The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 79

"Stop shooting," Perfit said in a low but loud enough voice for everyone to hear. "Bullets don't kill infected. Even if they hit the brain directly, it can keep thrashing around for a long time."

A fatal blow must be delivered above the third cervical vertebra. The truly reliable method of killing is decapitation.

Ludwig stepped forward and, with a swift, clean slash, severed the infected man's cervical vertebrae.

The infected person froze for a moment, then collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and never moved again.

Several other infected creatures that had squeezed out of the cage rushed toward the Imperial Guards. They had been chained for too long and their limbs were still not moving smoothly, but their attack instincts had not diminished in the slightest.

Perfit slammed his cane down on the marble floor, and suddenly several stalagmites shot out from the stone floor of the council hall—dusty gray spikes pierced through the infected’s feet, then pierced their abdomens, sternums, and shoulder blades, pinning them in mid-air.

A stream of black blood flowed down the surface of the stalagmite, quickly spreading into a small dark patch on the mosaic marble floor.

Several infected individuals were not dead. They were suspended in mid-air with their limbs and torsos nailed to them by stone spikes. They were still opening and closing their mouths, which were full of black blood, and their arms were stuck and waving up and down like mechanical puppets, showing no signs of fatigue.

"Now, you can take a closer look at the adversary you have been fighting. As you can see, the infected are extremely difficult to kill; conventional flintlock musket fire is meaningless against them unless you concentrate fire to break their legs and prevent them from getting up. This is not a plague, not a curse, not the Father's punishment for humanity."

Perfit stood among the stalagmites, the infected pinned to the ground still struggling above her head, black blood dripping down the ridges of the stalagmites, but she calmly took out a handkerchief and wiped away a little black blood that had splattered on her sleeve, her voice as steady as if she were giving an anatomy lecture on a stage at Langton University.

"The wilt disease is an infection vector that affects both the body and the soul—I call it sinful blood, the blood tainted by the sins of the ancient gods. It spreads through the blood, saliva, and bite wounds of the infected, and once inside the host, it spreads along the blood vessels, gradually replacing the host's humoral system, and eventually taking over the nervous system after the host dies, driving the corpse to continue moving."

Before an infected person completely turns into a zombie, they will go through three stages.

Phase One – Pale skin, auditory hallucinations, and decreased body temperature. At this stage, the sinful blood only adheres to the wound and surrounding tissue; a high healing rate is still possible through requiem prayers combined with a stripping technique.

The second stage—a black network of blood vessels spreads from the wound to the torso, and the infected person begins to exhibit aggression and intermittent loss of reason. This stage is extremely difficult to cure, but not entirely impossible.

The third stage—the sinful blood invades the brain and spinal cord, and the host's personality is completely destroyed, leaving only a shell driven by the sinful blood.

In the third stage, the only solution is decapitation.

This is why soldiers on the front lines must wear double gloves and breathing masks—although the blood of the infected cannot be transmitted through the air, the blood and saliva of the infected person can penetrate into the skin and mucous membranes within a very short time after contact.

After being bitten or scratched, there are only a few quarters of an hour at most for initial treatment; beyond that time, the infection can spread from the wound throughout the body.

As soon as Perfitt finished speaking, the Imperial Guard soldier who had been bitten by the infected was dragged to the back by several colleagues. The wound on his forearm had begun to turn black, and black blood was spreading along the veins from the bitten cuff toward his shoulder.

Perfit walked up to him, glanced down at the wound, took out his Midas Touch and a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide from his briefcase, and nodded to Shabel without turning his head: "Judge, thank you for your help."

Sabel had already opened the Book of Words. She quickly walked to the soldier's side, placed a hand on his forehead, and whispered a prayer of requiem.

Perfit poured hydrogen peroxide onto the wound, then used the end of his Midas to touch the edge of the wound, activating Human Transmutation.

A silver-blue alchemical light shone from the tip of the alchemy rod, and the black sin blood deep in the wound was peeled out one by one. Accompanied by the soldier's suppressed screams of pain and uncontrollable convulsions, the sin blood twisted violently the moment it left the body. He used silver tweezers to put it into an open hydrogen peroxide bottle next to him, where it quickly decomposed into gray-black flocculent sediment with a hissing sound.

Sabel's holy emblem pressed a final golden light onto the soldier's forehead, and the soldier resumed steady breathing, the blood seeping from his wounds turning back to a less unsettling red.

"This is the dual intervention therapy—a requiem to protect the soul, and alchemy to remove the infection. This process must be carried out in the early stages of infection; in other words, everyone bitten must be sent to an isolation station with priests and alchemists on standby as quickly as possible." Perfit straightened up, put the alchemy rod and silver tweezers back into his briefcase, turned to the throne and the seats of the electors, and glanced at the faces of the four electors. "This is the core of the entire epidemic prevention system—it's not just about telling everyone to wash their hands frequently."

It requires priests and alchemists to be systematically incorporated into every regimental combat unit, isolation stations to be set up at every front-line outpost, and alchemists to be specially assigned to perform stripping spells and judges to perform requiem prayers in every wounded soldier triage area.

Without sufficient manpower, even if these soldiers survive on the battlefield, they will become new sources of infection in the quarantine zone.

The archbishop slowly lowered his hands, which had been clasped together in front of his chest. The ruby ​​ring gleamed with a deep light in the candlelight. His aged voice echoed under the dome, making the air in the council hall even more somber than the emperor's question: "Miss Brandlis, what you just used was the Church's requiem prayer."

Forgive my bluntness—the Diocese of Victoria has long been separated from the Holy See, and I have never seen your Inquisitors' scriptures from the beginning of creation in any papal document.

If the entire epidemic prevention system must be based on the scripture you just recited as a spiritual safeguard, then our cooperation is not merely a negotiation between nobles and imperial diplomats, nor is it limited to coordination between the church and secular regimes.

Instead, it requires two long-divided parishes to temporarily set aside their differences for a common goal. Do you know what that means?

Perfit turned to him, his tone unwavering, and looked calmly at the white-haired old man who sat upright like a stone statue, saying, "It means that Father has not abandoned us."

Whether in the heretical rites of Victoria or the orthodox sacraments of Romulus, He left us a crack.

It's not forgiveness, just a crack—a gap that allows us to still do something.