The Gentleman at the End
Chapter 537 - 535: Call for Help

Chapter 537: Chapter 535: Call for Help

An hour earlier,

In the basement of Keith White Teeth’s house, William, who had refused the Sutured Gate, also received information about changes in his "gentleman’s clothes" relayed through his retina almost instantly.

«Due to the massive integration with external skin attributes, this attire has now incorporated three different types of illness and evolved into a comprehensive skin syndrome. Moreover, with the intervention of Apostle Skin, the quality of the attire has undergone significant changes, including two additional passive effects, detailed as follows:

’Black Death Skin’: The attire itself can store and manifest various death attributes including the Dead Plague Fog State Bacteria and unknown black seawater, greatly enhancing magic resistance and inflicting recoil damage on attackers.

Additionally, glove structures can also be derived for attacking purposes.

’Gatekeeper’s Will’: The will of Pim Lawley, the gatekeeper of the Sutured Gate, resides within the attire, granting indomitable spirit to the wearer.»

Thus,

once William roughly deduced the overall level of the Plague Bed, he planned to use the rat swarms from the Plague Bed to consecrate his attire.

The fighting skills taught by his teacher Zede, supported by the new clothes, were perfectly demonstrated, and William even faintly discovered a "rhythm" during the fighting, a rhythm learned from dancing with Mr. Rabbit.

It seemed that following the rhythm in striking would result in a multiple increase in power.

A casual punch not only completely shattered the target in front of him but also turned the rat swarm behind him into minced meat, and even blasted a deep indent into the factory stone wall tens of meters away.

William was like a Hell Boxer, leaving no trace of life wherever he went.

Thirteen tubes followed by his side, tasked with dispelling Abyss Material.

"Teacher... he has become much stronger than a month ago!"

...

Meanwhile,

in the central laboratory of Plague Bed, unlike human labs, the apparatus here, like reactors and distillation columns, were made in a hybrid method of stone and flesh,

specially crafted using Dark Stone mined from mountains blended with the ’Stomach Membrane’ proliferated by Open Source ratmen, providing an optimal constant temperature environment suitable for the cultivation, reaction, and fermentation of pathogens.

The plague products produced by the central laboratory would continue through multiple stages of refined distillation to finally collect the "Plague Original Liquid" right below the lab in a special room called the "Plague Room."

This room was only less than twenty square meters, designed much like an indoor hot spring.

A distinctly different rat person was soaking his entire body in the hot spring, relaxing, marked on his forehead with the symbol of the plague’s three ring insignias.

Above his head, a series of pitch-black antlers twisted and intertwined, nothing like what a rat should sport, as if infected by some bizarre disease.

This rat person was the founder of Plague Bed, who is obviously the Acting City Lord of Rat City - Dugall, Heart of Plague, also known as the Green Prime Minister.

This secret room was constructed less than ten years ago, filled not only with Plague Original Liquid but also with endless darkness. The stones used to build the secret room were all mined personally by him from deep within the mountains.

Using the hot spring-like Plague Original Liquid and the pitch-black room as mediators, his thoughts wandered the "Plague Path."

In fact, he had embarked on this "Plague Path" decades ago.

In the early stages of the path, he progressed smoothly with the help of the plague resources of the whole city.

But the final stretch was like a maze that he could never find his way out of, even feeling his legs stuck in cement, making even the basic act of moving forward difficult.

He never wanted to admit the failure of his path and in his frustration, gradually became maniacal, starting to ignore the state of Rat City and the lives of its rat citizens while increasing the intensity of his research on the Plague Bed.

Yet he could only tread in place, unable to make any breakthrough,

until one day, a low whisper from the Abyss emanated from a corner of his office...

Currently,

Dugall, Heart of Plague, was enjoying the darkness and tranquillity in the secret room, moving forward through the path with tentacles crawling, when suddenly, a disturbance from the outside world forced him awake.

Interrupting his path,

such noise was unbearable to him, and he was determined to find out who was creating it, to devour them whole, and even throw their heads into the Plague Liquid for endless torture.

However, the increasingly violent sounds made him feel uneasy.

’Plague Eye’

The mark of three rings on his forehead began to squirm and, as the skin cracked, three green eyes that stuck together emerged to replace the original mark.

These three special eyeballs could observe the detailed conditions between the plague beds, using the airborne plague as a medium.

A young man, who was going on a rampage of slaughter in the building of the plague beds, came into view, and it was crucial to first ascertain that he was an Open Source Patient.

However, even though it was just the Open Source Stage, the youth’s slaughter seemed effortless, and the overwhelming pressure of his bare-handed combat even made him feel endangered.

"To effortlessly kill my carefully selected subordinates and those I’ve painstakingly cultivated from plague variants with his bare hands, and to have not sustained even a minor injury thus far,

this person must be similar to me, both of us being at the Open Source Limit. Defeating or even killing this guy will certainly not be easy, and might even come at a tragic cost.

From the aura he emits and his mode of killing, this guy is very likely a potential new recruit of the Death Plague Knights, undergoing his final test to join the order.

Recently, I heard that the Original Tomb often engages in wars with the Cancer Palace. This new Death Plague recruit seems to have sought out our city, a territory belonging to the Cancer Palace, to prove himself, right?

Thinking to use me as a stepping stone? Since that’s the case, why not use a strategy of ’killing someone with a borrowed knife’? I only have a little more left to finish my path, and I can’t afford delays due to severe injuries."

With this thought, a sinister smile hung on the corner of his mouth.

Dugall’s sore-riddled arm gently rested on the two sides of the pool, as the plague water continued to flow down his shoulders.

As he propped himself up in the bath, he realized that only his upper half was still normal.

His lower half, as a rat person, had long lost its ’concept of form’, piled with indefinable and constantly oozing black pus-filled living organs, intertwined and penetrated by tentacles.

It seemed he could only move by squirming, this loss of lower body form similar to that of the hotel manager, both influenced by immersion into the Abyss.

Dugall donned a coat similar to a Plague Robe, covering his corrupted, decaying lower half,

his mouth began muttering some ancient secret technique, and his body was promptly broken down into a cluster of plague bacteria... A few seconds passed, and his physical body reformed in an office that hadn’t been used in a long time.

A telephone covered in tumors was stored in the safe here, having not been dialed for hundreds of years.

When he tried to pick up the receiver, the phone connected instantly.

"Is there an urgent matter to report?"

"This is Rat City - Pestis, I am the Acting City Lord - Dugall. We currently have a patient who can manifest the traits of the Death Plague causing massive slaughter here; I hereby request reinforcements from the Cancer Palace."

"Information received. We will dispatch the nearest Honored Tumor Knight to handle this. Should subsequent findings prove your information inaccurate, the Cancer Palace will hold you accountable."

"Thank you very much."

Hanging up the phone, Dugall couldn’t help but become excited, "To directly arrange an ’Honored Tumor Knight’ to come, it seems their relationship with the deceased is indeed very strained~... With this, I only need to rest well and wait for the incident to conclude.

Perhaps I can even gain some advantages that will help with my path."

...

A hundred kilometers away in the Neutral City.

A woman, dressed in casual attire and wearing a mask, was sucking on a specially made crystal lollipop,

before her lay eight lewd patients, beaten beyond recognition; the reason was simple, one of them had deliberately touched the woman’s buttocks earlier.

Just as she was about to continue disciplining these ill-mannered fellows,

a message entered her mind,

"Rat City... a suspected deceased? Oh, I was just saying going out was getting boring, finally there’s something to do."

As the woman turned to leave,

the group finally breathed a sigh of relief. As they tried to heal their bodies, snap! A lollipop was tossed over, the very one the woman had in her mouth earlier.

Boom!

An intense explosion occurred in the alleyway, even triggering the city’s alarm.

The woman, ignoring the explosion, returned to the shop where she had bought the lollipop, took out a tumorous backpack with storage capabilities, and bought all the lollipops prepared for the day.

Then, she slightly adjusted her mask upwards, slipping one of the lollipops between her cherry-like pink lips.