Chapter 1498: Chapter 1498

The carriage carried them through the city and out to a grand cathedral in the suburbs. On the way, Jenkins learned about the situation while eating a piece of bread. Chocolate, his cat, was forced to endure a day without a proper breakfast.

Apparently, after the three were arrested yesterday, the Church followed their leads to investigate. The residence of Count Paramont was the easiest to find, but when the Church's Scribe squad, along with an escort of police officers and priests, arrived at the suburban manor, no one came to open the gate.

"I went to see it myself. The sight was truly horrifying. I never would have imagined it."

The man speaking to Jenkins in the cathedral was Mr. Josen Gilbert, an acquaintance of his. It was Gilbert who had led the support team from Bel Diran when the Frostbringer attacked the Nolan cathedral last autumn. He had also been in charge of Jenkins's security when he came to Bel Diran that winter to accept his award:

"Yesterday evening, our Scribe squad forced their way into the estate. As they moved along the courtyard corridors, they discovered several servants who appeared to be weeping with their faces covered. When our team approached, the servants attacked. Their bodies were severely mutated—shrunken and hunched over, their skin covered in blood-red patterns. Their eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, and their noses and mouths had become unnaturally sharp and hard. A few even had structures resembling cicada wings on their backs, though they were incapable of flight."

"That sounds familiar... Could it be... A-01-1-3900, the Blood Mosquito Curse?"

"That's right. The very same."

The middle-aged man standing before him pressed a hand to his forehead, his professional composure forgotten.

"Oh, great Sage... for something like that to appear in Bel Diran... Is the world really about to end?"

Both humanoid vampires and their bestial counterparts can infect intelligent creatures of other species, enslaving them as minions. When this power was distilled into a Cursed Item, it became the Blood Mosquito Curse—a plague that has endured since the 11th Epoch, breaking out once every few millennia.

The curse spreads outward from a single vampire carrying its core power, transmitted through the blood. Any individual, regardless of whether they ingest it, are injected with it, or even just touch it, will be infected with one hundred percent certainty. The blood of these cursed individuals then carries a weaker, yet still potent, version of the contagion.

The only saving grace is that the cursed blood loses its infectious properties when diluted by other fluids. Otherwise, a plague could destroy the entire world within weeks.

"Once infected with the Blood Mosquito Curse, the victim's body mutates into a random type of vampiric creature, though most transform into blood-sucking mosquitos—hence the name. The strength and speed of the cursed are significantly enhanced, and a small number even gain the innate supernatural abilities of the vampire species. The trade-off is a complete mental collapse and an insatiable thirst for blood. They sate this craving by biting others, which also spreads the curse. Fortunately, we discovered what was happening at the estate in time to stop any of them from leaving. Otherwise, Bel Diran might have been lost."

Mr. Gilbert led Jenkins across a grand plaza and into the Sacred Hall, a chamber opened only for meetings of the cardinals.

The hall perfectly matched Jenkins's mental image of a great cathedral. Its towering, vaulted ceiling was made entirely of translucent glass, the inside adorned with classic religious oil paintings. The chamber had two levels, though the second was just a circular balcony lining the walls where lower-ranking clergy could observe proceedings. They looked down through a massive lightwell at the first floor, which was dominated by an intimidatingly large round table of white oak. Thirteen chairs were set around it, representing the twelve contemporary cardinals and the unique station of Pope Pontiff IV.

It was still morning, and the gentle dawn light streamed through the colorful murals on the dome, dappling the round table below. The entire Sacred Hall felt like the fabled sanctuary of the Sage himself. Five people were already seated at the table—three men and two women. They were the demigods stationed in Bel Diran.

Hearing the door open, the five turned to see Jenkins. They all rose and gave a slight bow.

"Saint Williamette." Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs NoveIＦire.net

Under any other circumstances, they wouldn't have needed to greet Jenkins with such formality. But this was the Sacred Hall of the cathedral, with the great holy emblem—the symbol closest to the very essence of the Sage's power—hanging on the wall. Here, they were obligated to show him the utmost respect.

The large doors swung shut behind them as Mr. Gilbert took his own seat at the table. Boko, the other Saint whom Jenkins had met a few days prior, had already departed from Bel Diran. This meant that every high-level combatant of the Sage Church in the entire Bel Diran diocese was now assembled in this room.

Jenkins had planned to take a random seat, but a silent, head-bowed ascetic monk had already pulled out the chair directly beneath the holy emblem for him.

He could only take the offered seat. It was then that he suddenly realized Chocolate was missing. He'd assumed the cat had been on his shoulder the entire time.

"Chocolate... I remember my shoulder feeling lighter when I stepped out of the carriage. Could he have been so dissatisfied with this morning's breakfast that he snuck off to the kitchens?"

With that thought, the formal meeting began.

The main topic of discussion was, of course, how to effectively resolve the Blood Mosquito Curse. While Mr. Gilbert had been fetching Jenkins, the Church had made a new discovery. The reason the infected servants hadn't left the manor wasn't a stroke of luck for the Church; it was because a massive arcane lock, centered on the estate itself, was keeping them trapped inside.

Of course, the arcane lock wasn't some benevolent measure to keep the curse from spreading. Its main purpose was to link every infected person on the estate into a single, cohesive unit. This process amplified the strength of each individual and granted them all a degree of "immortality."

In other words, even though the Church had only explored the outer courtyards of the estate, every cursed servant killed by the Scribes would "revive" after a short time. The only way to counteract this effect would be to carry the corpses out of the courtyard before they reanimated, but the arcane lock made that impossible. It was a near-perfect checkmate.

"According to our investigation so far, the estate was last open to outsiders the night before last. Count Paramont invited many nobles to a dinner party. No one has come out since. The Count was known for hosting rather... 'indecent' banquets that often lasted for days, so none of the nobles' friends or families suspected a problem before we realized something was terribly wrong."

Mr. Gilbert concluded his summary. Aside from Jenkins, he was the most junior person present, which was why he had been tasked with the briefing.