The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

A sudden rat swarm brought the Duchy of the Ruth Church and several neighboring duchies into a desperate situation in an instant. No one thought that the rat swarm would appear so suddenly, sweeping the entire Principality of the Ruth Cult overnight, and Spreading to the surrounding countries, when these countries noticed and looked for countermeasures, the rat wave had already occupied half of the land of these religious duchies.

It's just that their neighbors are quicker to make decisions than themselves, all roads to neighbors are blocked, and all borders are set on fire with rat repellent and rat repellent, not just temporary recruits The guards, as well as the Purification Church of the Purification Fire and the priests stationed there, and the Purification Fire that was ignited, from the situation, should be the decision of these countries led by the Purification Fire Church to block the border.

Although this is very effective in preventing the rat tide from spreading to neighboring countries, for the Duchy of Russ and several neighboring duchies, it is like falling into hell. Death will happen all the time, and it will not take a few days People in these countries will die.

The reason why the Purifying Fire Church made such an inhumane blockade decision completely disregarding the safety of those religious duchies and the lives and deaths of the people caught in the rat wave is entirely because of the situation of this rat wave and other rat waves. The situation is quite different.

When there was a rat tide in the past, those jerry rats would only get into granaries and other places where people store food, or into people's homes to eat things. Although they sometimes bite people, this is only a minority, the vast majority of people, Even a small child can drive and hunt timid jerry mice with a stick.

For the people, the real disaster is that after the Jerry rats stay in human cities for a long time, they will produce plague. It is almost impossible for anyone infected with the plague to be cured. The pain before death terrifies anyone who sees it. So far This kind of fear is also recorded in the form of paintings on stone tablets in some public places in the Principality of Russ.

It is precisely because of the people's fear of rat swarms that even the adults in the family were recruited to fight on the front lines, and the remaining old, weak, sick and disabled will still participate in the hunting season under the call of King Russ IX, and do their best to fight. Go hunt the jerry rats in the forest and mountains.

However, this rat wave is completely different from the previous rat wave, not only because this time the rat wave did not occur in the winter when the rat population lacked food, but in the very important mating season of jerry rats, but also because of this The Jerry rats in this rat wave are no longer as timid as they used to be. These rats seem to have turned into raging rats, madly attacking everything they see, from birds and beasts to cattle, sheep, pigs and dogs. Among its attacks, even humans are also attacked by them.

The rat swarm broke out after nightfall, and those people who were hired by Ruth IX to go to the forest to hunt Jerry rats were the first to bear the brunt. No one knew exactly how many of those people were there, but in the end only a groom who watched the horses escaped. He fled back to the castle and reported the mutant rat tide to King Russ IX.

However, Ruth IX did not believe this, but locked up the groom, because the groom was completely incoherent, saying that the rat tide swallowed people, everyone was gnawed into bones, etc. So Rus IX also missed the best time to escape.

Later at night, the rat tide rushed out of the forest and spread to the surroundings at an extremely fast speed. Most of the people were still sleeping at this time, and they were submerged by the rat tide without any resistance.

The castle of Ruth IX resisted the rat tide for a while, and the soldiers guarding the city gate also discovered the situation, and woke up Ruth IX and his family, but at this time the rat tide had surrounded the entire castle, and the castle The people inside have no possibility of escape.

Afterwards, the smaller cubs in the Jerry rat swarm got in through the sewer outlet of the castle, avoided the high castle wall, and began to spread in the castle. The soldiers could not stop these ferocious Jerry rats at all. It was soon gnawed into bones.

Ruth IX, who knew he couldn't escape, didn't want to die under the bite of Jerry Mouse, so he locked himself and his family in the study at the top of the castle, set fire to himself, and the Purifying Fire Church stationed here The priest resisted the rat tide for a while with the help of the purifying fire of the church, and through a kind of divine magic, he notified everything that happened here to the holy fire of all the churches of the Purifying Fire Church.

As a result, because it was late at night, most of the people in the church had already rested, and only a few ascetic monks would recite prayers around the holy fire container, and none of these ascetic monks were located near the Principality of Russ. After hearing the news, I thought that this matter had nothing to do with the Duchy I was in, and thought that the churches in the Duchy surrounding the Duchy of Russ should have received similar news and would deal with it, so I didn't care about it. .

It wasn't until the next morning that the news spread throughout the Diocese of Purifying Fire was taken seriously by the Church of Purifying Fire, and it ordered the churches in the principality concerned to investigate the matter thoroughly, but at this time the entire territory of the Principality of Ruth had been attacked by the rat tide. Covered, and the rat tide has also crossed the border, spreading to the surrounding Christian principalities at an extremely fast speed.

And when the confirmed news about the rat swarm was sent back to the Purifying Fire General Sanctuary, the surrounding church principalities of the Russ Church had already fallen. Facing these crazy Jerry rats, even the brave soldiers could not resist them. What's more, these adults with a little combat power in the Duchy of the Church have been transferred to the front line. It is almost unnecessary to think about the fall of the Principality of the Church and they have become settled, and the dukes of the Principality of the Church escaped immediately Lost their own country, making it even more difficult for these religious principalities to organize resistance forces.

In the end, the Church of Purifying Fire made the decision to abandon these principalities, and to block the rat tide within the territory of these principalities before the rat tide spread to other principalities. Knowing that the fire of purification has a strong intimidating effect on rat swarms, and drugs such as rat repellent powder can also drive away the rats, so they promptly repaired the borders of these principalities and created a defense line of fire of purification, which effectively blocked the Further spread of rat populations.

However, the matter did not end there. A rumor has begun to appear in the country controlled by the Purifying Fire Church, saying that the reason why this rat wave appeared so abruptly and strangely was entirely because the Purifying Fire Church was going on This war is an unjust war. This war offended the gods, so the gods sent down punishments and warnings.

Although such rumors will not shake the belief of the lower class people in the Purifying Fire Church, it has become the best way for those who are unwilling to participate in this religious war to get out of the war, especially those lower class families who are forced to recruit It will be secretly fueling the flames, making this kind of rumor spread more widely.

Faced with such rumors, although the Church of Purifying Fire knew that it might be secretly created by spies lurking in various church principalities of the Otter Federation, they could not find a good way to solve it. They could only declare that the mutant rat The tide was created by the Otto Federation using evil forces. The Purifying Fire Church will be more determined to participate in this campaign, and strive to eliminate the evil unbelievers of the Otto Federation.

Although this explanation doesn't have much effect, it at least gives the Purifying Fire Church an excuse to reasonably suppress the dissatisfaction of the lower church and the country's participation in the war against the Otter Federation, because as long as someone dares to use the rat wave as an excuse Complain about the church's decision to go to war, and the church has an excuse to treat it as a spy.

It's just that, even though the church loudly announced that it would not withdraw from the coalition forces, the church's energy had to be shifted from the battlefield to dealing with the rat tide that had swept through several church principalities. Originally, some support such as manpower, weapons and food It has also temporarily stopped, and other church countries can't say anything about it.

At the same time, in the small town outside Jelidos Mountain, where the mutated rat wave originated, Penistan looked desperately at the several sets of bones in his home that had been gnawed beyond recognition by the Jerry rats. Clothing and features on the stump identified this as her family.

Although, in the camp of the Duke's hunting ground, she saw the tragic situation of corpses strewn all over the camp, and thought of the crazy state of Jerry Mouse, she already felt a little uneasy in her heart, but she still had a little hope.

And on the way home, he saw the bones that had been bitten by the jerry rats along the way, the desolate villages, etc., and the uneasiness in his heart became more and more intense, until he saw the bones scattered on the ground at home, After recognizing that the bones belonged to her family members, the uneasiness in her heart turned into despair and enveloped her. She also sat down on the ground, staring at the bones in front of her with dull eyes, her chest was filled with sadness, and tears flowed out uncontrollably. .

Sylvia walked up to the dead body of a Jerry mouse, kicked it casually, and said, "How can these Jerry mice become so manic? It feels like they have been infected by the power of the abyss." ?”

"Didn't we check it before? There is no trace of the power of the abyss in these Jerry mice." Leo shook his head and said: "But the behavior of Jerry mice that is so mad that it attacks all goods is also very abnormal. It should be something wrong with the group consciousness of the Jerry rats, such as evolution."

"Evolution?" Sylvia was stunned, puzzled, "Will evolution make them go crazy?"

"Evolution does not, but hunger does." Leo thought for a while and said: "Jerry rats need a very strong emotion as a guide if they want to let their incomplete hive consciousness give birth to a core of consciousness. Let all the limited thinking of jerry rats concentrate on one emotion, and then use this emotion as the core to build a hive group consciousness.Hunger is a very easy emotion to realize, and jerry rats, low-level creatures without much wisdom It also has this kind of emotion, and this emotion is very strong, and it is easy to maintain for a long time, and it will not cause the resistance of a single consciousness in the rat group."

Sylvia frowned and said in a deep voice, "In other words, this wave of mutated rats will not disappear until the core of the nest consciousness of the Jerry Rat Swarm is completed."

Leo said: "If my deduction about the hive consciousness is not wrong, it should be like this." After speaking, he paused again, and continued: "But the Church of the Purifying Fire should intervene in this matter, right? After all, the rat swarm has caused such great damage to this place, it is estimated that it has already destroyed the entire Principality of Ruth Cult."

Sylvia shook her head, as if she didn't agree with Leo's point of view, and said, "I don't think that no matter whether the situation of the rat swarm is as you guessed or not, the Purifying Fire Church will not go all out to clean up the rat swarm."

"Why?" Leo asked puzzled.

Sylvia raised her finger and pointed in the direction of the Otter Federation, and said: "Don't forget that they have another thing that is more important than eradicating the rat tide. I guess they should seal the border and wait for the rat tide to recede by itself. They don’t care about the people of Ruth Church Principality at all. It’s a good thing for them that all the people in the Church Principality are dead. They can justifiably take over everything in the Principality of Church. Living creatures and food are eaten, but gold coins are not eaten, and all the people here are dead, and those unowned wealth naturally belong to the Church of the Purifying Fire, not only did they not lose money, but they also gained a large piece of land and wealth for nothing."

"It's possible, but not necessarily." Leo also did not agree with Sylvia's statement, saying: "If the Purifying Fire really uses this method to occupy the wealth of a teaching duchy, what will happen to other teaching duchies?" Look, they will definitely be wary of the Purifying Fire Church, so as not to become a second Russ Principality, so the church will do more good than harm.”

Sylvia didn't take it seriously. In her opinion, the disadvantages mentioned by Leo only need to create some public opinion, and then subtly influence those duchies. After a period of time, the forgetful people will soon forget about it. As for those aloof dukes of the Principality, they will definitely not have other ideas.

However, Sylvia didn't intend to continue the debate with Leo. Anyway, this kind of matter has nothing to do with them, they just passed by here.

Although it was a bit cruel, she felt that this rat wave was a good thing for them, because in this way, Penistan would have nothing to worry about, and could go on the road with them and leave the country without them having to stay here Go down, waste of time.

Sylvia walked to Penistan, squatted down, handed over a handkerchief, and said, "I think you should wipe your tears now, pack up your family's corpses, and find a place to bury them."

Penistan looked at the handkerchief. From the material and production, she could tell that the handkerchief was very expensive. She didn't dare to take it, but raised her arm and wiped her tears with her sleeve, but no matter how she wiped it, she couldn't wipe it off. Tears kept pouring out, and finally she gave up wiping her tears, stood up, walked into the room, found some clothes, picked up the bones of her family members one by one, and put them in different clothes.

After tidying up the bones, she silently walked to a small hill behind the house, dug a big hole, buried her family's bones in it, and made a simple tombstone with the broken door panel and inserted it.

After doing all this, her tears also stopped, and she stared blankly at the cemetery she built for her family, and then passed out.