The sky was just beginning to brighten, and an early market appeared in the southwestern district of Rong Town, with stalls selling various teas and snacks lined up on both sides of the street.
The crowd gathered eagerly, as the New Year’s gathering only occurred once every five years.
Even though there was a strange prohibition hanging at the entrance of the early market, stating [No going out during Zi Chou hour, Rong Town has no sightings of headless horses].
"Headless horses..."
Li Mo crossed his arms over his chest and walked nonchalantly through the early market, with the True Word Sect’s Secret Bone hovering behind his head, his expression warning others to keep away.
All cultivators passing through the early market also released their defensive magic artifacts, evidently wary of the Beast Calamity.
The crowd was already accustod to it, and the children showed looks of longing.
Li Mo’s appearance imdiately drew the attention of so cultivators.
They mostly showed fear towards Li Mo; no matter how one looked at him, Li Mo was a ruthless person not to be provoked.
Li Mo glanced at the cultivators whispering not far away, noticing the bright red silk sashes at their waists, indicating they were from the Fire Workshop of Rong Town.
The Fire Workshop was specifically responsible for incinerating decayed old people, as well as the blood, flesh, and bones of Deceit Beasts.
The shopkeeper there, known as Qingfang Taoist, was also a Jiedan Beast Cultivator, but it was said that his relationship with Manager Tian was very poor, and they never interacted.
Besides the Fire Workshop, the beast cultivator faction also had the Governnt Office.
The arrest officer An Gang’s cultivation was slightly inferior; he held the Beast Cultivation thod related to feeding elephants, but had been stuck at the Fake Core Stage for several hundred years.
According to the information Li Mo had gathered, the power of the beast cultivators was stronger than that of the puppet cultivators.
Mainly because there were quite a few Weak Crown Stage practitioners leaving their shops to observe, most of them older and with no way forward but death if they were to switch cultivation paths.
The reason cultivators ca to the early market was to look for traces of the Deceit Beast.
According to the Governnt Office’s reward, providing clues granted ten to a hundred contribution points, and killing an Inner Sect Beast gave a thousand contribution points.
Contribution points were the temporary currency set by the beast cultivators for the Beast Calamity, which could be exchanged for rare resources, such as corpse oil wax for five thousand points, half-year flower for three thousand points...
And even a little human head for twenty thousand points.
Han Cai hinted beforehand about the resources for the Weak Crown Period, wanting Li Mo to participate in the Beast Calamity to quickly cultivate to the Fake Core Stage using the opportunity.
Li Mo casually found a stall selling wontons, preferring the spicy flavor.
An old man bustled around for a mont before presenting Li Mo with a bowl of wontons in bright red soup, along with a few plates of spicy pickled vegetables.
"Sir, your wontons are ready."
Li Mo used a spoon to scoop up the wontons, feeling a stinging sensation fill his mouth upon tasting them.
His tongue was enveloped in spiciness, yet it brought a long-lost sense of exhilaration, much better than drinking teas or wines with strange flavors.
Li Mo looked at the old man with slight amazent.
The spices in the wontons that tingled the taste buds were likely a low-grade spiritual material.
To save costs, the old man simply used the spiritual material to make broth repeatedly, and the stall had a history spanning hundreds of years, with the spiritual material passed down through generations.
"Old man’s craft is remarkable."
Li Mo tossed a handful of small silver pieces to the old man, whose joy was almost enough to make his eyes pop out of their sockets.
As he ate the wontons, Li Mo used his peripheral vision to observe his surroundings.
It had been five days since the headless horses first revealed themselves.
After the Governnt Office imposed the curfew during the Zi Chou hour, no more unexplained mortal disappearances occurred, leaving the people’s lives unaffected.
Li Mo squinted his eyes.
The pawn shop gave no indications regarding the Beast Calamity, with Hu Wen only advising Li Mo to practice the Mountain Lord Map more, while Tian Changwen’s attitude towards the existence of the Deceit Beast was particularly subtle.
The Governnt Office’s call for cultivators to find Deceit Beast traces also seed perfunctory.
Li Mo had no intention of waiting passively, specifically coming to the early market to investigate, also hoping to pry so information from the Governnt Office’s constables.
Constable Ma approached with a wry smile, feeling uneasy under the attention of surrounding cultivators, "Mr. Li, I’m imposing myself to join you."
"Constable Ma, when did you return to Rong Town?"
"About half a year ago."
Ma gestured for his n to patrol the streets, then cast a glance at Li Mo.
The two had t before in Fuxing Town, but hadn’t seen each other for a long ti since Li Mo took charge of the Multi-limb Mountain Yam Field.
When Ma received news from Li Mo, he couldn’t help but be surprised, as Li Mo had always impressed him as soone extraordinarily talented and difficult to approach.
"Old man, another bowl of wontons."
"Right away."
"This is..."
Ma looked helpless, wanting to refuse Li Mo but not knowing how to; the old man deftly brought a bowl of wontons, leaving him with no choice but to pick up a spoon and savor the spicy flavor.
At this mont, Li Mo stomped his foot, causing a dense Breath Fog to spread, enveloping the surroundings in dust and isolating the sounds.
"Constable Ma, how much do you know about the headless horses?"
Ma revealed a look of helplessness, "I’m just a small constable at the Governnt Office, not even at the Weak Crown Period, how could I know any secrets."
Li Mo rely stared at Ma, making him regret coming to the eting.
"I don’t know much about the insider information, but the Governnt Office seems to have a bone scroll docunting the Beast Calamity, and the headless horses might have appeared before."
Since the Governnt Office had precise information about the headless horses, the chances of killing them seed considerable, so why did they choose to let the Inner Sect Beasts run rampant?
Li Mo no longer troubled Ma, and after dispelling the Breath Fog, changed the topic of conversation.
Ma let out a sigh of relief, but the two didn’t talk for long before Li Mo left the early market, citing physical discomfort.
Not long after Li Mo left, a constable inford Ma that sothing had happened at Cai Market.
He quickly got up and rushed over, finding the streets and alleys already sealed by officers, who were also evacuating nearby residents.
The scene was chaotic.
When Ma arrived at Cai Market, Li Mo had already been outside for a while.
He hadn’t had ti to ask any questions before being startled by the scene before him, his clothes drenched in sweat, nearly collapsing to the ground.
At the start of each month, the Governnt Office would drag criminals to Cai Market for public execution, so it wasn’t unusual to see wooden fras used to restrain the condemned at the entrance, even with traces of blood on them.
Today was not the start of the month, so the fras should have been in a state of abandonnt.
Yet, in front of the fras were neatly arranged more than twenty heads, the cuts still oozing dark red blood, emitting an overpowering stench.
The decapitated bodies knelt not far away, all of them citizens who had entered and exited the market early in the morning.
Li Mo noticed that their expressions prior to death were extrely fervent, as if watching the execution at Cai Market only to lose their own heads.
Additionally, their insides were hollowed out, showing clear signs of sharp teeth gnawing.
"Constable Ma, what kind of beast, when food is plentiful, only eats the internal organs?"
Ma opened his mouth wide, but before he could speak, Li Mo answered himself, "Judging by the footprints, it’s the Human Bear, looks like your Governnt Office needs another prohibition."
[Executions only happen at the start of the month at Cai Market, and the butcher is a Human Bear who wears human skin.]
Li Mo turned and left.
After inheriting the Inner Sect’s legacy, the Deceit Beasts’ abilities beca bizarre and unpredictable.
The Outer Door Competition hadn’t officially started, so Inner Sect Disciples would only occasionally co to inspect and eliminate so unqualified Outer Disciples.
He recalled the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm, feeling that the mud sculptures and Inner Sect Beasts shared similar patterns.
"Could it be that the Inner City District was also created by the Sub-Device Sect?"
What happened with the Human Bear Demonic Beast was just the beginning, and the appearance of Inner Sect Beasts would only increase, as if they were celebrating wildly inside Rong Town.
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