Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

In the cordon with flickering lights, two teams of purifiers and cleaners were confronting each other.

Although they were both subordinates of the Heresy Interrogation Bureau, one of them was responsible for the purification of the devils, while the other was responsible for the cleaning of the devils. However, there were always devils when there were devils. On the other hand, wherever there were devils, there were bound to be a lot of objects that were contaminated by the demonic energy. Therefore, the purifiers and the cleaners often had overlapping jobs. For the privilege and the right to command, there would be conflicts, too. They were not 'worker bees' without self-awareness. In the long-term contact with the devils and the devils, they would more or less be affected and produce thoughts and emotions. At the very least, for the sake of work, they had to simulate similar things with their computational ability.

However, when Chu Zhixiao showed up, the dispute between the cleaners and the purifiers came to an abrupt end. They stared at her in a weird way at the same time, as if she were some kind of alien that had been contaminated by viruses.

Chu Zhixiao was already used to such gazes.

She pulled the cordon and walked straight to the place where the smell of blood was the strongest.

"Major Chu—"

One of the cleaners stopped them stiffly. "It's just a regular 'Ghoul incident'. Four to five teams of cleaners and cleaners are already here. I don't think we need to bother you… The yaksha squad should be enough, right?"

"The regular 'Ghoul Incident'?"

Chu Zhixiao did not even bother to look at the cleaner. He said coldly, "Routine incidents of ghouls cannot be carried out so fast. In only twenty-four hours, almost a thousand ghouls have been born. Even the priests of the Kindest Clan are involved. This is not a situation that you can deal with. Go away."

She tried to push away the purifiers in front of her.

But before her hand touched him, he jumped away as if he had been electrocuted.

There was barely any emotion in Chu Zhixiao's eyes. He strode forward emotionlessly.

The cleaners and cleaners in front of her seemed to have been separated by rocks and automatically cleared a path for her to the first scene where blood was flowing everywhere.

This was a mixed room for the accelerant. In the narrow, half-open cabin, almost ten dead bodies were lying on the ground. There were obvious traces of animal bites on the throats, arms, and even the chests of all the dead bodies. The most miserable one had even lost all his internal organs. His ribs pierced into the sky like broken spears.

The bloody and disgusting scene did not affect Chu Zhixiao at all. She glanced over all the broken bodies indifferently, before she stomped on the ground in the pool of blood with her thick-soled boots and walked toward the cabin at the back.

A ferocious beast seemed to be locked in the cabin at the back. Brutal roars were echoing nonstop. Crash! Crash! Crash! The cabin walls that were several inches thick were bulging because of the collisions.

"What's the situation? Are they 'ghouls'?"

Before Chu Zhixiao stepped into the second cabin, he suddenly asked.

"Yes. They are indeed pitiful creatures that have been infected by the 'Tao Tie Virus' and turned into ghouls. Also, judging from the enhancement of their strength and their aggressiveness, they are some kind of upgraded version of the virus. Their infectivity, lethality, and threat have all been significantly improved.

An unusually mellow voice came from the second cabin.

If a person's appearance was determined by their voice, then the owner of the voice must be a peerlessly handsome man.

However, judging from the uncanny expressions of the cleaners and the purifiers nearby, who seemed to be confronting a great enemy, there should not have been anybody in the second cabin ten seconds ago.

When Chu Zhixiao walked into the second cabin, the first thing he saw was a… weirdo sealed in a corner by chains as thick as arms.

It—he was still wearing the ragged uniform of a warship soldier, but the skin below the uniform had turned a deep, burning red. Thick veins were bulging from his limbs to his abdomen, making his abdomen deformed and swollen, making him look like a pregnant woman.

There was no longer any sincerity or obedience in his dirty eyes. Instead, he seemed to have regressed into a hungry animal whose brain had been occupied by primitive desires.

Judging from his drooling appearance, he seemed to be very interested in the "meat fragrance" emitted by Chu Zhixiao. He wanted to pounce on Chu Zhixiao and bite him hard, but he was tied up by chains and could not get away no matter how hard he struggled. He was so anxious that he roared crazily and crashed into the steel plates on the wall of the cabin. His head was bleeding, and he was a mess.

A hair-raising scene happened!

He was attracted by the smell of his own blood after he crashed into the wall of the cabin. Sticking out his tongue, he licked his blood greedily until every drop of blood was gone. But he was not satisfied yet. He shook his head again and hit the wall heavily, leaving a lot of blood behind.

It seemed that, if nobody stopped him, he could continue crashing and licking until he was killed or devoured!

Any normal person would have screamed when they saw such a weird scene.

However, other than the monster, there were two other people in the cabin, including 'Major' Chu Zhixiao and another middle-aged man whose face was as fair as jade, whose eyes were as bright as stars, and whose voice was even more 'handsome'. They were both far away from the 'standards of a normal person' of the three forces of the federation, the Star Glory Federation, and the imperium.

Chu Zhixiao lost interest after only one glance at the 'ghoul'. He turned around and looked at the handsome, middle-aged man whose long hair was fluttering in the wind. The man was 'Black Dream' Yun Haixin, one of the four core members of the yaksha squad who had joined the Sanctuary Alliance with a clear head and a complete memory.

"I just snuck into the guy's brain and saw what happened in the engine compartment over the past twenty-four hours. It was indeed a typical scene of the outbreak of the 'Taotie Virus', except that the outbreak was faster and more brutal than the previous ones.

A cluster of vague black fog lingered in Yun Haixin's eyes, hiding his real eyes and emotions in a black dream. He said, "Besides, one of the three priests on Light Pursuit has indeed mutated into a 'ghoul'. The Taotie Virus in the past was not as deadly as this one. Even the most 'sacred' and 'solidest' priests, as well as the most virtuous people, have become its slaves. Haha!"

Chu Zhixiao ignored the undisguised mockery in Yun Haixin's words and fell into deep thought.

The 'Taotie Virus' that had been spreading on every planet and every fleet of the Star Glory Federation over the past two years was not a real virus but a 'mental drug' that affected the human brain directly.

Compared to the 'devilized people' of the Imperium of True Human Beings, the people of the Sanctuary Alliance boasted amazing telepathic thoughts and brainwave resonation. They would open their brain at certain times every morning and night and bask in the holy light. A lot of simple commands were transmitted directly through the brainwaves.

Such a way of communication and social structure meant that their brains were more fragile and prone to the intrusion and interference of ill-intentioned people. As long as the brain of one member of the Star Glory Federation was invaded and everybody opened their brain during the Holy Light Ritual, it was very likely that they would be infected and turn into a large-scale outbreak of emotions and viruses.

The 'Taotie Virus' was a drug that acted directly on the brain and stimulated the primitive desires deep inside the soul. More precisely speaking, it stimulated the appetite of human beings.

When such a secret and fatal drug was implanted into the brain through the Spiritual Nexus, telepathic thoughts, or hypnosis, it would trigger the appetite that had been suppressed for a long time.

In the beginning, the 'Taotie Virus' would deceive one's taste buds and nerves so that one would be able to taste the delicious food that tasted like chewing wax.

It was not hard to imagine how soul-stirring the sudden explosion of taste buds was for the people of the Sanctuary who had been drinking tasteless paste their entire life.

The poor people of the Star Glory Federation were often captured by the 'Taotie Virus' in the blink of an eye and turned into slaves of their appetite. But just like all drugs, the mental drugs had an ever-increasing 'unfulfilled' problem. The more they ate, the deeper they sank into the food, the more unsatisfied they became. The more unsatisfied they were, the more they had to swallow more and more food. In the end, the stimulation of the mental drugs gradually faded away. No matter how much synthesized food they ate, they could not taste any sweetness from it. At that time, the people whose mouths had been spoiled by the 'Taotie Virus' could not stand the dullness of synthesized food any longer.

Right now, their belief in the gods and their reverence for their master had long been destroyed and devoured by the glutton in their stomachs. They no longer cared about any rules or teachings. They would do anything to find fresher and sweeter food—real food, not sticky excrement!

Unfortunately, on most planets and starships where resources were scarce, especially in the range that the bottom-level 'worker bees' and 'soldier bees' could reach, there was only one thing that could be called 'delicious food'.

They were each other's flesh and blood.

Just like that, 'ghouls' were born.

His brain had been deeply corroded and paralyzed by the 'Taotie Virus'. His consciousness had been controlled by his intense appetite. He would bite anyone he saw and eat meat whenever he saw them. He would suck their blood, chew their bones, and devour their internal organs. He would enjoy incomparable pleasure while he was swallowing their blood—this was the typical image of a ghoul, the sad victim of the Taotie Virus.

There was no doubt that the 'Taotie Virus' was an evil weapon that the 'Puppet King', the new leader of the Heart of God, created to overturn the Sanctuary.

Moreover, over the past year, the puppet king had been modifying and upgrading the damage of the 'Taotie Virus'.

In the beginning, it was merely appetizing and bloodthirsty, but later, it was enough to trigger the secretion of adrenaline in one's body, burning away decades of vitality in the blink of an eye and turning one into a monster with immense strength, amazing speed, and sharp claws and teeth. The shocking 'Ghoul Outbreaks' were all masterpieces of the puppet king..