"This... Sir, what is this? Why did it suddenly get dark? Is it going to rain...?"
The officers and soldiers guarding outside the "Star-gazing Temple" were stunned for a while when they saw the sky suddenly darken, with blank faces, and they were completely unable to react. The reason was simple: the sky was strangely dark, not only because of the timing, but also because of the coverage area. The gloomy weather just covered the sky above the "Star-gazing Temple", spreading little by little with a certain point as the center, and some parts had extended directly outside the "Star-gazing Temple", extending to the sky above the position where the officers and soldiers outside the temple were guarding.
Is this... a dark cloud? How could a dark cloud descend so low? Almost subconsciously, a curious young soldier reached out, wanting to grab a handful of the dark cloud to see what it was… However, the next moment, a shrill scream echoed from the young soldier's direction. Turning back, he saw him screaming frantically in agony: "Hand! Hand! My hand! It hurts! My hand hurts! Monster! There's a monster in there, grabbing my hand and gnawing at it—help me, help me, pull me out—"
No one knew what had happened. They only knew that the soldier, curiously reaching out his hand, soon began screaming uncontrollably. His face turned pale with pain, and soon he was sweating profusely. He struggled desperately, as if trying to pull his hand free, but there was nothing there, just a dark cloud. Why did he look so frightened? Seeing their comrade in this state, the others didn't have time to dwell on it. They all stepped forward and pulled the man out.
However, after pulling the person out, before they could say anything, they just looked up and inadvertently saw the other person's right hand. Their faces changed suddenly, and they were terrified. They took several steps back, trembling and muttering, "What is this... a weird, a monster..."
The reason was not anything else. They just saw that at some point, the place where their companion's right hand used to be had become corroded and pitch black. All the flesh and blood had disappeared, leaving only the pitch-black arm bones that looked like they had been burned through. But that was not all. After the right hand was "pulled" out of the dark clouds, the corrosion did not stop. Instead, it continued to devour the flesh and blood from the broken flesh, and the speed was getting faster and faster. The flesh and blood were being eroded at a speed visible to the naked eye, which was extremely terrifying to see.
The soldier was almost going crazy. The pain and weirdness of his flesh and blood being devoured made him scream for help in fear, saying that something was inside devouring his flesh and blood.
Hearing this, the officers and soldiers who were originally terrified of this strange sight dared not move forward, especially when they looked in the direction of the broken flesh, they actually saw something moving vaguely, right at the edge of the broken flesh. Squinting carefully, they found that they were huge, pitch-black flesh worms, densely covering the entire wound gap, and devouring the flesh and blood in big mouthfuls. However, the flesh and blood that had been devoured did not bleed, but turned into a burnt black color, blending into the huge, pitch-black flesh worms, making them difficult to detect.
At that moment, everyone at the scene felt their scalps go numb and fear spread all of a sudden. The officers and soldiers who rushed to the scene saw the urgency of the situation and made a prompt decision to cut off the man's right arm with a knife. After seeing that it was normal red flesh, they breathed a sigh of relief, immediately ordered people to bandage it, and ordered the strange severed hand to be burned.
This order immediately brought the other officers and soldiers back to their senses. After all, they were not recruits who had never seen blood. Their hands were stained with blood every year. They had chopped off heads, so chopping off arms was really no big deal for them. The reason they were stiff and motionless before was because this matter was too weird and terrifying. They had never seen such a weird situation before. It was so weird that they were completely at a loss.
Now, their leader's order made them come to their senses suddenly. They notified the doctor in their team and burned the strange severed hand with a big fire, for fear that those strange and disgusting black flesh worms would not be burned to death. They burned for a full half hour, and confirmed again and again that the severed arm, including those strange big flesh worms, were all burned to ashes, without even a residue left, before they breathed a sigh of relief.
The doctor was called quickly. The arm was cut off cleanly. Although the wound looked horrific, the doctor was very skilled in disinfecting and bandaging broken arms and hands. After a while, the bleeding stopped and the hand was bandaged. Although an arm was lost, the life was saved.
After the bandaging was completed, everyone thought the situation had stabilized, and the soldier was so tired and frightened that he fell asleep. However, just as they were discussing what those dark clouds were, something strange happened again. The soldier who had just fallen asleep began to ache again.
If it was just the pain from the wound, it would be nothing, but this was not as simple as the pain of losing an arm. The soldier suddenly frantically grabbed his broken arm with his other hand, and tried desperately to tear off the bandage on the wound. The doctor and the people around saw it and subconsciously wanted to stop him. After all, it had just been bandaged. If he was scratched again, it would be troublesome and difficult to heal, and it would be very easy to cause infection again.
But the soldier suddenly went crazy, the expression on his face became extremely ferocious and terrifying, and his strength was so brute force that the people around him could not get close to him. Just when they were thinking about whether to suppress him violently or knock him unconscious, the soldier accidentally tore open the bandage, and the wound that was exposed again suddenly made everyone present change color.
The reason was not because of anything else, but because the broken arm that was exposed again had turned into a charred black color again at some point, and those big black flesh worms were still moving around in the wound!
"How is this possible? I was so sure the flesh was a normal color when I bandaged it. How could it have turned that horrible, charred black?"
The doctor wasn't the only one who saw the flesh on the cut was its normal color when it was bandaged. Almost everyone present saw it, and they were certain their leader had chopped off the eroded, charred part with a single blow. They were also certain the part with the giant fleshworm had been chopped off, burned, and disposed of. How could it possibly return to its original state now? But now, it was no longer a possibility; it was happening right before their eyes. Even more terrifying, the worms seemed to have grown in size, the erosion speeding up, and the soldier had become a little... less human.
The expression on his face was horribly twisted and stiff, his eyes were hollow and unfocused, and he subconsciously attacked the person closest to him. Even after being hit, he didn't react, as if he had no sense of pain at all. Listening carefully, he seemed to hear some "cracking" sounds, as if something was digging something out. The next moment, the soldier's right eyeball suddenly fell out, revealing an empty eye socket. Inside, there seemed to be some living creature wriggling in the eye socket, dark and swirling. It was nothing else but...
"Bugs, bugs, it's those bugs, those big black bugs, they actually ate my brain clean..."
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