Plague Doctor

Chapter 285: Transmission of Emotion

Gu Jun was in quarantine when he found out about the situation in London and New York. He had been there for 3 days already. After Siyu confirmed his identity, he worked with the headquarters through remote communication to handle various incidents.

“Quarantine, quarantine, how much longer you people are going to keep him locked up?!” Elder Tong grumbled. He believed the Zoogs’ statement that the House of Worm would not present humanity with anymore ‘gifts’, “Which branch of Phecda does not need the kid, you tell me?!” However, Elder Tong’s complaints did nothing to speed up the protocol. What did shatter the protocol was the sudden incidents that occurred that afternoon. Gu Jun put on the airtight protective suit, went through the decontamination room and exited quarantine.

“Ah Jun, what’s happening?” Uncle Dan, Lou Xiaoning and the land’s travellers were all released as well. They knew that something must have gone wrong or else they would not be released 1 week earlier than scheduled.

“Something has happened over in America and Britain.” Gu Jun said darkly. The workers played the related footage on the phones for them. They watched the videos as they exited the quarantine building. They hopped onto a quarantine car, which was painted over to avoid public confusion, to head into the Eastern State City. These videos were not confidential, despite the internet monitoring within the country, they were easily accessible without.

“Oh no...” Kathlyn fidgeted anxiously, “Is Australia alright?” She called her parents and sighed in relief when she found out they were fine. The world was changing... The next day, one could wake up to find one’s loved ones dying.

“Fuck, what now?!” Lou Xiaoning cursed loudly. They were still dealing with the aftermath of legionella pneumonia but someone decided to come up with something new at a time like this?!

“This is bad, this is bad...” Even Uncle Dan was not in a joking mood. His face was stern. Black fog and dead birds, if they carried contagious virus or bacteria...

Thankfully, things didn’t look that way. The black fog that swept London disappeared as fast as it came. It started to dissipate after 20 minutes, leaving behind a stench of putrefaction and a whole city of shocked citizens. Temporarily, there was no reported case of sickness. Over at New York, the dead birds were verified to be illusions coagulated from black fog. They dropped to the ground and covered the whole city in a layer of dead carcasses, but in less than half an hour, all of them dissolved back into fog. The only similarity was they too left behind a horrible stench of putrefaction. Regardless, the two countries had announced emergency lockdown, and they were both testing for signs of infections. It had been an hour since then and so far, there was no record of injury or fatality.

“These should be the effect of some kind of ritual...” Inside the car, Gu Jun communicated with the headquarters, “They most likely do not carry any pathogen, at least that’s what I felt when I saw the videos.” After his adventure inside the House of Worm, he became more sensitive to things like this. The videos did not give off a presence of death. Wu Siyu did not sense anything from them either, she felt like she was watching videos of a funny clown.

“You think this is just a scare?” Yao Sinian asked in confusion, “It has no real effect behind it?”

“To perform a ritual to harm a large metropolis is not that easy.” Gu Jun shared his view. “For now, I do not think our enemies are capable of that.” If they were, why not just hit big cities with the legionella pneumonia in the first place? Now he understood it was because of the House of Worm. Kaar was a relatively barren location, to ensure the connection between Dreamland and Earth, the affected locations had to be barren cities themselves. They were also close to the sea due to the cultists’ faith in Cthulhu. These were the connections between San Hai City and the other affected cities. The epidemic started at these places and through the increase in fatality number, the thousand-eyed worm got stronger, thus spreading the epidemic further. This proved indirectly that the cultists did not possess super advanced biotechnology, they still need to rely on supernatural power to create the epidemic. Furthermore, if they did not use supernatural power, how were they going to awaken the Lord of R’yleh?

“Then why do you think they are doing this?” Yao Sinian enquired. Hearing Gu Jun suggest that these incidents were not contagious, he relaxed aplenty.

“I believe... they are trying to spread fear to create chaos.” Gu Jun answered as a chill tingled down his spine. Fear and chaos were the fodder for certain existence like the House of Worm. The cultists might be attempting to reopen the House of Worm or some other location...

Scrolling through the international websites, many netizens responded in fear but of course, there were also those who revel in the chaos. They cheered for the end of the world, came up with conspiracies and added fuel to the fire... these were all seeds of chaos. Fear was a powerful emotion, many people were at their wit’s end. One more push and who knew what they’d do. Today it was London and New York, where it would strike tomorrow?

Chaos and fear... these elements could be far more contagious than any known biological pathogen. Gu Jun got chills because he had this suspicion... that hemoptysis might start as a psychological illness. After all, a healthy mind equals a healthy body, the reverse is also true. After the foreign world was sucked into a whirlpool of enormous fear due to the attack of the Necroskins, hemoptysis arrived. It completely shattered the people’s will for survival. The legionella pneumonia epidemic and these feats of chaos were echoing that process.

“Commander Yao, Elder Tong,” Gu Jun added, “We mustn’t allow the public fear to intensify, this might be a psychological epidemic.”

“Hmm.” Elder Tong concurred. “I’ve been saying certain things are better dealt with honesty instead of covering them up, I hate that I’m right this time.”

“Ah Jun, be ready.” Yao Sinian said seriously, “With this incident, the White House will have to admit the existence of supernatural forces, we are already in discussion with them about how much we should reveal to the public. It has been decided that once the US does so, we will follow up with our own announcement, and when that happens, you’ll be pushed out into the spotlight.”

...

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