"My essence of life... it really draws in these animals like nothing else."
Swaying his branches lightly, Yu Ziyu didn't immediately let the drop fall.
At that moment, the gray wolf closest to the life essence, covered in wounds and trembling with hunger, could no longer resist the overwhelming temptation before it. Its jaws opened wide and lunged.
"Pa!"
A crisp sound rang out. Before the wolf could react, its body was sent flying over a meter, slamming hard against the bars of its wooden cage.
"Whimper... whimper..."
Letting out soft cries, the gray wolf struggled to rise, but staggered and collapsed, its body limp. Crimson blood began seeping from its wounds, quickly spreading along the ground, its thick stench overpowering even the rich fragrance of the life essence.
"If I don't give it to you, you don't get to take it."
Coldly, Yu Ziyu spoke, whether or not the wolf understood.
"Mas... Master, aren't you being a little too harsh?"
Sitting on a tree branch nearby, legs swinging, He Qing'er finally couldn't hold back, glancing at the pitiful, injured wolf with visible distress.
"Harsh?"
Yu Ziyu chuckled softly. His mood brightened a bit. Then, with a flick of his branches, he explained:
"Mutant beasts are wild and hard to tame—especially wolves. They're notoriously rebellious. If I'm not harsh..."
Before he finished speaking, his branch suddenly lashed through the air, slicing with a deafening sonic boom.
"Boom!"
A massive boulder in the distance was instantly split clean in two, revealing a smooth, mirror-like cross-section.
"If I'm not harsh, there's only one outcome waiting for them."
With that, Yu Ziyu's gaze returned to the whimpering wolf in the cage. Despite the pain and hunger, it now kept its head low, not daring to even glance at the life essence.
It wasn't that it wouldn't look—it couldn't. Not after being lashed hard enough to nearly shatter its bones.
Chuckling softly, Yu Ziyu teased it a few more times.
Fortunately, the wolf didn't disappoint. It had finally "learned its lesson."
"Good. Now you're behaving."
With those words, Yu Ziyu finally allowed a drop of life essence to fall.
Drip—
As the essence landed, every caged creature opened its eyes wide. Some were so desperate that they tried to lunge forward.
But—
"Swish! Swish! Swish!"
His roots and branches lashed through the air like whips, slicing through the fog. The charging wild bull was forced into an abrupt stop, its hooves leaving long drag marks in the dirt.
The eager golden-furred monkey lost its grip and tumbled from a tree branch with a loud thump.
Clearly, they were thoroughly spooked.
Animals were simple creatures. Even if they had gained some level of intelligence, without systematic training, they were still like infants—blank slates.
It was precisely because Yu Ziyu understood this that he was confident in taming them.
Still, confidence aside, if any of them kept testing his limits, Yu Ziyu wouldn't hesitate to make an example.
With that in mind, one of his branches slowly extended toward the honey badger—nicknamed the "honey jar."
"Swoosh, swoosh..."
The branch cracked through the air above its head, the sonic shriek like a whip in motion.
"..."
No words. The honey badger instantly shrank back into its tunnel, drawing its body deeper underground.
Reckless it might be—but it wasn't stupid.
The honey badger's notorious fearlessness came from its eye structure, which was oddly similar to a goose's. In its perception, most larger animals didn't seem that big.
With its strong defenses and immunity to venom, it had rampaged across the wild without fear.
As the saying goes:
"Silver cloak and white flat-top, the African lands I trample nonstop—my life a constant warpath..."
That was the essence of the honey badger's spirit.
But reckless as it was, such a nature came at a cost—it had almost driven its own kind to extinction.
Just like another saying:
"Fearless, and so always the first to die."
Yet now, in this new era, the old ways no longer worked.
While the honey badger once relied solely on vision to size up threats, it now possessed a second sense—spiritual energy perception. Through the density of spiritual energy, it could gauge the strength of others.
And in this moment, the honey badger could feel it.
That willow tree across from it burned like a blazing inferno of spiritual force—terrifying beyond words.
It, in comparison, was barely a spark.
The disparity was overwhelming, and the honey badger had no illusions.
That was why, the moment it was captured, its first instinct was to run—desperately.
This... was not someone it could afford to mess with.
The honey badger wasn't about to end up like its parents—foolishly charging some monster, only to vanish in a blink, never even getting the chance to scream.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。