Chapter 371 - 363: Extraordinary Plague

Chapter 371: Chapter 363: Extraordinary Plague

Panic?

It hadn’t spread throughout the domain.

Over the past half-month, more than a dozen special editions of the Gray Swamp Weekly on epidemic prevention had been published. They covered everything from "What is a plague?" to "Why quarantine?" and "How to properly wash your hands and wear a mask," all in an easy-to-understand, illustrated format. The public had long been informed that cases appearing in the quarantine camps were a "high-probability event," and that the strict quarantine was precisely to deal with this kind of situation.

Compared to the fear of the unknown, the people had more faith in the order their lord had long since established.

A peculiar-looking, enclosed metal carriage, escorted by soldiers, drove into Quarantine Camp A-3. The interior of the carriage had been specially sealed to be airtight, and faintly glowing Runes for dispelling contamination were inscribed on its walls.

The patient, an unlucky fur merchant, was carried onto the carriage by two soldiers completely wrapped in heavy protective suits. His body was secured to a stretcher, and a cloth wad was stuffed in his mouth to prevent blood spatter. Violent coughs made his body convulse unceasingly.

The flap of the tent was pushed aside.

Two soldiers stepped out. They were covered from head to toe in white garments, their faces hidden behind bird-beak masks.

They carried a wooden stretcher, on which lay the merchant. Leather straps bound his arms, legs, and torso. He opened his mouth to cough, his body trembling with the effort. The soldiers lifted the stretcher onto the metal carriage and set it down flat.

The carriage door closed, the bolt slid shut, and the fur merchant’s groans could no longer be heard.

The carriage did not return to Minas Tirith, but instead headed straight for a solitary building in an open field downwind.

It was a newly completed gray stone building with no windows, only a single, massive metal gate.

At the top of the building, a giant alchemical windmill turned slowly, drawing the air from inside, which was then passed through several high-temperature and chemical filters before being vented high into the sky.

A negative-pressure isolation ward.

This was the masterpiece that Hog Iron Hammer’s team of stonemasons had urgently constructed in three days, based on the blueprints Velin provided.

The gate opened, and the patient was quickly moved inside. Following him, two medical personnel, also in full protective gear, entered with a full set of instruments that gleamed with a metallic luster. One of them was the young Priest from Namiya, Elias.

They were to collect samples of the patient’s blood, saliva, and coughed-up blood clots.

These samples would be placed in triple-sealed alchemical containers and sent to the highest-level biological laboratory beneath the castle.

...

Inside the underground research institute.

Valerius, Elvin, and the recently arrived Elias had already changed into special protective suits and were standing before the main console.

Velin stood before a complex brass instrument, making fine adjustments to the focus.

This was an alchemical microscope he had commissioned artisans to handcraft. Through a combination of multiple crystal lenses and the microscopic focusing of Ether Energy, it could magnify the field of view to an unprecedented degree.

A blood sample, diluted a thousand times, was dropped onto a glass slide.

"My heavens..."

When Velin synchronized the view to the Crystal Plate on the side, Valerius let out a gasp like an aria.

On the Crystal Plate, in what should have been a clear serum background, countless "bugs" emanating an ominous black light were swimming and dividing frantically.

Their forms were bizarre. With every squirm, they devoured the surrounding life energy, causing nearby cells to dim and disintegrate.

"This is... a living curse!" Elvin’s pupils contracted. He could feel the pure malice and aura of decay contained within that black light.

"Let me try."

Elias took a deep breath. He reached out and pressed his hand against the Crystal Plate above the sample. Milky-white Holy Light flared, seeping downward like ripples in water.

In the projection on the Crystal Plate, wherever the Holy Light touched, the activity of the small black bugs clearly slowed, and their black glow dimmed somewhat.

"It’s working!" Ryo shouted in pleasant surprise.

But as time went on, although the small black bugs were suppressed, very few of them shattered and died.

Beads of sweat formed on Elias’s forehead. The Holy Light was being continuously consumed, yet it could only maintain a fragile equilibrium.

"The purifying Divine Art can only suppress it, not eradicate it," he said wearily, pulling his hand back. "It’s constantly drawing on the host’s life force to fight the Divine Art. If this continues for too long, the patient will die from having his life force drained first."

"What about conventional Alchemy Potions?" Velin asked, looking at Valerius.

"Hmph. To deal with this kind of filth, you naturally have to use the most potent solution!"

Valerius, looking confident, carefully used a dropper to suck up a single drop of a highly corrosive Alchemy Potion named "Dragon Breath" and dripped it into another sample.

HSSSSSS—

In the projection, it was like boiling oil being poured onto snow. Wherever the potion touched, everything—be it normal cells or the black bugs—was dissolved and vaporized, leaving not a single trace behind.

Silence fell over the laboratory.

"...This method would ensure the plague doesn’t spread," Valerius said with a dry cough, trying to save face. "On a physical level."

Velin walked over to the microscope and closed his eyes.

Level 4 Alchemist, "Extraordinary Perception"!

His formless Spiritual Power transformed into millions of invisible probes, slipping along the microscope’s Ether pathways and into the microscopic world.

Within Velin’s spiritual perception, the structure of each black bug appeared with greater clarity.

It had a physical structure similar to a biological cell, but its core was an infinitesimally small, constantly cycling curse Rune.

’A fusion of a physical shell and a curse... The shell provides the curse with a vessel for movement and proliferation, while the curse provides the shell with the ’food’ of devoured life force.’

’This doesn’t seem like a naturally occurring creation.’

Velin tried to use his Spiritual Power to peel away the curse Rune, but no matter how he cut or separated it, the two were like a single, unbreakable entity.

A few minutes later, Velin opened his eyes, a flicker of exhaustion in them.

Over the next few hours, Elvin tested the juices of the dozens of Magic Potion Plants he had brought, all of which had purifying and exorcising properties.

Silver Leaf Grass, Holy Light Thistle, Dragon Blood Flower...

Without exception, the results were either completely ineffective or so weak as to be negligible.

"Why... why is this happening?" Elvin muttered to himself, a look of frustration appearing on the botanical genius’s face for the first time. "These are all plants recorded in ancient texts as being effective against even the highest-level undead plagues. Why are they useless against this?"

The atmosphere in the laboratory grew increasingly oppressive.

Velin remained silent, organizing the information in his mind.

’Divine Art can suppress it, but not eradicate it.’

’Alchemy Potions can kill it, but they kill the host along with it.’

’Purifying plants from the natural world are almost completely ineffective against it.’

’If things from the natural world can’t harm it, then it’s highly likely it doesn’t come from the natural world.’

’An Extraordinary plague...’

A flash of insight struck Velin.

He remembered the pale, elegant face of Hector Este, and the words he had spoken at the celebration.

"When disaster strikes... just how strong of a storm can your sandcastle withstand."

’It seems this isn’t a natural disaster, but a man-made one.’