Chapter 96

At the moment her gaze met the Night Demon Scarecrow’s, Mu Huiyue seemed to fall into a long dream.

Her sense of time stretched infinitely, and in her daze, she saw many bizarre and strange scenes.

There was a small child running through the fields, weaving the straw he had pulled into the skeleton of a scarecrow, dressing it in his worn clothes, and standing it in the decaying field, imagining how it would chase away the birds and scare off the beasts.

The scarecrow was the hero in his dreams.

An elderly man with a pale face sat on the edge of a field, surrounded by sticks and hemp ropes. He slowly crafted a scarecrow from these materials, hoping it would take his place in guarding the important fields.

The scarecrow was his partner in protecting the crops.

A middle-aged woman sat alone in front of her home, weaving intricate knots while speaking of her hardships—her child who had passed away too early, her husband still away at war, and the fields that had yielded less and less each year.

The scarecrow was her only friend.

In a distant small village, during a festival, people made various kinds of scarecrows, decorating every corner of the celebration to replace those who had died in the wars and famine.

The scarecrow was their hope for the future.

Countless scenes and memories flew by in the dream, most of them related to fields and scarecrows, spanning almost all eras and encompassing every civilization on this planet that adapted to farming.

Every human who wove a scarecrow by hand was praying to it for a bountiful harvest.

Praying for favorable weather, abundant crops, and for everyone to be fed and live through happy and healthy times.

But it had never seen a harvest.

Locust plagues, pests, droughts, floods, hail, rodent infestations, diseases, wars, fallow fields…

There were always various natural disasters and man-made calamities, preventing the fields from reaping their rightful rewards after a year of hard work.

What followed was famine and displacement. The people who once prayed for a good harvest never returned, leaving only the scarecrows in the fields, slowly decaying along with the barren land.

It had never seen a harvest.

Therefore, it never knew how to respond to the people’s prayers, how to make them full and warm, how to make them smile in the moment of harvest.

Was it supposed to fight?

Was it supposed to protect the land?

Was it supposed to destroy all invaders?

Was this the “bountiful harvest” they prayed for…?

But it had never seen a harvest.

…

Consciousness suddenly returned, and Mu Huiyue stumbled, almost falling forward. The shadow beneath her immediately steadied her.

“Huiyue!” Han Ruoyun’s voice came from behind, “Are you okay?”

Mu Huiyue shook her head. The dream she had just experienced felt as if it had lasted for a long time. She had seen thousands of scarecrows from different times and heard their inner voices.

But in reality, it seemed like only an instant had passed. She still maintained the same forward motion.

“I’m fine. Let me try,” Mu Huiyue calmed her breath, smiled at Han Ruoyun and the others, and then continued to walk toward the Night Demon Scarecrow in the thick fog.

An extraordinary being born from the resonance of collective consciousness… After experiencing that dream, Mu Huiyue truly understood the meaning of this phrase from the encyclopedia.

Rustle—

The Night Demon Scarecrow gently swayed in the night wind. The crows on its arms all stared at the human girl approaching, but they made no further movements.

The Night Demon Scarecrow was hesitating.

This human girl, who had the audacity to approach it, had an expression it recognized.

It was the same expression held by the countless humans who had once woven it with their own hands in the subconscious memories that formed its life core.

“This is not the [wheat field] you are meant to protect, and this battle will not bring [harvest].”

Mu Huiyue stopped in her tracks and spoke to it slowly, word by word.

The Night Demon Scarecrow slowly raised its head. Its skull was also made of woven wheat stalks, with a dark crack opening where its eyes should be. The eye sockets glowed with a crimson light, like blood bursting from the abyss.

The thorns, wheat stalks, wide-brimmed straw hat, and withered fruits that made up its scarecrow body rustled gently in the night wind.

Rustle—

Then, what is [harvest]?

What must be done to bring about [harvest], to respond to those people’s wishes?

Even though she couldn’t understand the Night Demon Scarecrow’s language, Mu Huiyue could still understand the question in the rustling sound conveyed by its emotions.

The scarecrow that had listened to harvest prayers had never seen a real harvest.

“I will show you the true [harvest], and give you the power to bring [harvest].”

Mu Huiyue smiled faintly and reached out her hand toward the eerie scarecrow in the night mist.

“In exchange, form a contract with me, Night Demon Scarecrow.”

After experiencing that long yet fleeting scarecrow dream, Mu Huiyue had found the companion she had been seeking in the “Feng and Liuyu” region.

A dual-element creature with Dark and Wood attributes, a high-ranking monarch race, born with unyielding will even in the face of powerful enemies. Wasn’t this the third contracted partner she had been searching for?

More importantly, the Night Demon Scarecrow desperately longed for the harvest, and she truly possessed the power to make it grasp [harvest] and fulfill this wish.

Rustle—

The Night Demon Scarecrow seemed to whisper in the night wind, carrying a hint of confusion.

The human girl who had invited it was different from all the other humans, different from the humans it remembered…

The humans behind her were fearful and wary of it. From the moment of its birth, it had been surrounded by these hostile, sharp emotions.

The humans in its memory were more like a mixture of many scenes and times, fused together into some kind of image, forming the core of its soul’s memory.

Only the person before it was different.

She was the first who did not pray to it, but instead promised to bring it a bountiful harvest.

Rustle—

All the crows on the Night Demon Scarecrow’s arms took flight, leaving only the bare wooden cross standing in place.

Mu Huiyue spread out her palm, on which lay a crystal, clear and transparent.

“The Guardian Crystal of the Seventh Layer of the Trial Illusion. I’ve heard that the beasts born in this secret realm cannot refuse it. Is that true?”

Rustle—

The Night Demon Scarecrow swayed gently, and the blood-red light in its eyes seemed to soften a little.

The wide straw hat on its head tilted and slid slightly, revealing its face for the first time.

The straw woven around its head was mostly shriveled and withered, with one eye consisting of a deep, black hole, while the other side showed a charred, carbonized layer from intense heat, giving it a truly eerie and terrifying appearance.

It didn’t have the handsome, ornate appearance meant for rituals or celebrations.

Because it was a scarecrow that had never brought a harvest.

However, the girl before it smiled slightly, and her expression and actions remained unchanged as she extended the crystal.

This strange and unique human was willing to give the most precious Guardian Crystal to a beast feared and watched by her own kind.

Rustle—

Can I really witness the harvest?

Mu Huiyue nodded. “Yes, I promise you.”

The Guardian Crystal in her hand transformed into a clear stream of light, entering the Night Demon Scarecrow’s body. At the same time, two summoning arrays with four-tiered sealing runes appeared beneath both the girl and the beast.

The Night Demon Scarecrow disappeared into the summoning array, and Mu Huiyue closed her eyes, feeling the third contract in the Beast Taming Space officially come into effect.

Name: Night Demon Scarecrow

Attributes: Dark, Wood

Race Rank: High-level Monarch

Growth Tier: Growth Stage 4

Core Talent: Scarecrow Substitute (Wood B-grade)

Skills: Evil Spirit Face (Dark A-grade), Malicious Taunt (Dark B-grade), Crow Feather Storm (Dark B-grade), Rotten Fruit (Wood C-grade)

Normal Hidden Energy Value: 51887P

Mu Huiyue had not yet had time to carefully examine the Night Demon Scarecrow’s attributes when the Beast Tamers who had been waiting nervously behind her rushed over after witnessing the scene.

“Huiyue!” Han Ruoyun, tall with long legs, was the first to reach her friend. After confirming that Mu Huiyue was unharmed, she let out a slight sigh of relief.

“You really are…” She glanced at the contract runes on Mu Huiyue’s hand, which had not fully dissipated, and her mood grew quite complicated.

When Mu Huiyue had said she would face the Night Demon Scarecrow alone, Han Ruoyun had thought she had discovered some winning secret weapon, but to her surprise, it was a direct contract with the creature.

Though it indeed solved the current crisis… it was still a bit too unconventional, a bit too thrilling.

Who could have thought that the seemingly dangerous and treacherous Night Demon Scarecrow could be successfully contracted?

That said, how did Huiyue manage to communicate with the Night Demon Scarecrow?

A multitude of questions floated through Han Ruoyun’s mind, but there was something even more important at hand.

The Night Demon Scarecrow being successfully contracted through the Guardian Crystal proved that, like the young beasts they had originally intended to contract, it was a creature born in the “Fenghe Basin.”

This meant that the secret realm, where the anomaly had occurred, was still undoubtedly the “Fenghe Basin.”

Mu Huiyue nodded at Han Ruoyun and looked toward the enormous skeleton, still submerged in the night fog, where the Night Demon Scarecrow had disappeared.

“You’ve noticed too, right? This is still the ‘Fenghe Basin.’ The birth of the Night Demon Scarecrow was just an inevitable product of the special environment here. If I’m not mistaken—”

Before she could finish her sentence, the giant deer’s skeletal remains began to change.

The shadow puppets all turned into black mist and vanished on the spot, and the dense night fog gradually dissipated, revealing the full appearance of the giant deer’s skeleton.

The white bones, once covered in corrosion marks, were beginning to regain vitality.

The marks of time and frost were gradually dissolving, and within the skeleton, the shape of bone marrow began to fill. The dry, withered bones grew moist again, seemingly carrying a fresh scent of blood.

Fresh blood and flesh spilled out from the cracks in the skeleton. First came muscle fibers, followed by tendons, fascia, and skin. The pale red flesh gradually became plump, transitioning into deep red muscle layers filled with vitality and strength, until a complete outer layer of skin grew.

Light-colored fur began to grow, from sparse to thick, covering the body like snow.

The massive deer antlers, resembling withered trees, sprouted new buds, turning into lush leaves. More and more branches appeared, and the antlers quickly became surrounded by green, resembling a vibrant forest in early spring.

A soft white light enveloped its snow-white body, like the moonlight of deep night or the dawn’s early rays.

The Beast Tamers who witnessed this scene were all frozen in fear, staring as the giant deer’s skeletal remains gradually returned to their original form, transforming back into the familiar shape of the West Continent’s Guardian God.

A symbol of abundance and vitality, a mythic species with dual attributes of Wood and Earth—Ultimate Form.

The Withered Glory Spirit Deer.