[ Lightly said: ] That is the exact origin I attempted to find in Highstorm, when the Blight first began to impact the cities. When I dissected the young woman caught in the throes of the Blight via a flower, she showed no signs of reacting to the physical stimulus save for that she cried silently. Likely, she felt the pain, but could not control her form to flinch nor flee.

The muscle was entirely frozen and nonreactive, tissues the same. Organs were slowing long before I reached them with my scalpal, and my samples did not linger once they were parted from her body. The physical body was affected — undoubtedly, by a greater force than is purely pathological.

[ This is his forte. The surgery, the manipulation of body and, to a lesser degree, the soul. ]