the forest and the bushes are already laden with fruit. Various animals are eating as much food as possible to get through the harsh winter.

  On a hillside, trees grew densely, and a group of wild boars was rooting around below. The group consisted of about fifteen or sixteen boars, with the younger ones on the outside and the larger ones in the center, forming a fan shape as they swept through the forest. They ate everything edible on the ground, humming as they munched on berries, small insects, and tiny animals that had been startled out of hiding. With their snouts, they dug up buried tubers to devour.

  About ten meters away, a pair of eyes watched the boars from a dense thicket of branches on a tree. The eyes were yellow with black pupils, cold and cruel. They sized up the group, evaluating the size and strength of each boar, trying to pick out the plumpest one. Before long, they focused on a mature male boar that was neither too big nor too small, not too fat nor too thin. The owner of the eyes seemed to have decided on its victim.

  After selecting its prey, the eyes' owner began to wait patiently. Soon, the group of boars crossed over a stretch of open ground and came within about ten meters of where the eyes' owner was hiding. At this point, the mouth below the eyes twisted into a cruel smile.

  Suddenly, powerful leg muscles tensed, causing the branches on the tree to snap and fall away. Under the tremendous force, the hunter sprang from its perch on the branch, adjusting its posture in mid-air before landing with its hind legs spread wide, ready to pounce on its target.

  The group of boars froze for a moment when they heard the snapping of the branches, then scattered in all directions, trying to escape. The selected male boar didn't even have time to react before it was knocked over by the hunter's massive energy. Before it could struggle, two claws shot out from the powerful muscles and elastic tendons, each about 15 centimeters long.

  One claw stabbed into the boar's neck, with three toes grasping its head and throat, while the curved claw sliced through the cervical vertebrae, severing the spinal cord. The other claw entered the boar's soft abdomen, tearing it open with four razor-sharp claws, causing a mixture of internal organs, shattered fragments, and polluted blood to spill out from the massive wound.

  With just one strike, the unfortunate boar was already dead. The hunter pressed down on its prey, lifted its head, and let out a terrifying roar at the scattered boars, sending them fleeing without looking back.

  Only then did the hunter reveal itself in all its glory - a monstrous bird with an iron-gray beak that was short and broad, with sharp, diamond-shaped teeth on either side of the lower jaw. The mouth was not like those of ordinary birds but rather resembled a cross between a reptile and a bird, with scaly skin covering the back of the jaws.

  The hunter had a strong lower jaw, again unlike ordinary birds, with diamond-shaped teeth at the front and rows of sharp teeth in the back.

  The strange bird is covered in a thick layer of gray down, with a neck that's neither long nor short. Its forelimbs are two huge wings, and what's peculiar is that at the end of each wing joint, there's a claw that can grasp, with four toes, three in front and one behind, making the entire wing look like a combination of bird and bat wings. The body isn't particularly special, but its hind legs are similar to those of a crane, only thicker. Its feet have fleshy pads, with four toes, again three in front and one behind, and what's strange is that the toenails can retract, just like cat claws. On its buttocks, there's a short, flat, equilateral triangular tail, resembling a chicken's butt, but stiff at the joint and unable to move randomly.

  A strange bird stood beside the wild boar's corpse, one foot on the body, and yet it spoke in a human voice: "Today's luck isn't bad."

  The strange bird was actually Zhou Bofu. At this time, it had been a year since he came to this world. In that year, he almost completely transformed into a fierce bird of prey that drank blood and ate flesh, just like a real bird of prey hunting and killing living beings to eat their blood and meat. The Yin-Yang spell had also been able to run smoothly nine months ago. When the Yin-Yang spell was still unable to be controlled, he would have to endure the pain of being tempered by ice and fire every other day, and his appetite would become smaller and smaller. Later, when the Yin-Yang spell could be controlled at will and run freely, there was no longer any suffering from the ice and fire tempering, but his appetite suddenly became very large, and he had to eat blood every day. In the past year, Zhou Bofu had developed a habit of talking to himself and singing songs because he didn't want to forget how to speak. If it weren't for those few minutes every day when he saw his original world and kept speaking and singing, he might have already become lost and turned into a wild man (bird).

  Since he could control the demonic energy, Zhou Bofu had long known how to apply it. After all, so many starting points weren't just for show. As expected, when the demonic energy was applied to his eyes, he could see everything clearly within a range of over ten kilometers; when applied to his ears, he could hear even the slightest sound from afar; and when applied to his nose, he could smell the scent of living creatures tens of miles away.

  The demonic energy also had other uses. When circulated on the surface of his body, it would greatly enhance his defensive capabilities. Although years of cultivation had already made Zhou Bofu's physical body nearly impervious to harm, enhancing his defense was always a good thing.

  A few months ago, a ferocious tiger had tried to snatch Zhou Bofu's prey. The tiger suddenly pounced out and struck Zhou Bofu's bird-like body with its claws. At the time, he was caught off guard and used his chest to block the tiger's attack. Fortunately, thanks to his cultivation and the demonic energy automatically protecting him, he only stumbled backward.

  Zhou Bofu immediately counterattacked, sweeping the tiger several meters away with a single flap of his wing, causing it to spit blood from its mouth and nose. The tiger saw that things were not going in its favor and took advantage of Zhou Bofu's momentary distraction to turn tail and run.

  Zhou Bofu usually liked those powerful, beautiful, and ferocious large felines, so he didn't pursue the tiger to kill it. When the demonic energy was circulated through his limbs, if it was done slowly, it would enhance his endurance; if done quickly, it could greatly stimulate his explosive power.

  With this as a foundation, Zhou Bofu's hunting became incredibly efficient, with every catch being a success. Combined with human cunning, he could basically do whatever he wanted.

  Attachment

  Another general benefit is that he can feel the demonic energy of other creatures. All living beings in this world have spiritual energy, but only some "creatures" can emit demonic energy, and the strength of the demonic energy varies. His demonic energy is indeed the weakest level. So it's still not possible to act completely at will, and most of the time you still need to shrink your head and pretend to be a bird.

  A month ago, a demonic energy weaker than his suddenly appeared dozens of miles away in the west. Zhou Boshi couldn't help but feel curious, so he went to take a look. From hundreds of meters away, it turned out to be a den of white tigers, with spiritual energy much stronger than ordinary tigers. Among them was a newborn little white tiger, and that demonic energy came from that little white tiger.

  Zhou Boshi observed the little white tiger from afar and found that its eyes were different from those of other white tigers, exceptionally lively and spirited. Suddenly, he realized that this white tiger had also opened up to spiritual intelligence. Zhou Boshi did not take any further action, but instead went to observe it from a distance every few days.

  Just a few days ago, when Zhou Bofu was about to go and take another look at the little white tiger, he felt that two living beings with "qi" were rapidly approaching his direction from afar. Zhou Bofu immediately retracted his demonic energy and slipped away in a tangent line of the direction those two "qi" came from. Zhou Bofu found a hiding spot and hid himself, and soon the two "qi" appeared within his field of vision. As soon as he saw them, Zhou Bofu almost cried out loud, his emotions surging - it turned out that the two who had come were humans! A boy and a girl, both around eighteen or nineteen years old, wearing ancient attire from unknown eras, flying towards him with two glowing objects under their feet. Before long, the pair landed on flat ground and began to converse. Zhou Bofu concentrated his ears and listened intently.

  "Sister, I think we should set up our formation here and wait."

  "I'll do anything as long as it's by Master's orders."

  After he finished speaking, the man waved his hand and several small flags flew in different directions, forming a circle of over ten meters in diameter before suddenly disappearing. The young man and woman then walked to one side, pinched a spell in their hands, and their bodies also disappeared from sight.

  After counting his breath, a middle-aged man holding two small white tigers walked quickly into the formation, with the big white tiger roaring and chasing after him, stirring up sand and stones. As soon as the big white tiger entered the range of the circle, two young men and women suddenly appeared, saying "Seal!" in unison with the middle-aged man. The circle emitted a light that transformed into chain-like locks, tightly binding the big white tiger.

  "Good, the White Tiger has been caught. This year's Wanxian Conference will be very profitable with many spirit stones." The middle-aged man said, "If it weren't for the fact that a live White Tiger is worth more, there would be no need to go through so much trouble to lure it into the trap. But now, unexpectedly, there are even several young White Tigers, this year will definitely have a good start."

  A middle-aged man threw out a glowing collar, which automatically wrapped itself around the neck of the giant white tiger. A flash of light passed, and the huge white tiger shrank into a palm-sized jade stone carving that flew into the middle-aged man's bag. Then the three people continued to step on the glowing object and flew eastward.

  Zhou Bofu saw clearly that there was no such special little white tiger inside. Judging from the words and actions of those three people, this world's cultivators were quite dangerous to animals like him who had opened their spiritual intelligence. If he was seen, perhaps he would be taken away by humans just like the white tiger and her cubs, and nobody knew what would happen afterwards. As soon as this thought occurred to him, Zhou Bofu decided to head west, the farther the better.

  After running for several days, they had already left that place over a hundred miles away. Today, they took a slight rest and caught a wild boar to feast on. Zhou Bofu dragged the wild boar to a small river hundreds of steps away, threw it into the river to wash off the bloodstains, and then dragged it back up. Using his claws, he tore open the wild boar's skin, pulled out its internal organs, and Zhou Bofu ate the wild boar's heart and liver clean. He also selected the most tender and chewy parts of the pork and devoured them with relish. After eating more than half of the wild boar, Zhou Bofu walked to the water's edge to wash up, looked at his reflection in the water, and sighed: "A year has passed, and I'm still like a young bird, although I've grown a bit bigger, but my feathers are still fluffy. I really don't know when I can grow flying feathers. This head of mine is getting stranger and stranger, it looks more and more like the male fire dragon's head from that game I used to play, except without all those horns. That mouth of mine is looking more and more like it, sigh."

  After resting for a while, Zhou Bofu felt that it was still not safe, after all, those people could fly, and one hundred miles were nothing. He decided to head at least several hundred miles further west, where there were several strong demonic auras, which should be safer.