Azaroth's plan to start a rebellion and use it to force the war between the Sinyalian Kingdom and the Glerian Kingdom could be considered brilliant.
However, multiple factors were required to make this plan a reality.
The most important factor was for the plaque to spread uncontrolled across the Sinyalian Kingdom.
The fear of this plaque would force the King to take some immediate actions. Devoid of any proper knowledge of this disease, the King would try to leave the Sinyalian Kingdom quickly.
However, the King knew that it might endanger his life even more. Thus, he would begin looking for a foreign territory to occupy.
At that moment, the Glerian Kingdom's internal strife would present him the perfect opportunity to march into the Glerian Kingdom and occupy their territory.
The King planned to set up a large military base in that newly occupied territory to preserve his forces and prevent them from coming into contact with this disease.
In a sense, they would be leaving the Kingdom until the situation was normal.
Contain, wait, and purge. This was the typical protocol of most authorities when a plaque spread in the Kingdom.
However, Azaroth had no idea that his plan would fall apart because of a bit of miscalculation.
He miscalculated King Valliadis's capabilities!
The virus that Azaroth created was extremely complex, and not just any alchemist could concoct its antidote without knowing the true formula. However, there was a gimmick in this.
The core feature of this virus was a Demonic Ingredient. Thus, it could be countered by a Holy Ingredient.
As they all say, everything in this world has its counterpart! And this plaque was no different!
King Valliadis contacted multiple religions and offered them lucrative deals and, in return, asked them to cure this disease.
Each religion had its specific set of Alchemists, and one religion particularly stood out as it quickly managed to create a permanent antidote!
This religion was known as the Emissaries of Clyranis.
Now, this name was rather familiar to Azaroth. There was a Celestial named Clyranis, and his title was Poison God!
This Celestial had slaughtered countless demons without even lifting his finger. His poisons were so advanced that they could infect even a Demon God and kill them in the right conditions.
The terrifying part about his poisons was that a Demon couldn't detect them no matter how hard he tried.
Even though the Poison element was supposed to be a Demons' forte, this Celestial had completely surpassed all poison experts in that era.
Azaroth had no idea that this Celestial had managed to endure the passage of time and his religion stayed intact!
The Emissaries of Clyranis quickly spread the antidote and informed the other religions of the trick to dealing with this disease.
Thus, the Emissaries of Clyranis quickly dealt with the sense of terror and anxiety that Azaroth had created within the Sinyalian Kingdom!
Not only that, Azaroth's actions had strengthened the religious factions within the Sinyalian Kingdom. The King offered them large pieces of his land, a tremendous number of resources, and, most importantly, many new followers.
Since the Radiant Church had already fled from the Sinyalian Kingdom, the people were looking for another religion they could follow.
Religion was an integral part of people's lives. It wasn't just because religion gave them hope and allowed them to endure for a better future. No. It was so much more.
Religion brought a whole new culture to them. And this culture could be anything. Whether the manner of praying is changed, some religious sites, different ways of blessings, and most importantly, their diverse festivals!
While following a religion, people would be filled with hope and joy.
After donating something to their respective religion, people would be filled with a sense of satisfaction. This gave them positiveness which responded to their vicious everyday world.
In a sense, religion gave people hope, power, and a way of living! It must be considered a crucial element of their lives!
Thus, when these three religions became a bit famous for dealing with the plague, they instantly rose to great heights within the Sinyalian Kingdom!
The ones that rose to great prominence were the Emissaries of Clyranis. Many people were interested in joining this religion.
However, it wasn't so easy to join them. The Emissaries of Clyranis required a follower to have a fit body, a talent in alchemy, and most importantly, fate with their God Clyranis!
If an individual didn't have fate with their God Clyranis, the Emissaries wouldn't allow him to join the religion!
However, even with these three restrictions, the number of Emissaries of Clyranis was increasing at an unreal pace.
Fortunately for Azaroth, Bianca had managed to conceal her presence in this entire incident perfectly. She killed the Alchemist and badly dismembered his body before throwing those pieces to the beasts.
The beasts ate those pieces and made an entire man completely disappear from the face of this world.
Bianca returned to her Lewis Family Mansion and kept up the illusion that she had always been staying there with her servants. This allowed her to form a near-perfect alibi.
However, she had no idea that a rather sharp dog was already after her.
This sharp dog was none other than Shun Gordon!
Shun still hadn't linked this disease to Azaroth, but he had realized that someone intentionally spread that plaque.
Plaque couldn't spread in the Capital of the Kingdom so quickly without any proper planning.
And this belief was further strengthened when he gathered the data of the infected families.
He noticed most of the infected families of this disease were actually merchants and guards! Out of the total suffering from this plaque, around 40% were merchants, 20% were guards, and the rest were the general populace.
Shun knew that such data couldn't occur naturally. There had to be a particular reason why so many merchants and guards were targeted!
And he found one quickly enough.
Firstly, it was easy to infect merchants and guards because accessing them wasn't very difficult.
They could easily be found in local taverns or some shops.
Once he found out how the culprit chose his targets, Shun immediately spread his moles and ordered them to gather info about any suspicious individual in the area who had appeared before the disease outbreak.
His men talked to hundreds and thousands of people every day. After a week, they finally gathered some info which further indicated that they were on the right path.
They had formed a character sketch of a few servants working for Bianca. However, they couldn't come into contact with these servants, so they didn't know how to find these individuals in this vast Kingdom.
Actually, it had to be impossible, but the reality was a tiny bit different. Shun recognized one of these servants. He had an eidetic memory, and he would never forget anything he had seen. No matter if it was data or someone's face.
He recalled seeing one of the individuals serving Spencer Russel's wife, Bianca Russel when he had gone to Spencer's house to talk to Sophie. He remembered meeting Bianca, and this woman was accompanying her. They appeared to be rather close.
'A worthwhile lead regarding this case, finally!'
A wide smile appeared on his face. He knew that either this servant or Bianca were bound to know something crucial about this disease!
