“Do you think you can save those people?” Hektor asked, concerned.

“I don’t know. I’m immune to poisons and diseases thanks to my Cultivation Technique, but I would need ingredients I probably don’t have on my hands to cure them all. And if we move them here, they would just infect the rest of the people. That being said, we now have a huge immigration problem. Until we smoke out the Plague Doctor, if that’s him, we can’t let anyone knew approach.”

“For all we know, Jacob, the Plague Doctor might have infiltrated St. Peter already. We don’t know for sure that the disease spread in St. Liam wasn’t just a delayed bomb.”

Hektor was good at war, really good. But this was more Jacob’s domain of competence.

Pure paranoia.

“It’s unlikely. He’s still weak and not comparable to the man who devastated empires. We don’t know if he can fight using Martial Techniques or Spells as a cover, but we do know that he has never been caught. We could probably lockdown the entire St. Liam and we would still find nothing. We will not find the man in St. Liam. He’s been playing this game for too long and we both tried to find him in our past life. We know nothing about him. For all we know, he might be someone we knew in our past life.”

Hektor bit his lower lip. His usual energy was drained.

Even the Vermillion Tyrant could not do much in front of this threat.

“So, what are we going to do? We can’t just let him kill anyone is St. Liam!”

Jacob nodded pensively.

“I’ll go. We don’t change the plans. You and Epagogia keep doing what you were doing. She will sub in for Inscription Patterns and Alchemy, you will take care of blacksmiths. Stop moving around for now. If someone in your group got infected, we would be helping the Plague Doctor kill everyone.”

“If the Plague Doctor is there, Jacob—”

“He is not, Hektor. But I need to help those people survive. I’ll try and cure as many of them as I can.”

…

“I want to come!” Juliet slammed her hand on a desk while Jacob was packing some things inside Kevin.

“You are coming with me,” Jacob looked at her with a surprised face.

“I will not take a no as—what?”

Juliet stopped mid-sentence.

“I said that you are coming with me. You have the Sacred Queen Phoenix Constitution. Not even the Plague Doctor can scratch that. You can probably drink his blood and still survive.”

Jacob kept packing all the tools he would need once there.

“But I thought—”

“Juliet,” Jacob turned toward her with an extremely serious expression, “I will need you and your flames to cure as many people as possible. I was going to tell you as soon as I finished organizing my things. But we may die. Both of us. I would bring Epagogia or Hektor with me, but I’m not sure either of them would survive a direct fight with the Plague Doctor, or the aftermath.”

“We’ll take a car to St. Liam since Hektor has cleaned off the roads. You’ll drive while I try to break through the Mantis Realm as soon as possible. I know nothing of the monster we are going to face, nothing. He could be as strong as Hektor for all I know.”

“And what if he is?” Juliet asked.

“If he is. I’ll take him down with me. The Plague Doctor is one of the greatest threats to humanity, especially if he has memories from his past life. But the current panic should be unwarranted. At this level, he can only kill so many people at once. His plagues spread through a very particular brand of diseases that breed inside his body. I am fairly sure of that. But I didn’t tell Hektor nor Epagogia. I have some… information on the Tainted Tyrant. And I’m quite sure he’s still there, waiting to poison the entire city. The fact that only hundreds of people died so far is a testament to his weak state. I think we might be able to kill him. I will examine every single person over there, one by one. It might take more than a week, but I will get it done and catch that bastard. If we do, we will save millions.”

There was something in the fact that Jacob told her and not the others that made Juliet feel respected. On the other hand, she knew Jacob couldn’t really hide anything from him.

…

Helena was still as a rock, using her Qi to enhance her hearing. It was a neat trick she had asked the Vermillion Tyrant to teach her.

And it appeared that it hadn’t take long before it paid off. Thankfully, a window was open. With her current control, she wasn’t still able to push her hearing through walls like Hektor did.

When she heard Jacob’s words, she felt backstabbed, for some reason.

Wasn’t she supposed to be his eternal love or something? Then why was he telling Juliet and not her?

Helena’s heart was not set on staying with Jacob yet, but this was not a romantic matter. This was a matter of being competitive. And she was the most competitive person in St. Peter, bar none.