Lantao City had become a giant cesspool.
Lord Rat moved through the stench-ridden streets. He had been tracking the Plague-Eating Stove for an entire day.
His expression grew increasingly grim as the foul odor of human-face sores constantly interfered with his sense of smell.
During the day, he had briefly captured a trace of the Plague-Eating Stove's aura as it descended.
That sickening ripple of plague had appeared and vanished in an instant.
Before he could follow the trail, the scent disappeared, leaving him unable to lock onto a location, as if it had never existed at all.
This feeling of being toyed with left him infuriated.
Lord Rat irritably adjusted the mask on his face, cursing through clenched teeth. "Damn it, you filthy piece of trash, hiding and tucking your tail!"
Who exactly was the rat here? The bastard was even better at hiding than he was.
As night completely shrouded the city, Lord Rat turned his gaze toward the inner city district, which was isolated by high walls and arrays.
Identifying the direction, Lord Rat merged into the shadows and crept toward the inner city district.
Aside from a few families who had moved their core forces to the Heart's Desire Hall, the inner city district was still home to many powerful and wealthy residents.
Lord Rat could clearly sense that everyone in the inner city district also had seeds of the plague lurking within them.
The sore-toxin was ready and waiting, poised to erupt at any moment.
However, instead of seeking a solution, these people had raised a great array, completely sealing off the passages between the inner and outer city districts.
"Hold the line! Everyone, stay sharp and hold the line!"
At the entrance to the inner city, a fat merchant in embroidered robes was shouting at the guards maintaining the array.
He was one of the city's largest silk merchants, known as Liu the Abacus.
"The commoners outside have caught a strange disease. Every one of them is rotting into white webs; it’s disgusting!
"You must not let a single one of them crawl in here and ruin the feng shui of the inner city!"
"Master Liu is right!" a flashily dressed noblewoman nearby chimed in with a shrill voice.
She covered her nose and mouth with a silk scarf, as if taking one more breath of the outside air would infect her.
"I heard the people in the outer city district have all turned into white cocoons. It's terrifying!"
"It's all those mud-legged peasants who brought the plague! They should have been driven out of the city long ago!"
"Rest easy, masters," the guard captain said, bowing and scraping.
"The great array is active. Not even a fifth-stage great demon could hope to break in, let alone the filth outside."
Only then did the noblewoman leave, satisfied, preparing to head home for a good night's sleep.
In the middle of the night, it was all such a pointless fuss.
Liu the Abacus directed his servants to desperately pour spirit stones into the array, saying proudly, "Our inner city is perfectly safe. When dawn comes, the City Lord's Mansion will surely send someone to save us."
"Remember to have the City Lord's Mansion reimburse me for the spirit stones I've consumed on the public account.
"I’m doing this for the good of the whole city, after all."
Lord Rat, hidden on a nearby rooftop, watched everything coldly.
"Idiots."
The night deepened.
Eerie paper snow began to flutter down from the sky above the outer city district.
Almost at the same moment, inside a luxurious manor in the inner city district, the noblewoman who had just been speaking suddenly felt an itch on her neck.
"Damn servants, did they fail to change the bedsheets properly again?"
She cursed impatiently, reaching out to scratch vigorously.
Her nails raked across her skin, but it brought no relief. Instead, it felt as though she had popped a blister.
There was a soft squelch.
Confused, she brought her hand before her eyes. By the moonlight, she saw a trace of yellow, turbid pus on her fingertips.
She froze.
Immediately after, an intense itch radiated from her neck.
Following the itch was searing pain.
The noblewoman rushed in terror to a bronze mirror.
On her well-maintained neck, a thumb-sized pustule had bulged out.
At the tip of the pustule, a tiny, suffering face was faintly visible.
"Ah—!!!"
A scream pierced the silence of the inner city.
But this was only the beginning.
One, two, ten, a hundred...
Countless human-face sores bloomed across her body.
"Help... help me..."
The noblewoman's screams turned into muffled wails. She tried to rush out, but her legs no longer obeyed her.
Her flesh began to melt, her silk robes slipping away to reveal that what lay beneath was no longer skin, but a mass of writhing, expanding rotten meat.
That face, which had once been somewhat beautiful, twisted and deformed under the pressure of the pustules, eventually merging completely into the mass of flesh until only a collection of human-face sores resembling her former self remained.
"What's happening?!"
"That's Lady Wang's voice!"
"Look at the array! It's—it's flickering?"
Lady Wang's transformation instantly ignited panic within the inner city.
The mass of rotten meat she had become seemed to possess a life of its own. It slammed through the bedroom door, surging toward the nearest living thing.
"Monster!"
"Stay back!"
The guards frantically brandished their swords and blades, hacking at the rotten meat. However, it was like cutting into cotton; not only did they fail to stop it, but they were infected by the pus dripping from the mass.
Amidst screams, the guards and their weapons were swiftly devoured, and the volume of the rotten meat expanded further.
Liu the Abacus was so terrified that his fat trembled. He turned to run toward his own manor; he was only at the second-stage, no match for such a monstrosity.
However, the rotten meat seemed more interested in his ample flesh. It abandoned the other first-stage servants and swept directly toward him.
"No—!"
Liu the Abacus only had time to let out a single scream before he was completely submerged by the mass of flesh.
The inner city district, the sanctuary that had tried to isolate itself from the disaster, was transformed in an instant into a flesh-and-blood grinder.
Lord Rat stood on the high wall, watching it all with indifference.
His already crimson eyes were now so red they almost dripped blood due to the surging hatred within.
It was this power again, this same method.
He looked at the fleeing, wailing elites of the inner city district, his mouth peeling back into a cruel smile.
Lord Rat spread his arms, and dark green fiendish qi erupted from his body.
The fiendish qi was laced with corrosive toxins, rapidly spreading through the inner city.
A fleeing steward ran beneath the wall where Lord Rat was hidden, his clothes barely brushed by the dark green qi.
Sizzle—
The man was instantly reduced to a puddle of corpse water, as if he had been thrown into strong acid, merging into the ground along with his clothes and bones.
Lord Rat stepped down from the high wall, his corrosive toxins expanding rapidly.
Where the fiendish qi passed, life was extinguished.
Lord Rat intended to use his own plague to compete with the Plague-Eating Stove for nourishment, forcibly curbing its expansion.
Seemingly sensing the competition from a similar power, the human-face sores on the surface of the rotten meat twisted into mocking expressions.
"Heh, it really is you. You've grown quite a bit since your days as a rat demon in Tianchi Province."
"Plague-Eating Stove!" Lord Rat nearly shattered his molars.
Since he had achieved his fiend body, it had been a very long time since anyone had dared to mention that wretched past in front of him.
The surface of the Plague-Eating Stove's flesh began to churn violently. Countless human-face sores gathered, gradually coalescing into a humanoid figure at the top of the mass.
"I didn't expect you to have the fortune to escape the realm barrier. My, have you become a dog guarding someone's house?"
The Plague-Eating Stove continued to mock, having sensed the contract from the General-Summoning Platform on Lord Rat.
"Looking at your fiendish qi, it's much purer than before. What, is the food good now that you're a dog?"
Lord Rat was enraged, the stone slabs beneath his feet instantly corroded into a deep pit.
"I didn't expect a piece of shit like you to be able to crawl out of that hellhole in Tianchi Province either!"
The Plague-Eating Stove let out a raspy, strange laugh. "If you could get out, naturally, I could as well. Speaking of which, I really must thank that Bodhisattva Jieyin from Sukhavati."
"Bodhisattva Jieyin?" A sharp glint flashed in Lord Rat's eyes. "Trash like you is only fit to collude with those bald asses!"
"You shouldn't say it like that."
The Plague-Eating Stove was unbothered. "Sukhavati has its grand vows, and I have my pursuits.
"I am merely using their hands to sow more seeds."
Lord Rat said no more. His body turned into a dark green blur as he lunged straight for the Plague-Eating Stove.
The Plague-Eating Stove did not dodge. All the human-face sores on its bloated body opened simultaneously, exhaling a bloody plague-mist.
Fiendish qi collided with the blood-mist.
The entire street was instantly transformed into a terrifying domain of poison.
Wherever the fiendish qi reached, all things corroded and life was cut off.
Wherever the blood-mist spread, flesh sprouted and human-face sores appeared everywhere.
The two were born from the same source and were intimately familiar with each other's power attributes.
The Plague-Eating Stove controlled the rotten meat, transforming it into countless tentacles that lashed out at Lord Rat.
Lord Rat's movements were eerie as he wove through the tentacles, his claws wrapped in fiendish qi as he repeatedly tore at the Plague-Eating Stove's body.
However, the Plague-Eating Stove's body seemed infinite; as soon as it was torn open, more rotten meat gathered from below to heal the wound.
"It's useless, little mouse," the Plague-Eating Stove laughed. "In this city full of nourishment, I am immortal and indestructible!"
Clang!
Caught off guard, Lord Rat was struck by a tentacle hidden within the blood-mist.
He was sent flying back, crashing through a decorative rockery.
The mist mask on Lord Rat's face shattered under the massive force, revealing his true countenance.
It was a face covered in scars—withered, dried-up human-face sore scars.
"Hahahaha!"
The Plague-Eating Stove laughed even more wildly upon seeing that face.
"It seems the mark I left on you back then is still there. In Tianchi Province, after the True Lord of Purity and Filth died, the plague source was split in two, and we each took half.
"Disease is the filth of heaven and earth, and I am the purity-cleansing fire. Only by spreading the plague far and wide can I consume the mortal world.
"And you, you're just like a real rat, only capable of hiding.
"What, haven't you had enough? Do you remember the last time you fled like a dying dog?"
Lord Rat climbed out of the rubble, wiping the fiend-blood from the corner of his mouth, his crimson eyes locked onto his foe.
"Shut your mouth, you lunatic!"
"I'm the lunatic?" The Plague-Eating Stove acted as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world. "Tianchi Province was a place that worshipped the law of the jungle. How many times did I beat you until you only had half a life left?
"If you hadn't run fast, you would have become a part of me long ago!"
The Plague-Eating Stove's taunts cut deep, and Lord Rat's aura became even more violent.
He admitted that what the Plague-Eating Stove said was true.
As fellow successors of the True Lord of Purity and Filth, they both wanted to devour the other to complete themselves and ascend to a higher realm.
But in their countless encounters in Tianchi Province, Lord Rat had almost never won; every time, he had fled with heavy injuries.
During the last time, he had been nearly dead when, in his despair, he heard the call from the God.
Lord Rat suppressed his chaotic thoughts and tightened his fists again.
He lunged at the Plague-Eating Stove once more, fiendish qi and blood-mist clashing violently.
But this time, Lord Rat keenly sensed something was off.
The Plague-Eating Stove's power had weakened.
Though it was still formidable, it lacked the crushing, hopeless pressure it had back in Tianchi Province.
Before, he couldn't even withstand three of the Plague-Eating Stove's moves.
But now, he was actually able to trade blows evenly!
Boom!
The two exchanged a massive blow, each being knocked back.
Lord Rat stabilized himself. Looking at the Plague-Eating Stove, whose aura was also somewhat unstable, he suddenly grinned, revealing a grimace.
The smile looked incredibly hideous on his face covered in withered scars.
"Plague-Eating Stove..."
"I suspect that the price for your so-called abandonment of your skin and traveling through dreams... wasn't small, was it?"
The Plague-Eating Stove's laughter stopped abruptly, and the countless human-face sores simultaneously showed expressions of shock and rage.
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