Chapter 745.2: Fourth Stage Of The Kingdom Of Heaven

It started to twist and distort.

What if the entire world was destroyed?

It had never belonged to them for even a single second.

Suddenly, no one wanted to pull the two men apart anymore. Instead, they wanted to watch that Ratfolk, his white eyes rolled upward, rip open the horse-man overseer's belly and soak the earth with his blood.

Not only that. They wanted everyone to die. Only when every last human was gone would humanity's inherent ugliness finally disappear with them. Only then could they begin again with new identities! Only then could that endless cycle of suffering truly come to an end.

Not merely Poro Province's cycle, but every cycle.

Another person suddenly collapsed but moments later, he climbed back to his feet. Before long, the fields once again echoed with beastlike roars and bloodcurdling screams.

The fog seemed to possess a strange power. It distorted the mind, endlessly magnifying primal instincts and desires until people became puppets driven by them.

For example, there was hunger.

Tiny fungal filaments slowly emerged from the soil, infecting every crop and plant before releasing spores that assimilated every other living thing nearby. That seemed to be the source of the fog itself.

The denser the vegetation, the thicker the grayish-green mist became.

The weaker and more malnourished a person was, the more easily they became infected.

It was especially so for those working in the orchards. Out of an entire company, only a handful remained conscious long enough to flee while screaming.

For people who rarely ate meat even twice a year, they were undoubtedly the perfect breeding ground for plague.

Makur stood frozen. Staring at the chaotic fields before him, genuine panic finally appeared on his face. "These lunatics... Are they rebelling?!"

No way! All he had done was make them work. Besides, working here wasn't even harder than back in their homeland!

Only then did he remember what the squad leader had warned him earlier and cold sweat immediately beaded across his forehead. He quickly yelled, "This place isn't safe anymore... We have to leave immediately. Right, the train station! Hurry!"

The entire wasteland was filled with madmen. Anyone who arrived gradually became insane.

He finally believed it. Only their Poro Province was truly safe! He had to get back there immediately!

He turned to flee, only to discover that a crowd of madmen had already surrounded him, sealing off every possible escape route. The overseers beside him looked at him in terror, silently asking what they should do.

Makur gritted his teeth and roared, "These people are traitors! They've betrayed the Empire! Don't show any mercy! Shoot them!"

Having received permission, the overseers immediately drew their pistols and opened fire on the approaching mob without hesitation.

Gunfire echoed across the fields, but the handful of pistols possessed far too little firepower to stop the overwhelming tide of humanity.

Makur himself, along with four officers and twelve overseers, were quickly dragged to the ground beneath thousands of frenzied attackers.

Screams erupted one after another before being drowned out by the sickening sounds of flesh being torn apart.

"Let go! You filthy rats! Let me go! Aren't you afraid His Majesty will punish your fami... AAAHHH!"

"Help... I beg you, don’t..."

His utterly insincere pleas accomplished nothing and his voice gradually weakened until all that remained was a mangled heap of blood and flesh.

The crazed Ratfolk ate until they were full. People who rarely tasted meat more than once or twice a year now found their mouths stuffed with greasy intestines. Their eyes burned with an insatiable craving for flesh.

The whites of their eyes slowly turned blood red and at the same time, nourished by the blood, dark green sporocarps slowly emerged from their nostrils and ears like moss growing across a damp wall.

And that wasn't all. The soil beneath their feet also began loosening. Something followed the fungal filaments emerging from the earth, climbing out of the foul-smelling ground.

They were skeletons that had lain buried for countless years with most of their bones had long since become brittle. Yet the grayish-green sporocarps bound them back together, extracting the remaining genetic material and granting them new bones and flesh.

The spores filling the air guided their path. Dragging their broken bodies behind them, they hissed as they advanced toward those stubborn organisms that still refused to embrace evolution.

The only place where gunfire erupted wasn't the endless fields beside the Guardian River.

The nearby Gwent Town was also engulfed in gunfire. Most of the survivors stranded there were wastelanders from the Brocade River Province, especially those from Horseman Town. They were physically robust and fiercely tough by nature and as a result, relatively few of them had been infected by the spores. However, those random stuff growing out of the soil brought them no small amount of trouble.

In the tavern at the entrance to Gwent Town, a burst of automatic fire cut down more than a dozen approaching sub-entities. Mosquito cursed as he reloaded. "Goddammit! What the hell are these things?!"

"Did they seriously drop another expansion pack?!" Kakarot, standing beside him, wore an equally bewildered expression, unable to make sense of the situation.

The young Ratfolk who had been helping Mosquito sell cards was trembling beneath a table. The kid had been eating well lately. His nutrition had finally caught up, so fortunately he hadn't mutated.

Ten Punch Man spoke with a tense expression. "These things are basically zombies... Could they be those survivors who disappeared from Guardian Manor Plains before?"

"I doubt that's all of them!" Mosquito swapped magazines in his rifle. "The Torch bastards probably dug up every grave from the last 200 years!"

After reloading, Mosquito reached under the table and pulled the Ratfolk youth to his feet, then shouted toward the tavern owner hiding behind the counter, "Stop hiding back there! Get out here and come with us!"

"W-what's happening?" The tavern owner crawled out from behind the bar, looking at him in terror.

Listening to the chaotic gunfire outside, Mosquito snapped, "No idea. We'll know once we get to the military base."

...

What Mosquito didn't know was that Guardian Manor Military Base itself had already descended into a hail of gunfire.

It wasn't only the things crawling out of the ground. The Army's clone troops had also erupted into a massive mutiny. At least half of the Army of Glory had been infected.

Unlike the Ratfolk, who attacked with their teeth, these maddened soldiers simply grabbed their Rippers and turned them on the comrades beside them, even on their allied troops.

After enduring more than half a month of relentless beatings, the Torch Church had finally launched its counterattack.

This time, it came in a way no one had anticipated. It arrived straight out of the ground beneath their feet.

Alpha Mobile Task Force, still fighting on the front lines, immediately found themselves deadlocked with the Mutant Humans atop Blood Peak.

After learning of the situation in the rear from the Beast King, Sodo, the Prophet of the Bloodhoof Clan, immediately seized the opportunity and ordered his Plague Monks to launch a fierce counteroffensive.

At the same time, Goblins still hiding inside caves and tunnels throughout Broken Blade Peak, Black Cloud Peak, and everywhere that had yet to be completely exterminated, also emerged one after another, launching suicidal assaults against the defending troops.

The battlefield descended into complete chaos. From the front lines all the way to the rear, flames lit up the horizon. Everyone fought with bloodshot eyes.

Aboard the Loyalty, upon receiving the report, General Lium was so furious his nose nearly twisted out of shape. He roared at the messenger, "Tell General Melka that if he can't shoot every last one of those brain-dead clones within 30 minutes, then he can bring me his own head instead!"

"Yes, sir!" The messenger hurriedly saluted before rushing to the communications station.

Sitting in his chair with a thunderous expression, Lium couldn't help feeling shocked.

Clone mutinies...

He had never witnessed such a thing before. It seemed that the Torch Church had indeed developed something truly formidable.

Without question, it had something to do with the bizarre fog blanketing the entire wasteland.

His expression shifting constantly, he turned toward his equally silent adjutant and lowered his voice and spoke, "Notify Banteno in Dawn City. Tell him to contact Triumphant City. The frontlines needs reinforcements. Send five divisions... No, send ten of them."

Not only did they have to secure victory, they also had to guarantee postwar control over the Ocean Edge Province. Well, that was at least until they figured out exactly how that mysterious fog had caused the clones to rebel.

Above all else, such technology absolutely could not be allowed to quietly fall into the hands of either the Academy or the Enterprise.

The adjutant nodded solemnly. "Yes, sir!"

Meanwhile, at Guardian Manor Military Base. The Guard Corps, composed entirely of awakeners, swiftly suppressed the clone soldiers charging toward coalition headquarters before linking up with the Enterprise's 2nd battalion of the 100th Mechanized Mountain Division, which had reacted just as quickly.

Na Fruit primarily corrupted those with weak immune systems and fragile wills.

Every member of the Guard Corps was an awakener, carefully selected, rigorously trained, and utterly loyal to Chu Guang. Not a single one had been assimilated into a puppet of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Enterprise soldiers, while not awakeners, had almost all installed immune-enhancing bionic implants or cybernetics. As a result, they too remained unaffected.

As for the Alpha Mobile Task Force, there was even less to worry about. Although their immune systems weren't particularly remarkable, their gas masks weren't merely for show.

Only Alpha Protozoans could penetrate those filters. Ordinary spores couldn't. Furthermore, most of them had undergone psychological castration procedures. Even if infected, it was almost impossible for them to become puppets of the Kingdom of Heaven.

In the end, the Army was the only one left utterly humiliated. Although the Wislanders themselves appeared completely unaffected, the Army of Glory had suffered a catastrophic disaster.

As for the Xilande Empire... Most of the Ratfolk had been scattered throughout the surrounding countryside without firearms. So although disaster had struck them as well, they hadn't managed to drag anyone else down with them.

Order inside the military base was quickly restored. However, more and more zombies continued emerging endlessly across the Guardian Manor Plains, converging upon the base.

Some of Gwent Town's survivors fled into the military base. Others escaped northward toward Horseman Town on horseback, motorcycles, or three-wheeled vehicles along the railway.

That was the edge of the fog. Surely those monsters wouldn't keep appearing forever.

In the coalition headquarters, Lu Bei, clad in an exoframe, strode up to Chu Guang with a solemn expression. "Administrator, the area outside has been secured. Please return to the airship immediately!"

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