Chapter 2869 - 2870: A Plague

Chapter 2869: Chapter 2870: A Plague

Spread? Quarantine? It had been a long time since Ye Luo last heard those two words.

Back when he was on Earth, plagues or diseases would often spread, and only then would such situations frequently occur.

But in the world of cultivators, those so‑called plagues and diseases basically didn’t exist.

Therefore, those few soldiers piqued Ye Luo’s curiosity.

"In that case, just take me there!"

After that, he followed several Generals to a stretch of wilderness. Quite a number of soldiers were standing far away watching. Ye Luo immediately saw that ahead, a few soldiers were lying on the ground, on their last breath.

There was nothing unusual on their bodies, but inside them!

When Ye Luo probed their internal condition, even he was shocked.

Their vitality was almost completely exhausted, the insides of their bodies a picture of utter ruin.

Why would it be like this? Very soon, Ye Luo noticed a clue: the Spiritual Power within them had changed, or rather, had become infected. This Spiritual Power was actually beginning to destroy the vitality within a cultivator’s body.

Although the principle sounded simple, the reality was terrifying. This kind of thing was almost a first in the Cultivation World, utterly shocking and unheard of. Spiritual Power had always existed to serve cultivators, yet now it had become the weapon that slaughtered them.

Suddenly, Ye Luo’s heart jolted. The moment his Divine Sense came into contact with this Spiritual Power, it actually began to change!

Fortunately, his Divine Sense was strong and keenly perceived that if he withdrew that wisp of Divine Sense, he would immediately become infected.

In other words, this infection was not aimed at Spiritual Energy itself, but at Strength! Ye Luo didn’t know if it applied to all Attributes of Strength, but at the very least, Divine Sense could be infected.

For cultivators, this was a terrifying and deadly plague.

And it spread extremely fast, with an extremely high fatality rate.

Even Ye Luo was completely helpless for the moment.

Originally, he had a Law of Healing within his body, and he had thought it might prove useful. But now it seemed that Law of Healing was completely useless! Because this infection was extremely peculiar; it outright altered the Attribute of the Strength.

This style of operation was very reminiscent of... the Base! That’s right, it was exactly the operating style of Zhongzhou civilization! Could it be that the Base had already escaped from Ye Luo’s Divine Kingdom?

Only, this possibility was very small. Leaving aside whether the Base could even recover, even if it left the Divine Kingdom, Ye Luo would definitely have some sense of it.

Could it be some other seed left behind by Zhongzhou civilization? That would not be surprising. Although the Zhongzhou Empire was destroyed, it had left behind countless seeds, scattered across who knew how many worlds.

The ambition of the Zhongzhou civilization still existed! Moreover, Ye Luo had always had a feeling that the destruction of Zhongzhou civilization back then contained another layer of Xuan Ji.

Otherwise, given the strength of Zhongzhou technology, to completely wipe it out would not have been an easy matter.

This was not something Ye Luo could figure out, but the trouble he now faced was fatal.

If not handled properly, once this plague broke out, the consequences would be unimaginable.

He even found himself imagining what would happen to the entire Demon Realm if this plague spread.

He had not been born in this world, and could be said to have little emotional attachment to it. But there were hundreds of millions of cultivators here; those were lives as well. To "save all living beings" might sound a bit hollow, yet Ye Luo’s true heart was gradually moving in that direction.

"Everyone who has had contact with these few, isolate them all! The army will temporarily stand down and rest. Fully trace the movements of these soldiers. For now, this matter must not be reported to the Royal City. All will obey my orders. Activate first‑level combat readiness for the army. Anyone who dares to act without authorization will be killed without mercy!" Ye Luo said coldly.

If this matter spread, it would likely cause immediate panic throughout the entire Royal City; therefore, the information had to be sealed.

Furthermore, Ye Luo faintly felt that this definitely had some connection to the Assassin Alliance.

"Ye Luo, why so troublesome? Wouldn’t killing those soldiers solve everything! And everyone who came into contact with them, kill them all. Then this strange disease won’t spread!"

Back in the command tent, Nameless immediately spoke up.

Ye Luo gave him a glance. On the strength of those words alone, he could never become a qualified ruler. Even if he ascended the throne one day, he would probably become a tyrant.

"Then tell me this: if all fifty thousand men here became infected with the strange disease, what then? Are we supposed to slaughter them all? And right now the source of infection is still uncertain. Such blind actions—if they spark a mutiny in the army, you and I will both be in mortal danger. After all, we’ve only just taken over this army," Ye Luo said slowly.

Only then did Nameless chuckle awkwardly. "I was just saying. Is that strange disease really that terrifying? Could it be some kind of Curse?"

Ye Luo had thought along those lines before, but this was not the same as a Curse. At the very least, Curses did not infect, and rarely spread; moreover, the casting of a Curse required a medium.

"Right, what’s the situation with the other two armies now?" Ye Luo suddenly asked.

"I just got the news myself. Princess Qin Se and the forces of the Great General of Pacifying the West have only just set out. I say, if we’d left a little later, we wouldn’t be so damned unlucky!" Nameless said resentfully.

Ye Luo ignored him and walked straight out. Encountering this strange disease a bit earlier was not necessarily a bad thing; at least it gave him more time to respond.

Clearly, if this was really done by the Assassin Alliance, they would not let the matter rest so easily. And it was very likely this was only a probe.

After the army entered first‑level combat readiness, the entire force could be described as airtight.

A cultivator army was very different from anything on Earth. They had no particularly special weapons, nor was their cultivation particularly outstanding; they simply had numbers. But the most terrifying thing about an army was its Formations.

Even the most ordinary Formation, when evolved by tens of thousands of cultivators, possessed tremendous power.

Thus, this barrier Formation formed by ten thousand men completely screened off everything within the army! Even a Martial Emperor Realm powerhouse would find it hard to probe what was going on inside.

Now, Ye Luo had truly grasped the terror of an army. Standing within it, he felt an unprecedented sense of security.

And the reason he did this, first, was to seal off the information; second, was to establish contact with Xin Lan.

After all, at present, all hope had to be pinned on Xin Lan. Aside from her, even the King of Huainan had no solution.

One could well imagine how utterly desperate the Demon Realm would be once this strange disease fully spread.

A great upheaval in the Demon Realm would not be good news for Ye Luo. After all, if he wanted to return to the Martial Realm, he still needed to rely on the power of Transmission Arrays. Once the Demon Realm descended into chaos, it would become exceedingly difficult to find those Transmission Arrays.