347: Chapter 294 347: Chapter 294 Ye Tian had people defend the entrances to Imperial City, stationing heavy guards at the four city gates, and anyone entering or exiting had to be scrutinized.
He knew that this approach could only stop some ordinary people, if someone flew over from the sky, or burrowed underground or into sewer pits, those kinds of defenses, akin to trying to stop rats, were impenetrable.
Ye Tian could only cover the entire Imperial City with his Divine Sense all day long, so he could not leave the city to prevent terrorists from entering.
In a place unknown to Ye Tian, a city 500 kilometers away from the Imperial City, a group of people dressed in black was gathered in a secret chamber below it.
They were being led by someone, carrying out a large-scale conspiracy.
Previously, they had considered the Imperial City, but upon learning that Ye Tian had stationed heavy troops there, they thought of another way to lure Ye Tian out.
They chose to create panic 500 kilometers outside the Imperial City, now implementing their dark schemes in this city.
On a tranquil night when people were sound asleep, this bustling city where people lived and worked in peace, inhabited by cultivators and mortals alike, rich families in abundance, and also the poor.
Suddenly, in the city’s night, many rats emerged from their burrows, drugged to be controlled by someone; the rats ceaselessly gnawed at things and were unafraid even of dogs and cats.
The city’s rats squeaked incessantly, a provocatively rampant noise that attracted dogs and cats to pursue them, who killed and even ate the rats.
Overnight, in this city, cats and dogs that ate the rats became mad and started biting people.
Ordinary humans in the city saw the dogs go mad and tried to beat them, yet some were bitten by the dogs.
There were even cases where cats scratched people, and it seemed like the people also began to go mad.
Those with cultivation were not harmed, as rats roamed the streets and mad cats and dogs turned this once bustling and peaceful city into a chaotic mess in just one night.
People thought it was a plague of madness among rats in the city, which then infected the cats and dogs, and as they bit people, it spread to them.
People who went mad after being bitten by cats and dogs were controlled, and researchers sought to find a cure for them.
News spread in the Cultivation World that a rodent plague had erupted somewhere, and they hoped that capable individuals could develop a medicine to cure it.
Many alchemists, capable of alchemy, volunteered eagerly to light up this rescue mission.
Never before had Ancient Xia Country encountered such a crazy plague of rats, and no one had a specific cure.
They could only use general medicine to treat the patients, to control the progression of the disease, and use rodenticides to deal with the rats.
Ye Tian received this news and ordered even tighter defenses in Imperial City, vigilant against anyone using the same methods to create a rodent plague there.
He, however, leaped onto his airship.
Covering the 500-plus kilometers in one hour, he arrived at the city to find that it had changed drastically from the city he had seen before to what he saw now.
The peaceful city became shrouded with gloom, the bustling city marred by potholed roads, with many more rat holes in the houses.
Ye Tian entered the city to observe, and using his Divine Sense, he caught one of the rats that were scurrying around on the streets or in the sewers.
Observing the rat with his Divine Sense, he found it was not an ordinary pestilence, but one caused by drugs, leading to its madness, biting people and objects at random, even attacking cats and dogs.
The infected people and animals also became crazy, losing their senses, and would die within a few days.
This was a large-scale outbreak of pestilence that, if not controlled properly, could potentially spread throughout the city, or even to neighboring and nationwide cities.
Ye Tian concluded that this rodent disease was nothing more than the result of drugs, that other alchemists had no way to control it and could only manage the symptoms in humans.
Thinking of Jiang Tang, Ye Tian used a telepathic method to communicate the situation to Jiang Tang, asking if he could come up with a solution to rescue these people.
And also to deal with these frenzied rats and find the people controlling them.
…
Jiang Tang received a message from the Jiang Family Head, preparing to go to Immortal Lord City, where Luo Yaxuan and Lai Jianlin awaited his arrival.
There were nine women on Jiang Tang’s flying arrow, along with the Dugu brothers, as they were setting out from a store formed through cultivation.
The flying arrow soared in the direction of Immortal Lord City for a while, when Jiang Tang suddenly received a message from Ye Tian.
Upon hearing Ye Tian’s description, Jiang Tang understood it to be a man-made chemical weapon, which could potentially drive ordinary people to a frenzied death.
Jiang Tang was not one to ignore the life and death of others.
In the Cultivation World, he had been an ordinary student in his previous life, with a kind heart.
Entering the Cultivation World did not harden his nature, but instead, he maintained the heart of a Holy Mother.
Discovering that someone was perpetually causing rat plagues, Jiang Tang’s mind hadn’t even fully wrapped around the notion when his body began to act, steering the flying arrow towards the city Ye Tian had mentioned.
He knew his body acted thus because his own parents had also perished in an epidemic; he had witnessed the cruelty of such disasters.
He had always suspected these were man-made, and he felt the same about this instance.
He was determined to catch those fiends who tormented people, and to eliminate them.
Unable to go to Immortal Lord City immediately, Jiang Tang sent a message describing his delayed visit to the people of the Jiang Family, as well as to Lai Jianlin and Luo Yaxuan.
Receiving the news that Jiang Tang would be late to reach the Spirit Field City, they guessed that Jiang Tang must have had more pressing matters, and could only wait for him in Immortal Lord City.
The flying arrow used by Jiang Tang was headed towards a location thousands of miles away, and it took him two hours to reach the city Ye Tian had talked about.
Arriving at the city before the fall of night, Jiang Tang looked down from the flying arrow, noticing that the city seemed calm.
Perhaps the people were hiding; the streets were silent with hardly any pedestrians or vendors in sight.
Jiang Tang had excellent vision and could see tiny rats, the size of mosquitoes from his high vantage point, scurrying around on the streets.
They looked relaxed and crazed, gnawing on wood, as well as anything on the ground or walls, including fabrics.
Jiang Tang thought that with so many rats, it was not impossible to exterminate them.
He thought of the Hell Palace that was in his Spirit Field Space, with the Hell Palace’s Immortal Artifact, eradicating the frenzied rats seemed trivial.
Initially, Jiang Tang only intended to spray the Water of Life to neutralize the controlling agents in the rats, but leaving so many of them without collection, they could be used again by others.
Possibly these rats did not belong to this city and were bred in large numbers specifically to be released into this city to create panic.
Jiang Tang issued a command to another Magic Artifact within the Primordial Treasure Lingtian Space, the Artifact Spirit of the Hell Palace.
He conjured the Hell Palace from his space, and under its master’s command, the Artifact Spirit of the palace flew down from the sky.
The flying arrow remained suspended mid-air, and those on it only saw Jiang Tang’s movements before he dropped a Magic Artifact below, which shone brightly in the daylight, emitting immense energy.
They all knew that Jiang Tang was on a mission and were aware that he was surely using a Magic Artifact to help the people of the city and eradicate the rats infesting it.
Those with keen Divine Sense already noticed the rampant rats in the city.
The Dugu siblings, skilled in using Worm Insects, once thought worms to be cute—those were the Worm Insects they had raised themselves.
But witnessing those rats provoked disgust in them, and they wished they could personally exterminate every single one.
The other women, except for Tang Yanhong who was proficient with poisons, felt fear at the sight of so many rats scurrying in the streets and squeaking in the sewers.
Even though they were powerful in their cultivation, girls are often afraid of such creatures.
Jiang Tang had already observed with Divine Sense that the Artifact Spirit of the Hell Palace exhibited a powerful suction ability, swiftly pulling in the erratically running rats—on the rooftops, in sewers, or even on trees—into its space.
At the Hell Palace, now enveloped in night, the ground possessed a sucking force, and the rats that were drawn inside were instantly absorbed into the soil, turning into mounds of earth.
These mounds of soil bore the scent of chemical agents, which posed a threat, could harm the biota within the Hell Palace; the Artifact Spirit used its spell to sprinkle some Vitality Flowers inside the palace, purifying the toxic air with their life-giving essence.