CHAPTER 549: CHAPTER 59 THE SPIRITUAL TREE

Suppressing the spiritual contamination in the city and capturing a contaminant to conduct experiments were clearly not conflicting objectives and could be carried out simultaneously.

The former situation was not optimistic. In just an hour, the number of spiritual contaminants in the city rose quickly from 23 to 118 cases. They wandered the sealed-off streets, enduring the gunfire of the Temple Knights and sheriffs as they broke into buildings on both sides of the street to attack the residents.

On the other hand, the experiments were going smoothly. Since research data was obtained from the abandoned subway station, all necessary conditions and parameters were readily available, allowing the priests to simply repeat the experiments according to the information provided.

The experiments showed that anyone attacked by a spiritual contaminant transformed into one within 20 to 30 minutes, with clinical features including the emergence of a semi-transparent Spiritual Body shadow on their back containing a large amount of Extraordinary Power, significantly enhancing the contaminant’s resistance to injury.

In terms of attack targets, spiritual contaminants displayed a high level of selectivity:

For "pure-blood humans" who had never ingested spiritual material, the spiritual contaminants showed utter disdain, with no intent to attack at all.

For ordinary people who had not leveled up but had ingested spirituality (such as by killing or consuming Extraordinary Creatures), the spiritual contaminants showed a certain interest in attacking.

This attack was primarily carried out by piercing the victim with tendrils from the Spiritual Body on their back, not causing bleeding or physical wounds, but leading to a gradual transformation into a spiritual contaminant.

For Transcendents with levels, the spiritual contaminants developed a strong desire to attack.

There were not many ways to kill a spiritual contaminant, and physical attacks were the least efficient method. Autopsy of the bodies proved that even with excessive blood loss, the contaminant’s mutated Spiritual Body would maintain life in place of the blood.

Energy attacks, on the other hand, were more effective. For example, flames, electric shocks, or lasers aimed directly at the semi-transparent Spiritual Body emerging from the target’s back could effectively eradicate it.

Once the Spiritual Body was annihilated, the contaminated humans exhibited different symptoms. If the target had been an ordinary person before contamination, they would sustain some physical and mental damage but not enough to be fatal; if the target had been a Transcendent, they would almost certainly lose control and fall immediately.

Thus the conclusion was clear. The Spiritual Tree was a special weapon developed by extreme humanist forces specifically to counter Transcendents.

Following the issuance of a Level 4 martial law order, an intense debate immediately erupted at the Cardinal Council meeting on how to respond to the large number of spiritual body contaminants appearing in the city.

How many people were ordinary humans without levels but had ingested spirituality? Raphael roughly estimated that this figure accounted for about 30% of the total population of Solomon City, yet they were the wealthiest bunch.

Because only the rich would buy the meat of Extraordinary Creatures to try.

Among the Cardinals, those like the Lixini, Medici, Este, and other powerful families from the Italian peninsula were naturally opposed to a lenient policy and firmly demanded the use of maximum force to suppress the contaminants.

Next were the Bishops who came from ordinary families, who were confident that they did not contain a trace of spirituality and had no relatives who had consumed Extraordinary Creatures. Therefore, they uniformly attempted to argue from all angles the difficulty of suppressing the spiritual contaminants and, most crucially, "as long as one is not a Transcendent, they can be rescued after being contaminated."

It was just some trauma, after all, not a big deal.

Of course, while they did not say it explicitly, the subtext was clear: if this thing were to spread, it would inevitably constitute an effective weakening and assault on the Extraordinary Forces outside the Church Court — which, in fact, would be advantageous for the Church Court. After all, Transcendents were the least common in Italy.

This argument was met with strong criticism from the cardinals of noble origin. What does "advantageous for the Church Court" mean? How have we, who have absorbed Spirituality, become "disadvantages for the Church Court"? Do we deserve to be attacked by the Polluters?

The debate lasted for about ten minutes before Innocent used the authority of the Pope to put an end to everyone’s quarreling with a grand gesture:

I am the Pope, and now I command an immediate deployment of maximum military force to suppress this. You all must obey me.

As a result, more Church Court Guard and the Temple Knights quickly sprang into action. Also, the resumption of military-related production lines was prioritized and began operating at full capacity.

Suddenly, a drizzle began to fall over the streets of Solomon City. Water droplets splashed onto the extinguished neon lights and the base of holographic projections, sending up wisps of mist.

The black steel jungle was immersed in the mist, resembling the corpse of a gigantic beast. The fierce sound of gunfire echoed between heaven and earth, accompanied by the distant, hoarse and indistinct roars of Spiritual Essence Polluters.

The members of the The Azure Longsword stayed in the high-rise of the Lysine Building, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the gloomy sky. Outside, the Patrol Sheriffs were broadcasting a message that roughly said a certain biochemical weapon had escaped from the lab, and the Temple Knights and Sheriffs were conducting a purge, asking everyone to stay at home and not go out.

"So we’re not allowed to go out, huh?" Mia complained, bored and propped up against the edge of the swimming pool’s wall. "This is so boring. What are these Spiritual Essence Polluters they’re talking about?"

"Those are the monsters that have been contaminated by the Mutant Filth, just like the Green Skins we encountered in the Swabian Duchy before," Nora walked in from outside and placed the collected information from the Lixini Family on the table. "Here’s all the relevant intelligence. Take a look."

Everyone picked up the information and started to read.

"Spiritual Tree?" Thira read with a frown.

"Given its characteristics, it’s clear that it was artificially created to target Transcendents," Medea scoffed coldly. "But you can’t just wipe out the Transcendents with a war of attrition."

"Especially after the third surge of the Magic Tide, the Level Limit has already been raised to Lv.20. Demigods are already able to freely deploy their Domain, so how could they be eliminated by these things with sheer numbers? At most, they could only cleanse the Italian peninsula once over."

"If it were simply a matter of being outnumbered, of course it would be impossible," Nora said as she drew a document from the bottom. "Take a look at this."

"Aggregated Evolution?" Thira and Medea read aloud from the document.

"Do you remember the Lord of Filth that once ravaged the Bavarian Duchy?" Nora spoke with a worried expression, "Back then, the Magic Tide’s level cap was only Lv.10, while our opponent was a Lv.19 Transcendent who attempted to ascend to Lv.20 and cross the Demigod threshold by Devouring the Spirituality within a large number of living people."

"The accumulation of Spirituality is indeed susceptible to undergoing a qualitative change from quantitative changes. The Spiritual Essence Polluters are similar. Although there is no observation yet of these Polluters gathering, from the available data it can be inferred..."

"At some point, these Polluters may attempt to come together, intermingling their underlying Spiritual Essence, thereby transforming into an extraordinarily high-level Mutant class of Extraordinary Creatures."

"That is, ’The Spiritual Tree.’"