Versatile Mage (Web Novel)
chapter-365

Unfortunately, Mo Fan and Tangyue were trapped in White Town.

The town was in full lockdown shortly after they arrived. No one was allowed to leave the town to avoid the plague from spreading.

Mo Fan and Tangyue suddenly found themselves in an awkward position. They were planning to rest briefly at White Town before bringing the Skyscraping Snake to White Mountain.

Regardless if the Skyscraping Snake were responsible for the plague, they could not let the snake stay in the town. Sending him away was the best thing to do now.

Who knew the town would be in lockdown so soon? With the established barrier, anyone who tried to leave without permission would be detected instantly, making the two of them very anxious.

"Screw it, we have to barge our way out. If our god is the cause of the plague, him staying here any further would only make the situation worse!" said Tangyue firmly.

"Mm, we'll move once it gets dark, but we would surely startle the Battlemages in the town, and even expose our locations," Mo Fan agreed.

"It's fine. The big guy will tell us the location of the Royal Guards and the people of the Magic Court. They won't be able to catch up to us," said Tangyue.

------

That night, Mo Fan and Tangyue made their move.

The town was surrounded by walls and a magical barrier. Anything going in and out of the barrier would alert the Battlemages on patrol.

Mo Fan did not care too much. He summoned the Swift Star Wolf to carry him and Tangyue as they broke through the barrier.

The moon was bright, but there were few stars. The streets of White Town were mostly deserted. Everyone was too scared to go outside due to the plague. Meanwhile, Hangzhou City was fairly normal during the day, but at night, an outbreak took place as hundreds of people fell ill to the plague. The news spread rapidly, leaving the people in total panic.

The pace of the spread was a lot faster than anyone could have imagined. Every pharmacist was dumbfounded, as they had never seen such an aggressive disease. Healing Magic was completely useless against it, while the usual prescription against similar diseases somehow sped up the virus penetrating the recipient's body instead!

Most plagues would have a period of concealment before breaking out. The plague would then worsen slowly and spread, before resulting in a massive death count.

However, this particular plague did not have a period of concealment at all. It went straight to an outbreak.

A plague that spread rapidly would take a longer time for the condition to worsen. Therefore, they should have had enough time to find the right antibody. Yet, not only was the plague spreading rapidly, the condition of the patients also worsened at a crazy pace. A patient who had only contracted the plague a week ago now had blue blisters all across their body, resulting in an extraordinarily eerie sight. They would not be able to see the sunlight the next day if they did not receive treatment in time.

------

An hour after Mo Fan and Tangyue brought the biggest suspect of the plague away from White Town, the first three patients who had caught the plague died on their hospital beds.

The deaths had triggered an uproar in the medical circles. Many experts were summoned to the Magic Association's hospital. They gathered around the corpses with gas masks. They were staring at the totally corroded corpses on the beds.

The bodies began to corrode when the blisters burst open. They still looked human in the day, and now their appearance had changed beyond recognition!

"Mr. Lu, what do you think?" asked Zhu Meng in a deep tone.

Mr. Lu waved his hand, signaling the nurses to cover up the corpses. Even he, who had seen many weird diseases before, found the sight unbearable.

"The plague is one of the scariest I've seen in the past few decades. We've calculated the facts. It only took seven days for a person to catch the disease, fall ill and end up like this. Seven days...it's too short for us to react!" Mr. Lu was the representative of the pharmacists. As an expert of Healing Magic, he was dumbfounded by the plague!

"Head of the Magic Court, I'm sure that you're aware that more than a thousand people are affected by the plague?" Zhu Meng glanced at Tang Zhong.

"I know," Tang Zhong nodded.

"Look at the three corpses, do you think I, Zhu Meng would use three lives just to frame your god?" Zhu Meng pointed at the three corpses covered in white blankets and snapped, "I'm not low enough to use such a petty method. If you think your god is innocent, then you should be able to come up with an explanation for these corpses!"

The Head of the Magic Court fell silent.

The outcome was totally unacceptable to Tang Zhong. Their tribe had assumed that the two corpses that were discovered a week later were something that Zhu Meng had set up, but when he saw the people affected by the plague died similar deaths to the first two corpses, he was dumbfounded too!

Zhu Meng isn't responsible for it...

Could it really be the Black Totem Snake?

Had the Black Totem Snake lost control of his savagery during the ecdysis?

The news had already spread wildly across the media. Everyone had their eyes on Hangzhou. The people that had died to the plague was sharing the same symptoms as those who were said to be killed by the Black Totem Snake. The terror would surely initiate a protest among the people to hunt down the Black Totem Snake!

When that happened, even if the Totem Tribe were to make public the truth about the Totem Beast, the Black Totem Snake would still be in grave danger. Even if the government and the Enforcement Union were against it, the pressure from the people would still force them to eliminate the Black Totem Snake.

"The Black Totem Snake has stayed in the West Lake for a very long time, but a plague like this has never happened... I think I'll have to further investigate it," said Tang Zhong with a stern voice.

"Tang Zhong!" yelled Zhu Meng furiously. The beard on his face shook. He pointed his finger at the Head of the Magic Court and roared, "Even now you're still trying to protect the Black Totem Snake, are you seriously aware of the situation? There are 1,324 people affected by the plague, and in a week's time, they will end up like these corpses. As the Head of the Magic Court, are you really going to blindly follow the ridiculous teachings of your ancestors and watch them die!?

"Maybe it looks like the Black Totem Snake is staying in our city, but the truth is he had long existed for God knows how many centuries before humans were here. Our ancestors were only able to survive in the demon beasts' territories under his protection, which allowed them to build a city here to live and work in peace. The history might not have this recorded, but our tribe has made sure that it gets passed down to every generation. I do agree that the Black Totem Snake is the greatest suspect for the plague, but please give me some time. I'll let Tangyue bring you some of his fluid during the ecdysis. We could possibly prevent the plague from spreading if we could produce some kind of antibody from it, but please don't eradicate it!" said Tang Zhong.