The Truth of the Heart Beast Sect!

Li Mo walked under the scorching sun.

With the blessing of Eidetic Memory, he could also cultivate while distracted, constantly absorbing the foreign aura from his surroundings to perform Circulation Cycles.

After leaving Smelting Town far behind, the number of travelers on the Official Road gradually dwindled.

Li Mo cautiously observed his surroundings, repeatedly confirming that no one was following him.

He casually passed by a patch of shade, and the exposed skin on his body actually began to writhe, his ordinary features transforming into something clean and otherworldly.

After swapping the old and new Human Skin, even the Beast Head Tattoo disappeared entirely.

Li Mo attempted to communicate with the Tattooed Beast and found that the use of Paint Green Clothes was unaffected; instead, he could rely on the Leakless Body to seal the aura of the Spell.

Li Mo looked back at Smelting Town, and the lingering sense of crisis eased slightly.

Smelting Town was still surrounded by mountains, appearing more prosperous than four years ago, but beneath the surface, undercurrents churned, hiding who knew how many dangers.

"Sub-Vessel..."

Li Mo muttered the words a few times, then quickly turned into a mountain fork off the Official Road.

From start to finish, he had never mentioned the matter of the Sub-Vessel to anyone, nor had he tried to investigate Polymelia in the days before his departure.

A cultivator at the Childhood Stage, even if he had already shown potential, held no sway whatsoever in a place as mixed as Smelting Town.

Li Mo couldn't prove the existence of the Sub-Vessel, and revealing information would only lead to self-destruction.

Besides, he had a feeling that if Polymelia was man-made, there was definitely a shopkeeper involved among Smelting Town's upper echelons.

Li Mo didn't bother worrying whether Polymelia was a false alarm; temporarily leaving Smelting Town to lie low was the safest move, waiting for things to develop.

A large net had been cast into the lake—when it surfaced, that would be the sign that it was almost time to haul it in.

Li Mo shook his head with a bitter smile. Thinking too much was useless. He would just focus on finishing the River God Village mission, then head to the Black Market.

He took out the Spirit Tablet and pressed it to his brow, and information about River God Village flooded into his mind.

River God Village was just two mountains away from Niu Family Village, and the trouble was said to be a Tiger Bizarre Beast.

Over the years, cultivators had gone to River God Village to investigate, but each time they only killed a Pseudo Bizarre Beast and called it done, while the Bizarre Beast itself remained unseen.

Pseudo Bizarre Beasts were formed from mortals afflicted with Death Sickness, nurtured by the aura of a Bizarre Beast—similar to the Human-Faced Deer Li Mo had killed.

Li Mo had taken the River God Village mission because it was on the way to Niu Family Village, and the mission itself wasn't dangerous; the cultivators who had gone to River God Village before were generally low in cultivation.

On the other hand, he was very interested in the Tiger Bizarre Beast.

Using Bizarre Beast Blood for Bloody indeed caused the Beast Head Tattoo to lose control, but with his Leakless Body, he might be able to avoid the drawbacks.

Still, it was strange—since Pseudo Bizarre Beasts appeared in River God Village from time to time, why hadn't the cultivators who took the mission before gone back?

Wasn't this free spirit stones for the taking?

As Li Mo pondered, he followed the mountain path to the edge of the forest.

He paused the Circulation Cycle of spiritual power in his Meridians, tried to suppress his aura as much as possible, and focused his split attention on the Spiritual Root Transformation of his heart.

At present, Li Mo's heart had already mutated.

But the heart wasn't waxy like a normal Miasma Corpse Spirit Root; instead, it had taken on a grayish-brown stone texture.

At the same time, Azure Blood, Loyal Heart was affected by the Spiritual Root Transformation, causing the thick, syrupy blood to be mixed with tiny grains of dust.

Li Mo's body was subtly transforming; just his strength alone had increased by more than fifty percent.

The most absurd change was his weight.

Li Mo appeared somewhat thin on the outside, but his weight had already skyrocketed to two hundred jin, and his agility remained completely unaffected.

This showed that his idea had been correct.

Using the Book of Fortune to brand the five organs, then undergoing the transformation of Spiritual Root Transformation, could maximize the effect of his divine abilities—they were definitely Mutually Beneficial.

The Book of Fortune still had four blank pages left, just enough for the liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.

"Ooh ooh ooh ooh..."

The cries of apes rang out one after another.

As Li Mo ventured deeper into the forest, he could hear all kinds of sounds made by Wild Beasts, yet in two whole days, he hadn't seen a single one.

"Beasts, yet not beasts."

He recalled the old man from Niu Family Village's assessment of Wild Beasts—very intelligent, almost human-like.

Li Mo's expression was complicated, but he didn't deliberately go looking for traces of Wild Beasts.

Even for an experienced old man, capturing a Wild Beast without spending a month or two setting traps was simply unrealistic.

Though Li Mo was curious, he forced down his distracting thoughts and continued on his way.

The bright sunlight was blocked by the branches and leaves of the vegetation; deep in the forest's shadow, even the concept of time gradually blurred.

When Li Mo noticed a river so clear he could see the bottom, he knew River God Village wasn't far.

"Hm?"

The Crimson Fox Tattoo stirred, and its crude awareness told Li Mo that there seemed to be a fresh corpse nearby, dead no more than two days at most.

Li Mo followed the Crimson Fox's guidance, closing in on the position of the corpse.

Within five li, a porcupine's carcass lay slanted under a tree, its hide already rotting from the humid heat of the jungle.

Li Mo narrowed his eyes. By nature's law of survival, carrion was a staple for most omnivores, so logically, the porcupine's body shouldn't have decomposed naturally.

He crept to within a hundred meters of the corpse, confirming no fluctuations of Spiritual Qi.

The porcupine showed no wounds anywhere, its hairs a grayish white, as if it had died suddenly from organ failure due to old age and frailty.

In the wild, a beast dying of old age was a sight rarely seen even once in a century.

Li Mo's breathing quickened slightly. The puzzle of years was finally about to be solved, but out of caution, he still released the Miasma Silk Thread.

With a wave of his hand, the Miasma Silk Thread peeled back the porcupine's hide.

A shocking sight met his eyes.

Beneath the porcupine's hide lay a withered old man, dead, his bare skin fused with the fur, his limbs degenerated into beastly hooves.

Li Mo used the Book of Fortune to examine the old man's organs, finding them largely the same as a human's.

"Beast, yet not beast..."

No wonder the villagers barred women and children from participating when slaughtering Wild Beasts—they themselves knew that the so-called beasts were merely living humans draped in animal skins.

Li Mo's scalp tingled. If the two hundred li centered on Smelting Town were filled with such "Half-Beasts," the numbers were unimaginable.

What had caused this?

He instinctively looked to the Book of Fortune in his mind, and indeed, fragmented memories surfaced.

The fragmented images in the memories all came from Outer Sect Disciples of the Heart Beast Sect, clearly triggered by the porcupine old man before him.

Perhaps... Smelting Town was never the Outer Sect of the Heart Beast Sect at all?

The true Outer Sect Disciples of the Heart Beast Sect were the beasts within those two hundred li, only the inheritance had been severed by Smelting Town?!!

But the ancient arts and methods were useless now. Once beasts entered the Inner City, they would likely become the spiritually intelligent Bizarre Beasts that Shopkeeper Tian and others spoke of.

Li Mo felt a deep sense of absurdity.

Yet the truth might be exactly this. After all, if the Beast Calamity was tied to the Outer Sect Grand Competition, many questions could be answered.

[After the Elk Bizarre Beast appeared, why did a massive herd of deer emerge at the mountain's base?

Because the deer sought to enter the Inner Sect and gain inheritance through the Outer Sect Grand Competition.]

What calamity had struck over seven thousand years, causing Spiritual Qi to undergo such drastic change and turning Heart Beast Sect disciples into monsters draped in beast hides?

Li Mo murmured to himself, "It seems Smelting Town was either founded by Dao thieves or by surviving disciples of the Heart Beast Sect."

The truth was truly hair-raising.