Translated by XephiZ

Edited from Aelryinth

The little Red Demon's body did not stop regenerating, but whenever Mo Fan's Essence Orb took a piece away, its aura would weaken slightly. Meanwhile, the little Red Demon started to panic when it realized the Essence Orb was what not it supposed to be. It started fleeing through the hole that Mo Fan had blasted.

Clearly, Mo Fan would not let it escape. He set up the Nyx Regime and trapped the pieces of energy with Giant Shadow Spikes.

Even though he could only absorb the pieces slowly, he was relieved that he had found the solution to the problem.

------

After breaking the little Red Demon into pieces and absorbing them with the Essence Orb continuously, Mo Fan finally absorbed the final piece of the little Red Demon.

Mo Fan checked the energy inside the Essence Orb and learned it had indeed risen by a significant amount. It was definitely a piece of good news for Mo Fan!

"Brother Fan, what happened?" Zhang Xiaohou finally returned after running a whole circle to regroup with Mo Fan and the others. He was utterly clueless about the situation.

"We've dealt with the source of the plague. It turned out to be some evil energy body with its own consciousness. It's a long story; how did it go at your end?" Mo Fan asked.

"The people at the camp are rioting. It turns out that the patients are losing control of themselves," Zhang Xiaohou said.

"That's not good to hear, were they able to keep the situation under control?"

"I doubt so, there were too many infected."

Mo Fan's heart sank. They had found the source of the plague, and eliminated it, yet the disease had already spread rapidly. The harmful substances were still inside the bodies of the patients, and the reason they were losing their minds was because the disease was not just destroying the cells in their body, but enhancing their negative emotions too. It was why the Red Demon was such a terrifying existence!

"Lingling, have you found anything that can cure the disease?" Mo Fan asked.

In the past, they had resolved the Drowning Curse by obtaining the antibody from the Drowning Curse Maggot and created vaccines to be distributed to the cities along the shoreline, so the people would not fall victim to the Drowning Curse again.

Therefore, they should be able to find the antibody from the source of the plague, too. Mo Fan was hoping that Lingling was able to discover something.

"The maggot is a living organism, so it's reasonable to find an antibody to it. You realize that magic wasn't able to inflict any damage to the monster. It was an energy body, there was no way it would have an antibody for the disease," Lingling said.

"If the source of the disease isn't a living organism, but an energy body, how could it turn into a plague?" Fiona was a probationary servant of the Hall of the Goddess. She would know some basics about a plague.

"I was curious before too. Why aren't the normal methods of stopping a disease useful against this one? Not only that, the disease actually spreads a lot faster than it did at the start. I believe the disease doesn't come from their bodies, but from their hearts. Strictly speaking, it's like an infection conducted by the Psychic Element. Every person will have negative emotions just like the prisoners here, and these negative emotions will surface and be enhanced by the monster's power. It explains why the symptoms that the patients first showed resembled common flu, but it has now turned into a huge riot… it was a kind of mental disorder, one that spread through emotions shared between people instead of the air, or food!" Lingling said.

"Is there really a disease like that in this world?" Zhang Xiaohou dropped his jaw in disbelief.

"An existence like that shouldn't be invulnerable to magic. It could be grouped into the Psychic Element, but once the evil presence grows to a certain degree, even the power of the Psychic Element would be useless, since the Psychic Element doesn't really have any strong offensive spells naturally," Lingling said.

"Enough talk, there's a riot happening in the quarantine zone, we've basically failed our mission. The Great Muse is surely going to scold the crap out of us," Fiona said.

"Humph, if the situation escalates further, even they would have to take responsibility for it, since they didn't send someone that was higher-ranked in the first place, and purposely sent you two here to set you up!" Mo Fan harrumphed coldly. The Parthenon Temple was far from being as sacred and holy as everyone thought!

"If it's related to the Psychic Element, I can try pacifying the people," Xinxia said.

Lingling shook her head and said, "The negative energy has been spread to too many people. Even if you're a Super Psychic Mage, with such strong negative energy surging in, your mind will simply crumble, too. The best option isn't pacifying them, but transferring the energy to somewhere else. We'll need a reasonable place to store the energy, or else, the little Red Demon will be resurrected soon, and it will surely turn into something even more terrifying!"

Saying this, Lingling glanced at the Essence Orb on Mo Fan's hand. She seemed to have noticed something from it, but since they were currently in an emergency, she simply put her doubts aside and said to Mo Fan, "It seems like your orb can store the energy."

"Mm, I think it can, but I can feel the evil growing inside the orb," Mo Fan said.

The Essence Orb had turned into an energy container after Old Bao's modification. It was no longer able to seduce or attack the mind of its carrier. However, after it absorbed the little Red Demon, the Essence Orb started to emit an icy aura. The Essence Orb had purified the little Red Demon and transformed it into usable energy, but in the meantime, it also slightly corrupted its own energy.

"Sister Xinxia, you might not be able to confront the enormous negative energy, but you can guide them into Mo Fan's orb and trap the energy inside. That way, the plague will be resolved, too," Lingling suggested.

Once Xinxia transferred the energy into the orb, she would not be picked on by the evil energy. It was the best option they had.

"Sure, time is of the essence. Let's head to the quarantine zone right away," Xinxia said.

Along the journey, Mo Fan secretly called Old Bao. There was a chance that the Essence Orb would give birth to another Red Demon after absorbing so much negative energy. It was necessary to let Old Bao cleanse the evil energy inside the Essence Orb again. Otherwise, there was a chance that a scarier Red Demon would be born, since half the city had contracted the disease!

---

The quarantine zone was in complete chaos. The medical equipment used to treat the patients was smashed to pieces. The temporary quarantine wards were torn down, too. If it weren't for a few powerful Mages stationed in Kakka City that had set up a formation to trap the rioters, it was hard to imagine the situation that the city would have ended up in.

Battlemages stood in lines, awaiting their orders. In the meantime, they felt rather hopeless, since the enemy they were facing was just patients, instead of demon creatures. It was fairly tricky deciding what spells they could use to keep the people at bay!

"What the hell were you two up to? Look at the mess here, and you still dared to leave your post? I will report this back to the Hall Mother, just so she could deliver the punishment!" the old Servant Gulan snapped as soon as she saw Xinxia and Fiona.

Gulan had only come to investigate the plague so the Parthenon Temple would not be accused of not trying their best to help. However, she did not expect the situation would suddenly escalate into a chaotic riot. The whole city was immersed in terror, and some officials were forced to use inhumane approaches just to stop the plague from spreading to other places.

"So the Parthenon Temple has only sent a bunch of young, inexperienced girls here to resolve the plague? Very well, stop pretending you're trying to help if you didn't mean to. Us Croatians don't need your pity, despite how much trust we actually had in Saintess Andi!" the commander snapped furiously.

"This...this has nothing to do with Saintess Andi, we've already sent… her, she's a Candidate, it was all her fault!" Gulan's expression sank. She quickly placed the blame on Xinxia!

"Candidate? Her?" The commander glanced at Xinxia, who seemed extremely young.

Even though there were no age restrictions on the Candidates of the Hall of the Goddess, the woman was simply too young, she looked like the student of a Magic Institution.

"The Hall Mother has recently promoted her as a Candidate. The Great Muse didn't neglect how serious the plague is, she did send a Candidate here to handle it!" Gulan continued to pour oil onto the flames.

If the situation escalated any further, Great Muse Mellaura would surely be held responsible, and even the candidate Saintess Andi would be involved in the mess! Since the situation was getting out of control, she had no choice but to put the blame on someone else as much as she could. The world must realize that it was not the Great Muse's fault, but because of how useless the new Candidate was!

"Brother Fan, Xinxia, do you see the general with an icy face and a long nose standing beside the commander?" Zhang Xiaohou said, his face hard as he spoke in a soft voice.

"What about it?" asked Mo Fan with a confused look.

"He was not wearing any badges, but he is wearing the outfit of a general. If I'm not mistaken, a soldier like him is usually entrusted with inhumane operations," Zhang Xiaohou told them.

Mo Fan glanced in the direction of Commander Darrel, who was in charge of the camp and immediately saw the general that Zhang Xiaohou had pointed out.

"You mean if the situation continues to go out of control, they might even..." Mo Fan could not speak further.

A plague, a contagious disease, was a lot scarier than demon creatures. The local government of Kakka City would not allow the plague to spread any further. Currently, the patients had totally lost their minds, and would soon force their way out of the quarantine zone. When the time came, the general that was not wearing any badge would be the one controlling the situation!

Xinxia was incredibly smart. She immediately realized what Zhang Xiaohou was implying.