Ren Qing threw a few casual punches, sending several persistent disciples from the Martial Arts Hall flying. It looked like they suffered broken bones and torn tendons, at the very least.
Seeing this, who would dare try to sneak-attack him?
Chen Lihua's eyes were bloodshot. She muttered neurotically to herself but, for the moment, only watched from a distance.
Ren Qing paid no mind to the fleeing disciples. He folded his arms across his chest, seeming to wait for something.
A few breaths later, something strange began to happen to Chen Yongxing's corpse.
The body suddenly began to tremble violently. It wasn't reanimating; rather, the Mysterious Object within was gradually separating itself from the flesh and blood.
As a crack split open in the right leg bone, a mass of viscous liquid oozed out.
The hair on Ren Qing's arms stood on end. While it wasn't his first time seeing a Mysterious Object, it was his first time witnessing the birth of one.
It was like Cordyceps, drawing nutrients from the body of an insect. The thought was chilling.
A peculiar smell wafted through the air. All the Martial Arts Hall disciples froze in their tracks, their heavy panting rising and falling in waves.
Ren Qing hadn't guessed wrong. After eating flesh suffused with the aura of the Mysterious Object, their bodies' instincts could no longer resist the craving for mutation.
In a way, the tragedy had been sealed years ago, when the disciples first ate Chen Yongxing's flesh.
Ren Qing snatched the Mysterious Object with his bare hand. The thick liquid immediately tried to seep deep into his flesh, but his tough skin blocked it.
BANG!!!
The main hall's wooden doors were smashed to splinters.
The Martial Arts Hall disciples charged Ren Qing like zombies, but he dodged them with casual ease.
He knew that he needed prolonged contact with a Mysterious Object or a Magic Secret Manual to acquire the Information Flow. The Human Skin Book was a lesson learned the hard way.
The Information Flow converged.
[Divine Sutra]
[Created by the Heavenly Incomplete Taoist. To cultivate this technique, one must, during their childhood while their bones are still growing, have both legs amputated at the roots, be confined within a pickling jar, and fed specific medicinal catalysts. If one survives for three years, divine feet will grow.]
[Daily consumption of the Beast Blood of wolves, elephants, and leopards can accelerate cultivation, but the body will be gradually corrupted, leading to complete Beastification.]
Ren Qing monitored the Information Flow while pushing his Double Pupils to their limit.
All the Martial Arts Hall disciples joined the effort to surround and kill Ren Qing. They had completely lost their humanity, becoming just like wild beasts.
This was the drawback of the Divine Sutra. Especially with Chen Yongxing's reckless methods, even if the disciples consumed the Mysterious Object, the most likely outcome was that they would turn into beasts.
Chen Yongxing's corpse was not spared. Several disciples began to tear at it ravenously, and it soon became an unrecognizable mess.
His daughter, Chen Lihua, was among them.
While dodging the attacks, Ren Qing made his way out of the main hall and into a dim corridor.
He tried his best not to fight back, only using his arms to block when absolutely necessary, in order to minimize the traces he left at the scene.
The Information Flow continued to pour in.
[Leopard-footed: Agile and silent]
[Elephant-footed: Immense and heavy power]
[Wolf-footed: Can walk a thousand li]
Ren Qing saw the three paths of mutation for the Divine Sutra and guessed that Chen Yongxing must have been mutating toward the Elephant-footed path.
Chen Yongxing had probably been consuming Elephant Blood daily, but due to the limitations of the Mysterious Object, he had been unable to break through to the Half-Corpse Realm.
[Can be mastered by consuming thirty days of Lifespan, bypassing the cost.]
Ren Qing had expected it to cost more Lifespan, but surprisingly, the amount was the same.
'It seems the Lifespan cost only increases significantly when learning a Skill from a Mysterious Object at or above the Half-Corpse Realm. The loss really outweighs the gain.'
He didn't rush to consume his Lifespan. Weaving and dodging through the attacks, he struggled to the entrance of the Martial Arts Hall.
Once Ren Qing confirmed he had mastered the Skill, he casually tossed the Mysterious Object against the wall. The Martial Arts Hall disciples immediately began fighting each other for it.
[Ren Qing]
[Age: Seventeen]
[Lifespan: Seven years, two hundred twenty-seven days]
[Skills: No-Eyes Technique (Double Pupils), Human Skin Book, Divine Sutra]
He felt the blood surge in his legs, and an impulse to tear everything apart rose in his heart.
However, relying on his Half-Corpse Realm Cultivation, Ren Qing forcibly suppressed the mutation in his legs and stumbled through the broken doorway.
Jiang Jie and the others were trembling in fear. They heard Ren Qing shout, "They've gone mad! Run, or it'll be too late!!!"
Ren Qing immediately turned and broke into a sprint. A moment later, the swarthy man gritted his teeth and followed, with the others scrambling after him.
They couldn't help but look back curiously at the corridor, only to see the Martial Arts Hall disciples tearing each other apart. Severed limbs and chunks of flesh were everywhere. An arm was even flung to a spot not far from them.
"Hurry up! Do you want to live or die?"
Ren Qing urged them on again, even helping up Jiang Jie, whose legs had gone weak. The group fled in a panic, escaping with their lives.
They ran for several hundred more meters before stopping, exhausted.
The hour of 1:00 AM had passed, and the sky was just beginning to lighten. The streets were still empty of pedestrians; most residents were still deep in their dreams.
Leaning against a wall, the swarthy man panted, "So many people died... I'm going to report this to the Government Office immediately..."
Jiang Jie gave a bitter smile. "Don't forget, the Blood Dog Gang was behind Chen Yongxing. We're just small-timers. We can't afford to offend them. We'd just be playing with fire."
Ren Qing chimed in, "If you ask me, we should just take this to our graves. I'm sure the Government Office will handle it soon enough."
"Right, right..."
The ordeal had left everyone on the verge of a nervous breakdown. All they wanted now was to go home, so they dispersed and went their separate ways.
Only Jiang Jie wanted to get on good terms with Ren Qing, but with a few quick movements, Ren Qing slipped into an alley and vanished.
Outwardly, Ren Qing seemed anxious to return to the Government Office, but in reality, he secretly climbed into a distant teahouse. He found a spot on the second floor with a wide field of view and fixed his gaze on the Martial Arts Hall.
The shrieks of beasts echoed from the Martial Arts Hall, and chaos erupted in the nearby households.
With such a commotion, the Blood Dog Gang's response was extremely fast.
A burly man rushed to the Martial Arts Hall. Ren Qing estimated he was a full two meters tall, with legs far thicker than a normal person's. His path of mutation was likely the Elephant-footed.
The man didn't go inside. After waiting a moment, a woman arrived.
The woman had no obvious signs of mutation. She wore a veil, and her legs were somewhat long and slender, but still within a normal range.
'Could it be she hasn't reached the Half-Corpse Realm of the Divine Sutra?'
ROAR!!!
The woman's body rapidly swelled, and yellowish-brown fur sprouted all over as she transformed into a half-human, half-leopard creature.
Ren Qing immediately retracted his earlier assessment.
Just then, a malformed beast charged out of the Martial Arts Hall's main gate. Its fur was matted with blood, and its twisted facial features were barely discernible.
The beast grappled with the leopard man, but life and death were decided in an instant.
The leopard man bit down on its opponent's throat, plunged an arm into its body, and violently tore out its innards before tossing the corpse to the ground.
After they retrieved the Mysterious Object, they left the Martial Arts Hall without hesitation.
Before leaving, the woman wiped the blood from her mouth. She subconsciously glanced toward the teahouse where Ren Qing had been, but he was already gone.
The man asked, "Mei, what's wrong?"
Zhou Mei reverted to her human form, but her face still bore the mutated marks of a feline, which was why she deliberately hid it with a veil.
She said coldly, "I think someone was watching us in secret."
"You're probably overthinking it. This is a residential area, after all."
"Mm. Let the Government Office clean up this mess."