As Soya and the ashes gradually penetrated into the black fog area, the corpses on the ground began to become more and more numerous.

These corpses include humans and wild animals... Without exception, they were infected with that plague. The exposed body surface was covered with shocking pustules. The sticky blood kept oozing out from the ulcers of the skin, gathering together with the pools of blood on the ground...

But soon, Soya and Ash discovered that whether it was these people or wild beasts, their direct cause of death was not because of the plague... but because of the fight between them...

There were extremely obvious traces of battle at the scene. Many human corpses had their throats bitten open, and even more, their entire abdomen was cut by sharp claws, and their broken organs were scattered all over the ground... As for the bodies of those beasts, traces left by swords and axes could be found everywhere.

"This doesn't make sense..." Ashes squatted down and turned the body of a middle-aged man over. On his chest, there was an extremely terrifying wound. His whole heart was taken out by the wild beast. He stared with his eyes wide open, and his eyes that had become turbid and yellow were bulging. In his hand, he was still holding a rough-working hand axe tightly. The gap-covered axe blade was stained with very sticky blood and a small amount of yellow and black hair.

"Why doesn't it make sense?" Soya turned around, and she also checked several corpses, which were not much different from the one on the Ashes.

"According to Edward's description... When the black fog came, his subordinates who were shrouded in black fog seemed to have been swallowed, but no movement was released. It was precisely because of this reason that Edward once thought that the black fog was Dippest's body... But you also know that the plague is not poisonous fog, and no matter how powerful the virus is, it is impossible to kill hundreds of soldiers silently in just a few minutes. So I initially suspected that a situation similar to the 'red epidemic' might have occurred."

"Red Epidemic? The small-scale plague that broke out on the southern border of the empire before 84? Collective coma?" Soya obviously knew about this plague. Although the scope of the plague was not large, the plague fog appeared after all, and it was inseparable from the sixth apostle DiPest. As a person in the special department of studying the apostles, these things were included in Soya's compulsory courses.

"Yes, if it weren't for a collective coma, there was no reason to explain why hundreds of people who were 'swallowed' by the black fog didn't make any sounds and disappeared. Moreover, we later discovered a confused infected person. The symptoms on him were very similar to those on the red epidemic. The vaccine was extracted from the infected person." Ash said.

These people who were supposed to be in a coma fought fiercely with the wild beasts in the black fog area... no matter how they thought it was, they felt that this was simply unreasonable.

Even if they woke up from a coma, their bodies infected by the plague would become extremely weak... This is obvious to the ashes of vaccinated people... But judging from the wounds on the bodies of those crazy beasts, the dead infected people did not seem to be weak, and the entire skull of a wild wolf was even smashed with weapons.

"Copper head, iron bone, tofu waist" is an ancient proverb used by Oriental people to describe animals like wolf. The meaning is easy to understand. The wolf's skull can be said to be the hardest part of its body. Survivors in the isolation area will even use this material to polish weapons. The strength is no less than that of metal utensils. But now the entire skull of this wild wolf is split into pieces, and the brain inside has splashed out more than ten meters away - this kind of power cannot be erupted by a weak infected person.

These people... may they be... "crazy people"?

A speculation suddenly appeared in Ashes' head that he couldn't believe.

"You should know about Soya, the awakened and the crazy person?"

"I know." Soya's answer was still very simple and neat.

"Is the chance of a madman appearing... very high?"

"It's very low. Only awakened people who awaken themselves in the isolation area can lose control and become crazy people in the dark season, but the chance of awakening by themselves is even lower... Moreover, these people are not crazy people." Soya took out an iron needle nearly twenty centimeters long, and with a slight stab, the needle was penetrated into the muscles of a corpse.

This is the body of a young girl. She should be only in her teenage years old and still retains the possibility of awakening.

The iron needle was hollow. Soya connected a hose at the end of the iron needle. Under the action of siphon, a dark red liquid flowed out of the hose.

Soya dripped the dark red liquid onto a piece of test strip, and the test strip that was originally light yellow suddenly turned black.

"There is no sign of awakening, they are all just ordinary people." Soya shook her head and pulled out the iron needle.

"If it is an awakened person... or a madman, what kind of reaction will the test strips have?" Ashes asked curiously.

"The awakened medulla will turn the test strips red, while the crazy medulla... will burn the entire test strips." Soya told Ash, and the latter then realized that the dark red substance extracted from the corpse was not blood, but bone marrow.

"For ordinary people, if they are infected with plague and do not have bunkers and advanced weapons... they should be unilaterally slaughtered by wild beasts..." But from the scene, the number of corpses of wild beasts is not smaller than that of humans at all.

It seems that this plague is not as simple as Ash imagined...

Just as Ash was planning to look through a few more corpses, Soya suddenly moved to him and blocked him behind him-

"Bang!——Bang!"

First there was a gunshot unique to the flint gun, followed by the crisp sound of the metal projectiles and armor colliding. Soya leaned back slightly, and the next second, a folded arm shield had already stretched out and protected her.

The attacker was a dark figure. He stood on a pile of gravel more than ten meters away. Due to the black fog, Ash and Soya couldn't see each other clearly. They could only vaguely see a long-barrel flintstorm in his hand that was more than one meter long.

It was a military-specific gun, and the power of shooting projectiles was huge. At this distance, it was enough to lift off the human skull, but it was blocked by the armor on Soya's body.

"Don't shoot, we need to live." Soya said this to Ash, then rushed towards the attacker with a shield.
Chapter completed!