Plague Doctor

Chill and dampness descended upon him. A thick scent of blood lingered in the air, causing his stomach to turn. A hissing, scary noise came from below. It was slowly approaching, materializing itself into strange and absurd shadows. Gu Jun was falling into the embrace of illusion. Was it triggered by the stone slab? But the feeling of this illusion was very different; he was not pulled to another location. He was still there, lying on the platform at the top of the spiral staircase. He could feel himself exerting force with the others. However, it was no longer the Demon Hunters who were beside him. None of the Demon Hunter would be caught wearing the alluringly beautiful outfit.

Other than that, they were mumbling chaotic and panicking words. It was the foreign language that Gu Jun was both familiar and unfamiliar with. As the shadows approached, they started to shudder. Fear twisted every face and word. They cried and begged, but about what, Gu Jun could not really comprehend. He could only grasp snippets.

“Let us out!”

“No, they are coming!”

“I do not wish to die yet…”

These voices… he had heard them from the lips of the hallucinating patients of the Malformed Banyan Disease before. Were these the citizens of Rikers? Rikers had fallen, and they had managed to escape out of the city through the underground tunnel with the abnormal creatures hot on their heels. They wished desperately to leave this place, but the stone slab had blocked their way. On the surface… did people purposely place the stone slab there? The dying wails of these escapees… were people listening on the other side? Why would they block up the exit? To stop the monsters from pouring out? But they would sacrifice the citizens from Rikers… for that?

Suddenly, the vicious shadows were close behind him. The air around Gu Jun filled with the smell of decay. The people who were pushing against the stone slab turned to look. Instantly, their eyes filled with terror. Heart-wrenching screams tore through every throat. They banged against the stone slab madly. They wanted to escape, but there was nowhere for them to run. Gu Jun felt his own gaze being drawn back as well. His heart squeezed. It was the monster with the lamellar bone!

He had personally dissected the chest of this monster before, but this was the first time he had seen one in its full gory. He certainly did not expect that to happen during one of his illusions. This was a humanoid monster. It had a head, neck, torso, and four limbs, but the surface of its skin was covered in some kind of dead keratin. It had the appearance of being the monster’s natural protective gear and clothes. The monster was slightly larger than a normal human, and they had exceptionally long limbs. The construct of their arms was twisted and grotesque. The hands extended into both fingers and claws…

Gu Jun did not have a clear look, but just from the few hurried glances, it was enough to cause him to be covered in cold sweat. He came to the conclusion that the monster had a biological structure that was more suitable for climbing. The illusions started to shake violently. From his previous experience, Gu Jun knew this meant that his mind was about to collapse. The illusion was about to end. He tried his best to take another look. From humanity’s perspective, this kind of creature was dirty, disgusting, and absurd. However, their facial features were almost no different from normal humans, albeit their skin was an ashy gray and the mouths were hiding rows of sharp, dark-gray teeth. Were those normal teeth covered in a layer of decaying bacteria?

Their gaze carried with them some condescension, bloodlust, venom, and an indescribable darkness. This was not the gaze of an animal. These were feelings that were only possible with the existence of a rational mind.

Their gaze was entirely human. Would this mean… these creatures were once human beings?

“Ah!” A fearful scream erupted around him. It caused the illusions to shudder even more. It was followed by more screams. They reverberated inside this small space before they travelled out and eventually disappeared. In Gu Jun’s vision, he could see the monsters reach forward and pluck out the people one by one from the platform using their twisted limbs. They then flung the victims casually down the spiral staircase or directly down the abyss like they were some broken toys. Horror twisted the features of every victim.

Suddenly, Gu Jun felt a force yank him away and throw him downward. He sensed himself falling into an endless bloody nightmare. Every step of the spiral staircase was covered with broken bodies. Some were still bleeding fresh blood while others had seriously putrefied. The blood of Rikers’ citizens washed the stone steps and the walls with blood. Their blood and bones eventually decayed into the stone as time digested everything. The dark red patterns, were they part of these people’s blood?

The evil source of life inside the tunnel and on the spiral staircase, was that their will of resentment?

Gu Jun’s vision was getting closer and closer to the room at the bottom. He could see the mountain of dead bodies on the ground. Organs, bodies, and faces… were haphazardly piled up together. It was like he was given a glimpse of hell on earth.

Bang!

Gu Jun felt himself crash into it. A pain beyond the human threshold spread through his entire body. It felt like every cell in his body was rupturing. But the pain also managed to yank his mind out of the illusion. The breaths came rapidly to him. Suddenly, a grayish light cut into his vision. When he came to, the stone slab had already disappeared.

“It’s open. We got it open!” Uncle Dan cried out of pure joy. Xue Ba, Yang Henan, and the assault team sat up and climbed to the surface. With the last shred of energy they had, they prepared their guns and set up a perimeter. Their heavy breathing overwhelmed Uncle Dan’s cheers.

“Phew, phew…” Gu Jun’s face was so pale that it appeared like he had died at least once down there. However, since the state of the people around him was not much better, no one noticed anything different about him. He looked around again and knew that the illusion that he had just experienced had happened in this place… but it was set in a different time. The past had already dissolved and transmuted into something else. But who would want to give him a glimpse of that horrifying past?

“That is not a normal stone slab…” Xue Ba’s croaky voice came from above. Lou Xiaoning and the rest forced themselves to stand up. Gu Jun stood up waveringly. Instantly, he noticed that the ‘stone slab’ they had pushed over was an altar. It was heavy on one side due to its unique design. Gu Jun looked around him.

“Well, isn’t this strange? I believe we’re at a shrine,” Uncle Dan whispered. This was a stone shrine. It was elevated about ten meters above the dark, rotten floor. There were signs of decrepitude everywhere. The four large stone pillars on the four ends of the altar were cracked, and the once-beautiful carving around the pillars showed signs of disuse as well. They came out right through the altar that was situated at the center of the shrine. The shrine was for sacrificial purposes, and it appeared like the sixteen team members were the sacrificial lambs.

Gray mist lingered around the shrine, reflecting the color of the lifeless sky. Through the mist, they could see glimpses of large, creepy, and malformed trees surrounding the shrine. Wails of the dead appeared to leak out from beyond the mist.

Gu Jun and the rest of the Demon Hunters could see that just between the giant trees, there were flickering shadows of an army of beasts. Among them were the figures in black robes and, in much fewer numbers, figures in red robes.

And all of them were staring at the Demon Hunters.