Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

The noble guards turned pale, the sheriff lowered his pistol, and several members of the apothecary association desperately covered their mouths, afraid of making a sound.

They had witnessed three-tiered battles.

I've also heard of the Fourth Order of Majesty.

But they had never seen anyone fight like this before.

It's like borrowing the gaze of someone.

On the crumbling wall of the clock tower, Lund struggled to keep his eyes open.

He watched "Xilun" approach, his eyes showing no fear, only deep weariness and a touch of helplessness.

"You brat..."

he murmured.

"They still came."

The "Silon" stopped in front of him.

He reached out and grasped the spear that was piercing Lund's shoulder blade.

The gun, tainted by the Black Death cult, was instantly covered in black frost.

Crack.

The gun shattered.

Lund's body fell forward.

"Silen" caught him.

It's very light.

Like catching an old leaf that has been knocked down by the rain.

The real Xiren watched this scene from the depths of his consciousness.

He wanted to reach out.

But it couldn't move.

He wanted to call the teacher.

It couldn't make a sound either.

Lund's chest was still rising and falling slightly.

But the undulations were too shallow.

It's so shallow it looks like it might break at any moment.

The fourth-tier man finally moved.

His black umbrella was lowered by the rain, revealing a pair of gray-white eyes beneath the edge.

"Who are you?"

His voice was gentle, yet it carried a deep sense of wariness.

"This is the ritual site of the Holy Yuan Black Death Cult. If you take him away, you will ruin a plan that has been underway for six years."

"Silen" held Lund and turned his head slightly.

He seemed to smile slightly.

"Six years?"

The sound came from Xilun's throat, but it was not in his tone at all.

Gentle, languid, with a cold indifference that looks down on the dust from above.

"You mud-dwelling creatures always like to make things seem like they take forever."

The bird-beak mask roared, "Insolence!"

The next moment, his mask cracked open.

A thin line of blood runs from the center of the forehead to the jawline.

He stood frozen in place, unable to even let out a scream.

The fourth-tier man's pupils contracted.

He saw it clearly.

Just now, "Xilun" only glanced at the bird-beak mask.

That's it.

This is not normal.

This is definitely not normal.

Behind the fourth-tier man, a huge gray-black disease ring slowly emerged.

The stench of decay suddenly intensified, and the remaining bloodstains on the ground began to boil, with bluish-black bubbles rising from the muddy water.

He can't retreat.

The plague cocoon was located beneath the clock tower.

Lund's blood is the last key.

Nuerles' dream has already touched the city; it's just a hair's breadth away from plunging Saint Laurent into genuine panic.

He doesn't simply serve evil gods.

He used to be a doctor at the Third Charity Hospital. He had seen too many people from the lower classes rotting in their hospital beds, and he had seen that even the dogs of the nobility had medicine available, while the children of workers could only wait to die with cold towels on their hands.

He hated this order.

In the end, hatred leads them to prefer welcoming an evil god.

Because at least the plague is fair.

It will not take a detour because of a noble surname.

It will kiss every face.

"I can't let you take him away."

The fourth-rank man said softly.

"This city needs a serious illness."

"Xilun" raised his eyes.

"Then you should die too."

As soon as he finished speaking, the black crow flapped its wings.

Suddenly, the rain that had been falling over the entire camp flowed upwards towards the sky.

Rainwater flows backwards towards the sky.

It wasn't blown up by the wind.

Instead, the entire camp was empty, as if an invisible hand had seized every drop of rain, pulling them inch by inch from the mud, pools of blood, cracks in the bricks, and the eye sockets of corpses back into the clouds.

The crowd outside the blockade fell completely silent.

Those onlookers, dressed in clean leather shoes, finally realized they weren't sitting in a theater watching a play.

The stage cracked.

Something older, higher, and more indifferent than the plague is looking down at them.

"Silen" held Lund and stood on the edge of the clock tower's ruins.

The black trench coat was lifted up by the reverse flow of rainwater, its hem billowing upwards like a pair of tattered crow wings.

Lund's blood was still flowing.

From the shoulder blade, from the side of the ribs, from the palm.

The blood didn't fall to the ground.

Pulled by some force, it stretched into a thin line in mid-air, wrapped around the wrist of "Xilun," and ticked slowly towards the cracks in the clock tower's bricks.

The real Siron watches from the depths of darkness.

He can see everything.

It felt like being locked in a cold coffin.

The body is not his.

His throat wasn't his.

Even their heartbeats are far apart.

He could only watch as Lady Black Crow used her hand to wipe the rain and blood from Lund's face.

The movements were very gentle.

Light to the point of being gentle.

"So noisy."

"Silen" said in a low voice.

Nobody knows who she's talking about.

Perhaps it refers to the broken groans of the dying in the camp, perhaps it refers to the writhing mass underground, or perhaps it simply refers to the unbearable pain deep within Xilun's consciousness.

Lund's lips moved.

"You brat..."

His eyes were cloudy, yet he still tried to focus, as if trying to find the young man he had taught marksmanship to in that familiar face.

"Don't... do what I did."

"Xilun" looked down at him.

"He can't hear."

Lund smiled.

Blood foam gushed from the corner of his mouth.

"Then... please... tell him."

"What a hassle."

As Lady Black Raven said this, she still raised her finger and touched Lund's forehead.

A thin ray of black light penetrated the skin and flesh.

Lund's rapid breathing calmed down slightly.

But only slightly.

His body had long been ravaged by plague, gunshot wounds, contamination, and fourth-tier power, like a lamp drenched by a downpour, the wick still glowing red, but with very little oil left.

"You look like you're going to die."

"Xilun" was a casual remark.

"Silon" placed him on a relatively intact stone platform inside the clock tower.

A golden spear lay horizontally to the side.

The gun barrel was stained with blood.

That was Lund's blood.

It is also the blood of the Black Death cultists.

A fourth-ranking man stood at the other end of the clock tower, holding a black umbrella.

A gray-black ring of disease spun behind him, and countless patients' faces were vaguely visible within it.

The elderly, children, workers, prostitutes, dockworkers, and veterans who lost their hands and feet.

Their mouths were open, but no sound came out.

Only a rotten, sweet smell grew stronger with each press.

"I've seen beings like you before."

The fourth-rank man spoke softly.

His right hand slid down from the umbrella handle, his knuckles thin and dry, and the dark blue veins under his skin bulging like earthworms.

"It's not your true self, just a vessel, a shell, a transaction."

"You are very strong."

"But this body is very weak."

"Xilun" raised an eyebrow.

It was as if I had heard something that was barely interesting.

"You're not too stupid."

The fourth-level man showed no anger.

He looked at Lund being laid down, then at the burned-out camp below the clock tower.

There were charred shacks, overturned porridge buckets, and half-eaten white masks soaking in sewage.

There are many more people who have died.

Not just Black Death cultists.

There are also homeless people.

There were patients who voluntarily drank the medicine.

There were pregnant women who were dragged in to be used as experimental subjects.

There were children who tried to escape but were shot dead at the door.

"Do you think I'm cruel?"

The fourth-ranking man suddenly asked.

"Silon" did not reply.

He then chuckled to himself.

"I used to think that way too."

"When I was a doctor at the Third Charity Hospital, people would kneel in front of me every day begging for medicine."

The mother held her child, who was convulsing from a high fever, while the old worker, holding the copper coins he had saved for half a year, asked me if he could owe me some.

The wounded man brought in from the dock had a leg that could have been saved, but because they couldn't afford the three pounds needed for surgery, they had to have it amputated.

He looked up into the distance.

The rain flowed backward, and the clouds resembled a torn black cloth, revealing the scarlet night behind them.

"On the same day, a noble lady in the southern district had her hunting dog cough twice, and four doctors came to her door with twenty-seven kinds of medicines."

"Do you know how many people could be saved by the cost of that dog's medicine?"

"Xilun" finally started to get impatient.

"You guys like to tell stories before you kill someone?"

The fourth-ranking man chuckled softly.

"Because I didn't intend to kill anyone."

"I made this city sick."

He reached up and pressed his hand to his chest.

The gray-black disease ring suddenly expanded.

From the cracks in the clock tower's bricks, wisps of bluish-black mist rose, like countless thin snakes crawling out of the ground.

"The nobility are sick."

"Bankers get sick."

"The legislator will get sick."

"Even people who watch the spectacle while wearing white gloves can get sick."

"Only then will they realize that the groans of the lower classes are no different from their own."

Outside the blockade, someone let out a short, sharp gasp.

Several members of the pharmacists' association began to back away.

One of the middle-aged pharmacists, his face ashen, whispered, "They've gone mad... They're really going to let the plague spread throughout the city..."

The noble guards beside him tried to draw their guns.

But I found that my fingers were so stiff they didn't feel like my own.

Below the clock tower, not all of the third-tier servants who had been defeated by "Xilun" had died.

The woman with the broken knee lay face down in the mud, her hands gripping the ground, her fingernails cracked.

Her face was hidden beneath her grey robe, and she made gurgling sounds in her throat.

"High Priest..."

She struggled to lift her head.

"The cocoon... can't stop..."

The fourth-level man did not turn around.

"Then let's continue."

These three words were uttered.

The ground around the clock tower suddenly bulged up.

It's like a giant heart beating underground.

thump.

thump.

thump.

From the room in the center of the camp, sealed off by black cloth and chains, came damp, rustling sounds.

"Xilun" glanced to the side.

The real Xilun also saw it.

He had been to that room during the day.

Outside, porridge was being served; inside, the hospital beds were neatly arranged; people in white masks and gray robes moved about carrying medicine, making it look like a dirty but still orderly relief center.

Now, the walls there are breathing.

Blackish-red blood seeped from the cracks in the bricks.

Behind the window were layers of fleshy membranes, with countless human faces protruding from them, which were then slowly smoothed out from the inside by something.

Lund's blood slid down the outer wall of the clock tower.

With each brick glided over, the bluish-black mist thickened.

Xilun was suddenly jolted in the depths of his consciousness.

No.

Don't let the teacher's blood flow.

He struggled desperately.

The thing that held him in the darkness remained completely still.

Lady Black Crow seemed to have heard him and clicked her tongue softly.

"Shut up."

"If you keep causing trouble, this body will crack first."

Xilun paused for a moment.

Then it silently crashed into the edge of darkness.

The fourth-tier man noticed the fleeting ripple in "Silen's" eyes.

He smiled knowingly.

"I see."

"He's still alive."

"It seems the deal isn't finalized."

The fourth-rank man slowly raised his hand.

Within the sickroom, gray hands reached out, like the dead struggling to rise from countless sickbeds.

"Then let him see it clearly."

"See clearly how his teacher's blood became the first drop of holy water in the new world."

Before he could finish speaking...

The woman with the broken knee in the mud suddenly screamed and lunged at the stone platform.

Her legs were broken, but she supported herself on her arms. Her back was split open, and two bone spurs covered in mucus emerged, dragging her body like insect legs at a speed so fast that they were just afterimages.

Another third-tier man with half his face sunken up leaped out of the shadows of the clock tower, his chest opening to reveal a dense mass of dark blue vesicles inside.

The third person was even more straightforward.

He knelt on the ground, plunged his hands into his throat, ripped open his neck, tore off his head, and threw it at "Silon".

The head opened its eyes in mid-air.

A cloud of dark brown mist spewed from its mouth.

Wherever the mist passed, the broken bricks of the bell tower rotted silently, and the iron railings peeled and crumbled, as if they had undergone decades of decay in an instant.

Three people, third rank.

A desperate counterattack.

No one dares to underestimate them.

The onlookers outside the cordon had their hearts in their throats.

Even the fourth-level man narrowed his eyes slightly.

He didn't expect these servants to be able to kill the unknown being before him.

He only needs to stall for a moment.

A moment is enough.

Lund's blood had already flowed onto the outer eaves of the third floor of the clock tower.

It was only a few feet away from the black and red ditch of the central house.

"Xilun" stood still.

He simply raised his right hand, fingers spread.

The rain that was flowing backwards towards the sky suddenly stopped.

Every drop of rain stopped in mid-air.

next moment.

The raindrops turned black.

It was as black as night itself, crushed and soaked into water.

She closed her five fingers together.

boom!

Countless black raindrops fell against the current.

The woman with the broken knee was nailed to the ground, her two back bones shattered into powder.

The cysts in the sunken-faced man's chest cavity burst simultaneously, but instead of escaping outwards, they were forced back into his body by the black rain. His entire body was like a sac filled with sewage, bursting open with a bang.

The flying head stopped three feet in front of "Xilun".

Lady Black Crow looked up at it.

The madness in the skull's eyes froze.

Then, starting from the pupil, countless black lines appeared.

Snapped.

It broke.

It wasn't a scene of flying blood and flesh.

Instead, it resembles a piece of charcoal scattered by the wind.

The ashes were swallowed up by the swirling rain before they even hit the ground.

The third-rank servants were all killed.

Throughout the entire process, "Xilun" did not even move an inch.

The sickly ring behind the fourth-tier man did not dim.

On the contrary, the flesh and blood of those dead servants were being sucked little by little into the central room along the dark blue grooves in the ground.

"Sacrifice is not to stop killing."

The fourth-rank man said softly.

"Sacrifice requires killing."

"The faster you kill, the faster the cocoon awakens."

"Xilun" finally frowned.

She looked toward the central room.

The thumping there became deeper.

thump.

thump.

thump.

Like a heart that doesn't belong to the human world, opening its eyes in a dream.

Lady Black Crow suddenly laughed.

"That's interesting."

"Has the birth already begun?"

She turned her head, her scarlet eyes reflecting the writhing room.

"Could it be that it sensed my presence?"

The gentle expression on the fourth-rank man's face finally cracked.

"Who exactly are you?"

Xilun did not answer.

She turned around and looked at him again.

With her black hair plastered to her pale cheeks, Xilun's originally cold and hard features now exuded a kind of inhuman beauty and cruelty.

"This body is far too fragile."

She raised her hand and looked at the bloody cracks in her palm.

The black bone whistle mark was burned deep into the flesh of the palm.

"It's barely enough to bear even a little bit of divine power."

"so--"

She looked up.

Don't waste my time.

The fourth-rank man remained silent.

The black umbrella slipped from his hand.

The moment the umbrella touched the ground, the entire ring of sickness beneath the clock tower unfolded with a roar.

The gray-black light engulfed the ruins.

Countless patients' faces opened their eyes in the light.

The fourth-tier witcher's body began to change.

His thin shoulders slowly rose, his back arched, and patches of grayish-white, scaly scabs appeared under his skin. His fingernails grew like curved scalpels, and a black wound, like a vertical pupil, split open on his chest.

There was no blood in the wound.

Only the ever-rolling plague fog.

"My name is Eli."

He said.

The voice remained gentle.

Yet it already carries the echoes of countless patients.

"Former surgeon at the Third Charity Hospital."

"Holy Origin Black Death Cult Master Ritual".

"Nurles was the one who opened the door to Saint Laurent."