July 5th, an unknown sewer in the Capital.
Deep within the dark, damp stone tunnels, a twisted figure dragged its broken body through the ankle-deep sludge.
The Blood Priest known by the codename “Plague Doctor” was currently in a state more wretched than the lowliest rat in the sewers.
His severely mutated body emitted a nauseating stench. Beneath his rotting skin, yellow-green pus seeped through the muscle fibers, dripping into the murky sewage below and sending out ripples of eerie light.
Despair — an unprecedented despair — was choking him.
Ever since the assassination attempt on Allen de Laval had utterly failed, the Crimson Oath’s foundation, which had been rooted in the Capital for hundreds of years, began to collapse like an avalanche.
Important strongholds were being uprooted one by one, resulting in heavy casualties.
What made his blood boil even more was that a newcomer he had personally recruited and placed great hopes in had actually stabbed the Cult in the back.
As the person in charge of the Cult in the Capital, he believed he had only been faithfully executing the Lord’s plan and had not made any fatal errors.
Yet, he had ended up abandoned by his followers, fleeing in a panic.
This led him to wonder: ‘Had the Lord abandoned me?’
Now, the Cult’s influence in the Capital was fragmented. The mad dogs of the Inquisition had caught the scent of blood, and their extermination operations grew more frenzied by the day.
Panic had spread within the Cult. His authority was being challenged like never before, and many members had even openly defected from his leadership.
Of course, he also knew that the Cult was originally a monster stitched together. Everyone served different gods, and each had their own ulterior motives.
If not for the wise “Star Listener” who founded the Crimson Oath and forced this rabble into a semblance of unity, these heretics would likely have slaughtered each other until only one faith remained before they ever even faced the Church.
The root of all these failures pointed toward one man — Allen de Laval.
He was an anomaly that should not exist in this world, a cursed being that even the gods turned their eyes to see!
A few days ago, the Pseudo-Mark Knight who had the best chance of replacing him had perished at the hands of Allen de Laval, even after receiving a blessing from “God.”
Although he had not witnessed the process personally, the Plague Doctor had clearly felt the divine power of God descend at that moment.
God’s power was so immense, yet his compatriot had still failed.
‘That monster… exactly what kind of terrifying enemy is he?’
The Plague Doctor knew well that Allen was not someone to be provoked.
To preserve the Cult’s remaining strength, he had decided to go underground, abandon direct confrontation, and focus on his most important experiment.
As long as that experiment succeeded, the entire Capital would be transformed into the Garden of God, and he would become God’s most favored gardener.
This was far more important than killing Allen de Laval!
Besides, followers of other gods were also keeping an eye on that monster.
Since those traitors were disobedient, he would let them experience the horror of that demon for themselves.
However, the Plague Doctor never expected that just as he had finally gathered enough experimental materials and was preparing to study the “gift” bestowed by God to find a more efficient way to spread the gospel…
That crazy woman had come hunting for him!
The servants he had painstakingly created were easily eliminated by her. His hidden secret laboratories and strongholds were being destroyed one after another.
She was like an tireless destruction machine, accurately finding every single hiding place of the Cult.
How did she know these secrets? it defied all logic!
Could two monsters like Allen de Laval really appear in the same era?
The Plague Doctor had tried to trade blows with that madwoman who bore the Star Emblem.
The result was that she remained unscathed while he was nearly split into two.
If not for the terrifying regenerative abilities granted to him by God, he would have been a rotting corpse by now.
Currently, he did not dare go to any of the surviving strongholds. He suspected the woman was waiting there for him to walk into her trap.
For the past two days, that madwoman had been like a vulture catching the scent of carrion, circling above the Capital and hunting down every Cult member with relentless fury!
‘Damn it! Damn it!’
Exactly what blood feud did the Cult have with her?
If this continued, the Cult would truly be driven out of the Capital entirely.
But he… he refused to accept this!
The Capital was the area where the Cult’s infiltration was most difficult and where the Lord placed the most importance.
If they lost this place, God would surely be disappointed. Even if he luckily escaped elsewhere, he would never have another chance to rise again.
As a heretic, he knew better than anyone the price of failure.
*Sigh.* If he weren’t at the end of his rope, who would willing turn into this creature that was neither human nor ghost?
The Plague Doctor’s cloudy eyeballs twitched as his thoughts drifted back to the distant past.
He was not a man of Lorraine; he came from the Empire.
His former profession had an ancient name — “Rainmaker.”
To put it bluntly, he was a shaman who danced for the spirits.
Even in an era where the Church’s faith had become mainstream, some remote and isolated areas still retained ancient customs and folk beliefs — or what the Church deemed “unauthorized shrines and perverse sacrifices.”
The Church’s attitude toward these fringe beliefs was ambiguous.
Sometimes they would incorporate them as local traditions, and other times they would mercilessly brand them as Heresy.
Because of this, the young Plague Doctor had lived a life of constant anxiety, sometimes acting as a doctor and sometimes as a priest.
Every year, he would preside over a rain-seeking ritual, praying to the local “Father Rain” for sweet dew to irrigate the fields and for prosperity in the coming year’s harvest.
“Father Rain” was a generous, benevolent god who bestowed life and fertility. The villagers believed he was one of the incarnations of the Sleeping Creator.
Naturally, this faith could not see the light of day. If discovered by the Judgement Court, the entire village could be wiped off the map by an Extinction Order.
He had to admit, he had once been quite an excellent Rainmaker. Every year, he successfully summoned the rain.
Perhaps Father Rain truly favored him especially.
This fringe belief became more deeply rooted as the village prospered year after year.
Until… that millennium drought descended.
The entire continent was shrouded in a terrifying drought. Crops failed, locusts swarmed, and famine spread.
The Empire fell into chaos as lords raided one another for survival. His village was not spared.
All stored grain was plundered. Famine and plague descended, and the villagers struggled on the brink of death.
Driven by the instinct to survive, those emaciated villagers knelt before him and pleaded with their last bit of strength.
“We want to live! Please, pray to Father Rain once more!”
His predecessor, the old Rainmaker, had strictly warned him when passing down the duty: “The ritual can only be held once a year! Otherwise… Father Rain will take back all past blessings with interest.”
If he didn’t pray, everyone would starve immediately.
If he did pray… no one knew what would happen.
The Plague Doctor looked into those desperate eyes and ultimately chose the latter, despite the unknown outcome.
And so, he initiated the forbidden Second Rainmaking Ritual.
The heavy rain arrived as scheduled.
However, what the villagers received was not sweet dew, but a Storm of rot and plague.
That was the beginning of the nightmare — though, to his current self, it was a great blessing.
What fell from the sky was no longer clear water, but a green liquid emitting a sweet, sickly stench of decay.
Every drop was saturated with countless “gifts” — disease, corruption, and a twisted, stubborn vitality.
The earth became a bizarre garden, and all life obtained “Rebirth” in a distorted fashion.
The dying villagers received the life they craved, but they also forever lost the right to die.
They were entangled in eternal plague, flies, and stench, reborn in rot and rotting in rebirth, unendingly.
Only the Plague Doctor was the sole exception.
He was left behind, conscious, day after day, dwelling with these “villagers” whom he no longer knew how to name.
The following year, when the lord led his army back to see if there were any survivors, they saw a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives — a sight enough to make the soul itself vomit.
Finally, the Inquisition arrived.
They brought Purification and fire, utterly erasing this once-prosperous village. Even today, it remained a scorched wasteland where not a single blade of grass grew.
The Plague Doctor was the only “survivor,” but he was also the one most thoroughly corrupted.
On his dark green skin, throbbing pustules and ulcers were densely packed, resembling the skin of a low-quality toad.
An intense stench of decay, like corpse water accumulated for months, emanated from every crack in his body.
Countless tiny maggots squirmed in his festering wounds — these were the “partners” bestowed by God, never to be separated from him.
With this ghostly appearance, he was destined to never live as a human again.
As a fugitive on the Inquisition’s wanted list, he was a rat to be beaten by everyone in the street.
Until the Star Listener found him and sheltered him.
Relying on his “excellent” medical skills and a Pseudo-Mark capable of creating a sterile environment, he became the Cult’s Blood Priest, specialized in transplanting Pseudo-Marks for new “Dustfallen.”
More than half of the Pseudo-Mark Knights in the Capital were born from his rotting hands. Naturally, he became the leader of the Capital’s Cult.
From then on, there was no more Rainmaker in the world, only the Plague Doctor who spread pestilence.
He wanted to bring true prosperity and immortality to humanity so that humans would not repeat the same mistakes and walk toward destruction in cycle after cycle.
But today, he might have truly reached the end of his path.
Hiding in the sewers of the Capital, surrounded by thick feces and filth, he actually felt incredibly at peace.
He knew very well that the madwoman hunting him — that monster who was “too clean” from head to toe — would never condescend to crawl into a place like this.
The more “clean” a being was, the more they could not tolerate “filth.”
In this grimy world, the only ones who could remain “clean” were his favorites.
‘I really want to see what kind of interesting expression she’ll make when she realizes she’s the filthiest one.’
The Plague Doctor immersed himself in this dark pleasure, the corners of his mouth — if that pile of rotten meat could still be called a mouth — curling into a silent arc.
Just then, a strange echo came from behind him.
It wasn’t a water droplet, a rat, or a footstep. It was more like something slick and viscous was squirming and dragging along.
The pustules all over the Plague Doctor’s body instantly tightened and began to throb violently.
Impossible! Absolutely impossible! How could that woman —
He whipped around, prepared for a fight to the death.
But what he saw was not that madwoman.
It was… something else.
In this absolute darkness, his eyes — if those two murky pustules could still be called eyes — could see everything.
Except for what was behind him. There was only an endless, pure darkness that swallowed all light.
That darkness came alive and surged toward him.
He heard it — a sickening crawling sound from the depths of the darkness, like countless slugs writhing underground, or like ten million wet, slippery tentacles dancing frantically.
“Do… not… look.”
A voice that belonged to no language exploded directly in his brain, bringing a sharp, stinging pain.
The Plague Doctor instantly understood who the visitor was.
That bone-deep chill, that fear originating from life’s primal instinct — only that being could provide it.
He quickly turned away, facing the void of darkness, and asked tentatively in a nearly fawning tone: “Is that you? Listener?”
“It… is… I…”
The voice continued to echo in his mind. Every syllable was like a steel needle scraping against his soul.
Even with God’s blessing, the Plague Doctor felt like he was going insane.
“Did you… succeed in your ascension?”
“Per… haps…”
Hearing this vague answer, a surge of wild joy rose in the Plague Doctor’s heart.
Since the Star Listener had personally descended to the Capital…
Did that mean he no longer had to deal with this mess?
As if seeing through his little thoughts, that eerie voice continued: “The… task… is… not… finished.”
“Then what other task do you have for me?” he asked urgently.
“Not… I… it… is… Him.”
“The Lord?”
“He… is… a… head.”
Ahead?
The Plague Doctor was stunned. Ahead in the sewer, besides more filth, what could there be?
As he hesitated, a faint, fateful sigh sounded in his mind.
“Do… not… con… tinue…”
Before the voice could fade, a completely different power abruptly intruded.
It was a warm, moist feeling, full of decaying vitality, like the first corpse melting under the sun in spring, carrying a comforting stench.
This power easily dispersed the cold, mad whispers.
The Plague Doctor looked back cautiously and found that the darkness behind him had vanished without a trace, as if everything just now had been an illusion.
‘Do not continue? Continue what? Continue moving forward?’
The Star Listener was the only one in the Cult who could understand The Supreme Heaven where the gods resided, but he was not a follower of any specific god.
What he believed in seemed to be The Supreme Heaven itself.
Even the Plague Doctor did not know what state this founder of the Cult was currently in.
The Plague Doctor pondered that warning, but just then, he felt something ahead attracting him.
It was an incredibly gentle calling. He even heard the laughter of those departed villagers and the songs they sang around the campfire during the harvest season.
He missed that feeling — the feeling of being needed and loved when he was still a respected Rainmaker.
He suddenly realized that He was there.
He couldn’t help but run forward, running desperately through the filthy sewer.
He wanted to escape this desperate reality and run toward the warmth in his memories.
He didn’t know how long he ran before the brick walls began to twist and melt, and the sewage beneath his feet turned into soft soil.
He burst into a space vast beyond imagination.
There, he saw a massive existence that could not be described in words.
His skin was a muddy green, covered in oozing pustules, swaying moss, and constantly growing fungi.
On his overly bloated belly, a hideous mouth was split open, occasionally letting out a burp that sprayed swarms of flying insects.
He leaned on a gnarled staff that was constantly rotting and regenerating. A storm, rotten and filled with plague, perpetually circled his mountain-like body.
Gazing at his extremely ugly image, full of the breath of decay and decline, what surged in the Plague Doctor’s heart was not fear, but a sense of homecoming and peace.
He was smiling. That smile was not hideous; instead, it was like a loving father looking at a child who had been away from home for a long time.
“Is it you… Father Rain?”
The Plague Doctor’s voice choked. Tears mixed with pus slid down his twisted face.
At this moment, he didn’t look like an evil priest, but more like a child who had suffered and finally found someone to lean on.
A group of round, chubby little things crawled out of the boils and pustules on Father Rain’s body.
They cheerfully surrounded the Plague Doctor, curiously poking his pustules with their tiny claws, letting out giggles and humming tuneless songs about rot and rebirth.
“Child, I have brought the seed bestowed upon you by the Grandfather.” Father Rain’s voice was gentle and slow.
With every word he spoke, a colorful carpet of fungi spread beneath his feet.
“Go, for the Grandfather, and sow his garden. Those lives you lost… will eventually return to your side in an even more flourishing way.”
As the words fell, a “Seed” emitting a soft green light and throbbing like a heart floated down from Father Rain’s fingertip and merged into the Plague Doctor’s chest.
An unspeakable power, containing infinite vitality and decay, exploded within him.
Supreme ecstasy made the Plague Doctor weep with joy. He understood that it wasn’t just Father Rain; even the supreme Plague God himself was watching over him.
The Star Listener had once told him a phrase originating from eons ago —
“Endless life, boundless prosperity.”
And this was the most precious gift bestowed upon humanity by God.
The wind of The Supreme Heaven blew toward the kingdom of humans.
This time, the Star Listener was already powerless to stop it.