Meanwhile, on the other side, a man named Benjamin, along with the people around him, cooperated to carry things into a makeshift new house.

Then he glanced out the window, and once again, the urge to escape surged within him.

However, he quickly shook his head, forcing himself to let go of that thought.

The back of the whale was too dangerous in the wild.

Or rather, this era was too perilous.

After the great catastrophe on the ground, a certain aura of calamity lingered.

Creatures that had lived there for a long time underwent disasters, transforming into creatures collectively called Disaster Beasts.

Some flying creatures, upon leaving the whale’s back, would be drawn down by the earth and unknowingly descend, bringing with them some of that calamity aura.

Under the influence of this aura, some creatures became dangerous.

The most typical were the Nest Beasts.

Nest Beasts were not Disaster Beasts, but their danger was not to be underestimated.

They were notorious only because their reproduction rate was fast and plentiful.

In the wild, there were many other dangerous creatures.

There had even been incidents where Steel Seeds accidentally died in the wild.

“Help the church by quickly capturing Op, and use the illegal miners here as stepping stones for my atonement.” Benjamin’s gaze grew firm. He had no choice. For his livelihood, he worked under an intermediary of contraband.

He had gradually become accustomed to living on the gray edge of legality.

This time, caught by the church, he would basically be imprisoned for life, or more simply, killed outright.

But as long as he could atone by meriting merit, he still had a chance.

He had hidden quite a bit of money in some places in Wavetail Town.

If he succeeded in meriting merit, there was still hope of getting out of prison and returning to a normal life.

“I hope Isabella can succeed.” This was another reason Benjamin was determined.

If the personnel involved were only Jacques, Benjamin firmly believed Jacques could never beat Op.

He might even take a desperate risk, secretly passing information to Op and joining forces, gambling that Op would not kill him but help him change his identity.

But Isabella...

Thinking of the girl who did not despise him because of his status as a ‘tainted witness,’ Benjamin’s heart softened considerably.

She had first saved him in the wild and treated his wounds.

In their conversations, he could feel Isabella’s difference.

She understood the difficult choices forced upon him by life. That feeling of being understood gave him a sense of redemption.

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Isabella looked fragile, but that was because her exquisite appearance gave the impression of a doll.

In fact, her inner strength was surprisingly powerful, with firm convictions of her own.

Because of this, Benjamin leaned toward siding with the church when making his decision.

Even if he would still serve a few years in prison after atoning, at least then he would not be a complete failure...

Before his thought could finish, a person appeared not far away.

That person staggered, swaying as they walked toward this side.

Looking closely, wasn’t that the person he had traded with?

A member of Op’s caravan. Benjamin had obtained some information about Beiqi Village from this person.

Benjamin’s sharp senses immediately detected a problem.

“Danger!” he shouted, then quickly dodged to the side while forcefully pounding his chest.

As he pounded, three fine nail-like objects appeared on his chest—these were the Sin Nails from the church.

Made with special power, they restricted his movement, speech ability, and even his reasonably good breathing techniques.

The gray area resources meant his cultivation progress was not bad.

But now Benjamin’s physical condition was locked down. Once he left the controller’s influence, his whole body would convulse, and if he tried to do anything bad or speak forbidden words, he would be forcibly silenced.

At the same time, if these nails were triggered, the controller would be alerted.

Previously, when Benjamin and his group came to Beiqi Village, they were attacked by dangerous creatures in the wild. The accident Benjamin encountered was precisely why the church’s Sin Nails saved him, and Isabella rescued him.

Now, Benjamin naturally used the same trick to alert Isabella and the others.

Op and his group were not unaware; their investigation into the whalehide ore had already been leaked.

So Op’s purpose was very clear: create an ‘accident’ and then silence witnesses!

Such people were too dangerous—true desperados motivated by profit.

“Bang!” A loud explosion followed, then a spray of blood and flesh. The staggering person was now a puddle on the ground.

Among the flying chunks of flesh, small black dots appeared.

“They’re deeply mutated Nest Beasts! Run!” Seeing those black dots, Benjamin felt his scalp crawl.

When Nest Beasts undergo deep mutation, they are one step away from becoming Disaster Beasts, and their abilities are greatly enhanced.

Saying this, Benjamin hurriedly ran toward the distance.

The black dots wriggled continuously and then revealed their full form—all were black hairs.

If a Nest Beast died, the activity of these hairs would drop to a level where leather gloves could block them.

But if they pierced a living body before that, their activity would not only not decrease but would continue to rise.

Sure enough, the black hairs in the scattered blood and flesh slightly bent, then bounced up by themselves.

They seemed able to sense the presence of life and swarmed like flying needles toward where life was present.

Those hit screamed in terror, desperately scratching their skin as if trying to pull out the black hairs.

The black hairs that missed their targets still struggled after piercing elsewhere, trying to enter a living body again.

This was terrifying.

In the past, disasters caused by Nest Beasts were controllable mainly because the black hairs’ activity rapidly declined after being ejected, making it difficult for them to actively pursue living beings.

Therefore, after the first explosion, quickly controlling or treating those whose bodies had been pierced by black hairs, or directly exiling them to the wild, was effective.

But now, these black hairs kept ejecting continuously.

At this speed, almost no one around could escape these parasitic hairs.

Benjamin discovered this one step earlier and barely escaped the attack range.

However, soon he saw those parasitized by the black hairs suddenly stand up in a daze and run toward this side.

“The incubation period is gone?!!”