Exiting the church and arriving at the cemetery, the sky had completely darkened.

Only the distant church lights provided some illumination, allowing them to see the rows of tombstones.

Soon, the two reached a relatively remote location at the edge of the cemetery.

These were all new graves, belonging to people who had died during the recent Nest Beast disaster.

Isabella looked at these graves with considerable guilt in her heart.

Then, Isabella walked behind a tombstone of one grave—she had already caught the scent of that putrid odor.

There was an opening there, from which quite a bit of foul-smelling meat was exposed.

Pale bones were casually discarded to the side, the entire corpse having been dissected.

The putrid smell hit them directly, but Isabella didn't retreat because of the stench. Instead, she frowned while examining the surrounding traces.

"Stealing human tissue—are there witches in Beiqi Village?" Isabella asked with a grim expression.

Witches were individuals who practiced meditation methods but did not believe in gods.

The earliest witches were demon worshippers who obtained demonic spells from demons and called themselves mages.

However, they later faced severe crackdowns from various churches, gradually forcing mages to transform, hoping to break free from demonic influence and create human-originated spells.

Thus, witches came into existence.

Witches currently existed in a state of being accepted yet not fully accepted.

The reality was that some witches found it difficult to change their habits—they still researched various strange things.

There was a saying that the calamities on earth might very well have been caused by some witches researching certain taboos.

In short, while witches weren't exactly universally despised, they weren't far from it.

Most witches either obediently accepted church surveillance and control, or desperately hid themselves.

Under these circumstances, obtaining materials for certain witchcraft experiments wasn't so easy.

Because part of witches' magic originated from demons, witchcraft inevitably involved various blood-related practices that required human tissue.

Isabella's immediate suspicion of witches was natural.

However, she quickly noticed some problems: "Why wasn't the skull taken away?"

Demonic magic favored things like heads, hearts, blood, and similar materials.

Yet this corpse was missing its heart while the head remained untouched.

"No, it's not just missing the heart—it's missing all internal organs," Naimes spoke up to remind her at this moment. "It's just that things like liver, kidneys, and intestines decay quickly, so only some completely rotten residue remains."

"Anything that was slightly better preserved has already been taken away."

Naimes's reminder finally made Isabella think of the Whale Transformation Disease.

"Not witches. If it were witches, they would most likely use some concealment spells, making it difficult for me to discover directly."

"It's Whale Transformation Disease patients." Isabella was quite quick-thinking and soon arrived at the correct answer.

Naimes on the other side was the same—he had obtained information from Isabella that she had directly discovered the village guard but dismissed it as an 'illusion'.

"Looking at it this way, does the old priest have some purpose regarding the Whale Transformation Disease?" Naimes believed that whatever a person did, they always had a purpose.

Even if it was just for amusement, then amusement was the purpose.

If the old priest had merely ignored it, the problem wouldn't be so serious. But he actually offered help.

If not for Naimes's arrival, Isabella would never have discovered the subsequent problems, which made this quite interesting.

"The simplest explanation is that he wants something. Did the old priest discover controllable Whale Transformation Disease on the village guard? Or is he raising whales, needing various whale products after the Whale Men undergo whale transformation?"

Naimes speculated like this while increasingly sensing that the old priest had some secret.

"I found some traces—I just don't know if you want to pursue them?" Naimes pointed at a bent blade of grass nearby as he asked Isabella.

Isabella glanced at Naimes, then looked at the forest that had become a mass of dark shadows in the night. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ Nove1Fire.net

"Of course we must pursue it. Whale Transformation Disease is extremely dangerous—we cannot avoid investigating!" Isabella nodded seriously, then a faint glow began to circulate around her body.

From the not-too-distant church, a point of faith power flew over and directly landed on Isabella.

Divine Art·Sanctuary.

'The believers gather around the god, and the god protects the believers. Under the god's glory, all harm will be avoided.'

Under the effect of the Sanctuary divine art, the recipient could obtain safety. No matter where they were, the power of the divine art would tend to keep them safe.

After casting the divine art, Isabella raised her hand, and a ball of light flew up beside her.

Spell·Illumination Orb.

Then Isabella directly walked into the dark mountain forest, cooperating with Naimes to search for traces left by others who had passed through.

It had to be said that Isabella truly had courage. She wasn't some pampered noble young lady—she was a priest who could walk among the people to understand their emotions, a clergy member who could come to remote mountain villages and search for criminals in wild fields at night, a true believer!

Naimes smiled slightly and followed her.

Although Isabella still lacked the experience to truly understand what real evil in this world could be like, she hadn't chosen goodness merely out of naivety.

The night path wasn't easy to traverse, but fortunately one person had divine art protection while the other had physical numerical values that exceeded the Black Stone grade limit.

Soon, the two had followed the traces for quite some distance.

"The traces are gone." The village guard ran quite fast through the mountains, and combined with the complex environment, he soon exceeded normal tracking range.

"It seems we can only conduct a large-scale search in the surrounding area tomorrow," Isabella said somewhat unwillingly, her eyes scanning the surroundings.

"After returning, we need to report this quickly."

"Still, do you think this matter can be reported smoothly?" Naimes then looked at Isabella and asked this question.

"You and that Jacques came to investigate something, right?" Without waiting for Isabella's answer, Naimes continued speaking.

Isabella instantly grew tense. She didn't know why Naimes suddenly brought this up—was it to eliminate witnesses?

"The village might have some problems, but that problem shouldn't be focused on me."

"Don't trust external appearances too much. People always overlook others' problems because of their identity and some surface characteristics."

"What exactly are you trying to say?" Isabella couldn't help but frown as she looked at Naimes—his words seemed to carry some implied meaning.

"You should reconsider the suspicious points from earlier in the church." Having said this, Naimes had already started walking into the distance.

Leaving Isabella standing there in stunned silence.