“As expected, it really is those things.”
Under the bright moonlight, Irene stood atop the pointed tip of the stone pillar, her gaze sweeping into the distance.
With the extraordinary vision inherent to her status as a top-tier magical creature, she easily made out the appearance of the monsters surging forward like a tide.
While confirming the extremely grim suspicion in her heart, she also couldn't help but feel a wave of nauseating disgust.
The feeling was probably comparable to finding a rat's head in one's ramen.
Simply because most of these monsters looked incredibly deformed.
Tentacles, pustules, all kinds of bizarre limbs, and misplaced, terrifyingly numerous facial features were the prominent characteristics of these monsters.
Setting aside these mutated organs, one could barely tell that the creatures making up this mutant beast tide were mostly dark-aligned creatures rarely seen on the surface.
Such as subterranean lizards, cave spiders, kuo-toa, and so on.
Naturally preferring the dark, these creatures loathed and even feared sunlight, rarely appearing on the surface. Most lived on the Arlesk Continent, within the subterranean caverns that riddled the entire plane.
And these caverns shared a collective name—the Underdark.
Recalling what Arthas had said earlier about the collapse of the cross-river tunnel excavated by the dwarfs, a thought couldn't help but pop into Irene's mind.
Could that tunnel have connected to the Underdark due to the collapse?
As for why the creatures pouring out of the Underdark looked so hideous...
Irene's expression turned a bit more solemn.
Within her Draconic Inheritance, there was such a record...
In the 134th century of the Divine Calendar, which was about four hundred years ago, some incredibly hideous monsters inexplicably appeared on the Southern Continent, which was second in size only to the Central Continent.
As if they had been exposed to nuclear radiation, these monsters grew numerous tentacles, extra limbs, and facial features. Having lost all reason, they were left with only the instinct to bite anyone on sight and devour all flesh-and-blood creatures.
At first, these monsters were few in number and mostly weak, herbivorous beasts. Since their combat capability was ultimately limited, they did not attract much attention.
The local churches and authorities merely regarded these monsters as the products of biological magic experiments conducted by some insane magic maniacs. Thus, they only posted bounties in the various adventurers' guilds to hunt down the mutant creatures and search for the magic maniac behind them.
This process went exceptionally smoothly. Aside from failing to find the so-called magic maniac, most of the mutant creatures on the Southern Continent were hunted down by the adventurers.
Since these monsters were suspected of spreading infection to other creatures through saliva and blood, their corpses were gathered, piled together, and systematically cremated.
Just like that, the incident seemed to have come to an end.
However, to everyone's surprise, it didn't take long before these mutant creatures appeared once again.
Armed with their previous experience, the rulers of the Southern Continent followed the same pattern and issued bounties once more, motivating the money-loving adventurers to hunt them down.
This time, however, not only did ordinary beasts show symptoms of infection, but even some magical beasts began to exhibit signs of mutation.
Many adventurers who took on the bounties were severely injured or even killed by the mutant creatures, causing widespread panic for a time.
Because of this, the major churches and upper echelons could no longer sit still. They dispatched armies, not only to carry out a literal purge of the mutant creatures,
but also used special means to discover that the source of these mutant creatures was a segment of a "tentacle" that had fallen from the Astral Realm into the Material Plane.
The major churches and mage associations began studying the various mutant creatures in an attempt to decipher the mutative effects brought by this tentacle.
To prevent adventurers who were accidentally injured in battle with the mutant creatures—and thus potentially infected—from further spreading this "mutation virus,"
the churches of the gods and the rulers of various nations conducted a massive screening of all adventurers on the Southern Continent, and even civilians who had come into contact with the mutant creatures. Anyone suspected of being infected would be arrested by the Holy See and the national armies.
They would only be released once it was confirmed they were not infected, or after a potion to cure the infection had been developed.
But because there were too many people and not enough cages, dozens or even hundreds of people had to be forced into a single cage like livestock such as pigs, cattle, and sheep.
The consequence of this was that once an infected person mutated, they would often infect everyone in the entire cage within a short period, causing massive casualties among the innocent.
This greatly triggered panic. Many people began to conceal the truth of their infection just to avoid being taken away.
Furthermore, some who were already confirmed to be infected fled in all directions to evade the army's pursuit.
In the end, they often ended up infecting even more people.
Most infected class-holders and even magical beasts retained the majority of their strength, which was far from what ordinary people could resist. This led to the birth of more and more mutants.
At the same time, these mutants seemed to be evolving.
Their vitality became increasingly resilient, to the point where they were almost immune to all lethal damage. Even if these monsters were chopped into pieces, the fragments would not completely lose their activity.
There was only one way to deal with the mutants: destroying their nervous center. Although this still wouldn't kill them, it would plunge the mutant's body into a state of paralysis akin to suspended animation.
In this state, the mutants required a period of time before they could "resurrect" again. Only by completely cremating them during this window could they be thoroughly killed.
Faced with such a situation, in order to prevent the infection from spreading further, the Southern Continent had no choice but to close all ports, forbid anyone from leaving the continent, and then launch a carpet-style purge across the entire land.
However, this could not save the gradually falling Southern Continent.
By the time the first high-tier class-holder was infected,
panic began to spread on a massive scale.
The destructive power of high-tier class-holders was extremely immense. Wherever they went, those places would inevitably turn into a paradise for mutants.
Meanwhile, class-holders of the same tier fighting them would often be infected if they made a single careless mistake.
This resulted in a situation where, to deal with a Silver Rank class-holder, one would typically need to dispatch a Gold Rank powerhouse or multiple Silver Ranks just to be safe.
Yet, even this could not completely prevent the infection.
Like a rolling snowball,
under various helpless circumstances and accidents, more and more high-tier class-holders and powerful magical beasts were infected, turning into mutant monsters.
Ultimately, when the first Legendary powerhouse was infected,
catastrophe descended...
The Southern Continent completely degenerated into a living hell.
Having no other choice, the various continents and even the major sub-planes near the Material Plane dispatched Legendary powerhouses and even legendary demigods
in an attempt to thoroughly cleanse the Southern Continent.
But before they could take action,
these mutants seemed to have evolved to a certain degree, seemingly developing intelligence. They began to actively gather, eventually transforming into a mountain of flesh and tentacles before the incredulous eyes of the powerhouses!
Because this mountain of flesh could not only control all mutants but also breed new mutants after absorbing enough flesh, it was named the "Mutant Matriarch" by the research mages.
However, those powerhouses preferred to call her...
Mother of Mutation and Flesh.
Rate on N.U.
