Even Leyvi was surprised by what he was seeing.
Up until now, there had never been a single recorded case of a spirit beast becoming infected by the Red Eye Craze phenomenon.
Yet now, it was happening right before his eyes.
Without hesitation, Leyvi condensed an enormous spiritual hand and seized the demonic chimpanzee, pinning it firmly in place before it could do anything.
Moments later, the last trace of clarity vanished from the chimpanzee's eyes as they turned completely crimson.
ROAR!
It struggled violently, glaring at Leyvi and the four children with overwhelming killing intent. The mysterious phenomenon had taken complete control of it.
Even Leylin's connection through the bloodline source had been severed. No matter how hard he tried, he could no longer sense the chimpanzee's thoughts, nor could he issue it any commands.
Fortunately for everyone present, the giant spiritual hand restrained it so completely that it could not move even an inch, leaving it with nothing but furious, muffled roars.
"Why did this one become infected?" Leyvi muttered to himself.
"Could it be because the taming method is different? Maybe the reason the Red Eye Craze has never affected other spirit beasts is because of the spiritual imprint. It might somehow protect their minds from going crazy." He began piecing the possibilities together.
If that was true, then the Red Eye Craze did not drive demonic beasts mad through a simple infection of the brain. Instead, it reached much deeper, into the sea of consciousness itself. After all, that was where the spiritual imprint resided.
Leyvi finally felt as though he had a solid lead. Now that he had something to work with, he decided to investigate further.
"Senior Lapin, can you help restrain this fellow? I want to inspect the depths of its consciousness," Leyvi asked through their mental connection.
"Kekeke. Leave it to me," Lapin replied.
Without revealing himself to the children, Lapin acted.
A mass of Celestial Cloud suddenly materialized around the crazed chimpanzee, wrapping tightly around its enormous body. More clouds quickly coiled around its limbs and neck, binding it securely before another layer covered its mouth, reducing its furious roars to little more than muffled growls.
The four children stared in amazement. They had no idea where the clouds had come from. To them, it simply looked as though their father had casually summoned clouds out of thin air to restrain the ape.
"Listen," Leyvi said as he turned toward the four children. "I'm about to use an ability to investigate something, so I won't be moving for a while. Just stay here and wait for me, alright?"
"Yes, Daddy!"
"Yes, Dad."
The children nodded obediently.
Leyvi then looked at Leylin. "There's one more thing. I'm sorry, but you'll probably have to say goodbye to your new spirit beast."
Leylin blinked.
"Once a demonic beast is completely consumed by the Red Eye Craze, it doesn't recover. It remains like this until the day it dies."
Leylin stood there quietly for a moment before letting out a helpless smile.
His first attempt at taming a spirit beast had really gone terribly. Not only had he failed to obtain the flying demonic beast he originally wanted, but the spirit beast he did manage to tame was now beyond saving.
Nothing had gone according to plan.
"I understand, Dad."
Although it was a pity, Leylin did not feel particularly attached to the chimpanzee after everything that had happened in the forest.
Seeing his son's reaction, Leyvi smiled.
"Don't worry. When you can tame a demonic beast through your own ability later, I'll personally accompany you. If Bara Forest doesn't have the spirit beast you want, we'll simply go somewhere farther away."
Leylin's eyes immediately lit up. "Really?"
His disappointment vanished almost instantly. To anyone else, it might have sounded like an ordinary promise. But to Leylin, it meant far more than that.
For as long as he could remember, his father had always focused on cultivation. He had never once seen him step outside the estate.
So when his father promised to go out with him, Leylin felt a deep, almost indescribable happiness. It truly meant a lot to him.
After calming down slightly, Leylin asked hesitantly,
"Is... is it really alright for you to leave the estate, Dad?"
"Hahaha! Why would that be a problem?" Leyvi laughed. "It's not as if I'm being confined anywhere. I stay at home because I choose to cultivate here. If I want to go out, I can leave whenever I want."
He smiled gently before placing a hand on Leylin's head.
"And more importantly, you're my son. I may not be able to spend time with you all the time, but for moments that matter, you can always come to your dad."
"You can also come to me whenever you run into trouble you can't solve on your own," Leyvi added with a chuckle. "As your father, I'm here to help or fix anything that's beyond you. Just remember that."
He believed his children were now old enough to understand what he meant.
He never wanted them to think he was someone who was always locked away cultivating and unavailable. He wanted them to know that, whenever it truly mattered, they could always rely on him.
"Dad..." Leylin's voice caught in his throat.
Ever since he was little, he had constantly been reminded that, as the eldest brother, he had to become someone his younger sisters could always depend on. Because of that, he had gradually convinced himself that he always had to be the dependable one.
Now, hearing his father say those words... He suddenly realized that he also had someone he could lean on. And that someone was his own father.
The burden on his shoulders suddenly felt much lighter. Knowing there was always someone behind him made the fear of failure seem much smaller than before.
Leyvi smiled as if he could see exactly what his son was thinking.
"When the time comes, I'll take a short break from cultivation and accompany you on a little adventure. This time, you won't have to sneak out."
"Yes, Dad!" Leylin nodded enthusiastically.
"Daddy! Daddy! What about us?" Leyana and Leyina hurried over and tugged at Leyvi's sleeves, making identical pleading expressions.
"Hahaha! Of course. What I said applies to all of my children." Leyvi laughed and gently pinched both of their cheeks.
The twins immediately beamed with delight.
"Alright." Leyvi turned back toward the restrained chimpanzee.
"Now all of you stand a little farther back. I have something I need to investigate. And remember what I told you earlier."
The four children obediently nodded before retreating further behind him, their curiosity completely overtaking the fear they had felt just moments ago as they quietly watched their father prepare to begin his investigation.
It was obvious that the demonic chimpanzee was still struggling violently, but there was nothing it could do against Lapin's Celestial Cloud. The cloud bound every part of its body so tightly that even moving a finger had become impossible.
Without wasting any more time, Leyvi extended his spiritual sense into the chimpanzee's Sea of Consciousness.
The moment he entered, an overwhelming tide of rage crashed into him.
Hatred.
Killing intent.
An indescribable desire to slaughter every human in existence.
The emotions were so intense that they seemed to fill every corner of the Sea of Consciousness.
Leyvi was not surprised.
Every crazed demonic beast he had encountered behaved exactly like this. The real question was why. He carefully inspected the Sea of Consciousness, searching for anything unusual that could explain the transformation.
Yet, apart from the overwhelming hostility toward humans, everything appeared normal. There were no foreign energies, no strange marks, and no mysterious objects hidden within the consciousness.
That, however, was not the end of the investigation. If the source was not here on the surface, then the problem might lie even deeper, in the inner space where all memories were stored.
After what he had experienced years ago with the shady figure hidden inside the Holy Son's memories, he could not rule out the possibility that this deeper layer was hiding the true origin of the issue.
Whether human or demonic beast, the structure of the sea of consciousness appeared to function in much the same way.
With that in mind, Leyvi immediately forced the consciousness avatar to appear and tried to engulf it, just as he had done a decade earlier when accessing an inner space. The process was still familiar to him.
However... The result caught him completely off guard.
His spiritual sense could not enter. An invisible force was firmly rejecting it.
Leyvi frowned.
It was not a simple resistance. It was an absolute refusal, as though something deep within the consciousness was deliberately preventing anyone from entering.
His expression gradually became serious.
What exactly was blocking him? It certainly could not be the chimpanzee itself. A mere high-level demonic beast should never possess the ability to repel his spiritual sense.
To put things into perspective, he had successfully performed soul-searching techniques on Soul Formation Realm cultivators before. Compared to them, this chimpanzee's consciousness was insignificant.
On top of that, his spiritual sense had advanced to an entirely new level over the past ten years. His progress in spiritual cultivation could only be described as monstrous.
Under normal circumstances, there was simply no way a high-level demonic beast could resist him like this.
But his spiritual sense was indeed halted, making him convinced that the clue to solving the Red Eye Craze phenomenon depended on whether he could access the inner consciousness or not.
Unfortunately, no matter how many times he tried, the invisible repelling force remained unmoved. In the end, Leyvi withdrew his spiritual sense. There was something he wanted to confirm first.
His spiritual sense spread throughout the Leyan Family estate before quickly locking onto Anda's presence.
She was currently in the alchemy room, refining alchemy products to fill the gap left by Dorin, who was unable to work as much because of her pregnancy.
"Anda," Leyvi called through spiritual speech. "Do we still have any living crazed demonic beasts inside the Universe Airship?"
Hearing his voice, Anda immediately stopped what she was doing.
With her current level of alchemy mastery, pausing halfway through a refinement process was no longer difficult. She could simply resume it later without affecting the final product.
She had long since grown accustomed to Leyvi contacting her remotely like this. He had mastered long-distance spiritual communication several years ago.
"The ones I captured a few months ago are still alive," Anda replied. "Do you need them?"
"Yes," Leyvi answered without hesitation. "Bring them to me immediately. I think I've discovered something important."
Anda's eyes instantly lit up.
Nothing particularly interesting had happened for quite some time, and she had honestly begun to feel a little bored.
Now, hearing those words from Leyvi, her intuition immediately told her that something interesting was about to unfold.