"The beast that was infected by the invader was a nascent soul stage beast, called as the Blight dust beast. It has the body of a butterfly, the tail of a bull, and the horns of an antelope. It has four wings that look like large leaves and has countless fine hairs on it.
It was found in the eastern part of the forest called as the gray muck swamp. It is located far beyond the eastern town, more than six hundred kilometers away. The swamp itself is quite small but the danger level there is quite high and seldom do people go there.
The plague occurred due to the ability of the Blight dust beast. Its ability allows it to release large amounts of invisible dust from its wings that is toxic. This dust can affect both plants and beasts. The creatures that die from this are then eaten by the beast.
The beast itself is omnivorous and thus has no preference in food, eating whatever it gets. Though, overall in the hierarchy of Nascent soul beasts, it is in the lowest level as except for its ability it does not do that good in other aspects. Its speed is slow and so is its defense. Still, this is in terms of a nascent soul beast, overall it is still many times stronger than any Core condensation realm beast.
Upon being infected by the invader, the beast mutated and its ability changed. Its ability actually got weakened and was no longer as deadly as before. While it did kill most creatures, the process was much slower than before. Another change that happened to the ability was that its range increased by a lot. It was this dust that caused the plague to spread in the region and because it was so far away, its effects were diluted even more.
In reality, it was no plague but rather a massive case of poisoning." Duan Ke explained.
Lin Mu intently listened to Duan Ke's explaining and did not miss even a single word. He stayed silent after she completed speaking and thought over it. He analyzed all that he could from it to plan what he would be doing next.
"What happened next?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Because the dust was invisible, and the effects were slower, the authorities could not identify what it really was. They thus tried the usual cures and remedies, but none of them worked as you must have seen. At most, they were able to extend the life of the patients by suppressing the symptoms, but still, that was no cure.
Even the mayor had thought the same, and it took him a while before he sent people to investigate. Even the people that he had sent to investigate died never to return, making him alarmed. Knowing that it must be something beyond his capabilities, he decided to contact the Tri Cauldron peony sect.
The Tri cauldron peony sect is a cultivation sect that specializes in alchemical pills and herbs. The sect sent its elders and disciples to investigate the cause of this plague, which eventually led them to gray muck swam where they found the Bligh dust beast.
With their combined efforts they were able to defeat it, but little did they know that the beast had been infected by an invader. I had already been asked by grandfather to investigate this and was thus closely following their every move.
I even had to assist them a few times during their fight while staying hidden or they would have all died, as all they had sent were core condensation realm elders and qi refining realm disciples. I had the support of the spirit tools, thus I was safe and was able to fight against the beast.
The strange thing was, the beast was actually weakened. Its strength seemed to be even more less than usual for a nascent soul realm beast. I realized that this must have been the effect of the invader, a side effect of the mutation. Thankfully, because of this the beast was eventually defeated.
Still, the Tri cauldron peony sect had great losses. Nearly all of their disciples died, and a quarter of their elders that were sent on the mission died as well. They were able to formulate an antidote and sent it to the towns to be distributed.
The mayor had to give a huge payment to the Tri cauldron peony sect, which drained a majority of his fortune. Ever since then he had been sensitive about all things related to money." Duan Ke answered.
Lin Mu finally linked the string of events and could now understand the strange anxiety everyone felt in the town. Even the supervisor was rather nervous and scared about the harvest and was being urged on by the mayor.
He could even understand the perspective of Li Peng when he damaged all the apples. Perhaps he was even saved from a more harsh punishment because Li Peng handled it that way.
~Sigh~
'It is all in the past, right now I need to look towards the future.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
'Hmm, seems like he has grown a lot. His naivety is slowly fading away.' Xukong inwardly spoke after seeing Lin Mu's thoughts.
"What happened to the invader then? From what I've seen, it will show itself once its host is killed. Did the Tri cauldron peony sect now find out about it?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Fortunately, no. The Tri cauldron peony sect has not been existing for long enough to know about invaders. Or perhaps only their higher-ups know about it. Like I said, all information about the invaders is kept restricted.
Still, what you said did not happen. The invader did not show itself right away after the beast was killed. The people from the sect also retreated quickly after the battle, as they need to tend to the wounded and did not want to risk it further. Once they were gone, I went in to check.
I had to use a special technique to eliminate the beast's corpse, which led to the invader's avatar being released. It was in the form of a black mass that had bone spurs and skulls on it. Only after seeing that did I realize what it was as I felt it in my mind, the repulsive feeling.
I returned to talk with grandfather and he confirmed my suspicion. He then told me to investigate it further to see what else I could find. And I did, a lot. There were far too many traces of the invader in the forest spread around.
It took me over a month before I could find them and eliminate them. Even still, a few escaped as we can see. Or rather, that was not the main source of the invader and was just one of the hosts." Duan Ke answered, feeling a little tired.
Lin Mu could see that the entire thing was linked to far too many things and that he needed to proceed carefully. He now wondered if even the avatar of the invader that was infecting the Great slumber beast was the main one or not.
"Now that we've listened to this, I'm afraid it is as you think. The great slumber bear was probably the first host, but not the source itself. From what we've seen the invader can manipulate space up to a certain extent, it's likely that it is hiding in one of the spatial dimensions in this world." Xukong spoke up.