Vacuum Theocracy.
Gaya, a city on the eastern coastline.
It lay beneath a shroud of disease fog.
Sunlight was never seen year-round.
Ever since that day, the Gaya Coast had welcomed "them."
The tumors of the Immortality Tree bore fruits of malice.
Their flesh gradually peeled open, revealing strange-looking, horrifying, grotesque diseases amid scattered droplets of fluid.
An aberrant creation as massive as a mountain—[Breast Cancer].
A gushing stream of viscous yellow liquid—[Stomach Cancer].
Ever more horrifying creations filled every corner of the present world.
The populace became diseased, and Plague Exterminators died.
In an extremely short time, the Gaya region fell.
But humans truly were adaptable creatures.
Many Plague Exterminators and ordinary civilians actively embraced the Immortality Army, willingly becoming breeding grounds for [Benign Tumors].
"I didn't expect this place to still resemble the human world a little."
On the street.
Zhou Zhi pondered inwardly.
Pedestrians, buildings, Vacuum-style reliefs and murals.
The air was filled with the strange stench of bodily fluids.
There were quite a few humans on the streets.
Their defining trait was that their average degree of disease transformation was absurdly high.
Seventy or eighty was the norm.
And most ridiculously, regardless of age or gender, special external tumors grew on their bodies.
Their faces bore fanaticism and sincerity. Those tumors seemed to be the reason they had survived until now.
"Every tumor cell contains genomic changes that cause its abnormal growth—this is a form of malice toward the cell itself."
Twenty-Three greatly disliked this atmosphere.
Passing through the listless cries of vendors hawking their wares.
Zhou Zhi had little interest in the disease-transformed food displayed on the streets.
On these streets.
The Longevity Path had become the largest sect.
It disregarded all official state authorities.
Fanatical believers preached here.
"This tumor is a gift