Though conspiracy hung thick in the air, Mo Fan didn't turn and leave.
He touched the cold task token in his breast, his voucher for exchanging Spirit Stones.
Mo Fan shook his head, temporarily casting aside those complex thoughts. Perhaps tasks issued by the sect were naturally this difficult?
After all, this was his first proper bounty execution—maybe the cultivation world's "easy mode" was inherently hell-level.
"Let's work. Whether rats or demons, as long as they have health bars, they can be killed."
Night fell, and the outskirts of Qingmu Town sank into deathly silence.
Mo Fan didn't choose to wait passively in town, but brought Mo Yan to a pile of rubble on an elevated slope with open views outside town. From this commanding height, he could overlook the hardest-hit "Ding Section" spirit fields below.
"Come out, 003."
Mo Fan patted the enormous pack on Mo Yan's back.
Mo Yan skillfully untied the bundle, dumping the scattered leopard bones onto the ground. As blue light flashed from Mo Fan's fingertip, that streamlined skeletal leopard stood again, spectral ghost-fire igniting in its eye sockets.
"Since we're catching rats, no need for martial virtue."
Mo Fan sat cross-legged behind a rock, issuing commands.
"No. 003, disengage stealth mode, full-speed hunting. Target: all Spirit-Devouring Rats still breathing."
"Mo Yan, take the sack and dagger, follow behind. Your task is singular: cut tails, bag them."
The instant commands were issued, Summon No. 003's powerful hind legs exploded with force, vanishing like white lightning into the dark fields.
The culling began.
Under Mo Fan's micro-managing commands, this wasn't battle at all—it was a precise, cold, and efficient slaughter assembly line.
In the night, No. 003 was in its element. The Shadow Leopard skeleton granted it ultimate speed and agility. Those mutated Spirit-Devouring Rats that normally plagued mortals and low-level cultivators seemed slow as stationary targets before it.
Often a white flash passed, and a newly emerged rat was pinned to the ground.
No. 003 didn't bite them to death—that would dirty the fur. It simply used explosive force to precisely shatter the rat's spine, or knocked them unconscious with one swipe, then immediately pounced on the next target.
Next, silent Mo Yan would follow like a ghost.
Blade flashed.
That knife precisely severed the rat tail as task proof, tossing it into the left pocket; then grabbed the rat corpse, skillfully stuffing it into the large right sack.
Pounce—harvest—bag.
The entire process flowed like water, no wasted movements, even the bloody smell suppressed to minimum.
In just one hour.
The sacks by Mo Fan's feet bulged like small hills, stuffed with plump rat corpses. Rough estimate: at least fifty or sixty.
"This efficiency is practically invincible."
Mo Fan sat on the high slope, watching the continuously rising spoils of war, initially quite excited.
But gradually, he sensed something wrong.
"Why... so many?"
He hadn't activated [ Death Vision ], just observing with naked eyes. The commotion in those spirit fields didn't decrease due to the culling, but grew increasingly noisy.
It was a fine, teeth-aching rustling sound, like countless feet gnawing at the earth.
Moreover, these rats were too stupid.
They didn't avoid at all, showing no reaction even after companions were killed, still frantically gnawing plant roots. That state didn't seem like foraging, more like... racing against time?
"Something's wrong."
Mo Fan's heart jumped, instinctively calling up the System Panel.
Having killed so many, the experience bar should move somewhat, right?
However, when he saw that number still stuck at LV. 4 (10/1600), his pupils sharply contracted.
No change.
Not at all.
The System log even displayed rows of despair-inducing gray notifications:
[ Killed Mutated Spirit-Devouring Rat (Defective). Experience +0 ]
[ Killed Mutated Spirit-Devouring Rat (Defective). Experience +0. ]
"0 experience?"
Mo Fan grabbed a freshly delivered rat corpse, examining carefully.
Though this rat's body was plump, it felt extremely light in hand, as if merely a skin bag. Its eyes were cloudy, not even a trace of spiritual energy remaining inside, like an... empty shell drained of vital essence.
"These aren't normal Spirit Beasts at all. They're more like one-time consumables force-grown by some power."
Mo Fan tossed aside the corpse, standing abruptly, gaze fixed intently on those seemingly calm spirit fields below.
Something had been overlooked.
Something hidden beneath appearances.
"[ Death Vision ], activate!"
Hummm—
As 5 Mana points deducted, the world instantly lost color. Noisy wind sounds receded, vision becoming cold black-white-gray.
Mo Fan stood on the high slope, looking toward those "Ding Section" spirit fields.
First glance, he saw the surface. Those dozens of Spirit-Devouring Rats gnawing crops appeared in vision as pitifully weak small red dots, like sesame seeds scattered on the ground. Those feeble life flames flickered precariously, seemingly ready to extinguish anytime, confirming their "defective" status.
Then his sight penetrated the soil, looking three feet below the surface.
Hisss—
Mo Fan gasped, scalp instantly exploding, cold Qi shooting straight from tailbone to crown.
Below that thin layer of earth, densely packed red light points crowded together—how could there be just hundreds?
Thousands! Tens of thousands!
They resembled a thick, squirming carpet, frantically shuttling underground. Every inch of soil stuffed full of these crazed creatures, squeezing each other, shoving, even trampling one another. The dozens he'd just killed were merely insignificant flakes squeezed from this massive "carpet's" edges!
But this wasn't the most terrifying part.
Mo Fan forcibly suppressed physiological nausea and discomfort, mobilizing more Mana, pushing [ Death Vision ]'s penetration to its limit, sight continuing downward, looking toward deeper underground.
There, twenty meters underground or even deeper.
Those scattered "red dots" in vision disappeared.
Replacing them was a broad, surging, blood-red river.
That wasn't water.
Under [ Death Vision ]'s gray filter distinguishing life and death, red dots represented individual life forms, while this blood-red river exceeded his comprehension capacity.
At this moment, that underground "river" radiated suffocating heat and red light. Countless larger-bodied, higher-energy creatures so red they appeared black, tightly squeezed together, converging into an unstoppable torrent.
They weren't aimlessly wandering.
Mo Fan discovered with horror that this "biological torrent" was moving at high speed along some invisible underground network.
They were like greedy parasites, attached to Qingmu Town's—even the entire region's—spiritual energy veins. Tireless, without rest, everywhere they passed, all spiritual energy, root systems, even meager vitality contained in soil were devoured completely, leaving only desolate dead earth.
"This isn't any rat infestation..."
Mo Fan gazed at that blood river silently surging underground, involuntarily recalling the Zerg creep he'd seen in Warcraft III in his past life, remembering those despair-inducing army ants, and those biological weapons that destroyed everything for a single will.
This wasn't a group of beasts harassing villages for food.
This was an army.
This was an organized, disciplined, suffocatingly massive underground march.