Gray Blood Scorched Earth and Sacred Flame Purification

At the burning ground, filth and evil seeped once more from the places sprinkled with Holy Water that day after the Blood Moon rose.

Dark red wet stains emerged from cracks in the soil, joining into sheets that spread swiftly across the Frozen Tundra like rivers of blood.

Trouble broke out at the work sheds, too. Dark, fleshy membranes bulged from the edges of leather armor on the wooden racks, growing against the plates. Even the rusty weapons nearby sprouted threads.

The filth was everywhere.

When word reached Baron, he seized his sword and rushed out of the Inner Fortress. He crossed the inner moat to the burning ground, took one look, and his heart sank.

Everything here matched the abnormalities described in the governor's letter.

Holy Water could not suppress it. Even purified ground still bled.

As long as the stench of death remained, this thing could take root!

"What is that?!" a knight beside Baron cried in terror.

Baron looked toward the shout. The remains of a Third Tier Riftclaw Wolf, half its body rotted away, jerked violently.

Everyone saw it clearly: blood-red threads buried beneath the corpse's rotting flesh writhed and coiled, drawing broken bones and rotten meat together.

The wolf's collapsed half was dragged off the ground. Unidentifiable bones and scraps of flesh nearby were swept into it, forcibly stitched into one mass.

Baron gripped his sword tight. "Fall back! Seal off the burning ground!"

The moment he spoke, the blackened earth at its center split open. Blood-soaked mud and corpse pieces accumulated over years surged outward.

Sheets of Gray-Red Blight Threads burrowed out. They were not choosy: corpses, bare bones, wooden posts, broken wagon wheels—they swallowed and assimilated them all in an instant.

Before everyone's eyes, more and more monsters crawled out.

Worse, they showed