Mu Jinghe was covered in blood, leaning on his sword as he stood in the middle of a pile of corpses; soon, countless rotting sores began to break out on his body.
...
When news of Mu Jinghe's death reached the Royal Capital, Mu Tianyou was in the underground city inspecting the seal.
He had just come up from underground, covered in dust, with a cut on his face from a rock where the blood had already dried into a black scab.
The messenger knelt before him, unable to say a complete sentence. Mu Tianyou simply stood there, listening until the man finished delivering the news.
Then he waved his hand. “Leave.”
The messenger, as if granted a great pardon, scrambled away on all fours.
Mu Tianyou walked into his study alone. He sat at his desk and picked up a pen, wanting to write something.
But with the pen in his hand, he could not write a single word.
He just sat there, from dawn to dusk, and from dusk back to dawn.
The next morning, he put down the pen, stood up, and walked out of the study.
“Pass the order,” he said. “Close the city gates. No one is allowed to enter or leave.”
The attendant was stunned. “Your Majesty, the people in the city—”
“I said, close the gates.”
The attendant did not dare ask more and turned to pass the order.
The moment the gates closed, the people in the city began to panic. They rushed to the gates, pounding on them and crying out to be let out.
“Let us out! Please, I beg of you!”
“We can't stay in the city! The plague is everywhere!”
“Open the gates! My child is still small, he can't die here!”
But the gates remained motionless. Mu Tianyou stood on the city wall, looking down at those desperate faces without saying a word.
He knew they wanted to leave, but leaving meant death as well.
The plague had already spread across the entire Tianchi Province; there was no pure land left.
Instead of letting them out to spread the plague further, it was better to keep them in the city. At least... at least when they died, there would be someone to collect their bodies.
Mu Tianyou closed his eyes. He felt like an executioner, personally locking everyone into this giant tomb.
In the days that followed, the Royal Capital became a ghost domain.
Corpses were everywhere in the streets. Some had rotted into pus, some had been torn apart by hundred corpse patchworks, and others had starved or died of thirst, collapsing by the roadside with no one to bury them.
The living hid in their houses, afraid to step outside.
They listened to the sounds outside—the sound of hundred corpse patchworks crawling on the ground, the wails of the infected, and the sounds of those driven mad by hunger smashing against doors.
Every sound was like a hammer, striking their hearts over and over.
The underground city also fell.
The number of hundred corpse patchworks in the underground city was far greater than on the surface. They crawled out from every possible opening, an endless and inexhaustible tide.
Mu Tianyou personally led men down to clear them out.
He fought in the underground city for three days and nights, killing batch after batch, but those things could never be fully eradicated.
The twelfth year of Tianyou, the tenth month of winter.
Four months had passed since the plague broke out.
The Jiao Mu Kingdom had gone from a peak population of hundreds of millions to a state where almost no living souls could be found.
In the Royal Capital, fewer than three hundred living people remained.
At dusk, the ground began to tremble. The hundred corpse patchworks started crawling out again, dense and overwhelming, surging forward like a tide.
Mu Tianyou gripped his sword hilt and glanced back.
A group of people stood at the city gate.
There were not many, perhaps fifty or sixty in total.
There were soldiers in tattered armor, women holding children, and hunters clutching woodcutting knives.
They were the ones still alive, the ones still willing to take up arms.
“Everyone,” Mu Tianyou spoke in a low voice. “In today’s battle, there is only death.”
“I will not force anyone. If you wish to leave, leave now. I will not blame you.”
No one moved. A soldier smiled. “Leave? Where to? Is there any clean place left in this world?”
A hunter nodded. “Exactly. We're going to die anyway. Better to die here, to die at home.”
The woman said nothing, only gripping her kitchen knife tightly.
Mu Tianyou nodded. “Good. Then come with me and kill to our hearts' content.”
He raised his sword and turned to face the surging hundred corpse patchworks.
“Kill—!”
He was the first to charge out. Sword light flashed, shattering the skull of the hundred corpse patchwork in front of him.
Behind him, the fifty or sixty people followed his charge.
They slashed with knives, thrust with spears, hacked with axes, and used their fists and feet—some even used their teeth to bite.
Everyone had gone mad.
They knew they wouldn't survive, so they no longer cared. Killing one was breaking even; killing two was a profit.
Mu Tianyou carved a bloody path through the horde. Wherever his sword light passed, hundred corpse patchworks fell, but more surged up to surround him.
His body was torn open in several places, and blood flowed incessantly.
Just then, a ghostly blue light suddenly erupted from him.
The light flowed over his body, and a wave of warmth came from his wounds. Flesh began to grow, healing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Mu Tianyou was stunned, then quickly realized what was happening.
It was the divine light. The divine light Qing Lu had bestowed upon him was repairing his body.
As his condition improved, a scream came from behind him.
Mu Tianyou whipped his head around and saw a soldier suddenly festering. His skin peeled off in patches and his entire body melted like a candle, finally turning into pus that seeped into the ground.
“Old Zhao!” someone nearby cried out in alarm.
But no one knew what had happened.
The battle continued. Mu Tianyou had no time to think and could only keep swinging his sword.
Then came another wound, followed by another ghostly light and another instance of healing.
Another scream echoed from behind him.
A woman fell to the ground, her body festering and turning into pus.
Then he was injured again, and almost simultaneously, another person began to rot.
Mu Tianyou suddenly understood.
He looked down at the ghostly light on his hands, then at his rapidly healing wounds, and finally back at the corpses on the ground.
So that was how it worked.
The recovery provided by the divine light came at a price.
The people who had vanished, those who had gone missing, those who had inexplicably dissolved into pus...
They had all been sucked dry by the divine light.
The power Qing Lu had bestowed upon him was extracted from his own people.
Every time it healed one of his wounds, it cost the life of one of his subjects.
No wonder so many people had gone missing.
No wonder countless commoners had vanished for no reason.
It wasn't the plague that killed them.
It was the divine light.
It was him.
Mu Tianyou's hands began to shake.
He thought of his missing confidants, the soldiers who had turned to pus, and the commoners who had not even left bones behind.
He had caused all their deaths.
He had killed them with his own hands.
“No...” Mu Tianyou murmured. “No...”
A hundred corpse patchwork took the opportunity to pounce, biting into his neck.
Sharp pain flared, and the ghostly light shone once more.
Another scream came from behind.
Mu Tianyou spun around and saw the woman who had been holding her child fall, her body festering into pus.
Her eyes were still open, looking toward the child at the foot of the wall.
Her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
Then she vanished.
Leaving only a pool of pus slowly flowing on the ground.
Mu Tianyou felt cold all over.
He suddenly felt that he was the greatest monster.
More loathsome than these hundred corpse patchworks.
Rate on N.U.
