Chapter 247: Chapter 12: Plague
Compared to the other regions that had nearly descended into chaos, the appearance of what was essentially a zombie-apocalypse-style Hungry Ghost outbreak in the South Sea was considered relatively stable. At least the number of individuals undergoing Demonization was not high.
"The Celestial God Descent Association... Is it an organization like the Holy Snake Spirit Prayer Association?"
Su Zhou watched the scenes on the electronic screen intently, his question a low murmur.
"Yes. The Celestial God Descent Association, the Holy Snake Spirit Prayer Association, and the New Dawn Association are the three most dangerous transnational Mysterious Organizations in the world. Of them, the most dangerous, most destructive, and most active is the Celestial God Descent Association."
The male voice on the other end responded, "The three Holy Seats and the crisis response unit have been dispatched, but they still need time. Professor Su, you have a heavy responsibility: to eliminate all mutated Cultivators. Be warned, a strange, unknown plague is also spreading through the city. While no deaths or other critical conditions have been reported yet, the greatest danger lies in the unknown."
"Is there no way to save them?"
"The ’mutation phenomenon’ created by the Celestial God Descent Association is something we still don’t fully understand. At present, we have not found a way to reverse it."
The man’s tone was calm, but this only made the regret in his voice more profound. "To prevent further casualties, please eliminate the mutated individuals as quickly as possible. The local official Cultivators and armed forces will coordinate with you. Do not hold back."
’I see... That makes sense.’
Su Zhou nodded silently, acknowledging that he understood and would not hold back.
"Next, for target acquisition. The first target you need to address is..."
"Thanks, but I can see them very clearly."
In mid-air, having already drawn near the coastal city, Su Zhou could already see them—over a hundred conspicuous, burning, dark-gray auras scattered throughout the tourist city. He narrowed his eyes and said calmly, "Start with the closest and most dangerous ones, right?"
The cabin door opened. Below was the city, already shrouded in a downpour.
Exhaling, Su Zhou gripped his Spirit Iron Long Staff and leaped out without hesitation.
He plunged toward the city, one with the raging gale, the flashes of Thunder Light, and the sheets of rain.
"This doesn’t feel like an Evil Demon, Yara. But it definitely has an Evil Demon’s aura."
As he leaped from the helicopter, the gale roaring past him, Su Zhou’s face was grim. "Evil Demons aren’t this weak, and they don’t lose their minds like this—the Celestial God’s Favored Clan can’t all be such mindless beasts!"
"This is not an Evil Demon created through a natural summons," Yara, who was observing the city through Su Zhou’s eyes, said in a low voice. "A true member of a Celestial God’s Favored Clan, created through a natural summons, is born as the type of creature most suited to and compatible with that Celestial God. Their transformation wouldn’t affect their mind. Instead, it would cause a quantum leap in their life essence—you can think of them as a weaker version of yourself."
"The Hungry Ghosts in the city are likely a weakened, debased version of the Silent Lord’s Clan. The true Clan of the Silent Lord are rulers over all Nether Spirits, like Soul Hookers, or Heroic Souls who have broken free from death through sheer willpower and spontaneously awakened from the great beyond. The latter are not evil; they’re guardians of civilization. These debased Hungry Ghost souls are nothing more than common Resentful Spirits that happen to possess a certain amount of the Evil Demon Factor."
He didn’t bother trying to figure out which Great Being the "Silent Lord" was; they were all sealed away anyway. Su Zhou was currently using Wind Aid—his immense Spiritual Power whipped up a gale that let him fly. He immediately took aim at the nearest dark-gray Spiritual Light, then shot toward it like a cannonball.
"So, you’re saying someone is deliberately spreading the Evil Demon Factor and using this unique period of the Spiritual Qi Burst to artificially incubate debased Evil Demons?" Su Zhou recalled the streams of misty light that had appeared at the very end, just as the Spiritual Qi Burst was about to conclude. ’That clearly wasn’t part of the normal process.’ "So what’s their goal?"
As he spoke, Su Zhou crashed straight through the glass of a high-rise. Inside, a mutated Hungry Ghost was frantically ramming a security door, not even noticing its own broken arm. With a single swing of his staff, Su Zhou turned it to charcoal. A violent current surged through the Spirit Iron Long Staff, and in an instant, a blast of cyan electricity completely annihilated the Hungry Ghost, body and soul.
It didn’t even have time to display its special traits: its body, which had no vital points; its ability to partially undergo Spiritualization; or its Spiritual Pressure, which was strong enough to paralyze an ordinary person’s soul... All of it was snuffed out in a single blow by the overwhelming power an Extraordinary Tier held over an Awakening Tier.
The next instant, before the person who was being attacked could even react to thank him, Su Zhou had already transformed back into a gale, speeding toward the next point of attack.
The mobility of a Transcendent was on full display. An Extraordinary Tier Cultivator, capable of flying at nearly a hundred meters per second, could move through the city far faster than the special operations teams and armed Patrols also tasked with suppressing the chaos.
"To collect the Evil Demon Factor, most likely." Yara answered his question in the brief lulls between his attacks. "If the amount of Evil Demon Factor they initially spread was, say, a hundred units, the amount of Evil Demon essence manifested after the Spiritual Qi Burst would be at least a million."
"I don’t know how they plan to recover and utilize this Evil Demon Factor, but this is undoubtedly their goal—to use the lives of ordinary people as a culture medium to cultivate the Extraordinary elements they need."
CRACKLE! A flash of Thunder Light, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air.
After bursting into a room in a residential building and killing another, smaller Hungry Ghost, Su Zhou pulled back his iron staff, his brow tightly furrowed. This time, he saw a body next to the creature—an elderly, white-haired man. The one who had been infected was apparently his grandson. The old man hadn’t even had time to react before he was killed.
’The Spiritual Energy Revival... It was supposed to be such a wonderful thing. Something that gave everyone a future to look forward to.’
Su Zhou had already left the apartment and was heading to the next attack site, but the image of the two bodies, one large and one small, remained in his mind, stirring a strange mix of emotions within him.
"The actions of an organization like the Spirit Summoning Association..."
It was hard to say whether the emotion was grief or pity, but the anger was undeniable. Su Zhou muttered to himself in a voice so calm it was cold, "It’s truly disgusting."
He moved even faster. In an instant, all that could be seen was a gale wreathed in Thunder Light, streaking between the city’s high-rises and leaving a brilliant trail of electricity through the downpour.
And every flash of light marked the death of another mutated Hungry Ghost.
Word of the Transcendent who moved like a thunderbolt began to spread among those he rescued.
But Su Zhou wasn’t the only one in action.
Dozens of military units from the nearby South Sea Fleet and local armed forces were also rushing to disaster sites to stabilize the situation. Even some civic-minded citizens had banded together to take down a few of the mutated Hungry Ghosts.
The push for nationwide Cultivation had at least given some ordinary people the ability to protect themselves in a crisis.
As time passed, and Su Zhou eliminated over forty of the strongest mutated Hungry Ghost Cultivators at top speed, the situation in South Sea City began to stabilize. The public, now aware and alerted to the danger, were no longer so helpless that they would be killed without putting up a fight.
The remaining, weaker mutated Hungry Ghosts could no longer cause major disturbances and were being systematically suppressed by the armed forces.
CRASH!
At that moment, Chen Zhicheng also saw the streak of Spiritual Light speeding through the city. Through his window, between flashes of Thunder Light, he vaguely made out Su Zhou’s face and recognized the grim-faced acquaintance.
’He’s here too... or was he here all along?’
He was stunned for a moment. ’The chaos has died down so much already. Was it all because of him? He’s so fast...’
’Even if it’s not all his doing, he must be the main reason.’
The South Sea Region wasn’t just a single city. In fact, the Spirit Summoning Association had attacked a vast area. Fortunately, compared to other regions around the world, the situation in Zhengguo South Sea was relatively good. Most of the chaos was quelled within two short hours, and with the arrival of reinforcements—the three Holy Seats and elite Cultivator units—the chaos across the entire South Sea Region was stabilized.
But the situation was still far from optimistic.
The first people to experience problems were actually those sensitive to Spiritual Qi, who had felt unwell during the Spiritual Energy Revival. Some of them managed to endure the discomfort and push through it, but others with more severe symptoms called for ambulances and were taken to the hospital for care.
It was then that hospital staff noticed a strange microbe proliferating within the bodies of these severely ill patients. But this microbe didn’t infect normal human tissue like a typical pathogen.
In fact, it infected Spiritual Qi!
The more active the Spiritual Qi, the more active the microbe became. Whenever a patient’s body experienced a large, uncontrolled overflow of Spiritual Qi, it would proliferate rapidly, causing all sorts of hallucinations, discomfort, and an agonizing pain that bored deep into their very bones and soul.
"It’s a virus! An ancient Spiritual Energy Virus! It should have gone extinct along with the Severed Communication, but now it has reappeared!"
The hospital immediately issued an emergency pandemic warning about the appearance of a new, unknown spiritual energy pathogen. One Physician warned, "This is a special virus that reacts according to the activity level of a person’s Spiritual Qi. It has nothing to do with the physical body. Anyone infected must remain calm and prevent their Spiritual Qi from fluctuating wildly!"
The second wave of people to show symptoms included some of the civilian Cultivators who had fought the mutated Hungry Ghosts, as well as some of the armed forces who were not wearing hazmat suits.
Due to the minor Spiritual Qi leakage caused by combat, they became infected and also began to experience various hallucinations and discomfort. Although their conditions weren’t severe, they temporarily lost some of their combat effectiveness. These individuals were rushed to a newly established quarantine zone for treatment. Meanwhile, a pandemic warning was broadcast across the entire South Sea Region in the sternest possible terms, ordering all citizens to remain in their homes, avoid going outside, and reiterating the methods for dealing with this bizarre plague.
The final and most severely infected group, however, was one nobody expected.
It was the mutated Hungry Ghosts, who had already gone completely mad and lost all their humanity.
Having completely lost their minds, the Evil Ghosts had no ability to control their Spiritual Power to suppress the virus. On the contrary, the more pain and hallucinations they felt, the more they rampaged, deepening the infection. As a result, all sorts of acute complications set in. Their souls lost all control over their bodies, leaving the Hungry Ghosts completely incapacitated, helpless and at the mercy of others.
But before the armed forces could move in to kill these Evil Ghosts, who had collapsed into paralyzed heaps, the frenzied, unknown microbe had already claimed their lives, turning them all into corpses.
And it wasn’t just here. All across the world, in every chaotic region that had come under attack, the turmoil ceased.
For the sources of the chaos had all been killed by the same strange plague that had appeared alongside the mutations.
For a time, only the cold sound of rain and the silence of death echoed through the city.
