Chapter 29: Scatter and Flight

Reckdon rarely did not ask why; he simply suppressed the fear welling up in his heart, quickly stepped forward, and prepared to pull the blood clan member the crow on his shoulder had mentioned out.

Lowering his head, he quickly approached the crater smashed into the ground by that enormous palm. He recognized the blood clan member inside—it was Yas, whom he had met not long ago. The other party was currently unconscious, with many marks of fire burns and lightning strikes on his body.

Reckdon looked at Yas lying on the ground, full of confusion. Why would he be here? Wasn't he preparing to leave Fenebot with Pas and his sister? Where were Eliza and Pas?

"Hurry!" the crow on his shoulder urged.

Without further hesitation, Reckdon bent down and pulled him out of the smashed crater. He had originally wanted to hoist him over his shoulder to carry him away, but he already had a crow on his shoulder, and it did not seem to have any intention of moving.

Reckdon had no choice but to scoop him up around the waist. As he ran outward, he said, "Give me a blessing or some other enhancement. My stamina and physical fitness aren't enough for me to carry a person and balance a crow while sprinting through the jungle."

"Caw~"

Reckdon had barely finished speaking when he felt his body go light, as if it had lost all weight. Holding the unconscious blood clan member Yas, Reckdon sprinted swiftly in the direction he had come from.

"Change direction, run toward the Church of Knowledge!" the crow on his shoulder said again.

Without a word, Reckdon slightly adjusted his direction and gradually left this area.

Not long after Reckdon left, another four or five people wearing the robes of Earth Church clergy fell out through the gap torn open by the giant vines and the giant arm. Nearly every one of them was covered in wounds, but perhaps due to the powerful vitality of the Cultivator pathway, they did not lose consciousness like Yas had.

After falling out, they first checked their surroundings, then immediately supported each other and made their way toward the archbishop of the Harvest Church.

"Your Grace the Archbishop, that blood clan viscount had been unknowingly corrupted by the evil god 'Primordial Moon.' It should be related to his wife's death. The cause of this incident was also his desire to resurrect his wife, but his subsequent plans did not proceed as he had expected. Instead, they were discovered and disrupted by a certain Highness." After approaching, Uthel quickly reported his group's findings to the archbishop.

"I already know. Leave here immediately—he no longer intends to live." The archbishop of the Harvest Church had already transformed into a giant bear about three meters tall.

As the archbishop's words fell, on the other side where the arm had previously extended, another arm broke through the blockade of vines and reached out, followed by more vines being torn away and falling.

"Roar!" A massive blood-red humanoid wrapped in countless vines slowly stood up from the ground. Behind it was a pair of illusory blood-red wings, upon which countless twisted undead seemed to be howling in agony. Countless illusory, mad whispers echoed in the minds of every member of the Earth Church nearby.

The archbishop of the Harvest Church began to expand again, preparing to hold the other party here first while waiting for the church's reinforcements.

The massive blood-red humanoid did not make any attacking motion. Having broken free from the entanglement of countless giant vines, it only gazed at the Crimson Moon in the sky with eyes full of longing.

"Wuu~~" A low, sorrowful moan sounded beneath the silent night sky.

Everyone who heard this sound shed tears involuntarily. Even the demigod bishop of the Earth Church could not help but weep. Reckdon, carrying Yas as he swiftly threaded through the trees, felt an immense sorrow suddenly surge from the depths of his heart.

In this moment, Reckdon felt nothing but boundless grief, as if nothing in this world had any meaning anymore. An impulse toward self-destruction filled his mind.

Yas, held in Reckdon's arms, shed tears in his unconscious state, his expression becoming contorted and agonized. On the other side, Captain Yikdun and Mr. Korth, who had already moved far from this area, abruptly turned their heads to look behind them, sorrow welling up in their hearts for no reason.

"What is this? What happened?" Mr. Korth looked toward the hospital, his voice hoarse, speaking as if something were stuck in his throat.

"Caw~" The loud cry of the crow on his shoulder brought him back to his senses. Suppressing the sorrow that kept surging in his heart and the self-destructive impulses flooding his mind, he switched from carrying to dragging the unconscious Yas and swiftly fled the area.

This sorrow did not last long. The archbishop of the Harvest Church had already launched an attack against the massive blood-red humanoid.

The surrounding ground heaved as several giant vines once again erupted from the earth. At the same time, the archbishop's lower body merged into the ground. Then the entire surface of earth and stone heaved upward, forming a giant earthen giant with an upper body but whose lower body remained connected to the ground. The spot where the archbishop had previously stood was exactly at the crown of this earthen giant's head.

Under the archbishop's control, the giant earthen giant, consisting of only half a body, launched an attack against the massive humanoid that had been entangled again by the giant vines. The earthen giant slammed down a fist, and the massive blood-red humanoid suddenly disintegrated, turning into countless tiny red streams of light that scattered in all directions, continuously spreading outward. Any living creature or even soil touched by them would be assimilated and undergo a certain degree of mutation.

"You! Damn it!!" The archbishop of the Harvest Church, half of his body merged into the earthen giant, roared furiously in his giant bear form.

This out-of-control blood clan viscount had disintegrated all of his own characteristics and flesh into countless tiny fragments, scattering them in all directions.

The living creatures and even inanimate objects here would undergo massive mutations in a short time. Moreover, because these were incomplete characteristics, the mutated creatures would all fall into madness and, following the law of gathering of non-extraordinary characteristics, begin to slaughter each other, recondensing into a complete set of non-extraordinary characteristics.

Originally, as merely an out-of-control demigod, he would not have possessed the ability to shatter non-extraordinary characteristics like this. But now, this out-of-control viscount, by abandoning his own life and soul, actively disintegrated the characteristics already merged into his flesh along with his flesh itself. Before the non-extraordinary characteristics had time to separate out, he infused them into everything in the surroundings.

Under these circumstances, until the Earth Church completely resolved the mutated creatures in this area, no one could live here anymore. One must remember that although this place was close to the outskirts, it still belonged to the city area. Even though the area covered by the flesh he had disintegrated and scattered was not large, in a short time, relying on the Earth Church's personnel stationed in Ma Dan City, it would be very difficult to fully resolve it.

"The only good news is probably that for tonight's operation, they had already covertly relocated the nearby residents beforehand. It was only a temporary relocation before, but now it will most likely become a permanent one." His Grace the Archbishop reverted from his giant bear form back to human form, sighing helplessly in his heart.

On the other side, Reckdon, dragging Yas as he sprinted through the jungle, suddenly felt a palpitation, as if an enormous danger was hurtling toward him. Before Reckdon could react, a wave of red streams of light submerged him.

Pale blue radiance swirled around Reckdon, protecting him, the Yas he was dragging, and the crow on his shoulder. The red streams of light were isolated and unable to touch Reckdon and the others.

"Leave quickly, don't stop, or you'll be facing a siege of mutated creatures," the crow on his shoulder urged, its tone becoming somewhat anxious.

"I never expected that fellow to go this far just to avoid affecting his own descendants. Is this human nature?" This was a sentence the crow did not say aloud.

Reckdon also realized the gravity of the situation and ran outward with all his might.

The surrounding plants were mutating at a rate visible to the naked eye. Some were growing rapidly, and some even grew organs like eyes and mouths. There was also a small plant growing in the ground whose original form was unrecognizable—it actually grew a pair of legs and stood up from the ground!

Reckdon ran even faster. The scenes of mutation unfolding around him made him feel that even if he was not attacked by these mutated creatures, staying here too long would drive him mad.

He did not know how long he had been pushing forward through the jungle, but the surrounding plants gradually became more normal and much sparser. The original road finally revealed itself beneath the cover of vegetation.

"Whew!" Finally letting out a breath of relief, Reckdon slowed his pace and identified his current location by the surrounding houses. Then he found his bearings and headed toward where the Church of Knowledge was located.

"Stop!" the crow on his shoulder spoke at this moment.

"Are we in a safe zone already?" Reckdon let out a sigh of relief, dropped the Yas he had been dragging, and plopped down on the ground himself, asking as he panted.

"Not yet, but this is already the edge of the area. It won't affect you too much. Going further ahead, there will be church personnel relocating the residents here, so it's inconvenient." The crow on Reckdon's shoulder flapped its wings and flew down.

Reckdon nodded and did not ask why it was inconvenient. The crow raised its wings, then used its beak to pluck a red feather from itself and toss it to Reckdon.

"Insert this feather into your hat, and you will complete the seal on it," the crow said.

Then it flapped its wings again. Many strange symbols outlined in pale blue fluorescence appeared and merged into Yas, who had been thrown on the ground. Yas then began to cough violently, accompanied by much fluorescence separating from his body and slowly beginning to converge, until one, then two small worms—twelve ringed segments alternating between transparent and translucent—were spat out by Yas.

These two Time Worms were still alive. After being spat out, they writhed on the ground trying to escape, but the crow swallowed them one by one.

Reckdon watched this scene, his mind a bit dazed. It seemed he had figured some things out, yet also seemed even more bewildered.

"You ate the Time Worms? You—" Reckdon's voice was hoarse, his eyes watching the crow before him full of wariness.

"You actually recognize Time Worms. That's fair enough, but don't worry. A mere two Time Worms are not enough to parasitize me. Even though this is only an avatar, the consciousness I projected over is not an avatar. Moreover, there is no avatar of A Meng here. When my main body cast its gaze over, he had already left," the crow said, its voice betraying no emotion.

"What do you want the Time Worms for? For A Meng's research results?" Since the other party had already identified himself, Reckdon did not dwell on it and asked directly.

"How did you guess this was an experiment conducted by A Meng? Because of that clown?" the crow—the avatar of an angel seated beneath the God of Knowledge and Wisdom—asked in return.

After learning there was no avatar of A Meng here, Reckdon felt reassured. The confirmation of the God of Knowledge was still worth trusting. The God of Knowledge also held part of the authority of fate and could discover those creatures parasitized by the A Mengs.

Reckdon nodded. "More or less. Once I learned that the clown could split himself into three, and that each one seemed to have stitched together the characteristics of multiple pathways, and that these pathways were adjacent pathways, I formed some conjectures. Moreover, there are not many existing angels of these three pathways. It wasn't until you drew out these two Time Worms that I confirmed this was A Meng's prank, and simultaneously his probing and research?"

(End of this chapter)