Plague Doctor

"Found it, found it, abnormal creature! Doctor Gu, that thing has to be an abnormal creature, 100 percent the kind you're looking for! Many hands and many mouths. Very big, very smelly and very noisy. If that is not an abnormal creature, you can dissect me! Actually, never mind… forget what I said… that was just a figure of speech, I didn't really think that and I wasn't making a bet, just pretend like you didn't hear that. But that thing has to be an abnormal creature. It was so big, you'll take so long to cut through it." Along the way, Lucky kept gesturing wildly. 

This was in the middle of the night at Da Hwa City's Phecda Spell Department base. Gu Jun had been busy for the whole day. Before he was able to drift off, with the negative selection's voice in his head, he was woken up by this news. He instantly sprung up and hurried to the communication room. Lucky stood up straighter, the Zoog Department had scored a big one this time! They very perfectly completed the mission given by the nightmare man. He had already seen through the video taken by the fat Zoog's camera. It was going to give him nightmares for days. 

"What about the Zoog that found the creature? Is he alright?" Gu Jun asked. He knew how difficult it was to escape from an abnormal creature. Lucky shivered when he heard that. In his ears, he heard the nightmare man's voice saying, 'If he is in too much pain, how about we…' 

"Of course, he's fine!" Lucky patted hastily to explain, "If there's one thing going for us Zoogs, it's that we have really thick skin from decades of tapping against ourselves! That Zoog only suffered a few scratches as he scrambled through the woods, he did not even suffer any serious wounds. There's no need for treatment. Don't worry about him, Doctor Gu, you better focus on that abnormal creature."

"That's good." Gu Jun nodded. To be able to escape from an abnormal creature, that Zoog had to be an elite. If that was the case, the Zoog should be transferred to the MP Unit. The team was looking for a batch of elite Zoogs to go along with them on the most dangerous missions. 

When Gu Jun arrived at the communication room, the news had already reached the MP Agency. Mysterium was sending Yu Chi's group over because this was more than a simple discovery of an abnormal creature.

"Ah Jun, take a look at this first." Elder Tong in one of the monitors said. Elder Tong was still currently at Mo Bei. When Gu Jun sat down, Wu Siyu, Lou Xiaoning, Cai Zixuan, Prof Jiang and the rest had arrived as well. They looked at the large monitor playing a night vision video. It recorded a weak hissing soon and a blurry forest. Soon Gu Jun saw the giant, distorted abnormal creature. Its bloodshot eye was looking right at the camera. Instantly an unsettling feeling rose within him… It reminded him of the situation when he had to channel Son of Misfortune's dark energy…

"That's an abnormal creature." Gu Jun announced darkly, "And it should be related to The Black Goat of the Woods." Everyone could see that because the abnormal creature had a clear identifier, 2 pairs of black goat hooves. This twisted knot of flesh and meat reminded Gu Jun of the humanoid banyan tree as well as the fleshy forest that once hung high above the Mo Bei sky. 

The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Youngs. So… this was it? But it was a smaller version, a billy goat to be precise…

It appeared in the forest north of the Eastern State, this could not be a coincidence. From the available data, the first abnormal baby to be born at Phecda World was not Da Hwa City's Xu Qiuyue but a baby boy at the hospital attached to Eastern State's University. He was born 10 minutes earlier than Xu Qiuyue, he too was a negative selection. Phecda had looked deep into the boy's background. The boy's parents were normal office workers, they had nothing to do with dark forces and occultism. Like many other parents, they were confused, nervous and insisted that everything was fine with their boy.

More checks were still being conducted, like why the boy was defined as a negative selection. 

Gu Jun watched the tentacles wiggle on the screen, the bloody mouths opening and closing. There was another buzz in his mind… 

It was the new system. Golden light was surging like a power assimilating. With a sudden ping, several new notifications popped up. 

"You have been exposed to the existence of Black Billy Goat.

"You have triggered a new Autopsy Quest.

"Autopsy Quest: Complete the dissection of 1 Black Billy Goat within 15 days. Remaining time: 359:59:47, Completion Rate: 0 percent

"Quest reward: 1 chance of communication with City of Dusk; 1 Medical Skill; Unknown!"

Gu Jun scanned the messages and he was inspired. It was finally here, the quest!

The system, and mission were just symbolic, in actuality it was Earth's connection with the City of Dusk and Gu Jun was the bridge. So far, he appeared to be the only bridge too.

'Medical skill?' Gu Jun's heart was burning up, he couldn't wait to get his hands on it. 'What kind of skill will it be? Will it help in what way?' 

'Black Billy Goat?' He studied the creature's name. It appeared like City of Dusk already knew about Black Billy Goat but could not transfer the information directly to him. Either they did not have the method to do so or the transmission of information might collapse Gu Jun's brain. Or perhaps it might cause the return of his PTSD. 

"We need to depart for Eastern State now." Gu Jun stood up and told everyone. "I just triggered a message from City of Dusk."

Elder Tong and the rest were pleasantly surprised. Even Wu Siyu who was previously blurrily eyed, widened her gaze. The command central immediately had it arranged. The members of the PM unit were going to gather at Eastern State, all the other departments would provide the necessary support. Gu Jun knew how little time they had. 15 days was not a long time. 

Different from the old system, the timer did not start after he made contact with the creature but it had automatically started on its own. 

To dissect the black billy goat, they had to first capture it without injuring it because they needed a complete body. Even if they managed to do that, it would take days to complete the dissection of such a large mess with a big team. Gu Jun was still not sure whether the autopsy completion rate was calculated the same way as the old system or not. But he knew that even if he had to spend all 15 days inside the morgue, he would do that. 

Other than that, there were still other questions to answer.

Why would the Black Billy Goat appear at this spot? Was it summoned? Were there other Black Billy Goats? Was it hostile? Would normal weapons cause it harm? How did the fat Zoog survive? It might not fall down to the Zoog's running speed but perhaps the Black Billy Goat never wanted to harm it in the first place.

After 15 days, there would be more than 500000 abnormal babies in the world…

If the mutation happened during pregnancy, then their breakthrough would help future newborns from suffering from similar fate. If not, their breakthrough would at least gain information that could help more babies and their families stay away from tragedy.