The fog was thick and still, clinging to the cracked stone streets of the village like a disease that refused to lift. The sun was little more than a dim smear of color behind swollen, ash-gray clouds. Silence hung in the air, punctuated only by the occasional cry of a dying man echoing behind boarded-up homes.
Felix stood in the center of the town square.The crowd had yet to disperse.
He was firmly planted there, on the blood-slick cobblestones, breathing slowly, his discarded robes stained dark with the ichor of faith.
The tattered garment fell into a puddle of dirty water, soaked with filth and death. His face—once pale and gaunt—now held an unnatural vibrancy, his eyes steady and sharp, his voice carrying with a clarity that cut through the fog like a knife.
"People of the village," he said, his voice unwavering. "You have suffered long. You have watched your families rot in their beds. You have buried your children with your own hands. All the while, you prayed to gods who never listened. You tithed to priests who fattened themselves while you starved."
He took a step forward, eyes sweeping the gathered villagers—skeletal, broken, wrapped in cloth and fear. His voice grew louder. More commanding.
"But now, your prayers have been heard. The plague did not come from the gods you worship. It did not fall from the skies or rise from the pits of hell. It was made—crafted by the hands of man, fueled by necromantic sorcery."
Gasps, hushed murmurs, and the shifting of feet met his words, but no one interrupted.
Felix honestly thought it would be much harder than this to convince the villagers, but he knows now with the support of his God, everything will surely work out.
'That's right, with the power of Lord Demise I can do anything!'
His eyes began to gleam with an unnatural greenish glow, but just as quickly as it appeared it went away.
"I was saved by Demise—the true god, the only one who never turned away from this world. He is the god of plague, disease, and death—but also the god of rebirth. He healed me. You saw it. You felt it. He demands nothing but the truth… and your loyalty."
Felix could feel it as he spoke—like something vast and ancient moving beneath his skin. His body had changed. Stronger. Sharper. Thoughts came faster, like instinct. He had been remade. He had been chosen.
And now, as he looked upon their desperate faces, he knew he held power.
"I am his chosen messenger," he continued. "His voice. His blade. And I come with a demand."
The silence pressed in tighter. Eyes wide. Mouths slightly agape. No one moved.
"Overthrow the Salvation Temple," he said coldly. "Tear it down. Denounce their falsehoods. Renounce their gods. And in return, Demise will give you life. He will cleanse all of your bodies. He will punish those who brought this sickness upon you."
A silence fell that felt thicker than the fog. But no outrage followed. No hesitation.
They had seen the birds. They had seen the blacksmith and other people healed.
A gaunt woman stepped forward first—her eyes wide, red with sleeplessness. She seemed to be in her mid 30's yet her appearance was heavily withered. "We believe," she whispered. Then another. A crooked elderly man with missing fingers. "Yes," he rasped. "We believe in Demise."
Then, all at once, like the snap of a bone, the village erupted. Shouts of loyalty. Children held up in the air by desperate mothers. Old men throwing down their prayer beads and stomping them into the mud. Someone lit a torch, then another.
Felix stood frozen in the center of the chaos he had created, watching as the village armed itself. Rusty scythes. Firewood axes. Broken tools turned weapons. They looked like an army of deadmen—but they moved with purpose.
And as he watched them march toward the distant spire of the Salvation Temple, weapons raised, torches burning, he felt it swell in his chest.
Not fear nor any sense of guilt.
But joy.
He had done this. He had brought truth to a dying world. They would rise now, under Demise.
They would cleanse this rot from the inside out.
***
From high above, the fifty crows sat perched atop the leaning cross of an abandoned bell tower, their eyes glowing faintly red, each one tied to Xiang Zainan's vision like a nervous system made of bone and blood.
He watched through all of them at once.
Below, his children marched—his bacteria surging inside their bones and breath. His spirit rode the blood from the food they had consumed. Felix had knowingly bathed every loaf of bread, every bottle of milk, with droplets of crow saliva and blood. The villagers had consumed it with hunger and desperation.
Now they belonged to him.
A deep, slow breath echoed from where his lingering spirit floated among the skeletal trees of the plague graveyard. The dark green mist of spirituality poured into him from every direction—a silent storm of power that only he could see.
It rolled in with every heartbeat of the villagers. With every breath they took. With every death that occurred. A constant stream of dark green fog, sliding between the cracks of reality, sinking into the place where Xiang Zainan waited.
His power grew exponentially. He even had enough vitality to steadily supply himself even in sunlight. Though prolonged exposure would definitely contribute to his undoing.
Originally his abilities couldn't even manifest in the real world - with him just absorbing memories from bacteria. Now, he can control it to the point where it doesn't even have to be commanded, they just act on his will.
He raised a single translucent hand, watching as the surrounding fog pulsed with his power. The spores floating in the air responded—twisting into new patterns.
He could now control airborne bacteria.
And this was only the beginning.
'Really, I should feel more bad about draining these people of their life force, but no such feeling is coming to me. Whatever, without my help they would all have soon been dead anyways.'
There was no emotion left in him. No joy nor sorrow. The only emotion he carried with him now was one that kept wanting to get stronger and more powerful. One that craved to take and devour everything this world had to offer.
Maybe Xiang Zainan really was just an evil spirit, just acting based on his new instincts. But he couldn't care less.
And through Felix, his first messenger, the truth would be carried.
Xiang Zainan turned his unseen gaze toward the horizon, where the Salvation Temple stood as a black smudge behind the fog.
'It's probably the time for me to venture outside this field myself now. After all, I can sense the presence of a few beings who can rival my own power right now, and I must grow accustomed to battle - just in case those people show up again.'
Slowly, he started to drift towards the entrance of the graveyard, and with him, millions of bacteria floating in the air around him.