The goats retreated back into the mountains, leaving behind nothing but corpses all over the ground, along with carrion birds attracted to the scene.
The forbidden guards were momentarily stunned, not reacting in time.
Even once they became aware, they still didn't dare recklessly give chase, the situation was a little too simple, to the point it seemed inconceivable.
The forbidden guards each ate some dry rations to replenish their strength, after all, this was only just the beginning.
Only Ren Qing flicked out the Dragon-Snake Spine, snaring one goat and hauling it up onto the city wall.
Through the Heavenly Demon Dream Seed, he could sense that the air contained faint traces of the Heavenly Demon's aura, which should have been emitted by the black goat inside the city.
When a goat came near the Heavenly Demon's aura, in just a few breaths it would transform into a goat-man.
At this rate, as the black goat devoured more and more fragments of the Heavenly Demon's soul, the concentration of the Heavenly Demon's aura in the air would naturally increase as well.
So that even goat-men deep in the forest would undergo mutations at any moment.
Lin Cheng was startled by Ren Qing's act of capturing a goat-man alive.
Ren Qing, without hesitation, dismembered the goat-man into eight pieces, then examined it closely, wanting to glimpse a corner of the Beast Pen from the corpse.
Lin Cheng felt his scalp go numb, thinking only that Ren Qing had a strong interest in corpses.
But the surrounding forbidden guards paid it no mind, after all, those who could be imprisoned in the Stomach within the Stomach had all lost control to mutation before.
Having eccentric and strange temperaments was nothing unusual.
Ren Qing saw that even with only the head remaining, the goat-man kept letting out cries, and even tried to extend its tongue toward the inside of the city wall.
They craved the Heavenly Demon's aura to an extreme degree.
Ren Qing crouched down, seriously inspecting the dismembered goat-man's corpse.
"Lin Cheng, are those goat-men gathered in the mountains?"
Lin Cheng spat out scarlet and said, "Lord Ren, they are indeed piled together hiding in the mountains, and may be spread across more than a dozen locations."
Ren Qing nodded and asked no more, his expression growing more and more grave.
First, the beasts were indeed eroded by the Heavenly Demon's aura and transformed into goat-men, with the flesh, blood, and bones in their bodies all undergoing varying degrees of mutation.
The beasts' brains became about a fist larger, giving them enough intelligence to know to assess the situation and choose to retreat.
What struck him as most strange was that even when a goat head was severed, it could still live, even having the strength to crawl toward the black goat.
This most likely meant the goat-men had begun to be soul-based, with the body becoming less and less important.
Ren Qing then threw the corpse into the Flesh Furnace, and, still feeling it unsafe, simply gathered up all the flesh and blood under the city wall.
However, because the amount of Heavenly Demon's aura in the corpse was too little, after burning in the Flesh Furnace he could only obtain corpse food, not Heavenly Demon Bones.
Meanwhile, the sounds within the taisui Forest grew deafening.
The black goat's voice had already taken on a somewhat sickly quality, and from a distance its form seemed to have undergone some inexplicable distortion.
Ren Qing withdrew his attention and said to the tense Lin Cheng, "You're in charge of using your spell to sense the movements of the beasts in the forest. If anything happens, wake me immediately."
Ren Qing could not release his split souls to scout.
Even the thinnest Heavenly Demon's aura required the forbidden guards to rely on skull artifacts to resist, how could a split soul possibly bear it?
Lin Cheng nodded quickly, saying, "Understood, Lord Ren."
Ren Qing shut his eyes tightly.
He placed his mind within his body, the Flesh Furnace had been fed large amounts of corpses, causing the flames to burn even fiercer.
As the flesh and blood burned, the Firewood Flame gradually nourished the Firewood Dream Seed, while the traces of Heavenly Demon's aura it contained were slowly absorbed by the Heavenly Demon Dream Seed.
Ren Qing could feel that depending on the type of dream seed, when attached to someone else's soul it would display different powers.
Unfortunately, the artifact was only just beginning to be nurtured; if released outside it would be easily damaged.
For use as soul protection, however, it was more than enough.
"Lord Ren..."
Lin Cheng softly called Ren Qing awake, then pointed toward the forest.
At some point, it had become deep night, yet no bonfires were lit along the city wall.
After all, the forbidden guards were all in the Ghost Envoy realm, ordinary night vision was no problem.
In the distant forest, a firelight had appeared, and faintly one could hear goat cries mixed in, sounding somewhat strange.
"The number of goat-men has remained around seven or eight hundred. Though beasts keep joining, they... seem to also be fighting each other."
Lin Cheng's tone was slightly hesitant, he truly couldn't make sense of the situation.
The beast attacks had abruptly stopped for more than half a day, and from the news sent by Jiang Feng, over twenty ghost infants had merged with each other.
Things couldn't stay so calm forever.
The thought had barely formed when, as a white line lit up the horizon, the goat-men began gathering to charge at the city walls.
But as they emerged from the grass, the forbidden guards glanced at each other in surprise.
The goat-men's bodies had grown even larger, draped in animal hides, wielding weapons carved from stone.
Most surprising of all, among them were a few goat-men wearing bone ornaments on their heads, holding scepters made from beast leg bones.
These goat-men somewhat resembled the village shamans in the mountains who practiced crude medicine.
The sounds coming from the goat-men's mouths had a different cadence, clearly a distinct means of communication, one could even sense tactics in their siege.
Ren Qing's mind filled with disbelief, could it be that under the shroud of the Heavenly Demon's aura, a different kind of civilization would gradually develop?
The forbidden guards, seeing the goat-men already over two meters tall, all transformed into beast form and leapt down, choosing to fight at close range with their bodies.
Standing atop the city wall, Ren Qing didn't even need to release the Dragon-Snake Spine, the ghost shadows alone were enough to give the goat-men a hard time.
In just a few breaths, over a hundred lay dead along the stretch of wall where he stood.
The goat-men, seeing this, decisively gave up and blew crude horns, choosing to mass their numbers against the other sections of wall instead.
They weren't retreating out of fear, the frenzy in their eyes showed they didn't fear death, but their intelligence let them gauge the situation.
Ren Qing cut open a goat-man's corpse, its brain had reached the size of a normal human's.
Why did the Heavenly Demon's aura produce different results in humans and beasts, in the former, mutation and destruction; in the latter, rebirth?
Roar!!
The half-man, half-rhino Yan Feng let out a roar, his arms like a pair of battering rams, sending goat-men flying with every swing.
Under the stimulus of beastly instinct, he seemed immersed in the desire to kill, his body gradually moving farther from the city wall.
Even with some awareness, Yan Feng still had no thought of retreat.
He was starting to doubt Li Tiangang's words, these were all defenseless livestock, where was the danger?
Grinning savagely, Yan Feng seized a seemingly frail shaman-dressed goat-man and crushed its skull to pulp.
Such an act enraged the other goat-men, who all launched suicide attacks.
As Yan Feng moved to pull back, a chill flowed from his flesh toward his head, his body freezing in place.
The goat-men let out loud cries, then exploded into mince, the flesh on the ground spreading onto Yan Feng's body.
Yan Feng desperately tried to tear the flesh away, but his movements grew slower and slower, his appearance gradually transforming toward that of the black goat.
The forbidden guards rushed to aid him, but Yan Feng had gone too deep.
Seeing they wouldn't make it in time, Ren Qing acted without hesitation, his legs were covered by ghost shadows, and he vanished from the wall in an instant.
He arrived amidst the goat-men, the Dragon-Snake Spine extending from his palm.
"Bend down!!!"
The forbidden guards, cowed by the aura Ren Qing exuded, dropped to the ground without hesitation, a long, narrow chain swept past their scalps.
Though the Dragon-Snake Spine could shift between real and illusory, Ren Qing found it troublesome.
It traced a graceful arc and was back in the blink of an eye, within dozens of meters around, the goat-men froze in place.
Blood slowly seeped from their chests and bellies, forming a red line.
The forbidden guards felt a chill of fear, as if death had brushed right past them.
Instinctively returning to human form, they looked up to see the goat-men already severed in two, the cuts perfectly clean.
The sharpness of the Dragon-Snake Spine was evident.
But even with only half a body, the goat-men still lived, crying out in frenzy before exploding into meat slurry in the air.
Ren Qing didn't dodge, the Dragon-Snake Spine wrapped around Yan Feng, forcibly tearing the flesh from him.
Covered in blood, Yan Feng's skin had already grown black-grey fuzz, a few more breaths and he would have been completely overtaken by mutation.
He quickly retreated toward the wall.
The Heavenly Demon's aura converged, pouring into Ren Qing standing at the center.
The sound of wind mixed with shrill screams, as if full of bone-deep hatred.
Crack crack crack.
Ren Qing's skull artifact was the first to give way and break apart, and even the nearby forbidden guards, though only brushed by it, had varying degrees of soul injuries.
Most terrifying of all, strange goat cries kept echoing in their minds.
Blood mist obscured their vision.
The forbidden guards didn't dare worry about Ren Qing, quickly retreating from the site of the Heavenly Demon's aura eruption, fearing uncontrollable mutation.
But Lin Cheng leapt from the wall, running toward Ren Qing.
Yan Feng too gritted his teeth and turned back.
Before they could approach, they saw a figure looming faintly in the blood mist, a glowing point between his brows.
The Heavenly Demon's aura seemed to have dispersed, in truth it had been absorbed by the Heavenly Demon Dream Seed.
The forbidden guards couldn't help but be shocked, in their eyes, Ren Qing actually had a method to resist soul attacks.
The goat-men had already begun to retreat, and Ren Qing had no intention of holding back any longer.
The Dragon-Snake Spine whipped rapidly, circling the wall like a scythe harvesting grain, cutting swathes of goat-men in half.
They kept crying out, all without exception choosing to turn their souls into Heavenly Demon's aura, which fell neatly into Ren Qing's hands.
He didn't even spare the corpses, the Flesh Furnace blazed like a roaring fire, greatly nourishing the Firewood Dream Seed.
But both Flesh Furnace and dream seeds soon reached saturation.
Because of Ren Qing, the forbidden guards seemed to gain confidence.
Their coordination became more seamless, focusing mainly on long-range spells, avoiding contact with the Heavenly Demon's aura as much as possible.
While everyone's attention wasn't on him, Ren Qing slipped into the mountains, heading toward where the goat-men were gathered.
He soon neared the spot Lin Cheng had indicated earlier.
What he saw surprised him, the goat-men had formed something like a tribal village, and were worshipping the black goat-men as gods.
There were likely more than a few such tribes, and they were already beginning to grow in scale.
And Ren Qing found that as the Heavenly Demon's aura in the air grew stronger, the goat-men were continuously mutating.
Could the Heavenly Demon's aura really be so terrifying, as to grant living beings intelligence...?
Ren Qing suddenly recalled what kind of existence the Supreme Heavenly Demon was, one built from countless consciousnesses.
So the goat-men were likely gradually reviving memories from the Heavenly Demon's aura.
It was impossible to kill them all.