A Path of Blood

Chapter Six: The Plague

Chapter Six
The Plague

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According to the articles I have read, Kalixtro had been a prodigy when he was a child and grew up, harboring achievements that paved his way to power, as an intelligent man. Looking at his calculating sharp eyes, I could only agree with those stories.

His perfect teeth contrasted his dark skin and his crimson—the color of his House—suit emphasized the deep-shade green of his eyes. He had become a member of the governing board at such a young age and when his father died, he had immediately inherited his title being the head of his House. Now, a formidable figure and a powerful personality squeezed into such a lean frame, anything he said would be done.

"Verginbolt Pharmaceuticals has been suffering quite a material loss for three months now. If this continues, the company's stocks' prices would be reduced by a tremendous twelve percent," he started, and a hologram appeared in front of us, floating inches above the table. His family's crest materialized along with the video footage of their burning factories. Firemen and drones attempted to kill the fire but it looked like the more they had tried to extinguish the flames, another explosion would destroy other parts of the manufacturing complex.

"You see, there had been attacks on our network of laboratories, hindering the progression of the series of research about the escalating plague in the Southern Colonies. If the situation persists, the virus will reach Corona before we can produce an effective vaccine and antibody. Anticipating the worst, the society will collapse and will be paralyzed, resulting in millions dead."

"There's a plague in the Edges?" I asked. The Southern Colonies, more commonly known as the Edges, were a vast group of territories remotely controlled by the governing board of Corona. Located beyond the Dalavarios Desert, the climate there was warmer and more humid during the summer but colder during the winter.

Divided into four regions and almost twice as big as Corona itself, the protectorates' collective population was larger and denser than the city. They had crowded streets at every turn, making it the perfect place for criminals to hide. I have never been in those hellholes, but just in case I was finally caught (it could be one of my patrons betraying me to the authorities, which I highly doubted because doing so would also put them in the spotlight. But then, who knew what would happen? Perhaps they could escape the punishments of the law or perhaps not: the city's justice system was beyond flawed) that was also one of the places I considered hiding before riding a ship through the Faros Sea, and the Khasmic Ocean, into the continent on the other side of the world.

If an outbreak occurred in one of the colonies, it would spread faster than a blink of an eye, claiming hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives. It could even reach the Kolkata and Zhouhan territories if both countries learned about the plague too late.

"Yes," it was Renzo who answered. I almost forgot the Edges was the place he had chosen to hide himself from the Coronian authorities who wanted him dead or alive. For several years, he had lived there. And thinking about Kalixtro's offer to give him a full pardon, maybe there was something Renzo was not telling me yet as to why he had needed to leave Corona. Wielders did bad things, and he might have done something worse that required him to flee. "It appeared a month ago in Alicante and its origin was not entirely known. The virus was not something we had seen before.

"Infected people filled the already crowded hospitals, but not a single patient has been cured because the doctors do not know how to counter the effects of the virus on the body. As of now, before I was summoned from the Edges, there is only one thing they are sure about the disease."