In the spacious rock cavern, dark red mist carried the sour stench of rot as grotesque monsters chanted in babbling cries.
They were enormous, astonishingly numerous, and varied in countless forms and functions. Some had a single powerful arm growing from their chests, while others had many hands and feet like centipedes.
The only thing they had in common was that most of them were covered in pustules, their limbs festering and rotten.
The dark red mist seemed to have been squeezed from those pustules, while the huge mosquitoes and flies swarming around them appeared to have grown from the same place, clustering affectionately at their sides like offspring.
These unconventional mutants called themselves "Plague Monks." They worshipped the omnipresent, omnipotent "Plague" and regarded it as a treasure.
Rather than mutants, they were more like stitched abominations born from countless mutants being torn apart and rearranged. They had completely departed from the very concept of "human."
The monster surrounded by those babbling cries was even more so.
Its name was Sodo. It was the prophet of the Plague Monks and the chieftain of the Bloodhoof Clan.
Its bloated body surpassed even Olong of the Rockaxe Clan. Its two heads shared three eyes, and the long horns growing from its skull were embedded with rusted bells that gave off ominous jingling sounds as it swayed and performed its rites.
Its swollen body and sparse fur made it resemble a diseased plague pig. Paired with that kind and genial smile, it was indescribably eerie.
Before it stood a pot of thick, dark red soup bubbling violently, filled with pus squeezed from the pustules on its body.
There was clearly no fire beneath the pot, yet bubbles rose without end, bursting into dark red mist like boiling water. Except what boiled was not