The Four-Legged Dragon handled the eagle with contemptuous ease — a grip, a swing, a slam into the earth, repeated until the eagle couldn't rise. Shen Cong dealt with the wounded rooster and hen in a single concentrated burst, taking out the rooster first.

Then the hen.

He didn't want to kill her, which made things slightly more complicated. But after both wings were severed she couldn't sustain the fight, and she went down to the ground — still calling out, still trying to intimidate him through sheer volume.

He bound her legs and beak with rope and turned to check on the eagle.

Its situation was grim. The Four-Legged Dragon had swung and slammed it into the ground more than a dozen times. Blood ran from its mouth and nostrils. Its legs had gone limp. It had stopped screaming.

Shen Cong drew the Tyrant Broadsword across its throat.

The eagle that had attacked him — twice — finally went still.

He breathed out. That felt good.

Predators dealt with, bound or dead, eleven chicks remained. They didn't escape either. Rope around beaks and legs, one by one. He'd packed enough cord and sacks before leaving Gaoche Township — preparation that was paying off now. Jin beasts were built tough; they could be roped and dragged across the ground without particular concern for their comfort.

For the Four-Legged Dragon, three large avian jin beasts were negligible in terms of carrying load. She pulled them without effort.

Out at ten in the morning, back before noon. A productive trip.

Back at the Gaoche Township base, Shen Cong rested and ran assessments on the captured birds.

He named the eagle the Black-Crest Eagle — Talent 2.785H, Activity Value 2.641H, Lv0.948. Solidly Heavyweight, and genuinely difficult to deal with under other circumstances. A creature that had decided it wanted a chick badly enough to keep committing was a creature that had stopped thinking clearly. Its beak was a jin core; Shen Cong cut it free and set it aside for bone-gold weapon fabrication.

The rooster was lightweight only, and Shen Cong didn't bother…