Di Tian's resolve to make a quick kill was due to one reason; the Golden Eagle apparently possessed magic skills.
Demon Beasts had inherited memories and bloodline arts, but new Demon Beasts that had just evolved to the first rank typically couldn't access them immediately.
A beginner Demon Beast would only have enhanced physical abilities at best and slowly try to purify their bloodline so they could resonate with the Bloodline Fragments and access their innate bloodline skills.
But from the paralyzing shriek of the Golden Eagle just now, it was apparent that this Demon Beast had already purified its bloodline to a certain extent and was already capable of utilizing its bloodline spells.
This made it far more dangerous than the other Demon Beasts Di Tian had encountered so far. Unless he wanted to become bird food, he had to take this battle seriously and finish it as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, the Golden Eagle Demon Beast was partially confused. From its inherited bloodline memories, it learnt that its paralyzing shriek was a powerful spell that could stun anyone at the first stage of cultivation for at least thirty seconds, more than enough time for it to finish off opponents. The fact that a puny human managed to knock off the effect after a few measly seconds made it doubt the reliability of its hereditary information.
The truth was, Di Tian only recovered faster than normal due to his variant Sea of Consciousness. Once again, his passive mental talent helped him out without his knowledge.
Enraged, the Golden Eagle opened its beak to unleash another awful shriek.
The strange thing was, Di Tian appeared relatively unaffected unlike the previous time. It was as if the bloodline spell of the Golden Eagle has lost its effectiveness against him after the first time.
Even Di Tian was surprised, but he didn't dwell on that as he perceived an opportunity.
The Golden Eagle presently had its mouth open while shrieking. Di Tian didn't need to think twice about what to do.
Without wasting time, he thrust the horn blade in his hand into the orifice, pinning it down.
The Golden Eagle was shocked and flapped its wings instinctively as it tried to escape, but its attempt were futile. Di Tian pushed the horn blade further in, ignoring the painful lacerations and cuts his body suffered from the bird thrashing about violently.
The stamina of the Golden Eagle was not weak, and Di Tian was almost thrown off at some point. There were even a couple of times he was lifted off the ground involuntarily.
But he held on, exerting force on the horn blade to cut deeper down its throat. This move immediately impaired the vocal cords of the bird and its shrieking ceased.
The Golden Eagle appeared to have lost a lot of energy and slowly ceased movement.
"Phew," Di Tian exhaled with relief as he relaxed his grip on the horn blade. This battle was his most dangerous so far—
All of a sudden, the 'lifeless' Golden Eagle's body twitched slightly. The movement was very subtle, and Di Tian wouldn't have caught it if it didn't happen to occur within his three-meter sensory radius.
"Shit," he thought. The Golden Eagle was still alive; it was clearly feigning death to get Di Tian to relax his guard.
Di Tian mentally cursed and immediately grabbed the horn blade again before the bird could gather its strength for one last ditch attempt at escape. Using all his strength, Di Tian shoved it down the bird's throat as far as he could.
The violent thrashing began again. Di Tian held on for his dear life, but it wasn't as prolonged this time. Soon, the Golden Eagle stopped moving.
Di Tian did not put down his guard still. He used his radar to confirm whether the Demon Beast still had a heartbeat before he let go.
Almost immediately, he groaned and sank to his knees. His body was now feeling the aftermath of the damage incurred during this battle.
Apart from several fatal gashes on his body, some of them revealing his bones and even organs underneath, Di Tian was losing blood fast.
"Now's not the time to hesitate," He thought , sensing he was slowly losing mobility.
Di Tian quickly retrieved one of the new Spirit Herbs from the Wild Monkeys' territory and consumed it in one quick bite, hoping it wasn't an aphrodisiac.
As soon as it reached his stomach, a burst of energy exploded from it, merging into his body.
His physical talent was activated and his injuries started to heal immediately. But Di Tian's expression turned strange when he noticed his body was heating up rapidly.
Unknown to him, the herb was an hallucinogenic-type Spirit Grass that had the effect of trapping the consumer in illusions. Already, Di Tian's body still had some lingering energy from the aphrodisiac-type Spirit Herbs he consumed earlier, and the combination led to....a certain outcome.
Without warning, Di Tian's mind started to conjure lewd X-rated scenes featuring heavenly beauties of all shapes and size.
But the trapping effect was only partial. Perhaps, due to his resilient mind, Di Tian was not fully caught in the illusion. Instead, he retained his normal clarity and the illusion overlapped with his physical field of view.
"Damnit," Di Tian clenched his teeth. The mental impact was just too much, and the stimuli was almost overbearing.
A slight breeze blew on the mountain at that moment, involuntary causing Di Tian's skin to react sensually. In his half-beguiled movie state, the breeze translated to a thousand beauties tickling him.
"Damnit," Di Tian knew the situation was really bad when he glanced at the carcass of the Golden Eagle and involuntarily started to hallucinate it was a peerless beauty.
"I have to digest the energy within this herb as quickly as possible. Maybe this would minimize the hallucination?" The rational part of his consciousness raced rapidly as it tried to conjure a solution.
This portion of his consciousness activated Introspective Vision to observe his body state. He soon discovered the root of the problem, the lingering remnants of the Herbs' Spirit Power.
Di Tian reflected on the meditative tea ceremony and tried to consume this bit of energy to begin Bone Marrow Refinement.
Whoosh!
The energy merged with his bloodstream to begin a unique cycle, first circulating via the heart routes, then circulating via the hollow interiors of bones to the marrow, refining it.
Under this circulation, the energy started to reduce as the quantity shrunk.
Thirty minutes later, Di Tian reopened his eyes.
Subconsciously, the first thing he did was to glance at the carcass of the Golden Eagle a couple of metres away to confirm something.
"No more hallucinations, good," Di Tian was relieved, then he felt more relieved when he imagined what would have happened if he had completely fallen under the effect of the hallucination.
This line of thought threw him off and he intentionally avoided looking in the direction of the carcass any further.
Making haste, he hurriedly gathered the Spirit Herbs in this territory and left immediately.