Plague Disciple

"Prefect Lord? Prefect Lord, hang in there! Lord Stephen is coming!"

As soon as the Beyonder characteristic slipped into his esophagus, illusions resembling those from taking the Disease Deceiver surged up again.

A group of clergymen dressed unlike the clergy of the Church of Dawn surrounded "Ning Xiuyuan," each wailing miserably, tears and mucus streaming down their faces.

"It's useless. Listen to me. I took the Plague Disciple without permission. I was wrong. I shouldn't have taken it. Remember, after I die, separate it and destroy it. Never let it appear again. It is the Mother of Plague, the blasphemous characteristic, the Chaotic Calamity! Also, destroy all my medical notes after February 7. Don't read them. Remember..."

As soon as these words, spoken from Ning Xiuyuan's first-person perspective, emerged, indescribably complex emotions surged like an angry sea, battering the embankment of Ning Xiuyuan's reason.

It was a strange emotion in which relief mingled with fear, joy was contained within sorrow, and composure hid beneath guilt.

In a daze, Ning Xiuyuan felt as though he had awakened memories from his previous life and transformed into the Prefect.

Driven by an obsession with saving lives and healing the wounded, "he" had swallowed the Plague Disciple with immense courage, attempting to grasp the source of plague and sever disease at its root.

But he had been wrong.

The Plague Disciple's Beyonder characteristic forced him to spread plague in order to fuse with it.

But with a physician's compassionate heart, how could he do that? How could he dare?

Yet the price of resisting the Beyonder characteristic was—losing control!

As his consciousness neared extinction, the Prefect could not help but pray and pour out his heart to the Lord, confessing the sins he had committed and seeking the Lord's redemption!

"Great Lord, please forgive your devout believer's eagerness for quick success. I shouldn't have tried to understand the source of plague. Please have mercy on me, forgive me, and redeem me!"

The Lord seemed to hear his voice. He felt his soul float out of his decayed, fallen, deformed body and drift toward the Lord's eternally blissful kingdom.

"Uncle, don't worry. I've already found a famous doctor. His medical skills are extraordinary. He'll cure you, I promise!"

"Really?"

"Dad, did you hear that? Any doctor Sister Angela praises must be incredibly capable!"

The faint praise passed through endless spacetime and reached the Unknown Place of the Creation Department, gently echoing beside Ning Xiuyuan's ear as his mind nearly transformed into the Prefect.

The voice was not loud, yet it was like thunder.

"What is this?"

Ning Xiuyuan abruptly opened his eyes. A boundless farm covered in countless rolled-up bundles of straw tore his consciousness completely away from the Prefect's emotions.

"I'm not the Prefect. I'm... Arthur!"

"I'm Ning Xiuyuan!"

Ning Xiuyuan's pupils widened, and sweat poured from his entire body!

He could hardly believe that he had unknowingly fallen into someone else's world of consciousness, nearly perishing and dissipating along with it.

"The Prefect? The previous owner of the Plague Disciple? Such a powerful spiritual imprint. Could the strength of the spiritual imprint differ for every Beyonder characteristic?"

Ning Xiuyuan's face paled slightly.

This experience was completely different from that of the Disease Deceiver, and it left him shaken.

If several strands of hopeful voices had not awakened his reason at the critical moment, he might have been utterly corrupted!

"That was far too reckless! Fortunately, the previous owner's spiritual imprint from the Disease Deceiver didn't activate. Otherwise, my situation might have been even worse."

Fear welled up within Ning Xiuyuan.

If he had known this would happen, he probably would not have taken this Beyonder characteristic.

The feeling of completely forgetting himself had been too terrible.

"Whew..."

Ning Xiuyuan took a deep breath to ease the shock in his heart, then carefully sensed the Bird-beaked Monster's Beyonder characteristic.

This Beyonder characteristic was called the Plague Disciple.

In theory, it could control every kind of plague. Plague would be its weapon.

The higher the degree of fusion with the Beyonder characteristic, the wider the range of plague it could spread and the greater its power!

Its Beyonder ritual was likewise the spreading of plague.

Only when within a plague's area of effect would the Beyonder characteristic feel comfortable and at peace.

However, since it was called a disciple, that also meant it was not itself a plague.

Ning Xiuyuan's heart stirred. A pig-snouted biochemical protective suit grew out of his body and rapidly covered him, wrapping him up tightly.

"No wonder that monster appeared in the form of a medieval bird-beaked doctor. So this is the plague immunity granted by the Beyonder characteristic!"

Ning Xiuyuan examined the protective suit, which clearly bore a science-fiction aesthetic, and marveled inwardly.

The reason he had manifested a pig-snouted gas mask was ultimately that his understanding of plague differed completely from that of the Bird-beaked Monster.

After all, bird-beaked masks had been the gas masks used by medieval doctors.

With a thought, the pig-snouted biochemical protective suit melted away like snow beneath the spring sun. Ning Xiuyuan tried to switch to the appearance of a bird-beaked doctor.

Yet no matter how he stimulated the Beyonder characteristic with his spirituality, he could not grow a bird-beaked mask on his body. Instead, various gas masks kept changing form.

"Is it based on my subconscious understanding of protective gear?"

Ning Xiuyuan vaguely reached a guess and stopped investigating further.

Beyonder characteristics did not conform to rational understanding in the first place;

or rather, their existence far exceeded the limits of Ning Xiuyuan's knowledge.

Trying to understand their principles was like a primitive man trying to understand how a cellphone worked—an endeavor as difficult as reaching the heavens.

For Ning Xiuyuan, he only needed to "know what it did" for now and learn how to use it.

As for "knowing why it did it"?

That could wait for the future!

After figuring out the range within which he could manifest plague immunity, Ning Xiuyuan directly used this characteristic to alter his clothes.

A black hooded tracksuit rapidly grew over his body. He wore a black mask over his face and windproof goggles with a slight punk, motorcycle-inspired style over his eyes.

The object that should have served as the oxygen tank for the biochemical protective suit was reshaped by Ning Xiuyuan into a backpack, which he used to carry the Crystal Lantern.

This outfit, which barely approached the appearance of a normal urban human, was the limit of his modifications.

Afterward, Ning Xiuyuan used the shared vision of the rats as a mirror to examine himself. He carefully adjusted a few details, making himself look as much like an urban young man as possible, before nodding in satisfaction.

He had originally planned to sneak into a human settlement and steal a set of clothes, but now he had saved himself the trouble.

"Ugh!"

Just then, Ning Xiuyuan suddenly clutched his chest, all color draining from his face.

How awful!

His recent use of the Plague Disciple's Beyonder characteristic had caused it to abruptly seethe within him.

They were like starving monsters, hiding inside every cell of Ning Xiuyuan's body, shouting, roaring, and raging.

The environment before him was suffocating them!

Losing control?

Losing control originating from the Beyonder characteristic itself?

Ning Xiuyuan instantly realized what was happening to him!

His heart stirred, and he summoned all the field mice nearby, spreading plague.

As the swarm became infected, Ning Xiuyuan immediately felt that the surrounding air had grown much fresher, and the seething Beyonder characteristic gradually calmed.

But this was not enough.

To him, plague was now like oxygen to humans.

Indispensable and irreplaceable!

The concentration of plague emitted by the swarm could only temporarily suppress the seething Beyonder characteristic. He had to create a suitable environment as soon as possible, or he would inevitably face losing control.

At the same time, deep within his heart, a seductive voice began to whisper.

"Go. Infect more creatures. As long as you can infect the entire world, you will become a god!"