Chapter 629: The Surrendering Shapeshifting Monster, the Huimao Hu Li Shapeshifting Monster

Thus, Weier was left with a deep impression of this detestable type of shapeshifting monster.

Was it largely because he himself had been one of the young men who bravely stepped forward at the scene back then?

"To think it was these detestable monsters. A good burning, Knight Jier. Thanks to you defeating them in time, otherwise these man-eating monsters that change into the appearance of those they consume would have brought severe harm to the entire team."

Weier stepped forward, kicked a charred corpse remnant on the ground to pieces, and stomped on it twice to vent his anger.

Bawei and Sipulu looked at the unusually agitated Weier with slight surprise, which caused Weier's face to flush, and he forced an explanation: "If this kind of monster had mixed into the team, and we had continued on our way, a village with bad luck like Changmai Village would have been eaten empty by such monsters."

"How could we do such a thing! Slander! This is slander! We live in the mountains and forests and can survive by eating other animals; this is our way of life. Eating humans is just a slander from a small number of you who are hostile to us! This powerful lord, please spare me, I don't want to die yet!" The one pleading for mercy was none other than the first shapeshifting monster that had transformed into a Lizardman.

It had its hands and feet severed and two swords still stuck in its chest and abdomen, yet its injuries were not actually that severe. Despite the shapeshifting monster appearing in human form at the moment, it seemed to lack the common vital points found in humans.

Weier immediately walked over and pointed the torch in his hand at this shapeshifting monster: "You haven't eaten humans? Then how can you transform into a human's appearance?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he had asked the wrong question. He had subconsciously made a strong connection between the shapeshifting monster eating humans and its ability to shapeshift, but in reality, the monster eating humans was simply because they wanted to, and it had little to do with the innate shapeshifting ability they were born with.

It was just that by consuming human brains while eating them, they could occasionally obtain some vivid memories and specialized skills of humans. Compared to eating other animals, shapeshifting monsters could gain more through this, which was why they never let humans go when they encountered them.

Furthermore, the fact that this shapeshifting monster had just transformed into the appearance of Priest Bata'er and Bawei, who was present at the scene, also showed that they did not need to eat the person in question to transform into that person's likeness.

After all, one or two alone would not be a match for Priest Bata'er, and Bawei was right there on the scene.

Bawei himself, however, looked at the shapeshifting monster pinned to the tree with a look of disgust, and couldn't help but say: "Hurry up and change into someone else! I really can't stand looking at this. If you use my appearance to speak again, I'll chop you to death with an axe! Do you believe me?"

Fearing that this seemingly not-so-bright human Axe Warrior would act impulsively, the trapped shapeshifting monster hissed twice, and seemingly in great pain, underwent another transformation. This time, the human appearance it took on was someone none of those present recognized.

The others didn't notice much, but Jier, through the several transformations of this most powerful shapeshifting monster, perceived something.

He noticed that when he first encountered this fellow, it had transformed from a human appearance to a Lizardman image with lightning speed. But ever since it was defeated by him and pinned to the tree trunk, every time it changed its image, it took longer, and the creature's appearance of discomfort became more obvious.

This indicated that the opponent's shapeshifting was not infinite and without cost; there must be a limitation that they themselves were clearly aware of.

Perhaps every transformation consumed a great deal of physical strength, who knows.

Jier stopped the flame burning in his hands, not because the Magic Dagger 【Heart Fire】, which had been recharged not long ago, lacked Magic Power, but because the shapeshifting monster on the ground had already become a lump of charcoal.

The flames of Magic Power were much hotter than ordinary fire; it would take quite some time to burn a humanoid creature into a lump of charcoal, but with a magic weapon, it didn't take long.

The shriveled, charred corpse remnant radiated a high temperature that distorted the air, scaring the shapeshifting monster pinned to the tree trunk to death, as if it were about to meet the same fate.

"Lord Jier, let me kill it?"

Weier proposed after approaching the monster.

Jier looked up at the shapeshifting monster on the tree trunk. At this moment, the monster no longer had its previous arrogance, knowing that even if it kept shouting for surrender, its life or death depended on the thoughts of the young man in front of it.

"This lord, this lord! Please don't listen to your subordinate's suggestion, I am very useful! I am really useful! I can help you deceive your enemies, if you have any. And I just said, our kind of shapeshifting monsters don't have to eat humans to survive. In fact, I've lived for over a hundred years and haven't eaten a single living human! These appearances I change into are ones I've seen, or if I'm lucky enough to come across a dead human corpse, I eat them."

It pleaded: "In fact, our forest has almost no human visitors, so where would there be humans to eat? We have never thought of attacking that human village to the north of the forest, I can guarantee that!"

Jier turned to look at the monster and asked in a deep voice: "Then why were you all so arrogant before, acting so high and mighty? I thought you were very strong and had eaten many humans, acting as if you didn't put humans in your eyes."

The monster hurriedly defended itself: "Isn't that because of the infighting among you humans during this period? You humans kill each other so fiercely. On the way from the northern village bringing people here, quite a few died. And the way you discard corpses casually by the roadside is much scarier than us. Even though you look like you aren't very strong..."

When the monster said this, its tone lowered; clearly, Jier, who had wiped them all out, was not in the "not very strong" category.

Humans were still unexpectedly strong. Even if these shapeshifting monsters roughly knew the strength of humans by eating human corpses, knowing was one thing, but without seeing it for themselves, these ignorant monsters in the mountains still didn't quite understand the ferocity of humans.

Now it knew, but whether it could survive depended entirely on Jier's thoughts.

"Hmm, scavenging corpses to eat, eh." Jier didn't truly believe the other party's words, but through the other party's explanation, it made him think of more things.

Previously, that Magic Cabin, after consuming Magic Power, also needed to eat animal corpses to replenish its Magic Power, and humans were a type of animal, so naturally, they were also on the menu of that Magic Creation. And the shapeshifting monster in front of him also ate humans; the humans of this world seemed to be a special resource in themselves.

This made him feel a bit of sorrow, because if one thought about it a little more, it wasn't hard to understand how difficult survival was in some places, and how difficult and troublesome the expansion of human civilization and society was.

At the very least, the pioneering of the Saint Hors Kingdom, not to mention being bestowed upon humans after receiving the approval of the gods, just the fact that this country changed from a barren region on the Dwarf frontier into a prosperous human Kingdom cost the lives of countless migrants.

Over the course of decades, generation after generation of migrants moved here from the Empire, and no one knew how many people fell on the road, using their lives and bones to pave everything that is the Saint Hors Kingdom today.

And this situation was clearly not over yet; large areas of the entire Kingdom still remained undeveloped. For example, the Southern Mountains where Jier and his group were currently standing.

Although the Southern Mountains were nominally within the scope of the Southern Province of the Saint Hors Kingdom, it was clear that humans had not set foot here much; large swathes of this place had never been visited by anyone.

Human development of the Southern Province did not even exceed ten percent. Let alone the Southern Province, even in Sasi County, which had terrain more suitable for human settlement, only the north had a slightly larger population. The vast areas of hills, lakes, ponds, and forests in the south had no human settlements, only some scattered autonomous villages of the Agricultural God Church.

Here, terrifying Tiger-headed Eagles flew in the night sky, and fierce Siege Fish occupied the precious water sources; these two things alone greatly affected human pioneering and settlement. Especially the latter.

Withdrawing his wandering thoughts, Jier let out a breath, watching as his three subordinates all stared at him, waiting for his decision on this monster shouting for surrender.

And the shapeshifting monster, from constantly shouting for surrender to being silent at this moment, was clearly also waiting for Jier's contemplation to end.

Exhaling once more, Jier asked: "Do you have a name?"

This time it was the shapeshifting monster's turn—not knowing if it needed to breathe or not—to heave a sigh of relief. It immediately replied: "Yes! Yes! I do! We are intelligent life, so naturally, we have names. My human name is Ruier'erui, from the Flower Mushroom community! However, my community only has me left now..."

Jier was not stupid, so naturally, he didn't believe anything the other party said besides the name. The claim that its community only had itself left was clearly a hope that Jier would not attack the other shapeshifting monsters in the community. It had already realized the formidable combat power of humans; at least opponents like Jier were not something these shapeshifting monsters could contend with.

Their civilization was primitive; if they even had a civilization, they didn't have much to deal with someone of Jier's strength other than the force brought by their physical instincts. But if it were humans, if they couldn't beat an opponent, they had many other means to eliminate the enemy.

Poisoning, assassination, hiring thugs, large-scale magic attacks, bribery, guiding stronger existences to deal with the enemy, besieging and destroying the opponent's living space, organizing armies to crusade, etc. Even dealing with an opponent was not limited to just defeating them; methods like strategic alliances, surrender, hiring, and trading could all be used to handle enemies in convoluted ways.

And these shapeshifting monsters had far fewer means.

Jier then said: "Do you have an original form? Change back and let me see."

The shapeshifting monster was actually very troubled at this moment, as if this were even more difficult than making it surrender: "Uh, this is really hard for me to do. Unless our bodies are completely destroyed, we don't even know what we look like ourselves."

Hearing this, Jier and the others all looked surprised, and the other party clearly didn't seem to be lying: "Why?"

After the shapeshifting monster recalled for a moment, it then said: "From the moment we are born, we instinctively transform into the appearance commonly used by the previous generation. Even reproduction is done by transforming into the appearance of other animals to imitate reproduction. My parents transformed into two Water-Spitting Crocodiles to reproduce before giving birth to me."

This was even more absurd; Weier and the others didn't know what to say, and they could barely even construct the appearance of this shapeshifting monster's society in their minds. But Jier could barely imagine it.

He beckoned, and the Hunting Sword flew back automatically, entering the Sword Sheath at his waist.

Then Jier stepped forward and gripped the hilt of the Knight Sword Aipiedela. Before drawing the knight sword, he said to the shapeshifting monster Ruier'erui: "I cannot keep you as my prisoner in this form. Change into a small animal, immediately!"

Hearing Jier's stern tone, although the shapeshifting monster was extremely reluctant, its body surface still underwent a bout of flesh writhing, transforming into a fairly large Huimao Hu Li.

Sure enough, seeing the Huimao Hu Li with all its front and back paws intact, Jier knew that his previous act of severing the human hands and feet of the opponent had not been without effect, but it was not significant. For these shapeshifting monsters, they had very few vital points, and most of their bodies were "consumable" tools for shapeshifting. It was estimated that their true form was no larger than a fist, making it extremely difficult to hit their vital points in one go within a human-sized frame.

Even more terrifying was that some of the limbs cut off from the opponent's body, while seemingly fallen, still possessed vitality; perhaps they could even act like earthworms—cut one in half, and it would turn into two.

In fact, Jier did not 100% believe what this surrendering shapeshifting monster said; regarding the reproductive methods of the other party's race, the other party might have lied. Even everything the other party said could be a lie!

But Jier accepted this fellow's surrender not for anything else, but because this monster was relatively intelligent, and its shapeshifting ability was very suitable for the wars to come.

It might have a miraculous effect, or it might bring Jier great trouble.

After the Shapeshifting Monster turned into a Huimao Hu Li, it seemed exhausted, its mouth hanging open, panting incessantly. Jier pulled his Knight sword out of its body, and the creature fell straight to the ground, unable to move.

"Continuous transformations, *huff huff*, have drained my physical strength completely. And because my limbs were previously cut off by you and thrown into the fire to be burned, I can't even transform into a complete Human or a larger animal now."

Human language emerged from the mouth of the Huimao Hu Li lying on the ground, which looked quite strange.

Weier and the other two did not dare to approach it, and at this moment, they whispered about how, if the Shapeshifting Monster could turn into any animal, how many Shapeshifting Monsters in disguise had they dealt with in their lives?

Was it a big fish in the river when they inadvertently passed by the riverbank? Or was one of the large birds in a flock flying overhead a Shapeshifting Monster? Or perhaps their own reclusive neighbor? Or a clever stray dog they occasionally met on the road?

Any of them could be, and that made it even more terrifying.

"Sir, I still suggest you don't let this guy go; it will definitely bring danger." Weier immediately waved the Torch in his hand threateningly at the Shapeshifting Monster lying on the ground.

The Shapeshifting Monster Ruier'erui ignored Weier, lying on the ground as if its strength were exhausted.

Jier was not worried, because he discovered that while the transformations of these Shapeshifting Monsters might be lifelike in the eyes of others, they had huge flaws in the vision of the Shadow Bird in his right eye!

Because the surface temperature of the Shapeshifting Monster's body was lower than that of a Human, a warm-blooded mammal, there was a clear difference between the Shapeshifting Monster and a Human in the infrared-like thermal vision provided by the Shadow Bird.

Not to mention that when these Shapeshifting Monsters transformed, even the clothing and equipment of the target were transformed from their own bodies. These things were also part of their bodies; although they looked and felt authentic to the naked eye, they were actually different in temperature.

"Don't be nervous, I will keep an eye on this guy. It can't turn into a normal person now, and while it's in the group, I will only let it stay in this form. This form is quite good, it doesn't affect anything to have it in the group."

Jier did not explain in detail to the three people what specific role the Shapeshifting Monster would play, but Weier naturally guessed the Knight's intentions and whispered his guess to the other two companions.

Afterward, Jier found a vine and used it as a temporary Rope to tie around the Shapeshifting Monster's neck; he knew this had little meaning, and the Shapeshifting Monster knew it too, but this was for the others in the group to see.

Jier did not intend to hide it from his subordinate Warriors, but for the sake of the Villagers in the temporary group, he needed to hide it for the time being to prevent panic.

"Remember, from now on, unless I speak to you, you are not allowed to respond to anyone other than me! And as long as there are others present besides me, even if they know you are a Shapeshifting Monster that can speak, you are not allowed to speak! Do you understand?"

Jier said solemnly.

The Shapeshifting Monster did not respond, clearly understanding.

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