Plague Demon Gu
Then, a deafening bell suddenly rang throughout the entire clan, plunging everyone into chaos. Everyone dressed hastily and ran out, looking around in panic.
This bell only rings when the Lineage faces a life-or-death crisis, and it hasn't rung for who knows how many years.
Upon hearing the bell, everyone's expression changed, and their eyes revealed tension.
Soon, figures darted about, and powerful auras gathered in the council hall, with the aura of the Gu King faintly visible.
Upon seeing these figures, all the Gu cultivators of the Long Family were shaken. What had happened that even alarmed the clan's patriarch, who was usually indifferent to all affairs?
They knew that something terrible must have happened, perhaps even concerning the life and death of the Lineage; this was destined to be a sleepless night.
After some time.
"Ancestor, we've already checked. The problem lies with the water source. The Black River flowing through Blackstone City is teeming with these invisible insects."
"It seems this situation isn't targeting my Long Family, but rather the entire Blackstone City."
"The Black River is the water source that flows along the edge of Blackstone City. Every household in the city drinks from the Black River. To tamper with the Black River's water seems like this person intends to massacre the entire Blackstone City!"
Long Yuanshan's pupils contracted, and his face turned ugly.
Upon hearing this, everyone in the room was shocked and began to murmur amongst themselves.
"Who on earth did this? How could they be so treacherous as to want to massacre the entire Blackstone City? What arrogance! Blackstone City is the most fortified city in the Western Land, and it has never been breached since ancient times. How dare they?"
"Fortunately, it was discovered early enough. It's already late at night, and not many people in the tribe need to use water. Otherwise, if everyone had used water by tomorrow morning, the consequences would have been unimaginable."
"Have you already informed all the tribespeople not to use water?"
"We've already notified them, and the water supply has been cut off. We're preparing to contact the Qian Clan Merchant Association to arrange for water to be diverted from a distance."
"Although the few people who had already used the water were infected with the Gu, they were discovered in time and their condition should be relatively stable. They have already been taken to the Medicine Clan and Alchemy Clan for treatment."
"Hmph! It's just that our clan was the first to discover it. Otherwise, if we had waited until tomorrow morning, even if the medical skills of the Alchemy Clan and Medicine Clan were superb, it would have been useless. They wouldn't have been able to take care of themselves. We saved those two clans once, no, we saved the entire city once. If our clan hadn't discovered it early, Blackstone City would have truly perished."
The crowd buzzed with discussion, all eyes turning to an elderly man leaning on a cane in the center of the crowd.
This is the strongest and oldest ancestor in the clan. He is old and frail, and his lifespan is running out. He is at the Late-Stage Gu King realm and is the spiritual pillar of the Western Land Long Family.
This is true in any Lineage. The strongest person may not be in charge, but they will definitely have the most say. Their words are enough to make the entire family carry them out without hesitation.
Long Yuan opened his cloudy eyes and looked at the Black River with a solemn gaze.
The Black River is wide and turbulent, flowing through Blackstone City and serving as the Blackstone City's only water source.
Water may be ordinary, but no one can live without it. A city that loses its water source will eventually become a dead city.
The fact that the Black River water is unusable is not only fatal for the Long Family, but also a matter of life and death for the entire city.
With a population of millions in Blackstone City, solving the water shortage problem for millions of people is extremely difficult.
He sighed, turned his gaze to the upper reaches of the Black River, and finally Music Path, "The upper reaches of the Black River should be Black Moon City, right?"
Many people who knew the inside story understood what the Ancestor meant: these insects came from Black Moon City Black Moon City, and something bad had happened there.
Those unaware of the inside story were completely bewildered, unable to understand why the patriarch would suspect the insects originated from Black Moon City.
It's important to know that there are cities and villages upstream of Black Moon City, and even further upstream. If someone tampers with the river, all the cities downstream will suffer, and Black Moon City might very well be a victim affected by the upstream floods.
Long Yuanshan shared the same view as the patriarch; he knew that Black Moon City would inevitably face a major upheaval in the near future.
He had intended to keep his Lineage out of the mess, but it seems things didn't go as planned. The commotion in Black Moon City eventually affected his Lineage, and he gave a bitter smile.
"Ancestor, you are knowledgeable and experienced. Do you know the origin of this kind of insect? Yuanshan is ignorant and knows nothing about this kind of insect that is invisible to the naked eye in the water, let alone its origin," Long Yuanshan suddenly asked.
"I have a guess in my mind, but I can't be 100% sure. However, since this is a crisis concerning the life and death of the entire city, I'll still share my guess."
Long Yuan scanned the faces of his clansmen, and finally said solemnly, "Do you know that there are countless kinds of these tiny insects, invisible to the naked eye, in this world, and they are everywhere?"
"The air we breathe is full of tiny insects. When we eat, these insects fall into our food and end up in our stomachs."
"We all have these tiny, invisible worms inside our bodies, and there are quite a few of them."
"However, these countless tiny insects are harmless to humans, so very few people can detect them, and even if they do, they don't need to pay attention to them."
Upon hearing this, everyone present was shocked. Many of the more timid people covered their mouths and noses, fearing that the tiny insects in the air would crawl into their bodies through their mouths and noses. But when they heard the ancestor say that everyone already had these insects in their bodies, and in considerable numbers, their faces turned pale.
The ancestor's sudden remarks shattered their understanding and collapsed everyone's worldview; it was the first time they had ever heard such words.
The air was filled with tiny insects invisible to the naked eye, and everyone was terrified by the sight.
Their ancestor was highly respected, and they didn't believe he was joking when he said those things.
Of course, many people still don't believe it and simply don't believe such absurd claims.
This was utterly unbelievable to them; it sounded like a fantasy, and they found it hard to believe.
The world is teeming with these tiny insects, invisible to the naked eye, so many that there's nowhere to hide. It's terrifying; they simply can't believe it.
Upon hearing this, Long Xuan's gaze became thoughtful; he understood what his ancestor was referring to.
It seems that in this world, all very small creatures are classified as insects. What were called bacteria, fungi, and viruses in the previous life are probably all referred to as insects in this world.
It seems that tiny organisms are not undiscovered in this world, but they are all uniformly classified as insects, and therefore not studied in depth, and are difficult to study.
Noticing the expressions on the faces of all his clansmen, Long Yuan sighed softly, "I know many people don't believe me, thinking I'm senile and talking nonsense, but what I'm saying is the truth."
"Insects invisible to the naked eye are indeed everywhere in this world, and there are countless varieties, with some even inside everyone's body."
"However, these tiny insects are harmless to humans, making them difficult to use for refining gu poison, and even more difficult to find, let alone capture."
"Therefore, very few people study this kind of Gu Insect, but it's definitely not nonexistent in this world."
"So far, I only know of one type of Gu Insect that can control this power, and that is the infamous Plague Demon Gu from the Age of Gods."
At this point, Long Yuan's pupils contracted, a hint of fear in his eyes. He looked towards Black Moon City and slowly continued, "Many people probably don't know what the Plague Demon Gu is. The Plague Demon Gu has long since disappeared into the annals of history."
"If it weren't for the unprecedented plague that broke out in Black Moon City fifty years ago, I probably wouldn't have even thought of such a terrifying existence as the Plague Demon Gu."
Legend has it that Age of Gods, there were ten Forbidden Gu (Forbidden Gu required tens of millions of materials and possessed earth-shattering power. Obtaining even one of them would make one invincible.
"However, don't be fooled by the exaggerated amount of materials required to refine Forbidden Gu. Many of these materials are highly overlapping. For example, one of the ingredients in Forbidden Gu Recipe is a living person, and there are millions, or even tens of millions, of them."
"Therefore, refining Forbidden Gu requires killing people, and killing a massive number of people. Each time Forbidden Gu is refined, a city must be sacrificed. If the refinement fails, the sacrifice must continue until the Gu is successfully formed."
"Can you imagine how many people would die to create a Forbidden Gu? How many cities would need to be sacrificed? It's a number you can't even fathom."
"What's even more outrageous is that killing people during the Gu refining process is just the beginning. All Forbidden Gu undergo transformation by killing people, and the more transformations they undergo, the more people they kill."
"Once the Forbidden Gu transforms into its final stage, it will require the massacre of an entire domain, resulting in the deaths of countless billions of humans."
"Many people know that during the Age of Gods, there was a dark period in which Myriad Laws Severance. During that time, the vast majority of traditions were lost, including most of the Gu techniques. Even many historical texts were destroyed on a large scale, which is why we know very little about things from ancient times."
"I'll tell you, the reason is because of the Forbidden Gu."
" In the Age of Gods, there was a demonic force called the Demon Heaven Cult, whose ten Demon Lords each created a powerful Forbidden Gu."
"They gained immense power by sacrificing people to liberate cities. As their power grew, so did the number of people they killed. They would slaughter the entire population of an entire domain to strengthen their Forbidden Gu, ultimately causing a catastrophe that swept across the world."
"In that catastrophe, blood flowed for miles, cities were deserted, and mountains of bones piled up. In many places, the entire population was wiped out, so the traditions of those places were naturally severed and completely disappeared into the long river of history."
"In that glorious era when all techniques contended, because of their slaughter, spear cultivators were wiped out, arrow cultivators were wiped out, and the methods for forging Renowned Artifact were lost..."
"Humanity faced a period of mass extinction, its darkest age. Countless powerful professions perished in this event, and countless powerful traditions vanished completely into the annals of history."
"Under the slaughter of the Ten Demon Lords, corpses littered the land, rivers of blood flowed, and many places were completely wiped out. Vast tracts of land were desolate, devoid of life, with only utter silence and a deathly stillness."
According to records, more than half of humanity perished in this mass extinction event, and more than half of the myriad techniques were lost in this catastrophe.
"In order to refine Forbidden Gu, the Demon Heaven Cult committed all sorts of heinous crimes, incurring the wrath of heaven and the resentment of the people, shaking the very heavens and earth."
"Ultimately, this provoked widespread wrath, leading to a joint effort by the Divine Court and the Heavenly Court, along with numerous other forces, to annihilate them. The Ten Demon Lords perished in that cataclysmic battle, and the entire Forbidden Gu Recipe was destroyed."
"However, the Divine Court and the Heavenly Court also paid a heavy price, both losing more than 70% of their power and being crippled, and it has been tens of thousands of years since they recovered."
"From this point on, the ten types of Gu Insect researched by the Ten Demon Lords were designated as Forbidden Gu, and no one is allowed to touch them anymore. This is the origin of the Ten Forbidden Gu."
"After that battle, the Divine Court and the Heavenly Court joined forces to issue a decree throughout the world, prohibiting anyone from refining Forbidden Gu. Anyone who disobeys will be punished by all the powerful beings in the world, and any powerful being from either side will unconditionally participate in the responsibility of exterminating the demon."
"This decree is indefinite and no one may disobey it. Those who fear the demon and avoid battle will be punished along with the demon."
"I now have reason to suspect that Shi Haojun who refined the Plague Demon Gu, ranked tenth among the Ten Forbidden Gu!"
Long Yuan's expression hardened, and he said in a chilling tone, "The Plague Demon Gu's ability can not only create large-scale plagues, but also control all living things smaller than itself."
"The Plague Demon Gu's domain is Mutation Domain. Within this domain, all living things smaller than the Plague Demon Gu will mutate, transforming from harmless microorganisms into harmful ones."
"Once the Mutation Domain is activated, all the tiny insects invisible to the naked eye in the air will fiercely attack the surrounding Gu cultivators, easily biting through the Spirit Armor on the bodies of high-level Gu cultivators."
"We don't even need to use the tiny insects in the air. You should know that every Gu cultivator has countless tiny insects inside their body. Once these tiny insects mutate under the Mutation Domain, they can change from being harmless to being harmful to the human body."
"It's easy to imagine what will happen to the Gu cultivators in the Mutation Domain. They will either be devoured alive by the countless worms raging within their bodies, or they will have to devote most of their power to forcibly suppressing them."
"The human body is fragile and defenseless. Once countless tiny insects bite into the internal organs, even the most powerful Gu cultivator will die a miserable death."
"Under these circumstances, simply surviving is difficult enough; how can we possibly contend with the master of the Plague Demon Gu?"
"Faced with such terrifying power, human wave tactics are completely useless against the Plague Demon Gu's wielder. He can slaughter a city of millions with ease, and it won't take long. No matter how many people there are, can they outnumber the insects controlled by the Plague Demon Gu?"
"The Black River is so vast and wide that perhaps only this Plague Demon Gu could so easily create such a terrifying number of insects that could fill the entire river."
"Besides the Plague Demon Gu, I don't believe any other power could accomplish such a terrifying feat!"
"So that's why Shi Haojun so powerful that he can easily slaughter a city—he's refined the Plague Demon Gu!" Long Yuan said with fury in his eyes and with unwavering certainty.