The ancient wilds.
This region lay near the Southern Kingdoms and had become a gathering place for refugees. Many stayed here because Tower City nearby provided relief.
But now, this region had become a hell on earth, with tens of thousands of corpses lying exposed in the wilderness. After the plague broke out on a massive scale, many towns established fortresses near road checkpoints to keep the hordes of refugees away, while people fled in droves from cities already ravaged by the plague, creating still more refugees. The Southern Kingdoms had now sealed their borders, and many cities had gone on alert, barring outsiders from entering. But migrating populations were not the only means by which the plague spread. The vast numbers of corpses gave rise to terrible diseases, and the most terrifying of these was the rat-borne plague.
Although this world had no Black Death, similar diseases still existed.
If the Gods had retained their divine status, they certainly would not have allowed such a plague to spread. But now that they had all fallen to the mortal world and assumed avatar form, their means of containing the plague had grown much weaker.
The clerics could no longer keep up with the speed at which the plague spread.
Even counting the clerics from every temple, a large town had only a dozen or so in total. Even if they devoted all their daily divine spells to healing, they could save only so many people. Compared with the millions infected across the Material Plane, the clerics' strength was practically negligible, and the Gods lacked the divine power needed to support them.
As the plague spread, an even worse situation arose.
Humans were the most numerous race on the Material Plane, and as the plague spread, especially with famine still persisting...