A Soul Mutant?

"I'll join too," Beverly said.

He cultivated the Dark Laws, and although he had obtained some Soul Gold Beads over the years, allowing him to cultivate at a decent pace,

he was now stuck at the bottleneck before fully mastering his third profound mystery.

If he wanted to grow stronger, more experience was always a good thing.

"All right. Hagson and Beverly will patrol with me," Roger agreed.

"Then I'll join too." Croya also raised his hand to volunteer.

"Croya, stay in the tribe just in case. The three of us will be enough for this patrol."

Roger turned down Croya's request.

"All right." Croya was not discouraged. His strength was ordinary among Midgods, so staying behind was fine too.

"Then it's settled. Go back and get ready. We leave tomorrow, and we'll give our territory a thorough inspection."

"Yes, my lord!"

Hagson and Beverly answered together.

The next day.

Roger and the other two set out as agreed.

This time, Roger planned to start from Fire Rhinoceros Canyon in the east, follow the Blackrock Mountains eastward, then turn north after reaching the Silent Wasteland. They would explore all the way to Nightshade Canyon at the northernmost edge, then head west to Falling Stone Cliff at the westernmost edge before making their way back.

To complete a circuit like that,

Roger estimated they would need at least a year.

And that was with all three of them being Midgods.

A month later, above a forest.

"Traveling through the Netherworld without a metallic lifeform really is a hassle..."

Roger sighed inwardly as he flew at low altitude. Though he was already quite fast, even reaching the Blackrock Mountains would take at least a month of flying...

Looks like I'll have to find some time to work on the speed profound mystery. I'll probably have to fly under my own power for a long time to come.

Roger had not heard of any metallic lifeforms over the years.

That made long-distance travel quite troublesome.

It was also further indirect evidence that this was still a very early period.

"My lord, there's something down below."

Hagson suddenly called out from several hundred meters away.

"What is it?"

Roger quickly flew over.

To widen the area they could explore, the three maintained a distance of five hundred meters from one another as they flew forward in a fan formation.

"There seems to be a group gathered over there. Their leader is an unfamiliar Midgod."

Hagson flew to within several hundred meters of the group and clearly sensed the aura of the man leading them.

He was a Midgod who cultivated the laws of light, but something about him struck Roger as odd.

Deep within the man's soul aura, there seemed to be a trace of the laws of the earth.

Moreover, Roger had sensed it while they were still more than a thousand meters apart.

This reminded Roger of the information about soul mutants in the original story.

Could this man be a soul mutant?

Roger secretly grew wary.

"Who are you?"

When the Laws of Light Midgod saw Roger's group land, especially since all three were Midgods, he immediately shouted, showing no sign of panic or fear.

"Ha! You're on our Nether Luo Tribe's land, and you're asking who we are?"

Hagson shouted back just as loudly.

With Roger here, he was not afraid in the slightest.

"So you're from the Nether Luo Tribe. My name is Bell. My friends and I happened to be passing through. We didn't mean to trespass."

The Midgod named Bell spoke calmly.

"Passing through?" Roger spread out his soul power, assessing whether Bell was telling the truth while further examining his soul aura. "Where did you come from?"

"We came from the Pale Highlands, tens of millions of li away," replied Bell, a tall, powerfully built man with long golden hair. "We fled all the way here to escape our enemies."

Sensing Roger's powerful soul energy, Bell secretly raised his guard as well.

"The Pale Highlands? Have you heard of that place, Hagson?" Roger turned to ask.

"No. The farthest I've ever gone was just over ten million li away." Hagson shook his head.

"I haven't heard of it either, but these fellows seem suspicious to me." Beverly watched them warily.

"We really did flee here. There's no reason for us to lie to you." Seeing Beverly poised to attack, Bell hurriedly explained. He could not gauge Roger's abilities; this was the first time he had encountered a Midgod like him.

Hagson and Beverly, on the other hand, were easy to read at a glance.

Still, to avoid provoking a needless battle, Bell said:

"Right, if you don't believe us, my friend is a Water Element Lowgod and happens to know the Floating Shadow Technique. You'll understand once you see it."

"Then show us." Roger motioned for Beverly to calm down, then had Bell ask his friend to play the recording with the Floating Shadow Technique.

No one in the Nether Luo Tribe had mastered this technique.

Although they had two Water Element Lowgods, neither had even begun to grasp the "Mist Illusion" profound mystery required for the Floating Shadow Technique.

So, although Roger and the others had heard that some Water Element Deities could use the Floating Shadow Technique to record images, they had never actually seen it.

"No problem. Dennis, play it."

"Yes, big brother." The Water Element Lowgod named Dennis hurriedly took a crystal ball from his Interspatial Ring and channeled water-blue divine power into it. It immediately began showing the landscape of the Pale Highlands, along with scenes of them being pursued.

A short while later, the Floating Shadow finished playing.

"Now you believe us, right?" Bell said.

"It doesn't seem like there's anything suspicious." Roger had analyzed the fluctuations of their souls as they spoke, along with what the Floating Shadow showed.

There was indeed nothing suspicious about where Bell's group had come from.

But Bell himself was very strange, closely resembling the soul mutants Roger had heard about.

"How about this? We'll stay out of each other's way. Flee in another direction, and don't enter our tribe's territory again."

Roger did not want to invite trouble. He explained the approximate boundaries of the Nether Luo Tribe's territory and pointed out another direction in which they could flee.

If he had been a Highgod, he would certainly have captured Bell and studied him thoroughly, even spending a precious Soul Seed to place him under soul control.

Unfortunately, Roger was only a Midgod at present.

Though his attainments in matters of the soul were considerable, whether he could defeat Bell in an actual fight was still in question...

Moreover, Bell could not be weak if he had managed to flee so far with three Lowgods in tow.

"All right, we'll go!"

Bell gave Roger a wary look, then decisively left with the three people beside him.

"Lord Roger, why didn't we attack just now? That Bell must have some secret."

Once Bell's group was far away, Hagson spoke in a low voice.

"There's no need. We don't know what he's capable of. Without a mortal enmity between us, there's no reason to provoke a pointless fight."

Roger looked in the direction where Bell and the others had disappeared.

On the surface, the three Lowgods were currently enveloped in Bell's divine power of the Laws of Light.

But Roger's powerful soul energy could clearly sense the aura of earth-element divine power deep within it.

Fused divine power!

Now Roger was completely certain that Bell was a soul mutant.

Moreover, even with three people in tow, Bell flew extremely fast, no slower than Roger's wind divine clone going all out.

Roger's wind divine clone had fused the profound mysteries of fast and slow and comprehended most of the speed profound mystery!

That meant Bell had most likely fused profound mysteries from different elements as well.