I am God LSLCCF

Chapter 479: The True Fire of Wrath

Moonlight City

In the seven days Anu lay sleeping, the plague had spread across the whole of Moonlight Province, and the crisis had worsened to a point that could bear no further delay.

The Death Demon Plague spread across the land like a black shadow, swallowing the mortal world whole.

Corpses piled up like mountains in every corner of Moonlight Province, and village after village had become a dead town, empty and abandoned.

Outside the city, in a graveyard set apart for the bodies of the plague dead, a massive pillar had now been raised, none other than the divine artifact, the Ancestor Totem Pillar.

Beneath the Ancestor Totem Pillar, Lizard Person Anu stood atop the altar, his gaze heavy, as though he were weighing some decision.

He did not hesitate for long. He turned back and gave the order.

”Begin!”

”Hold the sacrificial ritual!”

Corpse after corpse, every one of them taken by the Death Demon Plague, was carried up onto the altar, while below it a number of heavily warded ability users drew out the power of the ritual array.
Under the force of the ritual, the blood of wisdom within those corpses poured out without end, and became the power of the Ancestor Totem Pillar.

Streak after streak of dark silver light spiraled through the ritual, coiling around the towering pillar, and melted at last into the power of the totem.

The ritual was only halfway done.

A figure came bursting in from outside.

No one outside the graveyard could stop them. Anu, presiding over the ritual, felt the disturbance and turned to look toward the entrance.

Once he saw who it was, Anu spoke.

”Let them through.”

The intruder was the Chief Physician, who had sensed something wrong as corpse after corpse kept arriving at the Medical Fortress from every direction.

And now they saw the ritual, saw the corpses given up as sacrifice to the ritual and the totem pillar.

The Chief Physician of the Medical Fortress stared, eyes fit to burst from their sockets, and lifted their head to look at Governor Anu.

”Governor, there is something I would ask of you.”

”What exactly are you doing?”

Anu told the Chief Physician, ”This is the way to end the plague, and save the whole of Moonlight Province.”

The Chief Physician of the Medical Fortress looked at Lizard Person Anu, doubt filling their eyes.

They looked at the mysterious totem pillar, looked at the corpses scattered everywhere. ”Can this truly end the plague? Is this truly meant to save everyone who has fallen sick?”

”Sacrificing the flesh and blood of countless dead to a pillar, and that will save the sick?”

Anu looked at them and answered, ”Of course. This is the method, the answer, that I found only after paying a price beyond anything you could imagine.”

The Chief Physician stared hard at Anu, unmoving, then turned and withdrew.

Anu watched them go, and said to everyone present, ”Continue the ritual.”

A lizard person standing nearby suddenly spoke up. ”Governor, they saw everything. Is that going to cause problems?”

Anu replied, ”A ritual this massive, using so many corpses as sacrifice, and you think no one else could ever find out?”

”Everyone will know sooner or later. There is no avoiding it.”

At the Medical Fortress, after the Chief Physician returned, they sat in the dark for a long while, lost in blank thought.

Their eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, and their whole body looked withered and worn.

Since the plague first broke out they had not slept one good night, and the weight upon them had grown immense.

Day and night they pored over medical texts, treating the sick, and yet all they could do was watch patient after patient die.

In their dazed state, they found themself remembering many things.

They remembered the plague first breaking out, the corpse of the first infected lizard person carried into the Medical Fortress, and their own verdict that this was a plague the likes of which had never been seen.

The plague had spread quickly after that, and no matter what they did they had no power to stop it. They could not even find where it had truly come from.

Countless dead faces rose before their eyes, and the physicians who had died one after another around them, all those familiar faces, more than a few of them their own students.

In the end, before their eyes rose the sight of the grim altar and the totem pillar.

That mountain of corpses heaped upon the altar like raw material, and the lizard person standing atop that mountain of the dead, his dark scales wrapped around a face twisted fierce, his strange-colored eyes gazing down from on high at everything below.

”Governor Anu.”

”This lizard person governor, is he truly doing this to save people?”

”Would a lizard person, a governor set high above everyone, a powerful ability user, truly pay a price beyond imagining for the sake of mortals?”

The Chief Physician of the Medical Fortress lit a candle, and in the dark, wrote out a letter.

The letter told how the plague had first spread out from the governorʼs mansion, and how the first one infected had been a lizard person.

It told, too, how Anu had spent seven days below ground together with a corpse, how all manner of strange omens had erupted underground, and how white fungal filaments had sealed the space and barred anyone from entering.

And in the end, how Anu had given power to the totem pillar by sacrificing the corpses of those the plague had claimed.

They could not understand the price Anu spoke of paying to find his method and his answer. They could not understand that Anu had become Voidʼs Mold Motherʼs own test subject for it, and had spent hundreds of thousands of years within a glass tank.

All they could see was a plague whose source could not be found, a plague that had spread out from the governorʼs mansion, from a lizard person.

And so, the moment they finally laid eyes on the altar, every last shred of trust they had held for Governor Anu collapsed utterly in an instant.

Once the letter was finished, the Chief Physician had one of their students carry it to the Miracle Temple.

”Send this letter to the City of Fire Protection.”

”Be quick about it!”

The student slipped away carefully, avoiding every watching eye.

The letter reached the City of Fire Protection, and came before the Royal Steward of the royal household.

The Royal Steward could not quite hide his excitement. ”Good. This is very good.”

Before long, the Royal Steward carried the letter on, and brought it before King Morabi himself.

Within the royal palace, King Morabi stood holding the letter for a long while, his expression giving nothing away at all.

Of late King Morabi had already heard of the plague raging through Moonlight Province, and he knew, too, that Anu had forged an artifact called the Ancestor Totem Pillar. Until now he had never connected the two.

But now this letter had come, and told him that Anu was forging the Ancestor Totem Pillar out of the very corpses the plague had claimed.

King Morabiʼs heart settled. He pressed a hand to his brow, sighing, it seemed, over something, and at last made up his mind.

He spoke, and asked the Royal Steward standing behind him.

”Tell me, what is it he means to do?”

The Royal Steward bowed low in deference. From his very first word he had already judged what Anu was doing to be an evil thing.

”Doing evil for the sake of power has never been rare, not since ancient times.”

”The real question is, what does he mean to do once he has that power?”

King Morabi let out a sudden, cold laugh, a laugh filled with murderous intent.

”What does he want?”

”What else could he want, but to turn every snake person into a lizard person? Perhaps he even means to rule the whole of Suinhor as an apostle.”

”To turn this kingdom into a paradise on earth for the lizard people.”

”And he has picked quite the moment for it too. In this age when the gods have signed their covenant, so long as he does not break the covenant of the gods, there is hardly anyone who could truly do a thing to stop him.”

King Morabi sat down, thought it over for a long while, and then gave an order to the attendant at his side.

”Send a messenger to Moonlight Province. Strip the Lord of the Volcano, Anu, of his position as governor, and have him come to the City of Fire Protection at once, to give an account of this matter.”

”Copy this letter out, and send it along to him as well.”

The Royal Steward put in, ”Your Majesty, Anu is no ordinary governor holding heavy power.”

”He is also an ability user of tremendous strength, the spokesperson for the Lord of Harvest, Kurmis, and he holds influence far beyond the ordinary.”

King Morabi had already made his own arrangements. ”I know!”

Then he gave another order. ”Have the current commander of the Palace Guard Corps come see me.”

Corpses came in from every corner of Moonlight Province in huge numbers, gathering beneath the totem pillar outside Moonlight Jungle.

Anu did not preside over the ritual every moment of the day, but he kept watch over the matter constantly all the same, and treated it as his single most urgent task.

The Ancestor Totem Pillar was slowly taking shape. Once it was complete, he could brand onto it the giant dragon totem the black dragon had granted him. So long as he could call forth the spirit of the black dragon totem, he would be able to end the plague across the whole of Moonlight Province.

And at that very moment, a handful of riders mounted on magical beasts came hurrying from the royal capital.

They crossed through Moonlight Province, past plague and misery on every side, and arrived at the governorʼs mansion.

A guard at the governorʼs mansion reported at once. ”Governor, the kingʼs messenger has arrived.”

Anu lifted his head. ”Have them wait in the hall.”

In the hall of the governorʼs mansion, the kingʼs messenger read out the royal decree, and with it stripped Anu of his post as governor.

The messenger handed the decree, and the letter along with it, to Anu, and told him.

”Lord Anu!”

”His Majesty the King has spoken.”

”You are to go to the City of Fire Protection at once, and give an account of this matter.”

Lizard Person Anu took hold of the letter. ”Who wrote this letter to His Majesty?”

Within the governorʼs mansion, the Chief Physician, who had been there all along, stepped forward. ”It was me, Governor!”

Anu looked at them. ”I am no longer the governor.”

The Chief Physician looked at Lizard Person Anu. ”I do not believe I have done anything wrong.”

With that, the Chief Physician undid the collar of their robe, and undid the tightly wound bandages.

Everyone present stumbled back, crying out in shock and alarm.

Only then did the others see that the physicianʼs body, and above all their neck, was covered entirely in the black marks of the Death Demon Plague.

This was the mark of a disease past all cure. Once the black marks had climbed to the neck, there were, as a rule, only a few days of life left.

The Chief Physician met Anuʼs gaze without the slightest weakness or retreat.

”You should regret not killing me a few days ago.”

”I have nothing left to fear, Governor!”

”Because my life is already nearly at its end.”

Facing Anu, the Chief Physician wore an expression almost at ease.

”It will not be long now before I am reunited with my students.”

”But before that day comes, I must speak certain things aloud, and let everyone know exactly what the truth is.”

Anu looked at them, and for a long while could not say a single word.

In the end all he could say was, ”You really have made a mistake.”

At that moment the kingʼs messenger stepped forward, and spoke, looking at Anu.

”Let us be going, Lord Anu!”

”Whatever you have to say, you may say to His Majestyʼs own face. He is waiting for you in the royal capital even now.”

At that, the people around Anu grew restless, and someone cried out at once that Anu must not go.

Anu held back those around him who stood in his support, showing complete, unwavering trust in King Morabi.

”Do not worry. Nothing will come of this. I will explain it all to His Majesty face to face.”

”Wait for me here. But the plan cannot stop. The moment I return, we begin clearing out the Death Demon Plague at once.”

Anu followed the kingʼs messenger away, and set out upon the road to the City of Fire Protection.

Outside the City of Fire Protection, the Palace Guard Corpsʼs Encampment

The man who had once been the Palace Guard Corpsʼs vice commander, and was now its full commander, received the kingʼs summons.

He came to the royal palace, and after bowing low before it, was admitted within.

The moment he entered, King Morabi received him with a warmth he had never shown before.

The king even had him sit at his own table, and share his midday meal. The commander of the Palace Guard Corps was deeply moved, but he sensed something was not quite right all the same.

Before the meal was even finished, he asked the question weighing on his mind.

”Your Majesty, has something happened?”

King Morabi glanced at him, hesitated a moment, and spoke.

”I meant to tell you later, but since you have asked, I will tell you now!”

”You know of the plague that has broken out in Moonlight Province of late!”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps nodded. ”I know of it. And Lord Anu has been moving supplies and trying every method he can think of to deal with this plague.”

King Morabi suddenly dropped a piece of news that struck him senseless with shock. ”And what if I told you that this plague was Anuʼs own doing?”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps shot to his feet at once, staring at King Morabi in open-mouthed disbelief.

”Thatʼs impossible!”

”Lord Anu would never do such a thing. He is absolutely not that kind of man.”

He looked at His Majesty, and hurried to speak up on Anuʼs behalf.

”This has to be a misunderstanding. It has to be.”

His Majesty took out the letter the Chief Physician had written, and set it down before the commander of the Palace Guard Corps.

As the man read through the letter, King Morabi went on speaking, slowly.

”I know this is hard for you to accept. In truth, it is hard for me as well.”

”But since I took this throne, since I became king of this nation.”

”I have told myself that I can never allow myself to trust feeling or instinct too easily. I trust only evidence, and motive.”

”People change. Anyone can change.”

Morabi watched the commander of the Palace Guard Corps, watched his face grow paler and paler as he read on, until sweat began beading upon his brow.

By the time he finished the letter, his once-unshakable conviction had begun to waver, but he still offered King Morabi his own counsel.

”Shouldnʼt we first confirm whether whatʼs in this letter is even true? And even if it is, Iʼm certain Lord Anu must have his own reasons.”

”In any case, I will never believe that Lord Anu would betray this nation, that he would do such a thing.”

King Morabi fixed the commander with a sharp gaze, and told him.

”Anu is no ordinary man!”

”He is a beast knight at the very peak of the upper tier, and he can call upon the power of a fourth-rank apostle at any moment he chooses.”

”He lived through the war to seal the King of Ghouls, Akmanmon. He has led armies to war across the north and south, put down evil demons, and crushed rebellions.”

”He fought alongside the Divine Blessed King to seal the King of Ghouls, and he has stood face to face with an abyss king.”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps objected, ”But those are all achievements he won for this very nation, Your Majesty.”

King Morabi answered him, ”And that only proves how terrifying his power truly is. It proves just how great a disaster, what ruin, he could bring down upon this nation.”

”So either I do not suspect him at all, or the moment I do, I can give him no way back.”

”I...”

”cannot take that risk. And still less can I hang the safety of this whole nation upon my own personal feelings.”

”Do you understand?”

King Morabi either made no decision at all, or once he made one, it could never be shaken.

”Whether you trust him does not matter.”

”Whether I trust him does not matter either.”

”What matters is that the facts have already proven he poses a threat, a threat to this nation, to the people of Suinhor.”

”And that at any moment, in any place, he could become the very source of a disaster that topples this whole nation. And so I absolutely cannot afford to be soft-hearted.”

King Morabi rose to his feet, and demanded of him, as a king demands of his subject.

”You are not only my subject, but a commander sworn to defend Suinhor, a man of Suinhor yourself.”

”Will you choose this nation? Will you choose the snake people?”

”Or will you choose the commander you once served under, choose a lizard person?”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps went pale as a sheet, his mind a total blank.

After a moment, he suddenly stepped back away from the table.

He threw himself down and pressed his head to the floor again and again, and said to King Morabi.

”I understand.”

”I will do as you command.”

After several days of hard travel, Anu finally reached the border of Fire Protection Province.

Night had fallen when he saw, far off, a company of beast knights riding earth-piercing beasts, though they were dressed in plain clothes.

Anu looked closer, and found that the one leading them was a figure achingly familiar to him.

It was his old vice commander, the good brother who had drilled troops alongside him, who had gone with him out to sea to hunt down the ceramic figurine, and who had come with him to Moonlight Province to put down its rebellion. He had come now to welcome him.

Anuʼs heart had been nothing but restless unease, but the instant he saw that figure, joy and fond memory welled up within him all at once.

The two drew close, each still mounted on his own beast, and looked at one another.

Neither had spoken a single word yet, and already the two of them broke into laughter at the very same moment.

”Hahaha!”

”Hahaha!”

They pointed at each other and laughed for a long while, before Anu asked him, ”What are you doing here?”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps told him, ”I heard you were back. How could I not come and meet you?”

Anu, overjoyed, followed him to the place they meant to rest.

They would stay the night there, and press on to the royal capital the next day.

Along the way, he asked the commander of the Palace Guard Corps, ”Do you know why I have been called back?”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps laughed. ”Somebody down there accused you of using dark arts to raise your own power. Those old men back in the capital kicked up a fuss again, and His Majesty had no choice but to call you back and ask about it.”

”But donʼt worry. The king trusts you, that much is certain.”

”You go through the motions, and itʼll all blow over.”

Anu felt as though a weight had lifted from his heart at once, and he nodded.

”You know me. The king knows me too.”

”I have nothing to worry about.”

They came to a weathered old castle upon the local lordʼs land, saw to settling their land dragons and magical beasts, and went inside the lordʼs manor house to rest.

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps had already had food prepared to welcome Anu. Anu settled his own wind lizard dragon, gave his companion a pat, and followed the others into the manor.

A country lordʼs castle, and its manor house too, could hardly be called grand.

With the old nobilityʼs decline over these last years, it looked more than a little run-down.

Anu glanced at the roasted meat upon the table, already salted.

He glanced, too, at the silver pitcher, fine wine rippling within it, its fragrance drifting through the air.

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps, already seated at the other end of the table, told him, ”This is wine from the Temple of Life, meant for offerings to the god.”

Anu was tempted despite himself, but what he said was, ”That is wine meant for the god to drink. How could we simply drink it ourselves.”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps said in a low, conspiratorial voice, ”Thatʼs why weʼll drink it in secret. No one will ever know.”

Anu burst out laughing, and shut the door.

He picked up a piece of the roasted meat and took a hearty bite. ”So the little brat has a conscience after all. It was not for nothing that I mixed your potions with my own hands back then, and taught you with my own two hands how to pair a lance with divine technique.”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps wore a look of fond memory too. ”Thatʼs true. If it werenʼt for you, Lord Anu, Iʼd never have gotten to where I am today.”

”I still remember...”

As he spoke, he poured wine into the silver cup.

Anu found himself remembering too. ”Do not thank me alone. You have done plenty for me as well.”

”And everything I have managed to pull off, if you and His Majesty had not been backing me the whole way, none of it would ever have been done.”

With that, Anu reached out and picked up his own cup.

”Let us see what the templeʼs finest wine actually tastes like.”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps watched Anu lift the silver cup, and tip it toward his mouth without the faintest guard raised at all.

All at once he remembered, remembered the words Anu had once said.

”If this can make this nation better, if it can make Suinhor more stable, then let it fall to me!”

It was in that very instant that his admiration, his reverence for Anu, had risen without limit.

Anuʼs breadth of heart, his sheer force of will in that moment, had struck him to his very core, and left him almost ashamed of his own smallness beside it.

That was why, these past few days, he could not bring himself to believe, no matter how he tried, that Anu could have become the man King Morabi described.

He could not believe, no matter how he tried, that a knight this brave, this fearless, this upright, could have become some evil creature who unleashed a plague, who forged artifacts from the blood of snake people.

Anu tipped his head back, and the cup had only just touched his lips.

All at once, the friend before him shot up from his seat, and seized his arm.

”Hm?”

Anu froze for a moment, then lowered his head to look at the commander of the Palace Guard Corps. ”What is the matter?”

The man did not move at all. He only gripped Anuʼs arm, tight and unyielding.

In that moment, Anu understood something.

Anu looked to the cup still in his hand. ”There is something wrong with this wine?”

The second half of that sentence came out far louder than the first.

It carried a note of pure shock.

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps looked at Anu, smiling, and still did not let go of his arm.

Only to Anuʼs eyes, that smile carried something pale, something wrong in a way he could not name.

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps told Anu, ”Thereʼs a curse in the wine.”

”The curse of the Lord of Purgatory, mixed together with an Abyss poison an alchemist refined. A curse with no cure.”

”The moment you drink it, the curse takes hold, and even if it doesnʼt kill you outright, death wonʼt be far off.”

With that same pale smile, with that same careless tone, he told him something this terrible.

As though he had not come here to kill Anu at all, as though the words he spoke were nothing more than idle talk shared over wine.

”Once the curse takes hold, youʼll be dead soon enough.”

”And even if you donʼt die, thereʼs an army ten thousand strong lying in wait outside.”

”Theyʼll surround you and cut you down once the curse has you.”

Even Anu, for all his blind trust, for all his faith, understood at last, here and now.

”King Morabi means to kill me?”

The man gave no answer. Only silence.

In his heart Anu understood, but that did not mean he could accept it.

The cup fell from the lizard personʼs hand and struck the floor, spilling that priceless, poisoned wine across the ground.

He rose to his feet, staring hard at the friend before him, shaking his head again and again.

”I do not believe it... I do not believe it!”

”How could this be?”

The moment Anu finished saying he didnʼt believe it, a shadow suddenly slithered up out of the spilled wine and the fallen cup, the shadow of the curse itself, reaching to wind its way around him.

But a thing like that was a weapon that could kill someone caught off guard. With that guard raised, it was nothing at all.

Anu, caught between fury and shock, swept out a hand, and a surge of power crushed the shadow of the curse before him into nothing.

The shock in Anuʼs voice turned to fury just as fast.

He crossed the room straight to the commander of the Palace Guard Corps, seized him by the collar, and demanded, his voice sharp.

”Why does the king want me dead?”

”What right does he have to kill me?”

”What right?”

”Why?”

”He wants to kill me?”

”He wants to kill me?”

But the commander of the Palace Guard Corps only looked at him, and said nothing at all.

Little by little, all manner of monstrous change began welling up across his body, his flesh swelling and warping into something else.

It was the filth of the Abyss itself.

At the same time, Anuʼs own extraordinary spiritual sense caught sight of a terrible black shadow rising up behind the commander of the Palace Guard Corps, as though it meant to drag his soul down into some star burning with raging fire.

Anu watched this unfold, and let go of him.

He stumbled back, step after step, and asked his friend, his gaze utterly changed.

”What is going on?”

His voice had changed, gone rough and hoarse.

”What is going on here?”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps only looked down at his own cup, and let out a slow, easy breath.

”Itʼs nothing.”

”I only drank a cup myself, before you came in.”

”The king ordered me to kill you. I had no way to refuse him.”

”But to kill you with my own hands, Lord Anu, you who I owe so very much, that was something I couldnʼt bring myself to do either.”

”I meant to just sit here drinking and laughing with you, the same as always in the barracks.”

”To die together with you in a drunken dream. That was the one thing I could still do.”

The commanderʼs smile turned bitter, and carried an apology within it.

”In the end, I still couldnʼt bring myself to do it!”

The commander of the Palace Guard Corps leaned forward, and looked at Lizard Person Anu, his eyes deadly earnest.

”Commander Anu!”

”You are an upright man, a true knight.”

”Every word you ever said, every deed you ever did, I remember all of it.”

”I donʼt believe that a man who loved this nation as deeply as you did, a man as much a true knight as you, could ever do such a thing.”

Even as he spoke, the uncanny corruption of the Abyss erupted across his body, and dark shadows danced up behind him.

His body had already twisted into some monstrous thing, only his head still holding its true shape, its eyes fixed hard on Anu.

”Go!”

”Go far from here, and never come back.”

As the moment of his death arrived, the Abyss reached to claim his flesh, and Purgatory reached to claim his soul.

Howl~

An unseen wind rose howling, and two unseen gates swung suddenly open.

Crushed between the pressure of the Abyss and Purgatory both, his body finally burst apart entirely, and became nothing but a heap of ruined flesh.

Anu watched it all, his whole body gone cold.

”Why did it have to be like this...”

”There was no need for any of this...”

”Why did it have to happen this way...”

Anu had spent his whole life fighting for Suinhor, north and south, and had served under two generations of kings.

The King Osis of days gone by, and now King Morabi.

He had once believed that he and Morabi were the same kind of man, both of them striving for this nation, for a better future.

That was why he had followed Morabi with everything he had, sparing nothing.

He had thought he would face every kind of hardship, every kind of crisis. But he had never once imagined that the man who would one day want him dead would be Morabi himself.

And the man Morabi had sent to kill him was a friend who had stood at his side for years, no less.

Anu stood in that room like a man carved of wood, while all around him, inside and outside the castle, everything erupted into chaos.

Outside, spirit-light flashed on every side, and squad after squad of the extraordinary, an entire legion of them, closed in upon the place.

Their target was Lizard Person Anu, and no one else.

”Kill!”

”Surround this place.”

”Activate the ritual array.”

”Kill that lizard person.”

Battle cries rose up suddenly outside, and a sealing barrier sprang up around the whole castle, as though to lock the already grievously wounded Anu inside it for good.

Rumble!

Anu drew his blade and rose, and with a single stroke tore straight through the castle, and cut the barrier wide open.

A wheel of moonlight flashed across the sky, rising higher and higher, tearing apart the very clouds above.

Anu became a streak of light and burst free, standing high against the vault of the sky, looking down at the tens of thousands of the extraordinary closing in from every side, blotting out the earth beneath them.

The cold, cutting weight of his gaze alone was enough to set everyone there trembling.

No one there understood why he had not fallen to the curse as planned, nor did anyone understand where the other man, the commander of the Palace Guard Corps, a third-rank ability user, had gone.

But Anu only swept them all with that cold, cutting gaze once, and left without stopping for a single moment.

Anu did not go to the royal capital. Instead he raced back toward Moonlight Province at full speed.

Even if His Majesty could not understand him, he still meant to see his own plan through, and put an end to this Death Demon Plague.

But at this very moment, chaos of another kind was already erupting within Moonlight City itself.

Anu had been gone only a day or two, and already the rumor that the Death Demon Plague had been made by Lizard Person Anu had spread to every corner.

Inside Moonlight City and out, there was no telling how many people had erupted in uproar over it, shaken to their core by a truth this terrible and cruel.

Bit by bit, bands of every stripe gathered together and converged upon Moonlight City.

Within the city, crowds of snake people cried out that the former governor, Anu, must pay for it in blood, that he must answer for every last person who had died of the Death Demon Plague.

”Those damned lizard people. Theyʼre the ones who brought this plague down on us.”

”Theyʼre using our corpses, our own flesh and blood, to forge that totem pillar of theirs.”

”It was that lizard person Anu who set off this plague.”

”Nothing good ever came with the lizard people. They brought slaughter, they brought disaster, and now theyʼve made a plague too.”

”Find the altar. Destroy that evil ritual, and the plague will end.”

Anu had only just left, and already Moonlight Province had come to this.

There was no telling how many people, working in the shadows, were fanning the flames, determined to make that butcher Anu pay, determined to make the lizard people pay.

The backlash from the many nobles Anu had once hanged had begun.

The governorʼs mansion had only just been smashed and burned to the ground, and at once everyone turned to hunting down that legendary totem pillar and altar said to have caused the disaster.

And it was the Chief Physician of the Medical Fortress themself who led them to where the altar stood.

The Chief Physician was already so ill they could barely walk on their own, and had to be supported by others.

But they insisted on walking all the way to the altar themself, and pointed toward the graveyard in the distance.

”It is here!”

”It is here!”

”The altar, the sacrifice ritual, all of it is in this very graveyard.”

After that, swarms of snake people laid siege to the graveyard and the altar outside the city.

Among them were demon hunters and mercenaries who had come from every direction, and even ordinary farmer-soldiers, people who had never had any fighting strength at all, now filled with fighting strength of their own, because they knew this altar had brought the plague down upon them.

Worse still, thousands upon thousands of the plague-stricken sick came hurrying toward the altar as well.

These people, driven by nothing but the will to live, had fallen into a madness beyond all reason.

The snake people charged on, wave after wave, straight into the graveyard, straight up onto the altar.

”Destroy that damned totem pillar!” Snake people, one after another, swung their weapons and cut down the graveyardʼs guards.

”This is the very thing that brought the plague.” That single line was enough to fill everyone there with hatred.

”Once itʼs gone, all of this is gone with it.” That line, too, lit a fire of longing in every heart there.

The lizard people present, along with some snake people among the guards, fought to the death to protect that totem pillar. They knew the pillar was their one hope of driving out the plague, and they called upon its power, drawing even upon the power of the totem spirit itself.

But the snake people there kept charging up, wave after wave.

They fought with their lives on the line, fearing neither life nor death.

More than that, plenty of powerful fighters were mixed into the crowd, some of them even third-rank ability users.

The gap in numbers was simply too great, and one side drowned the other completely beneath a sea of bodies.

After a whole day of fighting, the last lizard person guarding the altar was cut down as well.

Before they died, they glared hard at the snake people around them, and spoke a curse.

”You will all pay for this.”

But not one of the snake people there could grasp what those words meant. All they saw was that they had finally broken through to the altar, that they could see hope of driving off the Death Demon Plague at last.

”Destroy it!” They trampled over flesh and corpses alike in their frenzy, climbing up onto the altar, surrounding the pillar on every side.

”Destroy it, and the plague will vanish!” They swung their weapons and roared.

”Every sickness, every plague, every disaster, itʼs all been brought on us by those damned lizard people.” At last the handful of most powerful ability users among them stepped forward, the very organizers behind this whole uprising, and one after another they brought out the deepest tricks they had kept in reserve.

Some brought out artifacts. Some brought out scrolls. Some cast some manner of ritual technique that carried a terrible price.

Every kind of light merged together, and brought down the divine artifact, the Ancestor Totem Pillar, with no one left to preside over its ritual.

The towering Ancestor Totem Pillar snapped into several pieces, and came crashing down with a roar.

The snake people there broke into cheers, their eyes bright with anticipation and hope.

”Itʼs destroyed!”

”We destroyed it!”

”We destroyed that evil ritual.”

But when they looked down at themselves, hungry for some change to show itself, their sick bodies were exactly as before. The plague had not lifted, not for all that the altar and the totem pillar lay in ruin.

Everyone waited a long while, and little by little the hope in their eyes turned to disappointment, and at last to sheer incomprehension.

And then, once more, they sank into panic and madness.

”Why?”

”Why is this happening?”

”Why hasnʼt the plague lifted?”

”Why, why is this happening?”

The sky broke into a steady, driving rain, and through the wind and rain a wind lizard dragon came flying.

Anu had returned.

Though he had raced back with everything he had, he had still come too late.

The wind lizard dragon plunged down out of the sky, tearing through the sea of clouds.

Anu, mounted upon it, looked down below, unable to believe what he saw.

He saw the totem pillar, fallen and broken. He saw the lizard people, and everyone who had believed in him and followed him, slaughtered and killed.

He looked at the killers themselves, and among them, to his shock, were more than a few residents of Moonlight City, people who had once lived under his own rule.

Some of those figures, he had even met before, once.

Among them were people he had once rescued from riots, people who had survived famine only because of the relief he had given them, but now, every single one of them, without exception, looked at him with eyes full of hatred.

”You people.”

”What exactly do you think you are doing?”

The longsword in Anuʼs hand, its blade dark with the Moon Eclipseʼs Remnant Light, suddenly burst into a thick, roaring flame, a flame that swallowed his very shape whole.

Wrath surged up through his heart, flooding his mind, drowning out every last trace of reason.

”What in the world are you...”

Anu threw back his head and howled at the sky in his fury, his eyes turning blood red.

”doing?!”

Anu swung his sword, dark with the Moon Eclipseʼs Remnant Light, and dropped out of the sky, splitting the third-rank ability user leading the mob clean in two in an instant.

Being a third-rank ability user was no guarantee of equal strength.

Short of a godʼs apostle standing before him in person, nothing could match Anu. And even if an apostle came in person, the seed within Anu could unleash the power of an apostle all the same.

Watching Anu walk out from within the flames, the tens of thousands of snake people packed dense around the altar recoiled in terror, stumbling back.

But then someone cried out, ”Donʼt be afraid! Fear wonʼt do you any good!”

”Heʼs the one who built this evil ritual.”

”Kill him, and every one of us will be cured.”

”Kill this lizard person! Avenge our dead kin!”

”Only when heʼs dead will the plague end. Only then will all of this be over.”

”If we donʼt kill him, we all die. Our families, our children, all of them die in this plague.”

At that, everyone there went mad.

The plague-stricken most of all screamed and charged straight up at him.

Perhaps they knew they would die for it, but even dying this way was better than dying slowly in the plagueʼs own torment.

Even in death, they meant to make the lizard person who had brought this plague upon them pay.

The red-eyed lizard person stood atop the altar, stood among the shattered fragments of the broken totem pillar.

He swung his sword, and cut down every rioter who dared charge him without a single one left standing, avenging his own brothers and kin, avenging every last one who had stood behind him to the very end.

The towering lizard person stood against that sea of bodies, that crashing wave of them, unmoved as a mountain.

Every snake person who charged him, mortal or ability user alike.

There was only ever one outcome.

They all had to die.

He swung his blade without end, the sight of the slaughtered lizard people upon the ground rising without end before his eyes, and he drove his sword, savage and merciless, into snake person after snake person.

But no matter how many he killed, still more came rushing at him.

Disaster after unending disaster, and now this plague on top of it all, had driven everyone here past the edge of madness.

Slash!

Slash!

Splash!

Just as he cut down another snake person, Anu, his eyes still burning blood red, lifted his head to look, and found with a start that the person before him was none other than the Chief Physician of the Medical Fortress, watching him with eyes full of hatred.

Knowing full well they would die for it, the physician charged forward all the same.

”Anu!”

”You will pay for your savagery. You will pay for your evil scheme, that much is certain.”

Anu looked at the Chief Physicianʼs body, and at the others still scrambling to hurl themselves at him.

And little by little, the savagery, the killing intent, drained from his eyes.

The lizard person looked upon the mountain of corpses piled before him, looked upon the altar stained red with flesh and blood.

He let out a roar of grief and rage.

He roared his questions at the fallen body of the Chief Physician, roared them at everyone still standing there.

”Why?”

”Why could you not trust me a little more? Why could you not have believed in me a little more?”

”Is it only because I am a lizard person?”

”Is it just because I am a lizard person?”

”Why, why will none of you believe me?”

Anu let out a single roar, and became a raging wave that flung every last person charging up the altar through the air.

But it did nothing. The rest kept surging forward all the same, the same savagery, the same hatred in their eyes that had burned in Anuʼs own only moments before.

In this world, it was not only plague that could spread from one person to the next. Hatred could too.

Lizard Person Anu watched it all, and let out a bleak, broken laugh.

”Fools!”

”Utter, absolute fools!”

”Truly... utter fools!”

He could not have said himself whether those words were meant for the snake people before him, or for himself.

Anu lowered his head, but his hand still gripped that dark, matte blade tight, unrelenting.

One could see the silver dark flame had turned entirely to crimson red.

It was the very same flame the King of Wrath himself had once carried, and it marked the wrath burning deep within Anu as a thing nothing could hold back any longer.

He no longer looked at the snake people surging toward him from every side, but became a streak of light instead, and raced away toward the southeast.

That was the direction of the City of Fire Protection.

He meant to find one person, and demand an answer.