Chapter 1450 - 778: Eagle Flock’s Legacy (2)

Chapter 1450: Chapter 778: Eagle Flock’s Legacy (2)

As for why Bruce looked at that thing with a strange expression, it’s because that was his foolish brother Alvin.

Back then, those cultists relied on Alvin to infiltrate, originally planning to use him to control Bastia, but clearly, he was a foolish ally, bringing doom to anyone who teamed up with him.

On an impulse, he killed the Earl, catching not only Bruce and his group off guard but also the cultists, leading to the ensuing chaos.

Afterwards, it was evident that the leader didn’t spare him, and useless Alvin was twisted into a monster.

If not for the lingering glimpse of his face, it would have been unrecognizable, and even as a monster, he was quickly killed, by Bruce’s own hands no less.

However, without much hesitation, Bruce swung his sword down, severing the monster’s dried head and carried it in hand, walking towards the castle.

The castle seemed to preserve the grim scene from back then, possibly having been plundered again later, having long lost its former majesty, leaving only dried blood and a stench of decay in the air.

The bodies were all eaten, perhaps becoming nourishment for the cultists, with the obvious result being that no bodies could be found, leaving Bruce unable even to bury his family.

Though he was prepared, when the moment truly arrived, even Bruce found it overwhelming, kneeling in front of the bloodstain in the study, wailing.

The eerie sound echoed in the empty castle...

Lance ignored him, instead taking Laura to the eagle’s nest.

According to the tale of the Eagle Flock’s leader, they quickly found the hidden secret door, entering the core secrets of the Eagle Flock.

Inside, Lance found a lot of hidden treasures; it seemed these folks had hidden quite a bit from the Earl too.

But Lance had no interest in money, nor did he like money...

He was more focused on the supernatural aspects, whether materials, items, or esoteric knowledge.

It was evident the answers he sought were here, the accumulated knowledge of the Eagle Flock’s predecessor tribes.

Lance skimmed through; the heritage wasn’t broken, finding some abilities that sounded quite cool, with the strongest shaman able to stir fierce winds.

In the past, the Eagle Flock, during the era of the Mountain Barbarian Tribes, relied on the power of tribe-worshipped nature spirits to tame the raptors to serve them.

After surrendering to the Earl and leaving the mountains, they indeed survived the crisis of extermination, but they lost the protection of the nature spirits, along with many related secret techniques.

Previously, they could easily communicate with and tame raptors, performing tribal inherited secret techniques, but now even simple communication or taming birds was difficult, let alone sharing eyesight with birds or transforming into giant birds in the records.

Even performing ordinary secret techniques had become harder, requiring extraordinary talent, or relying on leftover supernatural equipment.

Most of the powerful forces were lost, leaving only things like Windriding, Eagle Eye, Featherlight, and the like.

Simply put, the original performance of secret techniques was actually aided by the power of nature spirits, akin to Divine Arts, later turning into spellcasting, shifting reliance from "divine spirits" to one’s self.

More frighteningly, there’s a principle in supernatural power, what’s the cost?

Lacking the nature spirits’ protection, the more they perform secret techniques, the more they transform, growing bird-like traits as if cursed.

Initially, it was just Eagle Eye, then feathers grew... The more powerful Eagle Flock members had more of these traits, and the current leader’s face had become entirely bird-like.

So, they generally concealed their faces and covered their bodies with cloaks to hide these mutations, masking the truth.

Lance previously sensed the leader’s body structure starting to change, possibly turning into a birdman in the end.

Lance remembered Grendel; her tribe was gone too, yet she hadn’t faced this issue, probably because she took the nature spirit away, while the Eagle Flock’s nature spirit had dissipated.

But those were her secrets, and Lance wouldn’t pry, but the truth of the secret techniques eroding the body was real, as plantification had occurred earlier but was suppressed by him.

As for solving this...

Lance seemed to think of something.

Divinity, a power with endless possibilities.

But these needed time for further research.

Lance quickly skimmed through those things, suddenly noticing something, his gaze fixed on the records.

His hands were flipping through the Eagle Flock’s records of strange occurrences experienced by some tribes, a means to accumulate experience.

Knowing the tribes would seek out birds and find ways to tame them, there were many records of special bird species.

And among them was a crudely drawn bird-like shape, roughly resembling a crow, but the description said it was larger than a human, capable of emitting terrifying cries. People who heard it sometimes died without external injury, as if their souls were stolen, hence called Soul Snatchers.

This creature was powerful yet cunning, leaving behind legends of snatching people at night and eating them.

But in Lance’s view, it resembled a Screamer Demon, though unpolluted by flesh and blood, and the records mentioned attempts to capture and tame it, which evidently failed.

Lance had wondered about the source of the Screamer Demon, and unexpectedly, it was in the Misty Mountains, so it made sense; where there’s poison, there’s an antidote, and Hamlet was right beside the mountains.

The Eagle Flock couldn’t do it, but that didn’t mean I can’t. I’ll have to find time to catch a couple for research.

And this record even had the corresponding location noted, truly a great find...

Suddenly hearing an odd whistle from outside, Lance had to momentarily set those things aside and go out.

Following the sound, he was led to a lush tree in the eagle’s nest, where Laura was attempting to communicate with something in the tree.

"Sir, some of those eggs might still be viable, but these creatures are a bit crazy, not only attacking me but also looking strange."

Laura had just gone to find something crucial in the eagle’s nest, which were bird eggs, the premise for future bird taming at Hamlet.

Lance looked up to see many nests, both man-made and woven by birds.

The tree separated the birds from the cultists, who had food and didn’t need to raid the egg nests, allowing them to be preserved.

The breeding cycle of raptors typically begins in the fall, with courtship and mating happening during this time, then laying eggs in early spring, hatching under parental care over several weeks, avoiding the dying winter, and growing in the plentiful spring and summer.

But these birds living among the Eagle Flock had no food concerns, laying eggs year-round, whereas those eggs without parental warmth, caught in the cold wind for hours, turned into dead eggs.

Incidentally, the sudden war didn’t give the Eagle Flock members time to manage these; some birds were killed, others returned to their nests after their owners died, only a portion of eggs remained.

But Lance saw a few seemingly mad birds.

"Those birds ate the corrupt flesh and are infected, yet haven’t abandoned the nest, sheer maternal greatness."

Lance immediately saw the problem; these raptors needed meat, typically fed with purpose-bred rodents, but now things went wrong, and the caged rodents began eating each other.

For these birds, surviving meant eating corpse flesh, which was polluted.

Lance waved his hand, and those birds corrupted by the rot instantly died, which might be the best outcome for them.

Laura looked at the fallen birds with a strange expression but understood and began climbing the tree to gather eggs, hoping to save as many as she could.

After busying herself, she retrieved over a hundred eggs, finally saving less than thirty healthy ones, some were frozen, others polluted, and who knows how many of these would hatch and grow healthily?

"It’s okay, we’ll hatch them under a hen when we return."

Lance reassured Laura, who was carefully wrapping the eggs in her cloak, unexpectedly receiving a very positive response from her.

"No matter what, they will find rebirth at Hamlet, and that’s enough..."