With the thinking ability of a true powerhouse, Punk swiftly sifted through the memories of the dying townsman before him.
"So, a plague broke out?"
Casually discarding the bleeding, near-death Madder onto the ground, Punk cast a few prophecy spells to confirm the details extracted from the man's mind. The fragmented pieces quickly aligned, painting a clearer picture of Tishachar's actions.
She had obtained a piece of legendary equipment capable of absorbing the power of faith. Initially, she acted with caution and intelligence, concealing her cult in the shadows while infiltrating Dolez City. Through charisma and manipulation, she even won the high priest's allegiance.
But what was baffling was her sudden, reckless exposure—spreading the plague indiscriminately, brainwashing townsfolk with drugged "divine water," and forcing conversions at an unsustainable pace.
It was a self-destructive move.
What drove her to abandon secrecy and risk everything?
From a rational standpoint, her gains were minimal. Aside from a handful of mindless zealots, she had little to show for such an extreme strategy.
It was like someone selling their house just to buy a bottle of water—irrational and desperate.
"So… under what circumstances would someone do that?"
The answer was obvious.
When they were about to die of thirst.
The realization clicked.
Tishachar wasn't acting out of choice—she was driven by necessity. For some reason, she was in urgent need of faith, forcing her to abandon subtlety and resort to aggressive methods to extract belief from the desperate.
The method was unsustainable. In time, forces from the righteous factions would respond, bringing swift annihilation upon her fragile cult.
But in the short term?
The influx of raw, frenzied devotion must have been immense.
Then another thought surfaced—her madness.
"Is her insanity a side effect of absorbing tainted faith?"
If she had recklessly taken in polluted belief, her deteriorating mind would be a direct consequence.
The pieces fit together.
But Punk wasn't concerned about her reasons—only about how to use them.
With a rough plan forming in his mind, he scanned his surroundings. The filthy alley was littered with plague-ridden bodies, their hollow eyes still filled with shock at the display of sorcery they had just witnessed.
"My first step is understanding this disease. Conveniently… experimental subjects are everywhere."
Without hesitation, Punk conjured a glowing prison of violet energy, its eerie light casting an ominous halo over his figure.
Upon returning to his White Tower, Punk expected to begin his research immediately.
Instead, he was greeted with chaos.
Shattered alchemical tools.
Scattered parchments.
The lingering traces of abyssal energy, weakened and dissipated.
His expression darkened.
"What the hell happened here?"
With a few quick prophecy spells, Punk traced the events leading to the disorder.
The cause was Bilan.
"That idiot."
Kicking aside a corpse wrapped in filthy rags, he scowled at the ruined state of his laboratory.
"Not only did she bring some worthless human here, but she also dragged in her little lover, caught the plague, and infected the lab? Is her brain filled with air?"
He had no time to deal with his foolish apprentice—she was in Konola City now, and her incompetence wasn't worth the effort.
He had more pressing matters.
With a flick of his hand, Punk cleared the debris. The loss of equipment was a trivial setback—what mattered was the research.
Turning to the row of floating cages, he wordlessly selected his first test subject.
A weak, dying refugee was tossed to Golem One.
The construct, impervious to disease, began devouring the body with wet, crunching sounds, its metal jaws grinding through flesh and bone.
Punk, unfazed, moved to the second cage.
He extracted a young girl.
She was perhaps fifteen, her wheat-colored skin still smooth, her faint freckles barely visible in the dim light. A healthy specimen—aside from the infection.
Under the influence of a powerful sleep spell, she was oblivious to her fate.
Punk didn't waste time.
He severed her brainstem instantly, ensuring a painless death.
He had no interest in tormenting his subjects—only in results.
"Now, let's begin the dissection."
His movements were precise and methodical.
First, he peeled away her skin with a minor spell.
Then, with a sharp, enchanted scalpel, he sliced through muscle, severed ligaments, and extracted internal organs, neatly separating them on a clean table.
Within five minutes, only a perfectly stripped skeleton remained.
Analyzing the body, he quickly identified the disease's mechanics.
The plague manifested as gray, thread-like filaments spreading through muscle tissue and latching onto bones.
The more they grew, the more brittle the skeleton became—eventually, even breathing could cause fatal fractures.
It was a disease of slow, inevitable collapse.
Punk studied the dense gray filaments coating the skeleton. The system's analysis suggested that as the infection progressed, the patient's bones lost all structural integrity, leading to a horrific, lingering death.
"For ordinary people, this would be a nightmare. A fate worse than death."
But for Punk, it was an opportunity.
He set down his scalpel.
The next phase of his research was clear.