Chapter 1020 - 1018 Mutated Animals Acquired 9 (Binding Spell)

Bell was still buzzing in the air, circling cautiously as if confirming that its opponent had truly been neutralized.

The mutated Golden Eagle, however, wasn’t dead.

The fall from the sky had left a massive crater in the ground, and the giant bird lay within it, its golden feathers covered in dirt and blood. Even so, its eyes were still sharp and filled with hatred as it glared at Bell, as if it wanted nothing more than to tear the tiny insect apart.

But Kisha soon realized something important.

Bell hadn’t been attacking randomly.

Every strike had been precisely aimed.

Instead of targeting the eagle’s thick back or armored feathers, Bell had focused its attacks on the joint where the wings connected to the body.

And eventually, it succeeded.

Bell’s relentless strikes had severed the muscles there.

Without those muscles, the mutated Golden Eagle could no longer generate the strength needed to keep itself airborne. That was why it had lost control mid-flight and plummeted straight down to the ground, unable to twist its body fast enough to escape Bell’s continuous assault.

"Screeech!!!" The mutated Golden Eagle let out another frustrated cry.

However, now that Bell had successfully neutralized it, Kisha finally felt a bit more reassured. Still, she knew restraining the creature wouldn’t be easy.

The eagle’s body was far stronger than that of ordinary mutated animals, and its feathers were as sharp and durable as metal blades. If she tried to bind it with the same thick ropes she had used on the three mutated animals she captured earlier, the creature could easily slice through them with its feathers.

So instead, Kisha decided to use magic.

It just so happened that there was an untested magic scroll in her inventory.

Not long ago, she had inscribed it while experimenting with a new direction for her magic scroll crafting. After all, when it came to inscribing magic scrolls, the possibilities were nearly limitless. Any form of magic, so long as it existed or could even be conceptualized, could theoretically be sealed inside a scroll.

After successfully creating a Teleportation Magic Scroll and understanding some of the laws behind teleportation, Kisha began to realize that binding magic seemed to follow similar spatial principles. Instead of using ropes or chains, it could manipulate space itself to restrain a target, creating invisible restraints that were extremely difficult to break.

The idea had struck her suddenly while she was studying the laws of space and time that formed the foundation of teleportation magic.

Acting on that inspiration, she had quickly inscribed a prototype scroll so she wouldn’t forget the idea later. At the time, she had planned to return to it once she finished her experiments, refine the concept, and possibly develop it into a new type of magic scroll she could both use and sell in her store.

But with everything that followed, her business, her plans, and all the other matters demanding her attention, she had completely forgotten about it.

Until now.

Kisha took the Binding Scroll out of her inventory.

She paused for a moment, thinking carefully, before turning the scroll so that once the seal was broken, the spell would be directed straight toward the mutated Golden Eagle.

Then she tore the seal.

A brilliant light burst from the scroll, so bright that even the mutated Golden Eagle instinctively shut its eyes.

A few seconds later, the light slowly faded.

Kisha looked at the creature and saw strands of glowing light wrapped around the mutated Golden Eagle. At first glance, it almost looked like a ribbon tied neatly around a gift, with the eagle itself being the object wrapped inside.

The rippling strands of light were clearly the binding spell.

However, the longer Kisha observed it, the more she felt something was wrong.

The spell looked... fragile.

The light flowing through it seemed to lean more toward aesthetic brilliance rather than actual restraint, as if the spell cared more about looking beautiful than being effective. Instead of feeling sturdy or oppressive like a true binding spell should, it looked delicate, almost decorative.

Kisha immediately realized the truth.

This Binding Scroll was a failure.

And as if proving her thoughts correct, the moment the mutated Golden Eagle sensed the restraint around its body, it began struggling violently.

Angrily, it tried to spread its wings. Even though its muscles had already been severed and it could only open them weakly, like a starving creature that had gone days without food, the movement was still enough.

With a faint tearing sound, the glowing "ribbon" snapped.

Even the mutated Golden Eagle seemed slightly confused for a moment, as if it hadn’t expected the restraint to break so easily.

The ribbon-like spell tore apart like fragile paper, scattering into glowing fragments that drifted down like confetti.

The moment the pieces touched the ground, they quietly dissipated into nothingness.

"Bell, hold off the mutated Golden Eagle and don’t let it escape," Kisha instructed.

As soon as she heard Bell’s agreement through their mindlink, she waved her hand in the air. Instantly, a table, a chair, and her inscribing materials appeared before her.

Now that she had seen the problem with the magic scroll she created, Kisha felt as though the answer was already at the tip of her tongue. She could almost grasp it; she just needed a little more experimentation to fully realize it.

When she first designed the spell, she had intentionally incorporated light into the arcane circle so she could clearly see the binding effect with her own eyes and confirm whether the spell had successfully taken hold.

But now she realized the mistake.

While inscribing the arcane structure of the scroll, she had placed too much emphasis on the light attribute. As a result, the visual manifestation of the spell became too dominant, while the true essence of binding, the strength and restraining force of the spell, had been weakened.

Because of that imbalance, the spell ended up looking like nothing more than a decorative ribbon wrapped around a gift.

Beautiful, but useless.

What she needed to do now was revise the arcane structure, adjust the distribution of mana and redirect the flow of the spell so that the binding aspect became the core of the magic instead of the light.

If she succeeded, the Binding Spell would become far more effective than a simple rope. It could restrain opponents during battle, disrupt their movements at critical moments, and even help capture powerful enemies that would otherwise be difficult to subdue.

In the right situation, a single well-timed binding spell could even turn the tide of a fight.

Kisha quickly immersed herself in her work, completely isolating her mind from everything else as she began inscribing the new scroll.

Her hand moved swiftly across the parchment while she murmured to herself, constantly adjusting the structure of the spell and refining the arcane lines as if she were some obsessed researcher chasing a breakthrough.

Ethan, however, was far slower to grasp what was happening.

He glanced at the mutated Golden Eagle, then back at Kisha, who had suddenly pulled out a table and chair and started writing like a mad scientist in the middle of a battlefield.

He had seen everything that happened.

He just didn’t understand any of it.

After all, Ethan was a soldier. He had spent most of his life training and fighting. Things like magic theory, arcane inscriptions, or experimental spellcraft were completely outside his field of knowledge.

To him, the whole situation looked like a confusing puzzle with half the pieces missing.

Unless Kisha explained it to him step by step, he would probably never understand what she was doing.

But if Keith had been the one standing behind Kisha instead of Ethan, the reaction would have been completely different.

Keith would have already realized what was going on by now.

In fact, he might even start idolizing his sister all over again, watching in amazement as she casually inscribes a magic scroll like a true mage right in the middle of the battlefield.

Since Ethan had no idea what was happening, he simply stood silently behind Kisha, keeping watch.

From time to time, his gaze shifted toward the mutated Golden Eagle.

The injured creature was still struggling. Every now and then, it would flap its wings in an attempt to lift itself off the ground, but the moment it tried to take flight, its damaged body would fail it. Each attempt ended the same way, its heavy body crashing back down and kicking up clouds of dust.

Again and again, it tried.

And again and again, it failed.

Meanwhile, Bell circled around it like a vigilant patrol bee, never letting the creature out of its sight.

Whenever the mutated Golden Eagle grew irritated and tried to swat Bell away with its wings, or worse, snap at it with its beak, Bell would immediately retaliate. It would dart in and strike with its forelegs, delivering quick but painful attacks that clearly warned the eagle not to provoke it.