A Weakened Immortal Pet Covenant

"Once our kin have escorted the young master back to the North Star Tundra, the clan will dispatch ten more rock wolves to enlist in your ranks." Huh? He Yue started in surprise upon hearing this. Why did that sound so familiar? He whispered to his elder brother, "Is it talking about an immortal pet covenant?" Though his voice was low, the wolf demon possessed exceptional hearing. Lu Xin snapped in displeasure, "It is no immortal pet covenant! A rock wolf shall never be a pet!" "All right, all right." Seeing their hackles rise, He Chunhua hastily stepped in to placate them. "This pact sounds fine to me." Taking advantage of his temper, Lu Xin raised the stakes: "Furthermore, each of us must be fed at least seven jin of good meat every day." "That will be no problem at all." It was just meals, wasn't it? Since when was an army afraid of hearty eaters? He Chunhua went over to the commoner youth's carriage, took out paper and brush to draft a covenant in duplicate, signed his name, and brought it back for the wolf demon to review. Lu Xin summoned another old wolf to examine the document. Only after repeatedly confirming the terms were correct—though in truth it was merely two sentences—did he press his paw print onto the paper. With that, the covenant was forged. As the strange man in the sky had already flown far away, the wolf-man gradually calmed. The pack gathered around him, nuzzling his head and sniffing his tail. Through some unknown means of communication, the wolf-man licked them a few times. One wolf produced a blood-red sphere from somewhere, resembling a lantern, and fed it to the wolf-man. After swallowing it, his eyes grew brighter, his tail began to wag, and his demeanor toward the pack turned affectionate. Lu Xin then requested He Chunhua to retract the Entangling Silk Heaven's Net. Flanked and shielded by the pack, the wolf-man was escorted down the mountain. They had to get their young master out of Shihuan territory before dawn to keep him far from that madman. Lu Xin and another wolf, Lu Jin, stayed behind as agreed. As for how the wolf-man would be transported back to the North Star Tundra, that was internal business of the Rock Wolf clan, and the humans did not pry. Seeing that the situation had stabilized, the guards from Luming Garden took their leave and returned up the mountain. Both Ke Jihai's carriage and the He family's had been wrecked, leaving them no choice but to ride horses down the slope. The prisoner He Yue had wounded had not died; after his injuries were given a cursory dressing, he was interrogated on the spot. Whether the man lacked backbone or Ke Jihai's methods were simply too brutal, he confessed before long. He admitted that his group were pawns stationed in Shihuan City by Nian Zanli, the Governor of Xunzhou. Meanwhile, the masked man who commanded the bizarre demon beasts was revered as Master Dong, an assassin hired by the Grand Marshal with a lavish sum. Ke Jihai and He Chunhua were common enemies to both factions. Upon learning that both would attend the banquet at the Zhu residence, Master Dong had resolved to wipe them out in a single stroke. "What arrogant audacity!" Ke Jihai laughed in sheer fury. "To dare assassinate court officials protected by origin power—and attempting to kill two at once!" "Master Dong is formidable. I heard he has already killed many officials." He Chunhua chimed in with a question: "Why did you wait until the wolf-man under his command was captured by me before charging out?" "We didn't dare come out earlier," the man replied with a bitter smile. "Master Dong's pet beasts are bloodthirsty and savage. In a frenzy, they'll even kill their own allies; there is no coordinating with them in battle. We originally had ten men, but just a few days ago, an unlucky fellow had his head bitten clean off and eaten by that ghost ape." Ke Jihai pressed on with more questions, inquiring how many rebel remnants remained in Shihuan and the capital, where they were hiding, and who the contacts were. However, the captive held a low rank and knew few inside details. Fortunately, he at least knew where his direct superior lived and what his name was. Armed with this information, Ke Jihai bade the He family farewell. "Until we meet again, Lord He. We shall likely cross paths again soon—if not on the battlefield, then at court." He Chunhua cupped his fists in return. "May General Ke vanquish every foe on the battlefield and sweep all before him!" "Hah! 'Sweep all before me'—well said!" Ke Jihai chuckled, then turned to He Lingchuan. "Lad, I'm thinking more and more highly of you. Let's have a drink together later." He Lingchuan nodded. "Splendid. I shall prepare fine wine to await the general." Ke Jihai then rode away with his captive, traveling through the night under star and moon to rush back to the capital. One could readily imagine that tomorrow's capital would see another violent tempest, with no telling how many heads would roll. Lu Xin, the wolf demon, stayed behind. The pack had trailed Dong Rui all the way here and gathered a wealth of information, which could now be explained to the humans. Naturally, He Lingchuan had also promised that staying would mean meat to eat. "We prefer venison, though mutton will do." When they first arrived at Luming Garden, they had spotted numerous sika deer—so plump they could barely run fast. Had they not worried about alerting the humans... Drool began to drip from the hungry wolf's tongue. In the North, venison and rock goat meat were top-tier delicacies, the favorite of every wolf. "No problem. As long as you answer all our questions, you'll have plenty of tender young mutton tomorrow morning." The point of greatest concern to everyone was the identity of the masked man, Dong Rui. "Have you ever heard of a 'demon puppet master'?" The He family naturally shook their heads. "A beast tamer?" "No, a demon puppet master. That title belongs to Dong Rui alone." Beast tamers were a branch of spellcasters, plentiful in number, whose hallmark was using beasts to fight. Yet no beast tamer's demon pets were ever as grotesque as Dong Rui's. "He rarely shows himself in the Yuan Kingdom, so you know very little of him. He stops at nothing to capture powerful demons, subjecting them to cruel and unimaginable modifications and spirit-refining, turning them into puppets to command and kill!" For the sake of meat, Lu Xin indeed displayed twelve parts of patience in his explanation. "As far as I know, he has committed atrocities across at least seven kingdoms. From high officials to commoners, even many famous spellcasters have died by his hand. "That ghost ape was the son of the General of the Left Imperial Guard of the Beijia Kingdom. I heard he was only fifteen when Dong Rui abducted him. For more than a decade, the Beijia Kingdom has sought vengeance against Dong Rui, but he is exceedingly alert, slipping away at the slightest sign of trouble." "So that ghost ape isn't even thirty years old yet?" He Yue asked in astonishment. "Demons generally enjoy long lifespans, and their cultivation progresses slowly. Judging by its strength and stature, it looks to be at least three or four hundred years old." "That is Dong Rui's doing. Word has it that he once bragged in his cups about tumbling into an ancient immortal's grotto-realm while being pursued by enemies. There, he learned the arts of refining and commanding beasts, which he later expanded upon, fusing the traits of various demon beasts into one to craft monsters like the ghost ape—even causing their cultivation to leap by centuries out of thin air. But the price is excruciating agony. After the modification, the demons lose their sanity; their temperaments become violent, wildly unstable, and prone to frenzies. No one knows what means Dong Rui uses to keep his demon puppets obedient." "How many demon puppets does Dong Rui possess?" "Word has it that three regularly appear. Now that our young master has returned, that leaves two." Lu Xin pondered for a moment. "Whether Dong Rui possesses other demon puppets, no one can say for sure." "The captive just said that Dong Rui was hired by Dong Haoming at great expense." "Money alone could never hire him." Lu Xin shook his head. "Only rare and precious materials can move him." He Lingchuan still had one puzzle unresolved: "During the battle earlier, the ghost ape had already been suppressed by General Ke's origin power. How did it suddenly surge with vigor and sprout two heads and four arms?" Lu Xin confessed that he did not know. "By all rights, a ghost ape cannot assume such a form. There is no telling what tampering Dong Rui performed during the modification. Even our young master... underwent bizarre changes." Demons could not take on humanoid form unless their natural appearance already resembled a human's, such as an ape. Yet Lu Ze had been altered into a werewolf-like shape, leaving the Rock Wolf clan profoundly shocked. "As far as we know, several kingdoms have posted bounties on Dong Rui, dead or alive. Naturally, capturing him alive yields a far richer reward." He Lingchuan smiled. "The demon puppets he crafts can actually resist origin power. Everyone would want to uncover that secret." The implications of this mystery reached far and wide, yet Dong Rui, with towering bounties on his head, still roamed freely, committing crimes with impunity. "Dong Rui returned empty-handed this time. Of his three major demon puppets, two were injured and one was lost. He will surely watch for an opportunity to take revenge on you." He Lingchuan bared his teeth in a smile at the wolf demon. "What's with this 'you' and 'us'? From now on, we're all on the same side." At last, they descended the mountain. Upon returning to the inn, the He family first saw Madam Ying settled in. Lingguang, the medicine ape, came forward of his own accord to attend to He Lingchuan's wounds. Only after all that was done did the father and two sons close the doors for a discussion. He Lingchuan had wanted to ask for a while now: "Tell me about immortal pet covenants." He had heard the term before, but had never looked into it closely. He Yue smiled. "Didn't Uncle Hao keep a sparrowhawk demon named Little Grey? That was his avian pet, bound by a covenant." Speaking of this, He Lingchuan found it odd as well. "Strange. Why have I never kept a demon?" He felt more and more that his original self, who had seemed to summon wind and rain in Blackwater City, was in truth nothing of the sort. He merely had a bit of silver to put on airs before ordinary villagers. "Hardly anyone in Blackwater City keeps demon pets." In such a rural borderland, demons were far fiercer than humans. "You'll have your chance now." If they wished for better coordination in the future, a human and a wolf would have to seal an alliance one-on-one. "The rock wolves will choose their partners themselves." He Yue proceeded to explain the background to his elder brother. It turned out that whether for a beast tamer or an ordinary cultivator raising a demon, the foundation was always an immortal pet covenant. This was not an invention of modern times, but of the ancient immortals, who subdued mighty demon beasts and bound them with the power of covenants for restraint and control. Later, the immortals gradually vanished, yet this method endured. Naturally, the immortal pet covenant had branched into numerous variants over the ages. The method Dong Rui used to control his demon puppets was bound to be closer to the original master-dominant version. The "alliance" proposed by the Rock Wolf clan, however, was a weakened variant of the immortal pet covenant. Demon and human held no subordinate relationship and stood on equal footing, retaining only the single most crucial law of the immortal pet covenant: Covenant partners could not harm each other, and under certain specific conditions, they could share external damage. For instance, this version of the alliance stipulated that as long as the covenant partners were within a hundred feet of each other, either human or wolf could activate the special effect of "Share Weal and Woe," transferring half of the incoming damage to the covenant partner for a duration of twenty breaths. Additionally, He Chunhua had heard that rock wolves were most renowned for their innate endurance. If a covenant partner shared the same space with one, they would most likely share that trait as well. It made sense when one thought about it—a wolf pack could pursue prey continuously for ten two-hour periods, so their stamina was naturally extraordinary. "By endurance, you mean boundless stamina, right?" He Lingchuan rubbed his hands eagerly. "Now that's fantastic! Can it be used anytime?!" Like, for instance...?