Chapter 801: Human-Faced Root Parasites and the

Just as Jier was interrogating the captured "Hanging Ghost" freak, the lumberjacks, feeling they should start working, hurried to the left and right sides to begin felling trees.

The "thwack, thwack, thwack" sound of axes swinging made Jier chuckle, and he released the nose of the strange human face twisted on the freak's left chest.

"Answer me, what do you call yourselves internally? And who are you? Why did you frighten my men? And why go to the trouble of getting this foul-smelling flesh and specifically mixing it with blood to stick onto tree trunks?"

"We have time; answer me slowly, one by one, can you?"

Jier made a show of raising his right hand again, gesturing the nose-twisting motion in the air. Although his action looked comical, the freak who had just been disciplined this way did not want to try it again, because it was truly too painful; the nose of the human face on the left side of his chest had already been ruined by this action.

Therefore, he hurriedly nodded, his demeanor much more honest.

Jier released the man's neck and chin, stepping back one pace to make it easier for him to speak.

"The village... the village is now... being managed by the Prophet. He led... everyone to establish, *huff*, established... a cult."

The man spoke in fits and starts, looking as if he hadn't spoken properly in a long time, but Jier suspected that the man's language ability had been forcibly regressed due to the changes in his body.

"Prophet? A cult? Interesting. Does this cult not have a name?"

The freak raised his head and said with some pride: "It does... our cult... is called... 【Flesh Pain-Givers】."

Jier's eyes shifted behind his faceplate, and he asked: "Answer me first, what is your scale? How many people?"

Hearing this question, the freak felt somewhat embarrassed, and replied in a low tone: "Thirty... thirty-two people, but this scale... is already quite large, right?"

As he spoke, the freak looked at the people logging nearby, and his words trailed off, seemingly realizing that their so-called cult was actually still a very small organization. After all, there were over twenty people busy logging around Jier; by comparison, it was hard to say that a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny mysterious cult organization that only had thirty-two people and occupied one village could have any formidable power.

After all, he had previously been rewarded by the cult leader, the Prophet, and turned into this terrifying, "powerful," and strange appearance that felt no pain, but it seemed to have no effect? The strong, armored young man in front of him had subdued him in just one move.

"Hmph, the Southern Province really is a magical land. Once the noble Knight Lords from various places take their troops and leave, all sorts of strange things grow as quickly as the grass and trees in this spring."

Jier snorted coldly, feeling that there were truly too many things happening in the Southern Province; not only were there endless bandits everywhere, but strange people and organizations were also increasing. However, he looked left and right at the empty Shanglu and the pitch-black mountain forests everywhere, feeling that it was quite normal for such a situation to arise in the Southern Province, where the entire land was carved up by various mountain forests.

"What is your name?" he continued with the previous question.

"My... name? Uh, name, name..."

The freak, whose face was full of old age, had a somewhat confused expression, as if he couldn't find or remember his own name.

Jier narrowed his eyes and asked another question: "Then the name of that so-called 'Prophet' of yours—heh, his title—you should know that, right? Otherwise, how do you address each other normally?"

"Prophet? The great Prophet... uh, his name, uh, *h-h-h*, how could it be? I... I can't remember."

The more the man spoke, the more confused he became, and his entire flesh-blurred face began to twitch with muscle spasms.

At the same time, his hands and feet also began to twitch and flail in disorder, as if he had been electrocuted.

Seeing this, Jier hurriedly retreated a few steps, quickly took out the Elven Metal Shield hanging on his left back, and blocked it in front of himself. At the same time, he shouted for the nearby lumberjacks to stay away from the man.

But the guy, whose hands, feet, and face were twitching more and more violently, did not explode entirely as Jier had expected. Instead, a significant amount of purple liquid flowed out from his ears and mouth. As soon as this precious-looking substance, like blood, flowed out, the guy stopped trembling and died instantly.

"Hm?" Jier was somewhat surprised. He had thought this thing had very tenacious vitality, but it ended just like that? Or was it because he was about to say something that couldn't be said, triggering some lethal termination method planted in his flesh?

Just as Jier was suspicious, the four special human faces on the front of the man's torso broke off from somewhere and separated from the dead freak's body. It was as if something that had been forcibly glued together had met water and could no longer stick; the four human faces, along with some flesh structures behind them, slid onto the ground in the forest.

Jier did not rashly step forward. He opened his hands and realized that after the Hunting Sword pinning the freak's corpse to the tree trunk vibrated, the weapon did not return on its own. After waiting for a while and confirming that the corpse would not suddenly explode or spontaneously combust, Jier then approached the freak's corpse with small steps.

He lowered his head to look and discovered that behind the four human faces that had separated and slid off the freak's body was actually something similar to plant roots—thin, dense brown tree roots that had originally seemed to be directly inserted into and parasitizing the man's torso.

And when he looked up again, he discovered that where the few human faces had fallen off, his line of sight passed through palm-sized holes; the human's vital viscera and such inside were almost invisible, and if any existed, only a very small portion remained.

"Yuck~ It seems that so-called Prophet is not a good thing either. He treats the people within his own organization like this; either he has no ability, or this person was just a consumable used for guarding and reconnaissance."

Jier inspected the human faces that looked dead on the ground, as well as the freak's corpse, which was full of holes. He ultimately discovered that the biggest reason for the purple liquid flowing out earlier was that his Hunting Sword had directly pierced the strange human face in the center of the opponent's chest, so the opponent had simply died like someone who had lost too much blood internally.

Pulling out the Hunting Sword, Jier grabbed some leaves from a nearby tree to wipe the blade. Strange to say, even though it was purple, blood-like juice flowing from a broken, weird corpse, the smell of this liquid was very pleasant, similar to the fresh scent of green apples.

Picking up one of the fallen human faces with roots that looked dead on the ground, Jier drew his Dagger to cut it open. But as soon as the Magic Dagger touched the face skin of this thing, it suddenly let out a strange cry, giving Jier a start.

If it weren't for his warrior instinct making him subconsciously grip the weapon in his hand tightly, his Heart Fire Magic Dagger would have been thrown away in fright.

"What are you crying out for! What are you crying out for! I knew you ghost-thing weren't dead yet, die for me!"

Jier pressed down on the plant-like roots flailing behind the human face with one hand, and with the other, he skillfully held the dagger to slice open the entire face of the human face.

As expected, it only looked like a human face, vivid and lifelike, to the point that even Jier had just thought the faces on the freak's body had been fused onto the person using some strange method.

As it turned out, the underside of this thing's human face was not like that at all. Compared to flesh and blood, it was more like a plant with strong stress reactions, forcibly parasitizing the human body through the roots behind the human face.

On one hand, it cut off the human's perception of pain, making the parasitized person feel that they had become amazing and could fight. On the other hand, the numerous dense roots behind the human face had "eaten" all of the parasitized person's body viscera.

Jier didn't know if this poor guy had felt that he had been eating less recently. If this guy knew that his body didn't even have most of his intestines and stomach for digestion, and only had a suspended esophagus leading to the roots, would this guy still think that the Prophet was being good to him?

The surrounding lumberjacks did not dare to come over, so after a while, feeling that there were no emergencies at Knight Jier's side, they continued to log.

Jier stood up, intending to leave this place to help everyone chop trees and return to the Yingdi early to eat.

But just after he had walked two steps, he strode back to the freak's corpse, took an empty Leather Bag from his back waist, picked up the other three motionless human faces with roots on the ground, and put them inside.

After sealing the bag, Jier hung it on his belt, then flipped over the dead freak's corpse and swung his sword horizontally toward the top of the person's head.

With a "splat," the head of the freak's corpse was severed at the eyebrows. Although the human skull was very sturdy, the Hunting Sword was exceptionally sharp, and Jier's strength was also particularly great.

When Jier saw inside the freak's head, he finally let out a breath. While wiping the Long Sword again, he muttered: "I knew it; once parasitized by this weird thing, a person is already beyond saving."

Inside the severed head of the freak's corpse, there was no normal person's grayish-white brain matter. What he had was only a shrunken brain, with a small half of the back of the brain occupied by plant roots.

"Knight, what should we do with these big trees smeared with foul-smelling flesh?"

The logging operation was almost finished, and a lumberjack found Jier to ask. Although these guys had been scared to death by these strange trees before, once they discovered that the freak who had scared them had been easily defeated by the Knight, the way these people looked at the big trees smeared with flesh was different.

"What do you decide? How do you want to handle it?"

Jier was currently dragging a log with the branches and leaves removed, easily pulling it along the ground, and asked back while working.

"Heh heh, some of the guys say to ignore these ghost things, and some say to chop them all down. So as not to scare others in the future."

This lumberjack scratched his head and chuckled.

As soon as Jier heard this, he knew everyone's opinion, so he waved his hand: "The nearby big trees with flesh are ominous. Brothers, listen to me: chop them down. As for the timber, the logs on hand are enough. Go do it."

Having received the Knight's opinion and order, the lumberjack hurriedly passed the word to the other lumberjacks. Everyone gathered to the side, having long waited to chop down these big trees that had made them lose face. Because it was just simply chopping the trees down, without needing to remove branches or trim the log trunks, everyone only took a short while, and amidst the loud shouts of "Tree Fell! Watch out!", they chopped down every single one of the big trees in the vicinity that were stained with unknown flesh and viscera.

Jier cast the thick log he had carried back by himself to the side on the ground, then untied the rope from a log that Tianxuecao was dragging. He patted the horse's rump, letting Tianxuecao go find the Grooms who took care of the horses in the Yingdi.

Waiting for Tianxuecao would be a comfortable brushing, and a basin of midnight-snack Beans that would make the other horses envious.

"Where is Bata'er Jiaoshi?"

Jier grabbed a random member of the public who had just finished dinner to ask where the Priest was at the moment.

"Great, great sir, the Priest seems to have gone to tend to the wounded. I just saw him finish eating with everyone, and he immediately rushed over to save people. If I had the Priest's abilities, I would definitely stay by his side and help save people together."

The one speaking was a youth younger than Jier, and being questioned by Jier made him exceptionally excited and nervous.

Patting his head gently, Jier went to find the Priest, saying, "If you want to have that kind of ability, don't run around after eating. Do you have Faith in the God of Agriculture? If you're idle, go to the faithful Villagers and join them in Prayer. Maybe one day the deity will see your piety and choose to bestow blessings upon you."

However, as soon as this kid heard about joining the group of faithful Villagers, he immediately began to stammer. Jier knew that the incident where the brave faithful Villagers rushed up to fight the Bandit ambush and were all killed in action had dealt quite a blow to their confidence.

But there was no help for it; these Refugees didn't have much combat skill to begin with, and those who had a little were already absorbed by Jier into the Armed Squad. The squabbles and brawls between farmers in the Cunzi, or the scolding and hair-pulling of the farm wives, could not improve their fighting ability by even a tiny bit.

After all, when a Bandit swings a blade, cursing at the Bandit serves no practical purpose other than making their swing more forceful. And the skill of the Villagers in random brawls was mostly just one-on-one, empty-handed flailing.

It seems there is no such thing as Militia training in Kendall County here.

Real, life-or-death combat mostly uses sharp metal weapons; very few people use their fists or fight bare-handed.

Even when Jier throws a punch, he wears heavy and sturdy Steel Gauntlets; this way, even catching an enemy's Dagger or Short Knife bare-handed is no problem, which is the only way it has any practical use in combat.

In the tent where the wounded were gathered in the Yingdi, Jier found Bata'er Jiaoshi, who had just finished treating a Villager who had been slashed in the back.

The Priest, having just completed a portion of the treatment, had exhausted his already severely depleted Divine Power reserves. Therefore, after finishing the treatment, he knelt directly on the open ground beside the wounded, placed the Hushin Statue of the God of the God of Agriculture directly in front of him, and prayed to the Statue of the God with his hands clasped together.

When the Priest prayed to the Hushin Statue of the God, this palm-sized wooden carving became shiny and luminous; the slight amount of prayer power gathered from the believers flashed and flickered as it entered the Priest's body, transforming into "processed," crude Divine Power of the God of Agriculture.

When Jier walked over, the Divine Power of the God of Agriculture within his body still felt somewhat restless. Jier didn't like this, so he let out a muffled grunt and mobilized his own life force, tightening the grip on the restless Divine Power of the God of Agriculture to prevent it from having any extra changes.

It was enough to boost his physical strength and energy; Jier didn't need them to do anything more.

"Priest, it's me, Jier. Let me tell you about something that just happened with the Lumberjacks."

Many of the wounded who had undergone Divine Magic Healing had fallen into a deep sleep, so Jier did not speak loudly, just enough for the Priest to hear.

Don't look at the Priest kneeling on the ground with a "do not disturb" air; Jier himself didn't care whether he disturbed his companion or not, because his own business was not small either.

Bata'er Jiaoshi, who had just been performing the conversion of Divine Power, had to give up on recovering his Divine Power. After whispering an apologetic Prayer to the great God of Agriculture, he picked up the Hushin Statue of the God and put it into the bag at his waist.

Subsequently, the Priest nodded apologetically to the next wounded Villager who was waiting behind and looking at him eagerly, offered an apology, and only then stood up somewhat weakly.

Jier grabbed the arm of the Priest, who was swaying slightly after standing up. After waiting for the Priest to stand steady, he said in a low voice, "Look at how tired you are. It's enough that everyone's injuries have started to improve. Once we've eaten and drunk our fill, our bodies will take care of themselves."

Bata'er Jiaoshi lowered his head and followed silently behind Jier out of the tent full of the wounded. After they were a certain distance away from the tent, he whispered, "It's all because of my side that they suffered so many injuries. And even more people lost their lives; I feel very sorry. If it weren't for the matter of me and my Cunzi, so many people wouldn't have died or been injured on the road."

Jier said indifferently, "You can't think like that. Following us is a bit dangerous, but at least everyone has a full stomach, don't they? Besides, if these people had stayed at the Baishi Chengqiang Guanka, wouldn't they have died? Have you forgotten the scene back then? As for us, taking these hundreds of people away from the Guanka actually saved the lives of these hundreds of people. Hmph, and not just their lives, but also the lives of their elders, wives, and children who are still at the Guanka."

"What you say has some truth, but..."

The Priest wanted to say something more, but was interrupted by Jier: "Alright, alright, enough with the 'buts.' Look at this, a strange thing I just managed to get my hands on."

Jier lifted his cloak on the right side and took down the three human-faced root parasites tied with a Rope.

At this moment, the expressions on these three human faces were exceptionally calm, and the roots behind the faces were motionless. If he didn't know they were alive and had the ability to parasitize Human flesh, Jier would have thought this strange thing was some kind of surreal, post-modern "art piece" filled with humanistic reflection and lashings, made by a Bandit who had killed so many people that his brain had broken.

Bata'er Jiaoshi didn't pay attention at first, still thinking about what Jier had just said.

But when his attention was attracted by a playful whistle from Jier, he raised his head and saw the thing that Jier was holding in his hand.

The whole person was stunned for a moment, then subconsciously matched the thing in front of him with the knowledge he had learned when studying at the church in the past. Immediately after, he wanted to say something loudly, but he forcibly suppressed it, and asked in a low voice while gritting his teeth: "Isn't this a parasitic seed of the evil cult 'Flesh Demon'? You damn reckless guy, how could you just hold it in your hand like that?"

But he immediately saw Jier wearing a full set of thick armor, and the hand holding the so-called parasitic seed tied with a Rope was also protected by a thick Steel Gauntlet, so he let out a heavy sigh of relief: "No, you just said, this is something you just got your hands on? Where did you 'get' this thing from?"

Seeing the Priest so on guard, and taking another look at the motionless human-faced root parasites, Jier swallowed his saliva and immediately began to explain what had just happened.