Several mid-ranking priests joined forces to perform purification rituals for the surrounded townspeople. Meanwhile, a younger apprentice priest hurried to the church to fetch the stored holy water.
Holy water, ordinary water blessed with the power of faith and carrying a touch of holy light, possesses the ability to heal wounds and banish evil and filth. Selling holy water to other townsfolk and adventurers is one of the main sources of income for the church.
The town's guards brought bundles of dry straw to incinerate the carcass of the giant wolf.
Felix quietly observed a withered, black heart in his hand, pondering over something.
From recent inquiries, Felix learned that the mercenaries had set a trap and slain the giant wolf in the early hours of the previous night. Less than ten hours had passed since then. The giant wolf’s internal organs had begun to show signs of mild decay, and the heart seemed as if its vitality had been drained, turning into the wilted state he now held.
These mercenaries had killed the giant wolf a bit too early. Otherwise, Felix might have been able to confirm whether the giant wolf was infected with the catastrophic plague.
Felix’s understanding of this catastrophic plague mostly stems from what he learned in the Prime Material plane.
A massive outbreak of this catastrophic plague, affecting numerous races and countless creatures, once occurred in the Prime Material plane. It originated from an experiment by a necromancer, which, by sheer chance, spawned a terrifying plague immune to even the professionals. A lich from the realm of the undead noticed this plague and exploited it to create innumerable undead creatures.
The symptoms of the catastrophic plague typically manifest between two to three days. When the Power of Pestilence completely erodes the life force of a creature, any living being will transform into an undead creature—a truly dreadful fate.
The appearance of this giant wolf clearly wasn't due to genetic mutation, for such creatures wouldn’t possess such dense negative energy. Regrettably, when the giant wolf was slain, the latent elemental force within it hadn't fully erupted.
Without alchemical tools, Felix couldn't determine whether it was infected with the plague.
Shadow elements could aid him in detecting the special force within the giant wolf, but after his rebirth, Felix only possessed the powers of Holy Light and Frost Power—the shadow element had vanished.
What Felix could ascertain was that the giant wolf was definitely infected by some intensely corrosive negative energy. Moreover, this negative energy also had life-creating effects. Judging by the decayed state of the giant wolf’s heart, it had been damaged even while the creature was still alive.
Therefore, the conclusion was:
This unique negative energy could alter life forms, enabling creatures with lifeless hearts to continue living.
Such special forces were scarce in this world, with the catastrophic plague being one of them.
As far as Felix knew, he had encountered two forces capable of altering life forms. One was the catastrophic plague from the Prime Material plane, and the other was from the Delrano world—encountered in a tavern battle, originating from the Oath of the Shattered Blade, where creatures were transformed into demonic life forms by abyssal powers.
Both had the characteristic of continuing to exist in different life forms even after bodily death.
To Felix’s knowledge, although the Delrano world had undead creatures, a large-scale invasion or outbreak of undead had not occurred. Perhaps the liches lurking in the realm of the undead hadn’t shifted their focus to this ancient, primordial plane. Or maybe they preferred not to compete for territory with the abyssal demons, especially in a civilization already tough to conquer.
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Liches aimed to turn planes into realms of the undead, while demons sought to transform the material planes into layers of the abyss.
This was the war of plane conquest.
The mercenaries killed the giant wolf before the force within it could fully erupt, causing the force to dissipate upon its return. This made it impossible for Felix to identify its nature. However, if that force had erupted, the ones dead now would not be the giant wolf but the mercenaries themselves.
After several assessments, Felix felt that the likelihood of either the catastrophic plague or demonic corruption was fifty-fifty.
The former’s symptoms of internal decay closely matched those of the catastrophic plague, while the latter was a common occurrence in the Delrano world.
"Stretch out your hands." After performing purification rituals for the townspeople and dealing with the giant wolf's carcass, Felix approached the mercenaries, who were surrounded and panicked by the town guards.
He drew his long sword and instructed the mercenaries to extend their hands. Then, he made a cut in the palm of each mercenary.
"Holy Cross Purification."
With Felix's incantation, a pure white cross, about the size of a palm and made of Holy Light, appeared in his hand. The cross then split into several orbs of light that entered the bodies of the mercenaries.
As the orbs penetrated, the mercenaries let out piercing, mournful cries, frightening the surrounding guards.
After five minutes of wailing, dark, tainted blood began to seep from the mercenaries' palms—a manifestation of the Holy Light forcing out impurities. These mercenaries were not followers of the Holy Light, so their bodies resisted the Holy Light. To purge the toxins, enduring some pain was inevitable.
A creature's blood is largely stored in its organs, and the giant wolf's vital organs were the primary sites of corruption, making its blood extremely poisonous. The townsfolk, having merely smelled or indirectly contacted the giant wolf's blood, only needed a bit of purification. But these mercenaries required Felix’s personal intervention.
After expelling the poisoned blood, Felix handed an undiluted bottle of holy water to the mercenary leader and said sternly, "Drink this. Then tell me where you found this giant wolf."
In the church, holy water is graded, and naturally, the prices vary. However, as one of the priests from the Prime Material plane, Felix was well aware of the church’s practices.
The so-called grades of holy water were merely a matter of dilution.
The priests knew better than to give Felix any diluted, subpar holy water. Otherwise, they would have faced his retribution.
The appearance of the giant wolf was no coincidence, and Felix was determined to glean specific information from the mercenaries.
"This lord, we hunted the giant wolf in the forest to the south," said the elder mercenary leader, bowing respectfully after treating the wounds.
"Is there anything unusual about the southern forest?" Felix asked thoughtfully.
The mercenary leader shook his head, "No, not really."
"Except, there’s almost no sound of insects there," he added after a moment, as if recalling something. "Nights are usually filled with the sounds of insects, but it's unusually quiet there. That's how we knew the giant wolf was lurking nearby."
"Hmm. Take me there later," Felix instructed with a nod.
After the conversation, Felix summoned the town mayor and asked for parchment and a quill. He penned down his suspicions and handed the parchment to the white-robed bishop, commanding sternly, "Send this letter to the cathedral immediately, without delay."
If someone was indeed creating undead creatures or conducting demonic corruption rituals, it would be tough to confront these dark forces alone.
At such times, leveraging the power of the church of this plane was the wisest move.
It was a quiet and somewhat eerie forest.
As the mercenary leader mentioned, there were no sounds of insects.
Felix, with a calm demeanor, observed the forest. The imbalanced concentration of elements within it gave him precise information.
It was the stench of the abyss.
Although there were faint traces of undead death energy, the dominant force was the corrupting energy from the abyss.
"Go back, seal the news. Don't let anyone leave the town," Felix instructed the town's guard captain sternly. This was just a small town, devoid of true knights. Otherwise, he would have had another ally. After all, in the Delrano world, earning a knight's title at the very least required the strength to step into the Silver Domain.
"Yes," the stoic guard captain didn’t say much. Felix’s serious demeanor made it clear that the situation was grave. He nodded and immediately led the guards towards the town.
As they left, Felix's slender and gaunt figure stealthily merged into the silent forest like a phantom.
St Pilds wasn’t far from here. If a magical message was sent, the Arbitrators from the St Pilds cathedral would arrive by tomorrow morning at the latest.
But before that, Felix needed to stealthily delve in and assess the situation.