Sickness Qi

Zhou Zhi felt that it was not right for so many people to distrust doctors and instead believe in themselves or some unheard-of folk remedy.

Ahead, Liang Xiao's body had already grown larger than his son's had been before.

His once gaunt insides seemed to have been filled with rotten flesh.

At that moment, the stench was overwhelming.

The smell of that rotten flesh seemed capable of flooding the entire space.

Nerves extended outward, directly seizing two patients who had failed to escape in time.

"Uncle Liang..."

"Uncle Liang!"

"It's us, us!!!"

The monster whose face resembled dead tree bark wore Liang Xiao's face, and the stench of rotten meat billowed from it.

It moved toward the two of them.

The two were held in the air by flesh nerves, forcing smiles onto their faces.

Before they could say another word, the flesh nerves pierced into their bodies.

The nerves, like needles, churned through their flesh and blood.

Shreds of meat filled the air before falling down.

The smell of blood mingled with the stench of rotten flesh.

"Uncle Liang!"

Xia Yu pulled Xiao Nan behind her.

Night was about to fall. There was no way they could leave Liang Xiao's house now.

"Xiao Nan, Uncle Liang has... has pathogenized into a Disease Seed!"

The monster before them now was nothing but a monster!

Liang Xiao, contaminated by the poison of rotten flesh!

Zhou Zhi stood at the front.

His scalpel swayed slightly.

"[Primary Pathogen]."

"So this is how diseases are ranked in this world."

The [Mucus Man] Zhou Zhi had killed before had not carried such a rank marker.

That meant the current [Liang Xiao (Meat Toxin)] was somewhat stronger.

"Pathogenized after coming into contact with rotten flesh."

"My heart's beating a little fast, and my head is slightly dizzy."

"Something in the air is lowering my blood pressure."

Zhou Zhi lowered his scalpel slightly.

If Pestilence had rankings, then Plague Exterminators in this world naturally had ranks as well.

He wondered whether he, this so-called Plague Exterminator, even counted as a beginner yet.

Zhou Zhi raised his head.

From the first moment Zhou Zhi had seen him, Liang Xiao had looked like a harmless, kind old man.

Now that he had been contaminated by disease, he looked even more pitiable.

But...

This patient was no good person either.

His right hand grew warm.

High-Temperature Boiling Disinfection.

[Surgery Start].

"The toxins in rotten flesh won't be removed just by boiling."

Zhou Zhi leaped into the air.

White energy flowed behind him.

From the very beginning, Zhou Zhi directly unleashed all the power he currently possessed.

A blade technique centered around [Lung Resection].

The scalpel slashed forward, cutting directly toward [Liang Xiao]'s chest.

RIP!!

There was none of the hardness Zhou Zhi had expected. Instead, it felt as though he had stabbed into a pile of rotten meat.

"Watch out!"

Xia Yu cried out from behind him.

From the right came a cold wind carrying the stench of rotten meat.

Zhou Zhi's expression shifted. His entire body spun in midair, and he landed behind [Liang Xiao] in an unusual posture.

"Sure enough, it didn't have much effect."

The scalpel had now been stained by some kind of pitch-black liquid.

It had mixed with the mucus from before.

If Zhou Zhi had any other option, he truly would not have wanted to keep using this scalpel.

Liang Xiao's face was utterly horrifying at that moment.

It no longer resembled the old man he had once been.

Ferocious, diseased, terrifying—it had completely fused with A-Gou's corpse.

The stench of flesh intensified.

Zhou Zhi focused his mind and stared at the lump of rotten meat clutched in Liang Xiao's hand.

That was the source of the meaty smell.

[Rotten Flesh Known as Tai Sui].

"Since it's Meat Toxin, the best method is to remove the source of the Meat Toxin."

Zhou Zhi knew very well that an environment like this was far more terrifying for Meat Toxin to multiply in than the Mucus Man's mucus-filled environment had been.

The gaunt body turned, dragging along A-Gou's corpse, which was stuck to Liang Xiao's back.

Gradually, blood-red Meat Toxin nerves spread through A-Gou's eyes as well.

"What kind of monster is this...?"

Lei Heng and the others were completely dumbfounded.

If the Mucus Man had still been within the limits of their imagination, Liang Xiao's current appearance had utterly surpassed their expectations.

And then...

Ugh.

The smell of Meat Toxin had already spread.

Many of Lei Heng's lackeys, who had no protective measures against Pestilence, were clearly beginning to feel nauseated.

It felt as if they were about to vomit out their internal organs.

"This is... Pestilence..."

Lei Heng wore a mask over his face and was barely safe.

Curled up in a corner, he could only draw the slightest sense of security from the dagger in his hand.

In his eyes, Zhou Zhi's figure felt incredibly reassuring.

"Sister Xia Yu..."

Xiao Nan fell silent. "I feel like I never really knew Uncle Liang from the beginning."

"I never paid attention to what kind of person he was."

The girl shook her head and looked ahead.

The battle was still continuing.

This time, Zhou Zhi found the surgery somewhat difficult.

As time passed, the stench of rotten flesh had begun to seep through his mask and invade his nostrils.

He had no way to check his Pathogenization Index for the moment, but Zhou Zhi felt that it had likely risen quite a bit compared to before.

The scalpel flashed sharply.

It left marks on Liang Xiao's body.

But rotten flesh proliferated and healed instantly.

Zhou Zhi did not stop.

[Disease Accumulation].

When dealing with the Mucus Man before, Zhou Zhi had been contaminated with a large amount of its mucus.

Even High-Temperature Boiling could not completely remove that mucus.

Instead, it had given Bai Xiu's Scalpel the ability to actively infect others with Pestilence.

Zhou Zhi was not certain this would work.

But for now, this method was indeed worth trying.

The surgical blade left cuts across the old man's massive body.

At the same time, the Meat Toxin was corroding Zhou Zhi's body.

The most obvious area was Zhou Zhi's right arm.

The side of his arm and the back of his hand had already been corroded black.

As though he had not been injured at all, Zhou Zhi continued his surgery.

Cough, cough!

When the grotesque old man coughed for the first time.

Zhou Zhi's eyes lit up.

Sure enough!

It worked.

It was not only humans who could fall ill.

At the very least, Disease Seeds transformed from ordinary people could also fall ill.

It was even possible that using the [Power of Pestilence] itself was one kind of Plague Extermination Art in this world!

As time passed.

Liang Xiao grew visibly agitated.

He opened his huge mouth, revealing yellow-brown teeth and black saliva.

The saliva fell onto the ground, corroding the floor tiles and releasing foul fumes.

Those sharp needle-like nerves grew from the flesh and pierced toward Zhou Zhi as he moved rapidly.

"Nerves connected within the flesh can be used to attack."

In Zhou Zhi's field of vision, a faint mist had already appeared above Liang Xiao's head.

That mist was the same as the one currently spread throughout all of Blue Stone Town.

Zhou Zhi regarded it as Sickness Qi.

Everything could fall ill, and the symptoms of that illness would spread into a Pestilence Zone. Above the Pestilence Zone was Sickness Qi.

Liang Xiao, already suffering from a cold, was now critically ill.

[Fighting Sickness with Sickness].

"Cough cough cough cough cough!!!!"

All at once, Liang Xiao burst into violent coughs.

In that instant, from his enormous mouth—

Internal organs!

All of them squeezed out!

Viscous fluid flowed from the old man's seven orifices.

His body rapidly collapsed as well.

The entire scene was so exaggerated that it was almost grotesquely distorted.

Flesh and blood spread across the ground like a carpet.

The stench of rotten meat weakened, yet spread even farther.

[Liang Xiao (Meat Toxin)] died.

[Pestilence Removal complete].