Gacha games can't save this bizarre world.

The three of them did not intend to save the person, as they were neither capable nor knew how to do so.

Later that evening, some monsters were heard talking about the mayor of Heart Demon Town...

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Chapter 147 Town Mayor

Since there is a town, there must be a town mayor.

The monsters spoke of the town mayor with expressions of fear and apprehension, which showed that the mayor was no ordinary person.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to subdue these dim-witted monsters who are often unafraid of death.

Zhao Hao listened intently for a long time, managing to catch the gist of what was being said.

It is said that the mayor of this Demon Town was chosen through a battle, but since he took office, no one has been able to challenge him successfully for many years.

He held many secrets and powers in the town, including knowing the way out.

Other news was fine, but the idea of ​​"knowing the way out" was just too tempting.

Zhao Hao and Marilena speculated that this eerie environment of the Heart Demon Town would subtly erode a person's spirituality, eventually corrupting them into a monster.

This process will accelerate or decelerate depending on the fluctuations in the target's sanity and the vibrations in their mental body.

Superhumans like Zhao Hao and Marilena are knowledgeable and calm, and they also wear some monster disguises, so they can hold out for a little longer, but only for a little longer.

They could sense subtle changes in psionic energy while killing monsters. If this continued for too long, or if they killed too many, they would eventually transform into monsters themselves.

We must leave here as quickly as possible.

Zhao Hao decided to meet with the town mayor every day; he had to take the risk.

However, Oliver couldn't go. If he were discovered to be a human dressed as a "monster," he would probably die on the spot.

His own skin card was fine; Zhao Hao was confident he wouldn't be exposed. But how reliable was Marilena's disguise?

Knowing Zhao Hao's doubts, Marina remained remarkably calm: "Don't worry, even a bronze-level superhuman couldn't see through my disguise. Because I'm a follower of the Cat Goddess, I used the goddess's sacred artifact to transform. Right now, inside and out, I am a true Catwoman..."

Zhao Hao's time spent studying under Uncle Tie was not wasted.

Because the mental body, or soul, is very resilient and can withstand stronger information shocks, he read many books about the inner world during that period.

He had seen information about this cat goddess.

Bastet, the goddess of cats, is an ancient Egyptian deity who is said to have appeared before 3,000 AD.

However, in the mainstream understanding of the underworld, this goddess, who seems somewhat out of place in this world, is not a native deity. In other words, she may be a foreign, mysterious god.

However, because it has been in this world for so long, and because it is indeed one of the few harmless and strange gods, it has gradually integrated into the local pantheon, and has been worshipped by some mortals in this world.

This goddess of cats is the protector and master of all felines, both a protector and an avenger.

Rumor has it that she is capricious and extremely emotional. Winning her favor brings great benefits, but angering her could cost you your life.

And just like felines, she habitually toys with her prey rather than giving it a quick death.

In ancient Egypt, especially after the 10th century, the cat goddess Bastet was highly worshipped. Cats held a very high status in ancient Egypt.

Although the worship of the cat goddess has declined to the point of near extinction in the real world since the fall of ancient Egypt, it still has many worshippers in the underworld.

Moreover, although this goddess does not often display her power, she is not like other ancient beings who have fallen into slumber or perished.

Zhao Hao had seen in the files of the Mysterious Bureau that decades ago, during an extremely heinous group cat abuse incident, this goddess had unleashed her fury.

At the time, there was a group of mentally unstable young men and women who had nothing better to do than engage in group acts of cat abuse and murder for amusement. They even started taking photos of it, attracting more psychopaths to join them. It caused a huge uproar.

The last transcendent follower of the goddess Buster in the underworld received a summons to the surface world to carry out a vengeful hunt.

It is said that the revenge lasted for three whole years, and several supernatural organizations tried to mediate, but all of them were defeated and left with a humiliating defeat.

The avenger tormented and tortured those who had committed sins and angered the goddess, taking revenge one by one. This went on for three whole years. Of the more than one hundred sinners, except for a few who committed suicide, every single one escaped the hunt.

So much so that after that incident, calls for animal protection began to emerge...

That's not all. At the bottom of the document, Zhao Hao saw the Mysterious Bureau's assessment of the Cat Goddess Buster.

Experts from the Bureau of Mysteries suspect that the Cat Goddess's psychic energy is subtly influencing all of humanity within the psychic sea.

Just as Sally, one of the four evil gods, influenced humanity, causing a shift in the aesthetics and sexual orientation of the entire human race.

Basta is also influencing people's attitudes toward cats, making humans increasingly fond of felines.

……

Zhao Hao never expected that Mariana was actually a follower of the cat goddess.

After all, very few people worship this goddess now, and she is very selective; it's not something you can just decide to believe in. Generally, it's the feline species among the demi-humans who believe in her.

Looking back now, after transforming into Catwoman, Malelina's physical abilities and psychic powers improved by leaps and bounds, so the black cat pendant she used for the transformation must have been quite extraordinary.

However, this transformation is not suitable for long-term maintenance. Zhao Hao is worried that if it goes on for too long, Marilena will no longer need to become a monster; she may completely transform into a catwoman, both physically and mentally.

However, since it's a transformation of the cat goddess Buster's sacred object, the town mayor probably won't see through it. It's better for the two of them to go together. That way, they won't be suspicious of each other, and being together will at least be safer.

The next day, the two left Oliver at the hotel, telling him to be careful, not to go out, and to be wary of intruders with ill intentions. A tough guy like him needs to protect himself when he's out.

The two asked a dwarf waiter in the tavern for directions to the town hall, and it only took them twenty minutes to get there, but they witnessed three fights.

One of them was a large-scale brawl involving more than twenty people, and both of them got caught up in it and ended up getting beaten up without really understanding what was going on.

On another occasion, despite having a small number of people, two monsters died, and their bodies were taken away as spoils of war.

This place is fraught with danger, but the monsters seem completely unfazed by it.

Zhao Hao and Marilena made their way to the town hall, where there were no more monsters.

After looking around, the two couldn't find any reception staff, so they had no choice but to go inside.

It's called a town hall, but it's actually just a large stone building. It's decorated quite nicely, unlike those shabby and crude taverns. It has a bit of a European feel to it.

The two walked through the front living room and heard a middle-aged man's voice coming from inside: "We have guests. Please come in."

Zhao Hao and Marina exchanged a glance, preparing for battle as they cautiously made their way into the bedroom.

To Zhao Hao's surprise, there was an old white man reclining in a deck chair inside the room, even smoking a pipe.

"Hmm, judging from your surprised looks, you must be new to Heart Demon Town, right? What brings you here?" The old man smiled kindly, the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes adding to his gentle demeanor.

"Are you the town mayor?" Zhao Hao, wearing a leather mask, appeared cold and terrifying, but the other party didn't seem to care.

"Ah, yes. I was the mayor of Heart Demon Town, until I was killed by others."

“We wanted to ask you about the way out of town.” Marilena stepped forward, straining her spiritual energy.

Her psychic powers are innate, making her a superhuman with the ability to attract the opposite sex. She's trying to use this passive effect to influence the town mayor.

The town mayor only glanced at her before staring intently at Zhao Hao, as if she were less charming than him.

"Well, I see. It's fine to tell you, but the problem is there's no such thing as a free lunch. You'll have to pay a price." The mayor spoke as casually as if he were talking about having sausages for dinner.

Zhao Hao said, "Then, what do we need to give up..."

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Chapter 148 The Heart of the Raptor Beast

"So, tell me. What do you know about the Deviljho? Tell me everything, and this one is yours."

A large chunk of bloody flesh floated on Zhao Hao's translucent ghostly palm.

Since he's a ghost now, he's in a semi-physical state, so picking up anything is quite difficult. You'd need a mage's glove on your hand, or remote control.

In front of him were dwarfs who required him to bend down to speak to them.

This guy is a waiter in the tavern, and most of the time he also acts as a bartender.

He was only 1.2 meters tall, a bit ugly, with a big nose, small eyes, and a wide mouth. His eyes kept darting around, and he didn't look like an honest person.

To be able to work as a waiter in this tavern teeming with all sorts of people without being killed by some drunk monsters shows that he's quite skilled.

It has little fighting ability, but it is very good at flattery and has a first-class ability to read people's expressions and judge their character, which it uses to make a living.

From the moment Zhao Hao and Marilena entered the tavern, it sensed that the two were extraordinary and likely very strong, so it had been treating them with great enthusiasm.

It was from this dwarf that Zhao Hao learned the location of the town hall and was able to find the mayor.

Now, Zhao Hao wanted to ask the dwarfs for information about the monstrous beast.

Zhao Hao and Marilena left the mayor with a promise: if they could get him the heart of the monstrous dragon, the mayor would tell them how to leave the Demon Town.

In reality, this eerie realm is a relatively open one; quite a few individuals drawn into the Demon Town have indeed managed to escape, though many more have died here. Others have been transformed into various monsters and become townspeople.

The little dwarf was eyeing the large piece of meat in front of it. After all, with its strength, it had always been the one to fawn over and be bullied. It was lucky if it wasn't eaten, let alone eat meat. It usually ate scraps.

It racked its brains to recall all the information it had ever heard about the Rathalos.

"Um, I've heard of the Rathalos. It seems to have appeared in and around the town a few years ago after a major earthquake. As for what it was originally, or what kind of monster it was, or where it came from, I've never heard of that."

"However, in the first two years, many monsters ventured into the newly appeared hilly area to search, and many were eaten by the monstrous dragon. That monster must be very strong; I heard it has a dragon's head..."

The dwarf's information about the Rathalos was all based on dubious rumors. It hadn't actually seen it; it had only heard about it from other monsters. So, Zhao Hao and his companions would have to go and see for themselves to find out the truth. At least they knew its general location.

However, to Zhao Hao's surprise, he learned from the dwarf's words that these people who had been transformed into monsters all knew that they were not originally like this, but had become monsters in their current form.

Zhao Hao was quite curious about this and asked a few questions.

“Oh, I do know what I used to be like. I think my name was Otelli? I was probably Argentinian. I remember I used to really like playing football. I was always short, and I was this tall when I was twenty, and I never grew any taller after that… I remember having a really tough time back then…”

"It seems like it was an accidental car accident. Our whole car fell off a bridge, and when I woke up, I was here. We were lucky; we stayed by the water for three days without encountering any other monsters, and most of us successfully turned into monsters. Of course, they were all unlucky; only I, this little dwarf, have survived to this day..."

When talking about his past as a human, the dwarf showed no sign of discomfort or nostalgia, as if he were recounting a mundane movie. Instead, his words revealed a sense of joy and naturalness at becoming a monster.

Even though it was a monster constantly on the verge of fighting, it didn't feel anything was wrong or unhappy.

Psychic power is the power of the mind; it has transformed into a monster from the inside out, like a native, untamed creature.

Heart Demon Town, a place where a monster within replaces the original self.

……

Zhao Hao originally wanted to prepare more thoroughly, after all, the ferocious dragon beast sounded formidable just from its name. And if it were simple, why didn't the town mayor go himself?

But half a day later, he decided to set off as soon as possible.