“Princess, how is it? Is it comfortable?” A maid ran its hand through the warm water and asked with a smile.

“En~, just add more petals.” Hanying stretched in the bath while commenting lazily.

One of the maids, wearing very light amount of outer ‘skins’ cleaned Hanying’s body and gently scrubbed every part of its body. The youngest maid rushed on the corner of the bath and asked eagerly, “Miss, miss, do you want to contract the pup?”

“Why? Do you like the cutey?” Hanying mischievously smirked.

“Eh, who doesn’t like the little pup? Didn’t you also bring it with because so?” The cheeky youthful maid said with triumph.

Another maid nudged its head, “Idiot, it’s a young wolf, if it has good potential, young miss might contract with it. Otherwise, even if it’s young or cute, Princess still can't contract the beast.”

“Nn, right. Besides, the pup isn’t suitable for me. I only brought it with me on a whim. It’s rare to find such docile beasts.”

“How is it rare? I saw a few in the palace!”

“Of course, they were cultivated by the Royal Family, but still... They won’t remain submissive in front of strangers. Unlike the pup, I found. I don’t mean its good, being overly docile is also a defect.”

“Th-Then miss, if you don’t need the pup can I get it? Ah, I don’t mean to ask for it... I only want it if miss has no need for it. Hehe.”

Hanying helplessly stared at the maid. It didn’t dislike this young maid as it was quite free with her unlike the others and also cheerful. “You silly, are you properly training the Bronze Level 3 Armored Eagle?”

The youthful maid suddenly flinched and avoided Hanying’s gaze.

“Ah, that, Miss knows how bulky that Armored Eagle is. I can’t train with it...”

All the other maids giggled, including Hanying. Even the youthful maid giggled, albeit nervously.

“You’re hopeless, even though you got a Grimoire,” Hanying helplessly sighed and stood up from the bath.

Another creature gently wiped Hanying’s drenched body. The creature was quite thorough in its work. It wiped Hanying’s hair dry, then neck and body. It even wiped the sides of Hanying’s soft mounds of flesh while skillfully avoiding the slight pink injury in its lower abdomen.

One of the maids opened the door, as they all got out. Then, they saw something which caused every maid to shiver uncontrollably.

“Blasphemy!”

“T-this...”

“Guard, guards!”

Some maids shook in anger while the rest shook in fear. Only one of the maids with aged, baggy skin remained calm. They panicked as this might even cost their life. If handled carelessly, there would surely be a war between two great empires!

Just the news, the daughter of mighty Heavenly Imperial Guardian’s resting place was rummaged through during her bath would obviously cause a huge sensation throughout the whole empires. There was no way the maids closest to the princess wouldn’t be aware of such things. And they might even lose their dear life in the situation.

Even then, the perpetrator of this event remained aloof and had his eyes fixed on the seriously injured pink slit on Hanying. He noticed the other creatures creating mayhem but the two-legged creatures were just too complex to understand. He only eyed the creature called Hanying with great respect.

It had such a serious injury, yet it remained stout!

His respect for the two-legged creatures only soared. The more respect he had for them, the more he wanted to defeat such creatures and reign over them!

Conquer & Rule!

It was a deeply ingrained instinct he had from birth. However, he only wanted to rule over exceptional ones. Not just any random creatures.

Hanying felt a strong gaze on its body. Especially towards a certain sensitive place. Resisting the urge to cower, it ordered, “Stop, you all.”

The other creatures all stared, only to see the creature Hanying without any outer skins. One of them gasped and locked the entrance of the room in a hurry. The others caught onto the fact pretty soon, they hid their surprise and skillfully donned the ‘outer skins’ on Hanying.

Tian Lang analyzed the situation from their actions, he realized the outer skin seemed important to these creatures. As for how, he had yet to understand them. But it certainly fascinated him. It wasn’t a part of their body, yet, important. Something he couldn’t understand. To him, anything other than those powerful Dragon Crystals didn’t seem important. No, since he acknowledged his reliance upon the Dragon Crystals maybe he did understand them a little after all?

Only after properly organizing its outer skins did Hanying stare at the source of the strange and invading gaze. Hanying felt it very clearly, that gaze didn’t contain any desire but curiosity, yet the specific part definitely wasn’t something anyone would just be curious of. Even so, when it, the creature Hanying, spotted the source of the gaze, it only felt astonishment.

It did feel this wolf went through a rather unique evolution. He certainly wasn’t like the normal or rare variant wolves. He was such a small, weak wolf. Yet, such strong curiosity. This one might have even unlocked its intelligence!

Even knowing this wolf probably had a powerful owner, didn’t stop Hanying from being greedy. Even if he had a powerful owner, the beast wasn’t contracted! As long as it could contract the beast, it had enough confidence to be able to leave with it.

The youthful maid seeing Hanying completely silent timidly called it out, “M-miss.”

A few knocks also sounded from the door.

“Missy, is everything alright? I heard quite a ruckus.” A deep but leisurely voice resounded outside the room.

“Sorry to trouble you, Uncle. Everything’s alright. Rei’er just dropped a vase.” Hanying shortly replied. Of course, knowing the creature didn’t need its answer in the first place. The creature outside could easily detect anything invading this den.

“Alright, alright. Just be careful.”

Hanying didn’t bother to reply and focused her attention on the mess of the room. The mess seemed to be created by someone searching for something, in that case, they won’t tear apart dresses or chairs. Then, it noticed some claw marks on the broken wooden chair and beds. After noticing carefully it even found some traces of faint saliva on the now torn-apart dress.

It didn’t take long for the creature to realize, who caused the great mayhem of this room. There wasn’t any burglar, everything was caused by this unassuming little wolf!

“Tidy things up. No one to mention this event. If I even hear as little as a rumor, I will have your life forfeit.”

The maids had already expected this. Just a little while ago they laughed and joked but in matters of seconds, a threat for their life came. Yet they didn’t mind. They didn’t even react as they knew very well the advantages and disadvantages of working under an influential one. They quickly cleared the room and made it look as natural as possible with remaining intact furniture and disposed of the broken and destroyed properties.

Hanying crouched before the wolf pup, closing its eyes, it murmured something under its breath.

Suddenly, a glowing silver-colored rectangle appeared before Tian Lang. His eyes were suddenly lit ablaze. This... It almost looked like the glowing treasure he had seen on top of the Bone Pyramid!

The silver rectangle unfurled and some things also turned. Tian Lang couldn’t see as it was slightly above his head. Curiosity got hold of him and he instinctively rested his front paws on top of the rectangle-like thing and see what was in there.

The corner of the rectangle was adorned with various runes. Inside the rectangle, there were more thin-rectangle things, a bit smaller. He found some illustrations and criss-cross things on those thin-rectangle shaped things. Curious what those other thin stuff carried, he used his paws and turned it over. It took a few tries as he felt those thin-rectangles might break if used his claws. As expected he found some similar illustrations and criss-cross markings on this too, while completely ignoring the owner of the treasure he was inspecting.

Hanying looked at the pup with great interest. If anything told it, this pup was a baby of its own race, in the form of a wolf, it might believe that more. Everything said and done, it didn’t matter. Hanying had its eyes filled with desire on the pup.

At first, it just picked the pup which didn’t have any hostility. It was normal for any domestically grown pups. However, even before a day passed, Hanying, the creature quickly realized. The pup, which it had picked from numerous pile of wild plants turned out to be a great treasure!

So, Hanying fished out a scroll and unfurled it on top of Tian Lang and a small blinding light shined upon him!

At the same time, Tian Lang felt something clicked inside him. Violet runes rolled inside his sea of consciousness. They formed a rectangular slab as blocks of black criss-cross flashed on it.

[In accordance with the Ancient Laws, Unknown Creature is deemed as a contractible entity.
Level 4 [Champion] Summoner: Duan Mu Han Hanying wishes to forcefully tame you.
Your level and willpower is higher than the summoner.
Do you wish to establish the contract?]

Tian Lang tilted his head. There was no change in his vision and he even heard some words. Even though they entered his head as if any creature could understand them, the content itself was too complex for the simple-minded wolf to realize the meaning behind it.

However, it did at least conveyed that something wants to forcefully tame him, the mighty pup, Tian Lang...

Wasn’t this order a bit different than what he wanted?

Rather than him ruling over the two-legged creatures, a mere creature with a small and not so soft pair of fleshy mounds wished to tame him? Control him? If anything wanted to tame him, they would at least need to be as mighty as that beautiful two-legged creature and their flesh beds mustn’t be any smaller either!

Let alone the fact, Hanying didn’t meet Tian Lang’s requirement and that he didn’t like the feeling from ‘force’ and ‘tame’. Even the feeling coming from the voice sounded disdainful. What he couldn’t bear the most was this beast had so many superiors! Even those other creatures punished it by removing its outer skins!

This was simply blasphemy!

Grrrr!!

Tian Lang growled in response. The scrolled blasted into pieces!

He also jumped away from the rectangular thing. Only now did he realize, he was surrounded by an orange-colored pyramid-shaped barrier. Alert at the foreign barrier, he slammed on the barrier head-first. Only to slip past it and roll on the ground.

The other creatures stared blankly. Everything happened in a matter of moments. At first, they didn’t understand what was happening. And by the time they realized, the pup already broke-away from Hanying’s try to tame it. There were a series of surprises but the creatures were still stuck at why Hanying suddenly decided to tame the pup.

Hanying, itself had an expression surprise pasted on its face. Naturally, it hadn’t expected to fail its attempt to tame the pup. It should only be a Normal or Bronze-ranked Level 1 or 2 Wolf beast at most! The outcome naturally surprised it.

Tian Lang jumped off the ground. He stared left and right, obviously confused about his predicament. The simple-minded him already forgot he wanted to fight against the creature, Hanying, and instead, approached the orange barrier. He hadn’t expected that he would get past the barrier without even breaking it, yet he slipped like passing through the air!

Lifting his claws, he focused on the barrier. Sharp claws extended as Tian Lang slashed on the barrier with all his strength!

Krrrngg--

Sparks flew everywhere as the force from his claws caused the barrier to vibrate intensely. The air blew everywhere pushing the creatures back. Hanying spat out a mouthful of blood from the rebound.

Oh, it connected!

Tian Lang almost jumped out of joy. It was touchable after all!

Still, he had an intense desire to learn how he could pass through from inside. Yet, he couldn’t do so from the outside. He wanted to fulfill his curiosity but couldn’t enter the barrier.

He eyed the other creatures intensely. Right, even if he couldn’t enter inside Hanying’s, there were others!

However, the other creatures remained stiff, frozen.

They couldn’t believe a Grimoire’s Halo Shield was almost damaged... and so easily.

Tian Lang took a step, a maid disappeared and flashed above his body with a knife. The door turned to dust and a burly figure with a giant hammer, already raised all the way, appeared, seemingly out of thin air. Both aiming at the small figure of the Tian Lang.