Chapter 700: Training
In the black night of the desert, the cold wind howled, and sand dust whistled. In the oasis of the ancient desert city of Bastis, in a secluded grove, Ed, a zombie puppet controlled by Doro, was present along with Nephnis, as Doro utilized Spiritual Threads to perform meticulous healing on a member of the Savior’s Incarnation Sect, whom Neph had rescued.
Earlier that afternoon, during a confrontation with the residents of Bastis and members of the Eternal Life Cult, Vania had used her powerful life perception ability to sense that one of the Savior Sect members nailed to the city gate was not completely dead and had very faint signs of life. After Vania returned from the standoff, she informed Doro of this discovery.
To gain more detailed insight into the recent happenings in Bastis regarding the Savior Sect, the Eternal Life Cult, and the plague they had unleashed, Doro opted to have Neph use Soul Whiskers to rescue the barely alive member of the Savior Sect, hoping to extract useful information from her.
“How is she? Can she be healed?” Nephnis, standing nearby and observing Ed’s healing process, could not help but inquire, while Doro motioned for Ed to respond.
“There are many parasites in her body, and she has been severely gnawed at; the cleanup is quite troublesome. Fortunately, it’s not yet beyond repair,” Doro replied through Ed, and upon hearing that this woman harbored countless parasites that could eat flesh, Neph immediately felt goosebumps and began to nervously grab at herself.
“Ugh… parasites? That sounds disgusting… What if some get on me?”
Neph began to check her body to ensure she hadn’t contracted any parasites, while Doro casually answered through Ed.
“You don’t have any in your body, but you can’t be sure about your clothes.”
“My clothes… well, you take your time here; I’m going back to check and take a bath!” With that, Neph dashed away from the scene, leaving Doro to continue treating the woman from the Savior Sect.
As Doro was working on the woman, she discovered that the nutrient loss in the woman’s body was extremely severe, with signs of being gnawed at present in various tissues and organs. Notably, in the woman’s stomach, there were traces of food, indicating she had been fed shortly before being nailed to the city gate. The only ones blatantly feeding her in Bastis were the members of the Eternal Life Cult.
Seeing the condition of the woman, Doro gained some understanding of why the Eternal Life Cult did not simply k*ll the members of the Savior Sect, but opted instead to prolong their suffering.
“According to the habits of the Amniotic Sac Cult, most Extraordinary Beings captured by them are used for the bl**d Food Method, becoming the sushi of Extraordinary Beings. The reason these individuals survived and mostly retained their bodies is likely due to the Eternal Life Cult employing a more effective method of siphoning Spirituality, allowing the parasites to extract life force for them.
“They use the human body as a breeding ground for parasites, which can rapidly multiply by draining the host’s life force, and then they can reclaim the parasites to seize the host’s Spirituality…
“Though this method may not yield as much Spirituality in the short term as the bl**d Food Method, in the long run, the income from Spirituality might be more substantial because the parasitized subjects won’t d*e immediately. As long as they can keep them alive, they can continuously cultivate more parasites. For instance, this Extraordinary Being from the Savior Sect has a stronger vitality than usual Extraordinary Beings; it’s not hard to find ways to keep her alive. The longer she lives, the more parasites the Eternal Life Cult can cultivate…”
While treating the woman before her, Doro continued to analyze the situation. If her analysis was correct, without her intervention, this woman would likely have continued to suffer from the parasites for a long time until her body completely collapsed, at which point she would no longer be able to provide Spirituality for the Eternal Life Cult.
“These cultists and their ways of collecting Spirituality… each one is more creative than the last…” Doro thought to herself as she focused on her healing work, the Spiritual Threads skillfully and swiftly clearing the parasites and eggs from the woman’s body.
After thoroughly removing the parasites, Doro began using wound transfer to treat the internal injuries caused by the gnawing of the parasites. After a while, the woman began to react; her body started trembling lightly.
Doro understood that the patient was waking up, so she immediately had Ed step back and controlled another zombie puppet to move forward. This puppet emerged from the thicket, dressed in the standard robe and headscarf modified for desert adaptation, the attire of a Savior Sect cleric; this puppet was of another member who had been nailed to d*ath.
“Cough… cough…” Finally, after a few bouts of violent coughing, the woman lying on the ground slowly opened her eyes. Weakly, she looked ahead and saw the zombie puppet controlled by Doro.
“Adler… it’s you… you’re still alive?”
“Don’t move around; you’ve just been healed. Avoid any strenuous movements…” Doro instructed through the puppet named Adler. Hearing Adler’s words, the woman slightly turned her head to survey her surroundings.
“Where… are we? What about those disgusting cultists?”
“We’ve been rescued; the Holy Church sent someone to save us. We’ve finally escaped their clutches…” Adler responded while looking in another direction, prompting the woman to weakly follow Adler’s gaze and see Ed, dressed in a robe and headscarf, smiling at her.
“Now, let’s have a proper talk.”
At the moment Ed spoke, the woman suddenly felt a wave of relief and trust.
…
Due to her recent recovery from unconsciousness and the physical and mental torment she had suffered from the Eternal Life Cult for several days, the woman awoke in a highly disoriented state. In this state, Doro used the Aura of Affinity, with the assistance of her former teammates controlling the zombies, to quickly gain the woman’s trust, alleviating any doubts she may have had about her rescue.
After initially winning the woman’s trust, Doro prepared food to replenish her strength while facilitating conversation between Ed and Adler. Under the influence of the Aura of Affinity, the woman had no resistance to these exchanges, and after some time, Doro successfully completed a profiling of the Savior Sect woman, fully controlling her mental state.
Once the profiling was completed, Doro finally began to ask her for various kinds of information, especially concerning the recent events in Bastis and the plague.
Through this understanding, Doro learned that the woman’s name was Alima, one of the missionaries sent by the Savior’s Incarnation to the Busairite region, and she was an Extraordinary Being of the Path of Redemption, Black Earth Tier. She, along with other members of the Savior Sect, had been sent to Bastis several years prior to take over the religious affairs managed by the previous leader. When she arrived, the faith in Bastis was already under the control of the Savior Sect, just like in other cities of Busairite, until this plague came.
“So, in the beginning, you were able to cope with this plague, but later it grew stronger, and you began to struggle?” Ed, observing Alima intently munching on bread not far away, asked curiously, to which Alima responded while eating.
“Yes, initially, this plague was quite weak; we could easily cure it with Extraordinary means. I alone could treat four to five hundred patients a day. I, Abia, and Gemar Hayi together couldn’t completely handle the plague in Bastis, but we were also able to provide treatment for numerous nearby villages and tribes. Many people sought refuge in Bastis during that time, and in the name of the Savior, we did our best to treat them.”
Alima continued, mentioning Abia and Gemar Hayi, both members of the Path of Redemption stationed with her in Bastis. Abia, like her, was a Black Earth Tier, and had died in battle against the Eternal Life Cult. Gemar, a White Chalk Tier, and Hayi was a term of respect for noble women in Northern Ufeiga. After their defeat, Gemar had also been captured by the Eternal Life Cult and was sent to a more critical southern stronghold to serve as a higher-grade host.
“When this plague first emerged, we could easily manage it; almost eradicated it from Bastis. However, it gradually grew stronger, requiring us to expend more time, energy, and Spirituality to handle it. Initially, I could cure a patient in ten seconds, but it soon stretched to a minute, ten minutes, or even an hour… The amount of Spirituality required for curing kept increasing. When I could treat several hundred patients initially, by the end, I was lucky if I managed three or four a day.
“Due to the plague’s growing strength, we shifted our strategy from primarily treating to focusing on prevention, isolating patients like ordinary people to cut off transmission. However, to our surprise, the plague’s transmission capabilities increased; it initially spread only through water—people only got sick from drinking contaminated water—soon, air became a contributor as well, making isolation increasingly difficult.
“Eventually, Gemar Hayi discovered that the original spreaders of this plague were actually a type of mosquito—one seemingly driven by its own will, pervasive and hard to defend against. Under the infiltration of these mosquitoes, all our isolation measures became meaningless. Faced with mountains of patients in the latter stages of the plague, we found ourselves unable to prevail, and Bastis quickly transformed into a hell, just like many other areas in Busairite, until those barbaric cultists arrived with their faith in their evil gods.”
As she continued to munch on the bread, Alima’s voice bore a noticeable tone of melancholy. Ed, contemplating this, paused before continuing the questioning.
“So… do you have any clues as to why this plague has been growing stronger?”
“The reason for the plague getting stronger… I don’t know much about it, but I’ve heard Gemar Hayi talk about it. During those days when the plague was rampant, she was constantly researching it and trying to communicate with healers from other regions.
“During that period when the plague was getting stronger, I heard her mention that it seemed to be constantly changing. The more we tried to cure it, the stronger it became. The more patients we cured, the tougher the entire plague grew, making it progressively hard to manage.
“Oh, during the time when those cultists attacked, Gemar Hayi once said, ‘Our healing is helping it to evolve continuously, and it will eventually grow to a form that we cannot cope with at all…’”
As Alima reminisced, Doro felt a jolt in her heart and began to grasp this phenomenon.
Mutations… the virus carrying the plague was mutating at an accelerated rate! The principle behind the Path of Redemption’s healing of infectious diseases was to enhance the body’s immune system to selectively eliminate infectious bacteria. However, this plague virus fought against this elimination through constant mutation.
The original version of this virus seemed to already challenge the immune system of normal humans. The immune system could only clear this virus with the strengthening provided by the Path of Redemption. Yet the mutation rate of this virus was rapid; against the enhanced version of the immune system, it quickly adapted and strengthened itself for confrontation, causing the Extraordinary Beings of the Path of Redemption to expend more Spirituality and energy to further strengthen the patients’ immune systems. Meanwhile, the virus too was evolving further through constant clashes with the immune system.
Thus, the enhanced immunity of the Path of Redemption and the virus of the Plague of Exhaustion began a continual back-and-forth competition. The more the healers of the Path of Redemption invested their efforts, the more they inadvertently strengthened the virus, ultimately crafting a version of the virus that became difficult to manage. In a sense, these Extraordinary Beings of the Savior Sect were training this virus…
“No wonder… When Vania treated the victims of the Plague of Exhaustion who fled to Adus, the viruses in the patients were so resilient… It turns out that this virus had had numerous encounters with the Extraordinary Beings of the Path of Redemption in Busairite long before. This virus had evolved to a considerable degree under the hands of the Extraordinary Beings of the Savior Sect…”
Doro thought, and as she pondered this issue, another possibility suddenly came to mind.
“Speaking of which… the Eternal Life Cult specifically chose to spread the plague in this fringe region of Busairite; their objective wouldn’t be to train the virus, would it…
“Busairite has the influence of the Savior Sect, and the only major organization with extraordinary beings of the Path of Redemption beyond the Church is various heretical factions of the Church, among which the Savior Sect is the largest. They deliberately spread the plague in Busairite—are they not looking to train a new type of plague virus using the Extraordinary Beings of the Path of Redemption here?
“For the Eternal Life Cult, the Savior Sect is much easier to deal with than the Church, especially since Busairite is far from the Church’s conventional sphere of influence. They pay little attention to what happens here, and once they’ve trained the virus in Busairite, if they unleash it on the densely populated cities of the Main Continent… wouldn’t the Church’s ability to combat the virus be significantly weakened?”
