The old woman’s body burst into flames, her joints emitting red firelight all over, much like a wind-up doll, with every joint in her body having cracks, and her Spiritual Power seemed insufficient, starting to leak.
"Awooo!"
Another voice came from the old woman’s body, sounding extremely alarmed and angry, but the flames had already spread over her, the breath soil controlling every part of her body and quickly rolling towards that black shadow.
A piercing scream erupted from the old woman’s body, every scale on her body flared up, trying to expel the flames, but it was too late, and Xiang Beifei’s flames churned chaotically inside her.
Another crack split open on the old woman’s back, and the black shadow quickly pounced out, smashing through the shed’s window, trying to escape!
Xiang Beifei had already anticipated this, and as soon as the black shadow broke through the glass window, he was already in front of it, punching down fiercely, striking the thing directly onto the ground!
Bang!
The dark mass, like a clump of clay, unsure of what it had transformed from, became extremely fragile without the protection of a body, immediately melting down into a pool of black corpse oil, soaking into the grass behind the shed.
The corpse oil, still flaming, hissed trying desperately to struggle towards a deep pit, but the flames scorched it terribly, and it seemed unable to endure this force and soon lay flat on the ground, completely unable to move.
Xiang Beifei squatted down, his Spiritual Power slightly trembling in his hand, dispelling the corpse oil, and he saw a white Beast Pill amidst the pile.
This Beast Pill was only the size of a fingernail, its aura unstable and even feeble, as if it had not fully formed, hardly comparable to the Qi-Controlling stage.
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Xiang Beifei frowned.
"How strange!"
Xiang Beifei scooped up the Beast Pill, then turned back to the shed, where he saw the old woman’s corpse.
The old woman’s body had already withered down, her strange wings and bones all shattered around, the snake scales also peeled off her body, scattered around, revealing the pitch-black skin and bones.
Her skeletal body appeared like a walking corpse, already devoid of vitality.
Xiang Beifei pondered for a moment, the breath soil inside her swiftly moved to her chest, then he abruptly plucked a heart out from a crack on her back.
The heart had already deformed, was dark red, with some black blood dripping down, the size of it was twice that of a normal person’s.
He carefully dissected the heart, spread it out, and investigated minutely.
Then he was startled.
A white Beast Pill was exposed within the heart!
The Beast Pill had the fluctuations of the late Meridian Opening stage, identical to the one in the One-Armed Crab!
"A Beast Pill, transplanted into a human body?"
This situation took Xiang Beifei by surprise.
If you say there is another Beast Pill inside the One-Armed Crab, you could attribute it to another desolate beast parasitism, but the old woman was clearly originally a human, so how could there also be a Beast Pill inside her?
When Xiang Beifei saw the old woman on the street, she was clearly just a normal person, and her system interface — although she was no longer doing missions, but the system had not disappeared, which means she should still be hanging by a thread.
Perhaps it was because of being human that a human’s vitality clearly outweighed the aura of the Beast Pill, masking that bizarre aura and deceiving Xiang Beifei momentarily.
This Beast Pill hiding inside the One-Armed Crab allowed the One-Armed Crab to possess strange reassembly capabilities and could control the One-Armed Crab. Now that the Beast Pill had appeared inside the old woman, could it also control the old woman’s actions?
It could even use the old woman’s system capabilities to stitch some scattered mess onto itself!
Where had this Beast Pill come from?
How did it appear inside the old woman’s body?
Was it something ghastly researched by the Wufu Desolate Beast Research Company?
As for humans and desolate beasts being able to combine, Xiang Beifei was actually not too surprised since many Awakeners’ systems possess this ability, like Sun Rui, who protected Xiang Beifei during the entrance examination, he has the Beast Transformation System which can incorporate the strongest aspects of a desolate beast onto himself as soon as he is in contact with one.
Like Xu Yang’s Mutation System, he could dissect desolate beasts and store some claws in the system, which he could graft onto himself during combat to become more potent.
Xu Yang’s ability is even similar to this old woman’s!
But no matter who it is, even if it’s beast transformation, it’s always a human controlling a desolate beast, not the other way around.
And this old woman now belonged to the category of those controlled.
"Relying on a Beast Pill to give an N-level Awakener the strength of the late Meridian Opening stage, does the Wufu Desolate Beast Research Company intend to research desolate beasts, or to transform humans?"
Xiang Beifei’s brows were tightly furrowed.
—
"You only had ten days off, and you’ve already stirred up so much trouble!" Elder Luo said irritably.
"Investigation would be more appropriate," Xiang Beifei said seriously.
He could not handle these matters alone and still needed Elder Luo’s advice.
Elder Luo glared at Xiang Beifei. He had rushed over from far away, having just been napping when Xiang Beifei’s phone call woke him up.
However, he did not say much. It was indeed the right choice for Xiang Beifei to call him. He soon began to seriously investigate the scene.
In fact, Xiang Beifei had already checked every part of the shack. The eerie limbs of the desolate beasts were hanging all around it, most of which Xiang Beifei had burned, with a few others fallen on the ground, still stained with blood.
"This has gotten serious," Elder Luo said, standing next to the deep pit, his face solemn as he looked at the skeletons inside.
"Yes," Xiang Beifei nodded.
The ladybugs in the pit beside the shack were agitated like headless flies. Xiang Beifei did not destroy them but controlled the flames to temporarily disperse them, revealing the bones below.
The deep pit was filled with shattered skeletons. These desolate beast bones were very fragile, likely discarded here because they did not meet the stitching requirements.
However, apart from the bones of desolate beasts, several human pelvises, palmar bones with missing fingers, and twisted leg bones were also faintly visible.
"There must have been five people dead," said Elder Luo.
After carefully examining the pile of bones mixed with those of the desolate beasts, Elder Luo quickly determined the origins of all the remains.
"I think these people were murdered by that monster, then used to replace the essential organs needed to maintain her body’s survival," Xiang Beifei said.
"So you think she was still human just now?" Elder Luo asked.
"Yes, but once that eerie thing entered her body, she was no longer human. The human aura on her disappeared, and she completely turned into a desolate beast, parasitically living with defects," Xiang Beifei said.
This could be seen from the old woman’s system interface.
The young girl, in order to avoid being hunted down by Xiang Beifei, urgently hid inside the old woman’s body, apparently disrupting the coordination of the old woman’s body. The human Qi mechanism inside her immediately collapsed.
Elder Luo returned to the shack, a spiritual power fluctuation appearing in his hands as he scanned the old woman’s body, then said, "This person indeed has many things that do not belong to her own, such as liver, spleen, knee bones, hip joints, etc., which all came from someone else. Perhaps only her head is her own. Judging from the age of the skull bones, she was only about 26, not yet 27 years old."
Sure enough!
Xiang Beifei’s conjecture had been confirmed.
Elder Luo determined other people’s ages by bone age, whereas Xiang Beifei had estimated the old woman’s age based on the system’s task log!
The first beginner task issued by the old woman’s system started eight years ago, which means she had just awakened to this N-level System
"It’s tragic that she became like this at such a young age, similar to the aging giant crab you encountered in the sewer last time," Elder Luo said with a heavy tone.
"Exactly, aging, rebirth, the ability to use the abilities of the host, and likely a short lifespan," said Xiang Beifei.
When Xiang Beifei saw the crab in the sewer, it seemed like it was at the end of its life, its eyes drooping. Later, it seemed to be reborn, reorganized by countless small crabs.
And this old woman— or rather, this originally young woman’s situation—was very similar to that of the giant crab.
The crab became very aged, and she turned into an old lady while still young.
The crab had the ability to reassemble; she could extend her own life using other people’s limbs and organs, and even change herself with various desolate beast organs.
The crab had a mutated heart and two beast pills inside it. Adding the incomplete small beast pill from that little girl, she could also be considered to have two beast pills.
"No wonder," Elder Luo said thoughtfully.
"What’s no wonder?" Xiang Beifei asked.
"Last time you gave me the beast pill, I tested its effects to study it and found it could emit a kind of fluctuation and was still not completely devoid of vitality," Elder Luo said.
"Not completely devoid of vitality? It can still survive?" Xiang Beifei was quite surprised. He had been busy cultivating these past few days and had not properly researched the beast pills.
"Yes," Elder Luo nodded slightly. "Usually, once the beast pill is removed, the desolate beast will die and the beast pill quickly loses its activity, turning into a pure power crystal. Even if the beast pill is stuffed back, the desolate beast will not revive. But this beast pill can, and it lives not only in the body of the One-Armed Crab; it can survive in almost every type of desolate beast."
Despite Elder Luo often seeming idle and doing things that appear to be trivial, his abilities are actually very comprehensive. Although he does not have complicated system items available, his system can freely allocate points.
As long as he allocates all his points to research, he becomes an uncompromising scientist!
Xiang Beifei looked at Elder Luo’s system interface:
"You placed the beast pill into a dead Triangular Thunder Krait; the krait revived and roared at you, you roared back at it, winning the encounter, leisure value +53."
"The tested Triangular Thunder Krait only survived six hours, the experimental results were not optimistic, but you were optimistic, leisure value +61."
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Every time Xiang Beifei looked at Elder Luo’s system log, he felt a lump in his throat, not knowing how to express it.
But at least it was clear what experiments Elder Luo had been doing these days, clearly and precisely.