Netheril’s Glory

Chapter 117: Researching the Plague.

With the thinking speed and capacity of an official-level powerhouse, Punk quickly browsed through all the memories of Madd in front of him.

"A big plague suddenly broke out?"

Punk casually threw the bloody and dying Madd on the ground and then, using several prophetic spells, confirmed the authenticity of the information he just obtained.

Finally, after organizing both pieces of information, Punk gained a vague understanding of Ti Xiaer's plans.

That self-proclaimed goddess somehow acquired a piece of legendary equipment that could help a person absorb the power of faith, then either she didn't know or deliberately ignored its side-effects in order to quickly gain strength through the power of faith. With such a plan in mind, she should have founded this cult, and after that, used some drugs to brainwash people into joining it.

At that time, Ti Xiaer should still have her reason and wisdom. After all, she organized a whole religion and hid in the dark while slowly infiltrating into the leadership of Dolez city and even managed to gain the allegiance of the high priest, who was formally an official-level powerhouse.

But Punk still had some dought about why Ti Xiaer suddenly gave up hiding and exposed herself when her wings were not fully spread. And why she suddenly released a magical plague and even started to forcibly brainwashed people in a frenzy.

Punk had no doubt that Ti Xiaer was behind the plague. After all, he clearly saw in Madd's memory how the suddenly appeared cult became crazier and crazier and started to force people to drink a liquid called "Holy water," which could instantly turn a person into a fanatic believer and "coincidentally" it could even cure the plague. Naturally, because of it, many of the townspeople also voluntarily joined the Ti Xiaer Church in order to save themselves from the plague."

Punk patted the brim of his hood lightly, which revealed his thoughtful expression.

So now the question that was in Punk's mind was why Ti Xiaer exposed her trump card-the plague and revealed her not-so-strong church in a hurry, and risked complete destruction of her foundation.

From the angle of interest, she had nothing to gain except for a few crazy believers whose faiths would be fundamentally corrupt. The loss was too disproportionate to the gain. It was like a person selling his house just to buy a bottle of water, which was obviously abnormally unreasonable.

"So then......under what circumstances would a person buy a bottle of water at all costs? The answer is simple... when she is about to die of thirst."

Now, all the clues were adding up, and Punk became more clear about Ti Xiaer's purpose.

For some reason, this "goddess" was in desperate need of faith, so she had to collect faith through the temptation of plague treatment, and of course, brainwashing and persecution were also used.

Obviously, this method of collecting beliefs would not work long-term, and as soon as a strong powerhouse from the good camp took action, Ti Xiaer would definitely suffer a heavy blow.

However, in the short term, the effect of this method would be huge, and it was indeed the most efficient method to obtain a large amount of faith very quickly.

At this time, Punk also recalled how Ti Xiaer was crazy or even outright stupid when he first saw her.

"Could it be that she has already lost her sanity from the pollutants in the power of faith?"

Punk shook his head indifferently. At present, he didn't have much knowledge about the power of faith, so it was difficult for him to draw accurate conclusions.

"But from all these clues, I can easily make an educated guess about Ti Xiaer's purpose, so now I have to adjust my future plans."

Punk, who had a vague plan in mind, looked around this dirty alley and saw a few sick, immobile townspeople with widened eyes. They were obviously shocked by the strange scene they had just seen.

"Let's understand this mysterious disease first."

It just so happened that there was no shortage of "experimental materials" around him. While thinking such heartless things, Punk summoned a lavender energy prison without any psychological burden. Purple energy halo shone on Punk robe, which gave his whole body a halo of evil charm.

"What the……"

Punk walked into the White Tower with five or six cages floating in the midair behind him. The cages were filled with sick townspeople who had now been put to sleep by a spell. Punk had planned to start his experiment as soon as possible, but after reaching the white tower's hall, he found that his laboratory was in a mess. All the bottles and jars on the experimental platform had fallen down, the energy of the defensive formation was completely exhausted, and even the leftover aura of the abyss had weakened a lot.

Seeing this scene, he couldn't help but frown slightly.

"Bilan, this idiot, how could she bring unknown people inside the tower?"

Through a few prophetic spells, Punk quickly learned what happened in the white tower in his absence.

He kicked away the corpse of the child wrapped in clothing on the ground and then threw all the alchemy equipment that had fallen on the ground to the corner of the hall.

"Not only did she saved a useless ordinary person, but she even brought him and her little lover into the White Tower and finally contracted the plague. Is this girl's brain is filled with air?"

Punk was very dissatisfied with his cheap apprentice at this moment, but the other party was far away in Dolez, and he also didn't has the time or energy to deal with such an insignificant person.

Ignoring this trivial matter, Punk quickly recovered his calm mood. The loss of laboratory equipment was not a problem for him as it was easy to make some temporary experimental equipment with spells.

So he concentrated on his most urgent task at this moment which was to conduct experiments as soon as possible, and obviously, he also couldn't ignore the threat of Ti Xiaer, who was a fourteenth-level powerhouse.

Opening the first cage full of sick people, he first picked out more than a dozen dying refugees and threw them to No. 1.

No. 1 had the ability to restore itself by devouring the flesh of other creatures, and as a true official-level existence, it was not afraid of the infection of the low-level magical disease at all.

As No. 1 loudly crunched its food in the middle of the hall, Punk took a girl out of the second cage and put her on the experimental platform.

The girl had faint freckles on her face, and with wheat-colored skin and smooth hair, she looked very cute. But now, she was under the effect of a spell and was sleeping peacefully, utterly ignorant of her impending fate.

Punk obviously didn't have the sadistic taste of torturing his experimental subjects, so he used a little mental power to destroy the girl's brain, causing her to die instantly in her sleep.

"Let's see what is inside."

Punk, who dissected many human bodies previously, was very clear about the internal structure of the human body. After peeling off all the skin of the experimental subject with a small trick, the surgical knife attached with a sharpness spell easily followed every muscle of the girl's body without touching any other things. Then the organs and lymph, and finally the blood vessels and nerves were separated. In this whole process, Punk's speed was so fast that his hand created afterimages, and in less than five minutes, on the experimental platform, the only thing that was left of that cute girl was a clean skeleton.

Punk examined the muscles, viscera, and other body tissues one by one. After completing his examination, Punk found that there was no problem with the visceral and lymphatic organs, but there were many wriggling gray silk threads in the girl's muscle tissue. And after another examination, he found that these silk threads were present in the muscles and bones in every inch of the girl's body.

He stared at the complete skeleton on the experimental platform with a solemn expression. Every inch of the girl's bones was covered with dense gray lines, just like putting a layer of gray wire mesh on each bone. Also, the gray lines weakened the structure of bone cells.

According to the system's analysis, the denser the spread of these gray lines, the more fragile the bones of diseased organisms would become. In the end, even breathing might cause the bones to shatter.

After such a round of anatomy, Punk had a very intuitive understanding of the symptoms of this plague. He also figured out some other information, like how this plague likely spread through physical contact. And even though it was a magical disease, it only had the ability to infect apprentice or lower-level creatures.

The infected person's body would become the breeding ground of the gray silk threads, and as its concentration increased, their bones would become fragile. In just one week, the infected person would completely lose the ability to move, and during this period, the patients would suffer a large number of fractures; therefore, the process of a patient's death would be both long and painful.

And as ordinary people, there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.