Following that angry roar, the trees in the distance trembled, and a huge figure appeared in front of Long Chen and Lu Fang-er.

That was a huge lion covered in red flames and over a hundred meters long. Its eyes were circular, and it was currently roaring at them, warning the Magical Beasts that this was its territory.

The powerful pressure coming from it caused Lu Fang-er’s Magical Beasts to involuntarily retreat.

“Scarlet Blaze Lion!” Both Long Chen and Lu Fang-er let out a startled cry. The latter’s cry was filled with excitement.

As for Long Chen, he felt a bit of pity. He also viewed the Scarlet Blaze Lion importantly. More accurately, he viewed its Neidan importantly.

This was a fire attribute Magical Beast, and its Neidan contained its beast flame. Its beast flame was ranked sixty-seventh on the beast flame rankings. It was much, much stronger than Long Chen’s Flame Salamander beast flame.

However, Long Chen knew that this Scarlet Blaze Lion had no affinity with him. Just from Lu Fang-er’s fanatical expression, he knew she wanted it. Even if he cultivated his skin for a thousand years, he wouldn’t be so shameless as to fight over such a thing with a woman.

“What should we do Long Chen? This Scarlet Blaze Lion has only just matured, and so it’s only at the early fourth rank. But its combat ability is definitely not inferior to a mid fourth rank Magical Beast. Even if all my Magical Beasts worked together, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to forcibly subdue it.” Lu Fang-er felt a bit powerless.

The Scarlet Blaze Lion’s fame was renowned, and any Tendon Transformation realm Beast Tamer would turn scarlet-eyed for it.

But to subdue such a powerful Magical Beast required a vast soul energy. Furthermore, you had to be constantly worried about the Magical Beast rebelling or trying to escape the spiritual binds.

She wasn’t an idiot like senior apprentice-brother Qi. Trying to subdue Little Snow in front of Long Chen had really just been asking for death.

In normal circumstances, when Beast Tamers attempted to capture a Magical Beast, they had to first injure and subdue the Magical Beast, making it lose the ability to run first. Then with their housepets protecting them, they would place their spiritual imprint on the Magical Beast.

But this Scarlet Blaze Lion was too powerful. There was a high chance that it would be able to kill all of Lu Fang-er’s current Magical Beasts and then even escape in the end. That was definitely the worst-case scenario. So, Lu Fang-er was out of ideas and could only ask Long Chen for help.

“Let me handle it. You all retreat a bit.” Long Chen smiled while his heart dripped blood from the loss. However, he didn’t say anything. His wish to obtain the Scarlet Blaze Lion was stifled within him.

Jumping off the bull, he slowly walked over to the Scarlet Blaze Lion. The Scarlet Blaze Lion let out an angry growl when it saw this insignificant little creature ignore its warning and step into its territory.

“What are you growling about? To run into Lu Fang-er is your blessing.” Long Chen was already resentful inside. If he could refine this Scarlet Blaze Lion’s beast flame, then his pill refining speed would increase greatly.

Nowadays, almost all his Three Flower Connecting Tendon Pills had already been used up. However, he didn’t have enough time to go refine more medicinal pills.

Now seeing a powerful beast flame in front of him, but not being able to gather it, he was already irritated. Seeing this fellow angrily roar at him, his fury would have to be released on it.

The Scarlet Blaze Lion once more roared, its roar shaking the forest. Its flame-colored fur stood on end, clearly showing that it had already reached the end of its patience.

Long Chen ignored that and continued walking forward. Even Lu Fang-er felt her heart clench. That was a Scarlet Blaze Lion, an existence whose combat ability wouldn’t be inferior to any Tendon Transformation realm Chosen.

Furthermore, flame attribute Magical Beasts inherently possessed a greater destructive power than average. She couldn’t help but feel nervous.

The Scarlet Blaze Lion no longer held back. It rushed forward like a red meteorite. Its speed was incredible, and its aura was like a heavy mountain. The entire ground trembled because of it. Lu Fang-er felt a chill. Her Magical Beasts truly couldn’t compare to it and would run the risk of dying at any moment if they fought with it.

Although she had long since expected it to be powerful, she had still not imagined it would be so terrifying. Just that speed was enough to make it so no one could react. It had already reached Long Chen, swatting down with a claw.

Its huge claw smashed into the ground, releasing a terrifying wave of qi. The surrounding trees were all blown to pieces. The area around them for hundreds of meters had been turned into level ground.

Lu Fang-er was shocked. She couldn’t even tell where Long Chen had gone when she heard an explosive shout. “Rise!”

A huge figure soared into the sky. Lu Fang-er was shocked to see that it was the Scarlet Blaze Lion. It continuously flipped in the air. It was obvious it had been thrown up there.

Suddenly, Long Chen’s figure appeared in midair and a brick appeared in his hand, which he smashed down heavily on the Scarlet Blaze Lion’s huge head.

It let out a mournful cry and shot back down, smashing into the ground. A huge crater instantly formed.

When Long Chen slowly landed in front of it, the Scarlet Blaze Lion had already lost consciousness.

Lu Fang-er was covering her mouth, filled with shock. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Such a powerful Scarlet Blaze Lion had been easily subdued. Looking over at its huge, unconscious body, Lu Fang-er was speechless.

“An unconscious Magical Beast should be easier to place a spiritual imprint on,” said Long Chen.

Only then did she react and excitedly walk over to its body. Forming hand seals in front of her, a strange mark appeared in the air. That was the same technique as the one senior apprentice-brother Qi had used. That was a ‘slave’ character, and it was also known as a slave imprint.

The mark slowly descended onto the Scarlet Blaze Lion’s head and disappeared. Its unconscious body trembled and it suddenly let out an angry roar.

This was an instinctive struggle against the spiritual imprint. Its four limbs randomly swung out, and it rolled back and forth.

But it was already unconscious. Now that the slave imprint had already reached its soul, it was too late for it to resist.

Even if it awoke now, it still wouldn’t be able to resist the powerful spiritual imprint. Unless it managed to escape outside the range of Lu Fang-er’s soul energy, it would have to obediently be subdued.

Lu Fang-er’s soul energy was clearly not as powerful as senior apprentice-brother Qi’s. Even with Long Chen’s assistance, she still required almost two hours before the Scarlet Blaze Lion stopped struggling.

She then placed a strand of her Spiritual Strength and branded it into the depths of the Scarlet Blaze Lion’s soul. That way she could easily control it in the future.

If it dared resist, then with just a thought, her Spiritual Strength could make its soul disperse.

Furthermore, branded Magical Beasts all felt an innate fear towards their masters from the depths of their souls, and they wouldn’t dare resist.

That was also why despite knowing they would be facing dangers, they didn’t dare disobey their master’s orders. Their lives were constantly in the hands of their masters. With a single thought from their master, they could be made to die.

“Excellent. With this Scarlet Blaze Lion, I won’t have to fear ordinary Chosen.” Lu Fang-er was filled with excitement.

Previously, she had fallen into disadvantage against that Corrupt Chosen. If she had had this powerful Scarlet Blaze Lion at that time, then the results would probably have been reversed. Even if she couldn’t have killed him, she would still have forced him into a miserable state.

“This lion’s definitely very powerful. It’s just that it didn’t have a chance to display its full strength before I knocked it unconscious. Otherwise, it would have required much more effort.” Long Chen nodded. How could an existence ranked sixty-seventh on the beast flame rankings be lacking? It was precisely because Long Chen had known it would be difficult to handle that he had gone all-out to subdue it at the beginning.

If he had waited for it to realize how strong he was, which would cause it to release its life flame, then even if he could subdue it, it would have been much more troublesome.

“Thank you, Long Chen.” Lu Fang-er excitedly pulled on Long Chen’s hand.

Long Chen laughed and didn’t say anything. He knew that to a Beast Tamer, a powerful Magical Beast was a life-preserving measure.

In the Jiuli secret realm, danger was everywhere, and they could die at any time. To be able to subdue such a powerful Magical Beast was definitely worthy of celebration.

“Aiya! Long Chen, you really were too vicious. Even its skull was broken by your attack!” Lu Fang-er gently patted the Scarlet Blaze Lion’s fur with an infatuated expression. However, when she saw that a large part of its head had caved in, she couldn’t help but grumble.

Long Chen was speechless. As expected, women really were capricious. Long Chen very smartly chose to keep his mouth shut.

To talk reason with a woman was folly, and Long Chen definitely wouldn’t do something like that. He just watched as Lu Fang-er pulled open its mouth and threw in a bottle of healing medicine.

Without even looking at it, he could tell from just its scent that those were all low-grade third tier medicines. Their healing effect would be just average.

But having thrown in that many, and adding on a Magical Beast’s innate recovery speed, it should heal very quickly.

However, what flabbergasted Long Chen was that Lu Fang-er removed her spiritual imprints on her third rank Magical Beasts. Those two Magical Beasts immediately ran far away without even glancing back.

Long Chen felt uncomfortable seeing that. He didn’t like these kinds of methods as they were a bit too heartless. Those were comrades that had fought through life and death battles. But one party was able to easily discard them, while the other party left as if relieved of a heavy burden. There was no trust at all.

If those were the only options in terms of companions, then Long Chen would prefer to have no companions at all. But seeing that Lu Fang-er didn’t have any reaction, he knew this was just a common, situation for Beast Tamers. He sighed inside.

It was no wonder Meng Qi had released her Magical Beasts while still outside the Jiuli secret realm. To Magical Beasts, being released in such an area was like dropping them into hell.

Perhaps other people would be unable to understand Meng Qi’s actions, but Long Chen could profoundly sense just how kind she was. That made Long Chen pity her even more.

Lu Fang-er didn’t seem to sense any change at all from Long Chen. She happily put the Scarlet Blaze Lion into her spiritual space, and the two of them continued deeper into the Forest of Darkness.