The Frenzied Heart Beast Black Market

Li Mo felt that the black market was definitely not as simple as it appeared on the surface.

Even the two hundred li centered around Molten Town were very likely the former ruins of the Heart Beast Sect. What the black market represented was anyone's guess.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...

While Li Mo was pondering, several cultivators flew past overhead.

They rode on artifacts shaped like beast limbs, heading toward the Heart Beast Black Market, but after approaching a certain range, they switched to walking.

Li Mo didn't rush to get closer. He stood on high ground and observed the details of the black market.

He noticed that compared to Molten Town, the order at the Heart Beast Black Market was far more chaotic. The cultivators entering and exiting were extremely cautious, almost all wearing long robes that concealed their exposed features.

At the same time, the degree of deformity among the cultivators far exceeded imagination.

Some cultivators could no longer maintain a human form, moving across the desolate, vast plains in bizarre, grotesque postures.

Li Mo shook his head. After switching to the New Human Skin, he put on a loose Daoist robe.

He waited until the sky was dim before setting off for the Heart Beast Black Market.

The cultivators deliberately kept their distance from one another. Judging by the bones half-buried in the dirt, it was clear that murder and robbery were far from rare.

Li Mo was already mentally prepared.

According to the memories that had been surfacing from the Book of Fortune, even in the Ancient Immortal Cultivation World, the survival environment for rogue cultivators was just as brutal.

Li Mo arrived at the black market without making a sound. The black mist was deep and impenetrable, completely isolating the interior. Occasionally, cultivators entered or exited.

He hesitated for half a breath, then lowered his head and stepped into the range of the black mist.

He felt the world spin, his eyes shrouded in darkness, and everything around him fell into absolute silence, as if he had entered a small world hidden deep in an abyss.

Li Mo's Five Senses gradually recovered, and a torrent of jeering voices came from above.

"Pour spiritual power into your eyes—can't even manage such a crude technique?"

"Hurry up and adapt, or you'll end up as roadside bones."

"Hahaha..."

The voices rose and fell. Li Mo didn't need the reminder; he was already channeling spiritual power into his eyes, though he was slightly uncomfortable with the corrosive nature of the Miasma Spiritual Power.

"Junior!"

"Consider this a favor I'm doing for you today. Remember to repay me in the future."

The thick fog parted, and the things within the black market became clear.

Li Mo looked up and saw that above the entrance to the black market, hanging on the gate, were over a hundred chattering, babbling heads.

The heads were pierced through the temples by iron chains. Their former cultivation must have at least completed the Spiritual Root Transformation of the Five Viscera, or they wouldn't have been able to survive detached from their bodies for so long.

Li Mo ignored these heads.

He looked around and found that the Heart Beast Black Market was a street stretching endlessly. There was no distinction between day and night here; it was filled with blood and greed.

Two rows of shops sat sparsely along the street, with countless stalls lining the roadside.

Li Mo looked at the passing cultivators. Though their mouths moved, he couldn't hear a sound.

Clearly, the Heart Beast Black Market deliberately weakened the cultivators' Five Senses to ensure that no one's identity was easily exposed.

Under the effect of the formation, the street had become a market suited for underground transactions. No one knew how many dirty deals were happening in plain sight or behind the scenes.

The one maintaining the black market was at least a cultivator at the Establishment Stage (Golden Core Stage).

Li Mo hadn't mastered any eye techniques, so his field of vision was very limited. Everything beyond a hundred meters was a blur.

Even so, he still noticed the madness of the rogue cultivators in the black market, and the spells they used were clearly connected to Molten Town.

If the Molten Town spells' transformation of the body through Beastification was based on the compatibility between Variant Spiritual Energy and the spells themselves, evolving accordingly—

No matter what the body became, it wouldn't harm the foundation.

The rogue cultivators in the black market, on the other hand, took extremes to their fullest expression.

They didn't care about their foundation. Even if their bodies couldn't handle the transformation, as long as it served short-term interests, they would act without hesitation.

"Roar, roar, roar."

A rogue cultivator passed by. On his neck was actually transplanted a Mandrill Head, the connection point wrapped in countless disordered threads, with blood constantly seeping out.

If Han Cai saw this, he would shake his head at such crude surgery.

Li Mo glanced at the Two-Headed Cultivator.

He noticed that the Mandrill Head seemed to be specifically responsible for cultivation, its remaining consciousness inhaling a specific type of Variant Spiritual Energy.

The cultivator occasionally stuffed food into the Mandrill Head's mouth, indicating that the human and beast heads did not share a single set of Five Viscera.

Probably for easier removal later.

Li Mo's scalp tingled.

Only the pursuit of Eternal Life could drive cultivators to ruin their own bodies like this. If the Mandrill Head lost control, the cultivator would drop dead on the spot.

Such rogue cultivators were everywhere in the black market.

Some cultivators directly placed their hearts outside their bodies, hanging them openly at their waists, with the connecting blood vessels taking on a crystalline form.

Once the heartbeat stopped, the cultivator would proceed to replace it with a new heart.

He treated hearts entirely as consumables, using them only to delay the outbreak of the Death Sickness and provide his body with a brief, faint spark of life.

Li Mo was just about to look for a shop selling Bizarre Beast Corpses when he heard the head on the gatepost begin to assert its presence again.

"Youngster, the inn is three hundred meters ahead on the left, Yi Bao Pavilion is seven hundred and fifty meters ahead on the right, the Spell Hall is..."

The Long Beard Head cackled, rattling off an introduction to the black market without pause, then shook itself smugly: "I've remembered you, youngster."

"If you've got the heart, give me a vertebra as thanks later—a Childhood Stage vertebra will do. Old Yue isn't picky."

"Don't listen to him. Give the vertebra to Old Lady me instead, and I'll even tell you all about my wild affairs from when I was alive, hahahaha."

"Just a head left, and you're talking about wild affairs? Have you no shame?!!"

The heads began bickering, and if not for the iron chains binding them, they would surely have come to blows.

Li Mo shook his head and was about to leave the entrance when a figure stopped beside him.

The other party was wrapped in a Daoist robe, and only from her voice could he tell she was a female cultivator: "Don't mind the Ghost Heads. They owe a lot of debt to the black market, and their organs have already been pawned off."

"Asking for vertebrae is just their hope that one day they can gather all the parts of their bodies and escape the fate of hanging on this gatepost for a thousand years."

After she finished speaking, she vanished into the black market.

This provoked a torrent of curses from the Ghost Heads, and one even used its mostly rotted tongue to spit pus and blood toward the female cultivator's retreating figure.

Li Mo glanced at the female cultivator and caught a strange, rancid smell in his nostrils.

He followed her deeper into the black market, away from the entrance. No wonder Jin Li was so wary of this place—every corner of this damned spot was full of temptation, as if spirit stones could buy any resource imaginable.

But at the same time, the Heart Beast Black Market was also fraught with danger. One misstep and you could be devoured whole.

It wasn't until Li Mo walked deeper into the Heart Beast Black Market that he realized why debt was so common. Many shops had glowing signs of all kinds hanging in front of their doors.

[Purchasing native hearts. Price based on vitality contained. Starting at twenty Mid-grade Spirit Stones.]

[Regenerating limbs. Bone-Mending Pills provided. Also purchasing intact limbs. Starting at five Mid-grade Spirit Stones.]

[Hiring Medical Hall Doctor. Must be proficient in Universal Skill. Salary negotiable. Spirit Contract starting at ten years.]

"How does this black market feel so completely at odds with Smelting Town?"