The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 5 Attempt at Treatment

Perfit leaned against the edge of the lab bench, his arms crossed.

"Your Honor, what do you believe is the reason for this?"

Sabel was silent for a moment. She reached out and opened the Book of Scriptures, turned to a certain page, and pointed to a passage with her finger.

"The Church first recorded a phenomenon called 'Soul Withering' in its heretical archives compiled in the fourth century of the Imperial Calendar. The symptoms described in those records are very similar to the withering disease—the dead rise from the dead, attack the living, and holy water can only temporarily suppress it but cannot eradicate it." She looked up. "Those archives believed that this was not a simple disease, nor was it necromancy in the ordinary sense. Rather, it was a residual power after the annihilation of divinity."

Perfit did not answer immediately.

She lowered her head and gently tapped the brass corner of the lab bench with her fingertips, quickly comparing what Sabel had just said with the analysis given in the Jade Record.

The soul withers, divinity is annihilated, and only residual power remains.

She put these three keywords one by one into the physical-soul dual erosion model that the Jade Record had just given, and found that their positions matched unexpectedly well.

If the black, thread-like substance is essentially a remnant of power from the era of the Old Gods, which remained in the world after being forgotten, then its ability to erode the soul is not difficult to explain—because in its form of existence, it originally parasitized divinity.

The reason why holy water can only temporarily suppress but not eradicate is not because holy water is not powerful enough, but because the residue itself no longer belongs to any existence that can be "expelled".

It is no longer a complete curse belonging to some old god; it is a fragment of power left behind after the annihilation of divinity, without source or subject, yet still active.

She looked up at Shabel.

"Your Honor, I have a somewhat immature idea," she said, her tone slower than before, each word carefully chosen, "If I were to say—that this so-called withering disease might not be a curse imposed by any existing deity, but rather a trace left in this world by something far more ancient after the demise of divinity, do you think the Church would accept this explanation?"

Sabel remained silent for a long time.

"Whether the church accepts it or not is not important to me," she finally said. "What is important is that if your judgment is true, then we are not facing an enemy that can be expelled, but a pollution that has no 'source' at all."

She closed the Book of Words and looked at Perfit.

Are you confident you can find a way to stop it?

Perfit did not answer immediately.

Just as she was about to speak, a series of hurried footsteps suddenly came from the corridor, followed by the laboratory door being pushed open abruptly.

Archibald stood in the doorway, his face ashen, clutching a piece of paper he had just torn from the telegraph machine.

"Something happened in the quarantine area," he said. "An infected researcher just broke free of his restraints and bit two guards."

Perfit and Sabel rushed out almost at the same time.

The corridor wasn't long, but as Perfit ran those few dozen steps, at least three thoughts raced through his mind.

The first thought was that the wounds of the two soldiers had to be treated immediately—if the infection was indeed acting on both the body and soul as the Jade Record showed, then every second of delay would allow the filaments to penetrate deeper into the host's body.

My second thought was that there were other people in the quarantine area, and we absolutely could not allow any new infections to occur.

The third thought was that she had only taken gloves and a breathing mask with her when she went downstairs, but not a gun.

The isolation area is located at the end of the corridor, to the right. What was originally the manor's underground wine cellar has been temporarily converted into a small ward with six beds by naval engineers.

When Perfit pushed open the door, the scene before her was more chaotic than she had expected, but also clearer: an infected person wearing a researcher's white coat was being pinned against the wall by two soldiers with shields. His restraints had been torn off, and he was emitting hoarse growls. His ten fingers were frantically scratching at the surface of the shield, and his nails had been half-turned off, revealing not red flesh and blood, but black filaments.

The two bitten soldiers leaned against the wall on the other side, one clutching his forearm and the other his shoulder, blood seeping from between their fingers, the color of which was beginning to darken.

"Don't use firearms!" Perfit shouted from the doorway.

She saw a Marine raising his pistol, the muzzle pointed at the infected person's head.

"Close-range bullets will penetrate his bodily fluid system, and once the black blood mist splashes onto your faces, everyone will be infected."

The Marine hesitated for a moment.

In that split second of his hesitation, Sabel stepped out from behind Perfitt into the quarantine zone, her right hand holding a silver holy symbol hanging around her neck.

She did not approach the infected person, but stopped about three steps away from him, raised the holy emblem to eye level, and began to recite a passage of scripture in a low voice.

It wasn't the high-pitched announcement of an exorcism ritual, but a slower, more rhythmic chant, each syllable striking the air with a heavy weight.

The infected person suddenly froze.

His fingers stopped scratching, and the low growl in his throat turned into a muffled gurgling sound.

His body was still convulsing, his muscles were still tense, but that frenzied aggression seemed to be held down by something, briefly, barely—but definitely—suppressed.

Perfitter did not waste this moment.

She walked quickly to the infected man's side, picked up a leather strap from the side, wrapped it around his wrist, and tied a knot behind his back that she had learned in her previous life.

Then she took the dagger hanging from her waist—an old dagger brought back from the desert kingdom, with ancient alchemical arrays engraved on its blade—and pressed the back of the blade against the infected man's nape, forcing him to kneel on the ground.

"I need him to stay in this position until I've finished treating the wounded," Perfit looked up at Sabel. "How long can you hold it?"

“The scripture suppression will only last for three minutes at most,” Shabel’s voice was steady, but Perfit noticed that her fingers holding the emblem were trembling slightly. “After three minutes, I must recite it again, with an interval of about ten seconds. During those ten seconds, he will regain his aggressiveness.”

"That's enough, just hold him down for me."

Perfit stood up and strode over to the two wounded soldiers.

She took off her gloves and pressed her bare hand against the wound on one of the soldiers' forearms.

Human transmutation.

Her mental energy spread along the other person's blood vessels and she sensed them about three centimeters deep in the wound—those black, thread-like things that were slowly spreading along the texture of the muscle fibers.

If left unattended, at the current rate, they will invade the soldier's spinal cord and brain within forty-eight hours at most.

But at this moment, those filamentous substances are still in the wound and surrounding tissue.

This was the first time since last night that she felt a slight sense of relief.

In the early stages of infection, the filamentous substances have not yet begun to erode the soul.

At this stage, physical removal alone is still effective.