Chapter 359: 292: Rabies Virus Spreads! The Terrifying Fratricide!_1
Since the night before, a few children infected with the Rabies Virus were taken in by the Hyena Clan’s camp, and in just a few days, the children had developed rabies.
They first bit the other Hyena Men in the same hut; the Hyena Men who came to take care of them did not notice but separated them and sought the tribe’s Witch Doctor for treatment.
But to their horror, the children and the teachers they had treated began to bite the doctors, and soon the infection spread throughout the entire tribe.
At first, they did not take the situation seriously, causing many to be injured.
By the time they realized what was happening, it was too late!
All the tens of thousands of Hyena Men in the tribe had nearly half of them bitten or scratched by those carrying the Rabies Virus.
The entire tribe fell into biting and fighting; only a very few remained calm and defended a campsite.
Outside the tribe, Tusks saw bodies everywhere and the air filled with the smell of blood, and the continuous cries and screams of his tribe’s people, his eyes immediately reddened.
“Great, Great Priest, what should we do?”
Someone asked, and Tusks soon came to his senses, his teeth clenched as he ordered, “Everyone, listen to my command, attack from a distance with bows and arrows, javelins, hand axes, and kill all those who have gone mad, have external injuries, and are infected with Hydrophobia… kill them!”
“What?”
“Great Priest! What are you saying?”
“They’re our tribespeople!”
“Great Priest, please retract your command; how can we raise our hands against our own people?”
Hearing the words of his tribesmen, Tusks closed his eyes in despair.
To suppress hydrophobia in such a short time, one had to kill all tribesmen infected with hydrophobia, burn the bodies, to prevent the spread of hydrophobia.
But…
How could anyone possibly bring themselves to harm those who they had lived and fought alongside in days gone by?
Even as a Great Priest, he couldn’t subdue so many elite soldiers.
This was why whenever hydrophobia broke out in any race or tribe among their Wolf Clan, it would be the task of other tribes or other races to take action.
One’s own people… simply couldn’t bring themselves to do it!
However, he still said through clenched teeth, “For your lives, for our entire Earth Hyena Clan, and even for all the Hyena Men, Jackal Werewolves, Dogmen, and Mastiffs in our Cave Beastmen Tribe…”
“These people, they must die!”
“Take action!”
Under the forceful orders of Tusks, the Hyena Men finally started to move.
They used bows and arrows, javelins, hand axes, and other long-range weapons to kill their tribesmen, but as time passed, the Hyena Men cavalry finally erupted into rebellion.
Many disregarded Tusks’ command to desperately rush into the tribe to save their own people.
This action spread like a plague among the Hyena Men cavalry.
Seeing the choices of so many of his people, Tusks closed his eyes in despair.
He knew that the Earth Hyena Clan… was finished!
Soon, the Rabies Virus spread among the Earth Hyena Clan cavalry.
Not far away, several units of Hyena Men cavalry were also infected with the Rabies Virus that came from the Earth Hyena Clan.
“Awoo…!”
“Awoo…”
Among the Hyena Men cavalry, several attacking Hyena Men suddenly let out strange cries, which went unnoticed by the others.
No one knew that the Rabies Virus had quietly infiltrated this group of Hyena Men cavalry.
In the dense forest, suddenly a gust of wind blew.
Several wounded Hyena Men suddenly shivered all over, feeling a sudden coldness.
“Cold, so cold…”
“Cough, cough cough, cough cough cough…”
“Huff, huff huff…”
Among the crowd of Hyena Men, a small portion suddenly began coughing violently, struggling to breathe, gasping for air with their mouths wide open, but unable to suppress the irritability in their hearts.
They suddenly felt their teeth itch, their claws restless, and their vision shrouded in a red haze.
“Cough cough cough, cough cough cough cough…”
In a short span of time, a small group of Hyena Men started coughing continuously, and some even fell to the ground.
Not only the Hyena Men, but even the wolves they rode also began to cough and faint, lying on the ground as their large bodies convulsed, straining all over.
“What’s going on?”
“Earth Wolf! What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s happening? What happened to that group?”
“Captain! The Earth Wolves have suddenly fainted, some are vomiting blood… and the wolves too!”
“Go! Give them some water! Take them to the back!”
“Yes…”
At this, some Hyena Men took out water bottles and poured water down the throats of the sick tribesmen.
“Cough cough, cough cough cough…”
Little did they know that drinking the water only triggered a violent reaction in the group.
Coughing loudly, they spat out all the water, and blood sprayed out incessantly.
Their bodies curled up in convulsions, shivering, and the itching of sharp fangs and claws was getting worse, their eyes now completely enveloped in red.
“Awo, awo awo awo…”
Several infected Hyena Men suddenly cried out.
Simultaneously, one Hyena Man with severe symptoms suddenly lunged, knocking a comrade next to him to the ground, and bit deeply into his neck.
“Ah!”
“Ah Tu, let go…”
“Puh!”
“`
The werewolf named Ah Ke was frantically tearing into flesh while shaking his massive head, and immediately tore off a large chunk of bloody meat.
At the same time, more Hyena Men infected with the rabies virus also became irritable, and started to furiously bite at their colleagues next to them.
After just a short time, the cavalry unit of hundreds of Hyena Men immediately plunged into chaos.
“Damn it, what is going on?”
The Hyena Man warrior cursed angrily. Except for those Hyena Men around him who were still calm, those in the distance had all gone mad!
They bit anyone they saw, and it was a kind of frenzied tearing that didn’t care at all whether the other was a colleague.
“Captain, Captain! Quick, look!”
“The ones who were bitten have gone mad too! The ones who were bitten have gone mad too!”
The Hyena Man warrior quickly looked and, sure enough, saw a large number of comrades who were originally on the ground getting up, moving on all fours like wild wolves, and rushing toward the Hyena Man crowd to continue biting.
“Awoo…!”
At this moment, another series of cold howls came.
One then saw about a dozen huge mount wolves starting to go mad.
Their fur bristled all over, their pupils turned blood-red, and their fangs and claws protruded furiously, even pulling flesh out with them.
Under the influence of the rabies virus, they charged crazily toward the Hyena Man crowd!
In just a few short minutes, more than one-third of the Hyena Men were infected with the rabies virus and began to frantically slaughter each other.
Not far away, the Hyena Man warrior’s pupils suddenly shook, as if he remembered something, especially the High Priest’s earlier warning, and he immediately bellowed:
“Everyone! Kill! Kill them! Kill them now!”
Some guards hastily shouted, “Captain! They are all our tribesmen, you…”
“They are not tribesmen anymore!” The Hyena Man warrior’s eyes were filled with fear. “It’s hydrophobia! They’ve got hydrophobia! Kill them quickly! Otherwise, we will all die here!”
“Hydrophobia?”
“How is that possible? How could we possibly contract hydrophobia?”
“My grandfather said that tribe members who have hydrophobia are insane and must be killed! Otherwise, they could transmit the terrifying virus to all of us!”
“Kill!”
At the command of the Hyena Man warrior, those Hyena Men who were temporarily uninfected by the rabies virus immediately attacked their former tribesmen.
Their scimitars turned into streaks of light and chopped down the crazed members of their own kind on the ground.
But as time went on, they were also bitten and scratched by their own kind, bleeding profusely.
Especially the hundreds of mount wolves that were infected with the rabies virus, they were hard to capture and easily broke through the Hyena Men’s lines, rushing into the crowd to fight fiercely.
In just this short period of about ten minutes, not only had the Hyena Men infected with rabies not been eliminated, but it had caused even more Hyena Men to become infected!
Especially their mount wolves, as animals, they contracted the virus at an even faster rate!
“Retreat! Retreat quickly!”
“Retreat, hurry!”
The Hyena Man warrior’s face finally turned even more unsightly, as he hastily started shouting.
Meanwhile, many other Hyena Man cavalry didn’t wait for his command and turned to run.
“Awoo!”
“Awooooo…!!!”
Series of mournful wolf howls rose in the dappled dense forest, like messengers hooking souls.
Once rabies broke out, the infected would lose their reason and attack all sorts of living beings like mad demons.
And canine creatures had almost zero resistance to this virus!
Once infected, they would die within a week at most, either from respiratory failure or from seeking pleasure too intensely.
In other words, the Hyena Men infected with the rabies virus were doomed!
This pattern was different from the T-Virus and zombies Zheng Cheng had seen in movies and TV shows in his previous life.
When a living being became zombified under the T-Virus infection, they would follow the guidance of flesh and blood to find food, and would not attack their own kind.
In other words, zombies rarely attacked zombies.
Zombies were beings whose life had already ended, but their bodies continued to move under the action of the nervous system, like walking corpses.
But rabies was different.
Humans infected with rabies would become hydrophobic, afraid of wind, and would struggle to breathe; those in severe conditions would violently attack others around them.
No matter if they were healthy people or others infected with the rabies virus.
In other words, people inflicted with rabies were more dangerous than zombies, posing a higher threat!
Another set of wolf howls came through.
As a large number of Hyena Men fell into disarray, these rabies-infected Hyena Men and their wolves seemed to have been provoked, biting at the heels of and directly pursuing their former comrades, killing as they went.
Faster and stronger.
Tackling each frantically running former ally to the ground and viciously tearing at them.
Some Hyena Men turned bravely to resist, managing indeed to kill several fellows infected with rabies using their curved knives.
But he also sustained serious injuries.
Just over a dozen breaths later, he, covered in wounds, was also infected with the rabies virus, turning around to attack his other comrades.
For a time, the entire Wind-Speaking Prairie was filled with horrific howls of wolves.
Rabies virus-infected Hyena Men, chasing after their still-normal counterparts, tackled and tore at them without regard for their identities.
And the frantically running Hyena Men didn’t have the courage to look back, only knowing to keep running forward.
Some even began to slaughter each other, tripping their comrades in secret, hoping the others would fall and buy themselves a sliver of a chance at life!
But what they didn’t know was that just behind these hundreds of frantically battling Hyena Men, Zheng Cheng was slowly following them.
In the air, a thick, gloomy cloud of the rabies virus had almost formed, like a monster waiting to devour them!
And surrounding them were large numbers of Jackal Werewolf troops, Dogmen troops, Mastiff Man troops…
These, too, were lives highly susceptible to the rabies virus infection!