After the battle just now, the City Lord's Manor had been utterly reduced to ruins.
The once-majestic towers, pavilions, and terraces had vanished without a trace.
Within a hundred-zhang radius, not a single building remained intact. Only broken walls, shattered ruins, and blood mist that had yet to disperse churned in the wind.
The remaining disciples of Profound Yin Studio had long since disappeared without a trace.
Chen Mo had just stepped out of the City Lord's Manor grounds when he suddenly stopped.
A monster as large as a small hill blocked his way on the street ahead.
The monster had a human face and a rat's body.
It had the face of an old woman. Its skin was like thousand-year-old tree bark, covered in age spots and wart-like growths.
Sparse white hair hung from the top of its head, drifting gently in the wind.
Beneath that face was an obese rat's body.
Its gray-black fur was coarse and thick, and a row of jagged spines grew along its back.
Its four limbs were short and stout, its claws sharp as hooks and sunk deep into the yellow mud beneath its feet.
Crouching around it were dozens of human-bodied, rat-faced monsters—male and female, old and young.
Those monsters were only the size of ordinary people. They hunched over, and some even wore Everjoy City's red flowers.
Only those flowers had already withered, their petals charred black as if they had been burned.
The Rat Hag?
Why was this monster blocking his way?
Chen Mo's brows drew together slightly, and his right hand had already reached the shaft of the Merit Banner.
The shadows beneath his feet began to roil, ready to erupt at any moment.
Unexpectedly, the rat-shaped old woman showed no hostility. Instead, she extended her forepaws and clasped