They struck at dawn.
Kazuki had just finished purifying a collapsed sewer tunnel near Thornwell's edge when the air turned sour.
The first blade came for his neck — silent, fast, poisoned. He ducked by instinct, spinning his enchanted broom like a staff. Sparks flew. Metal met rune-forged bristles.
The assassin's mask cracked, revealing a sneering mouth etched with *rot marks* — open sores arranged in a circle like a fungal halo.
They were no ordinary mercenaries.
They were *Worshippers of Decay*.
> **Faction Encountered: The Rot Plague Cult**
> *An underground sect that reveres infection, filth, and entropy as divine forces. They believe rot is the natural end of all things — and those who defy it must be undone.*
---
Three more emerged from the shadows — bone knives, spore bombs, teeth filed to points. Their bodies reeked of corruption. Fungus crawled like tattoos beneath their skin.
Kazuki's \[Sanitize Aura] pulsed in panic, hissing on contact with their poisoned blades. Even Gerald the Rat recoiled from the unnatural scent.
"This is sacred ground!" one hissed, voice like bubbling pus. "You have bled purity where we plant decay!"
"You worship... *mold*?" Kazuki said, swinging his broom wide and igniting a blast of \[Purify Touch]. "You need therapy. And a shower."
---
The fight was dirty — in every sense.
Kazuki dodged spore bombs that exploded in clouds of disease. He blocked with makeshift cleaning shields and fired off \[Disinfectant Bombs] to thin the air. Where his aura met their filth, steam rose like holy fire.
The cultists didn't scream when burned.
They *laughed.*
"Suffering is sacred!" one cackled, even as his arms melted in bleachlight.
When the final cultist fell, dissolving into sludge with a prayer to "Mother Rot," Kazuki dropped to one knee, panting.
Then he looked up.
And saw the wall behind them.
---
It was covered in **Rot Scripture**.
Molded glyphs formed a language of infection—directions, doctrines, sacrificial names. At the center was a symbol Kazuki had never seen before: a woman made of worms, crowned in bone, cradling a weeping world.
> **Mother Rot.**
She was the patron goddess of the cult. A manifestation of the world's decay, whispered about in ancient plague texts. Long dormant.
Now worshipped in *Kazuki's city.*
---
The attack had purpose. Territory.
The Rot Plague Cult had infested the **Undermarket**, a sprawling black-market slum beneath Thornwell. Kazuki's recent sanitation projects threatened their power base — clean water and health made their parasites starve.
> "The cleaner the city," Kazuki realized, "the weaker they become."
He took action.
---
**Operation: Bleach Flood** began that night.
With the help of the **Order of the Mop**, Kazuki created a network of underground cleansing nodes. They activated them in sequence:
* Sewer gas vents burst with lavender-scented steam.
* Rot shrines collapsed under waves of holy foam.
* Diseased vermin fled in droves.
* And beneath it all, the *Cube of Purity (Mk II)* hummed silently, doubling as a mobile contagion sterilizer.
The Undermarket screamed. But not with worship.
With **defeat**.
---
> **New Skill Acquired: \[Pathogen Sense] – Kazuki can now detect bio-magical contamination within a 20-meter radius.**
> **Passive Trait Gained: \[Clean Crusader] – Filth-based creatures take increased damage from all cleaning magic.**
---
But the cult was not gone.
Days later, Kazuki found a letter nailed to his workshop door, written in scabbed-over blood:
> *"You can bleach the flesh, Apostle.
> But decay begins in the soul.
> She is coming."*
He burned the letter — then built a bigger broom.
---
That night, as the rain washed over Thornwell's rooftops, Kazuki stood guard.
No longer just a janitor.
Not just an inventor.
But a **warrior of cleanliness** — fighting not for control, or even comfort…
…but for the right to breathe *pure air* in a world that worshipped rot.