Hallownest
The Ancient Basin
Wyrm's tightly knitted brow seemed as though it would never relax.
"Things really have taken a turn for the worse."
Whether those words were an assessment or a complaint was unclear. Wyrm sat at his desk, looking over report after report from every corner of his kingdom.
These top-secret reports gave him no chance to relax.
"A deliberate assault on bugs has occurred in the City of Tears. Details have been suppressed."
"Conditions at Crystal Peak have deteriorated again beyond recovery. The area is now completely sealed off."
"A suspected cult has appeared in Greenpath. Troops have been dispatched to suppress it."
Nothing but bad news.
In the end, Wyrm decided to stop reading.
He simply threw all the documents into the wastebasket.
After all, every one of them said the same thing.
The Infection was still spreading.
The situation was growing increasingly dire. Even though he had isolated infected citizens immediately, scattered cases still appeared from time to time.
Starting with the earliest outbreak at Crystal Peak, this strange Infection had continued to radiate outward, following no discernible pattern.
"So this Infection spreads through dreams rather than through physical means?"
Dreams, illusions, the mind, desires-all elusive and intangible, the most troublesome of domains.
If Radiance had been a god with a physical body, Wyrm could have fought directly instead of resorting to such roundabout methods of containment and suppression.
Wyrm's already furrowed brow tightened further.
It was not merely because the recent chaos had clouded his ability to foresee the future.
It was also because of the bargain he had struck with the beast of Deepnest a few months earlier.
Given the choice, Wyrm would never have wanted to go through that again.
That oppression, that suffocating sensation-it had been like being a moth caught