Chapter 2863: Chapter 2863
Ye Liuyun and Zhu Que moved in unison, each restraining one of the golden eagles. In the next moment, Ye Liuyun swiftly stored both creatures away, sending them off to Bai Hu.
The eagle colony waited for a long time, but the two scouts never returned. There was no sign of them, no movement at all. Anxiously, they dispatched two more eagles to investigate.
Unbeknownst to the colony, one of the earlier scouts had managed to cry out a warning. However, Qiong Qi had set up a sound-barrier within the formation. Since the eagles lacked the authority to control the array, any sound they made inside was completely trapped.
It wasn’t just sound—the formation also masked scents, preventing the eagles outside from catching even a whiff of what was happening within.
The spiritual soul power of these golden eagles wasn’t particularly strong. They likely lacked the resources to refine their souls, which made it easy for Ye Liuyun and Zhu Que to subdue them. In no time, they had captured six investigating eagles.
Yet, the colony kept sending out more scouts.
"These eagles are incredibly dim-witted! They don’t see anyone returning, yet they keep dispatching more scouts!" Zhu Que remarked to Ye Liuyun during a lull in the action.
But this time, after a long wait, no more eagles appeared.
As it turned out, the eagles truly were lacking in intelligence. After sending out scouts a few times, they gradually forgot about the whole matter.
Waiting inside the formation, Ye Liuyun and Zhu Que grew puzzled.
"Should I try calling out again?" Zhu Que asked Ye Liuyun.
"Give it a try. Make it sound really pitiful!" Ye Liuyun agreed.
So Zhu Que let out another piercing, agonized cry.
Only then did the eagle colony remember—hadn’t they heard that same bird cry before? They promptly sent out more eagles to investigate.
After searching the newcomers’ souls, Ye Liuyun and Zhu Que finally understood: the eagles had completely forgotten about Zhu Que’s earlier cries. They hadn’t even noticed that some of their own had failed to return
They had lived in the canyon for years, safe and secure, with no feral beast ever managing to intrude and cause trouble. As a result, their vigilance was practically nonexistent. When they didn’t hear the warning cries from the golden eagles they’d sent out, they assumed all was well—thinking the earlier dispatched eagles had devoured the Vermilion Bird and then flown off to hunt elsewhere.
“We’ve really stumbled upon a bunch of fools!” the Vermilion Bird remarked with amusement.
After effortlessly capturing a few more golden eagles, he and Ye Liuyun switched tactics. The Vermilion Bird, cloaked in an invisibility mantle, hid within the formation, while Ye Liuyun retrieved a random fierce beast from his spatial realm and placed it inside the trap as bait. The beast’s cries continued to lure the eagles in for a closer look.
True to form, the golden eagles fell for the trick again. Several more arrived in small groups, though this time, none had been sent by the flock. Instead, they’d either mistaken the bait for easy prey or happened to spot the trapped beast while out hunting. Being avian themselves, the eagles had initially been wary of other birds encroaching on their territory. But when it came to land-bound creatures, they couldn’t have cared less.
By the end of the day, Ye Liuyun and the Vermilion Bird had captured around fifty golden eagles.
“This method works brilliantly,” the Vermilion Bird said to Ye Liuyun. “Just leave a beast in the formation—no need for it to even make a sound. Any eagle passing by will take the bait on its own!”
So they abandoned the idea of using noise to attract the eagles, opting instead to simply leave the bait in place and wait.
However, when night fell and over fifty eagles failed to return to their roost, the Golden Eagle King grew suspicious. Normally, the eagles would return to rest before dark.
While it wasn’t unheard of for a straggler or two to arrive late, such a large number missing at once could only mean trouble.
The Golden Eagle King immediately dispatched a search party of twenty eagles to scour their territory for the missing flockmates.
The sudden, coordinated surge of eagles bursting out of the canyon startled both Ye Liuyun and the Vermilion Bird. But these eagles were on a mission—even when they spotted the bait beast below, they ignored it entirely, flying past in disciplined formation.
“What’s the hurry? They’re ignoring easy prey,” the Vermilion Bird wondered aloud.
“They’ve probably realized too many eagles are missing and suspect something’s wrong,” Ye Liuyun speculated.
“So what do we do now?” asked the Vermilion Bird. “What if they only send one or two eagles to investigate the bait on their way back? Our trap will be exposed.”
"It’s fine. Even if our spiritual souls can’t handle them, we still have the Invisibility Cloak—we can definitely escape. Let’s see how they react first!" Ye Liuyun said calmly.
Zhu Que nodded in agreement and fell silent, waiting patiently for the golden eagles to return.
Ye Liuyun’s golden pupils remained fixed on the eagles, watching as they circled over a wide area three or four times, screeching incessantly to summon their companions. Yet, in the end, their efforts yielded nothing.
Just from their cries, Zhu Que could tell they were searching for their missing kin.
"They really are out looking for others!" she told Ye Liuyun, confirming his earlier guess.
Ye Liuyun chuckled. "Fifty of them—that’s no small number. It’s already a quarter of their entire flock. Of course they’d come searching!"
Eventually, the squadron of golden eagles returned to the canyon.
One of them, unable to resist the lure of prey, swooped down toward the fierce beast below. The other eagles, however, paid it no mind and flew straight into the canyon to report back to their king.
The moment that lone eagle entered the formation, Ye Liuyun seized control of it and swiftly captured it.
"...Well, that worked. Their vigilance is seriously lacking!" Zhu Que couldn’t help but feel a pang of pity for the careless creatures.
They waited a long time, but no other eagles returned to investigate. The entire night passed without further activity.
"Honestly, if you brought the Demon Vine and launched a surprise attack, you might just wipe them all out," Zhu Que remarked, struck by how complacent the golden eagles seemed.
"Let’s take it slow. There are still too many left. Besides, this method is working well enough for now," Ye Liuyun replied.
He then replaced the decoy beast and moved it to a different spot, avoiding suspicion by not leaving the same creature in one place for too long. After that, he and Zhu Que settled down to cultivate.
To their surprise, however, the decoy didn’t attract any golden eagles that night—instead, it drew a pack of azure wolves.
Most feral beast in the area knew the golden eagles didn’t hunt after dark, so nocturnal predators often ventured into this territory seeking opportunities.
This particular wolf pack wasn’t there specifically to hunt; they were merely passing through the eagles’ domain under cover of night, planning to cross over and hunt elsewhere before returning by dawn. Stumbling upon an unattended fierce beast was an unexpected stroke of luck.
But wolves are far more cautious than golden eagles. The pack scouted the surroundings thoroughly and, finding no other threats, sent two wolves forward to investigate.
Seeing a rare chance, Ye Liuyun removed his Invisibility Cloak and engaged the wolves inside the formation, using them as sparring partners to hone his skills.
