Gnawing Parasite Descends

The players marched toward the royal city in a grand procession, and the final battle was about to begin.

...................

Present world, badlands.

"Dammit, lend a hand! These guys have all gone mad!"

Inside the prison, Atula kicked several lunging rat-men back with force, her chest covered in blood.

"I can barely take care of my own side! What on earth do these prisoners want!" Flora thrust her spear into a rat-man's head and gave it a sharp twist, the spraying blood splashing onto her face.

"Hell, why are their bodies turning into this? It's just like... like rats!"

"Let me correct you, they are not prisoners."

Sevia Winter walked through the horde of monsters, invisible water blades rising from around her and whistling through the air, slicing in circles into the necks of the rat-men.

All the rat heads fell to the ground in unison, and the once noisy prison finally fell silent.

Sevia looked at a black-and-white photo slipping from a rat-man's chest pocket, showing his wife and children. The girl's eyes lowered slightly as she controlled a water blade to kill a rat-man who was still struggling in agony.

"I couldn't tell, but she's quite powerful," Flora whispered, leaning closer to Atula.

"Indeed. Don't be fooled by the fact that she's not very tall and has such slender hands; her strength is greater than mine. At least, I've never won an arm-wrestling match against her," Atula shrugged.

"So what do we do next? The upper floors are crawling with monsters, and we're trapped here with no way out," Flora said.

Anyone with eyes could see that this was far from a simple riot.

An unknown miracle was erupting within the prison.

Atula looked at the corpses of the prison guards scattered across the floor. Their bodies were covered in bite marks, their faces frozen in terror, and their injuries were so gruesome they were hard to look at.

She sighed, "Everyone who came with us is dead. We're the only three left on this floor."

"We have to find a way out. We absolutely cannot let these monsters escape the prison; we must let the people outside know what's happening here," Atula said with a grim expression.

"Talk is cheap. With so many monsters above, how are we supposed to get out?"

Sevia had overused her power, and bursts of stabbing pain shot through her mind as whispers rose in her ears and visions flashed before her eyes.

She shook her head, shaking off all the hallucinations, and let out a sigh of relief.

The two continued to argue incessantly, while Sevia noticed a diary soaked through with blood in the corner of a cell.

She crouched down to pick it up and snapped her fingers; the blood stains receded entirely, and the rough paper became as good as new.

It seemed to be a notebook belonging to a cell guard.

Sevia flipped it open.

For some unknown reason, the language used here was the same as theirs, yet she couldn't understand the writing at all.

"Hymn of Blossoms," Sevia murmured. The stars in the sky flickered, and a light ignited in her eyes.

The strokes on the notebook began to automatically rearrange, and knowledge entered her mind in a way she could recognize.

February 13th, overcast.

Judging by the date, it seemed to have happened three days ago, Sevia thought as she began to read the contents of the notebook.

"I saw it with my own eyes. The king brought those wizards into the prison. They selected a death row prisoner and used daggers made of obsidian to inflict a thousand cuts upon him. While he was still conscious, they smeared his wounds with blood mixed with rat droppings and various bacteria, then locked him in a room."

"The wizards claimed the purpose of this was to attract the gaze of the gnawing parasite. God knows what a gnawing parasite actually is; my mind cannot comprehend their words, and it makes me fear the unknown."

"His wails make the hand writing these words tremble. My heart is still fluttering with fear."

"It was a completely sealed room with no windows. I swear not even a fly could escape from there."

"Those wizards ground up dead thorns, gnaw-edge grass, rat ashes, and skins, mixing them with a white pulp to create black candles supported by silver candlesticks, instructing us that we had to ensure these candles illuminated the entire room without missing a single corner, and that they must keep burning until the man died."

"We did as we were told. The man wailed throughout our preparations. The bacteria multiplied in his wounds; his skin became swollen and rotten, constantly oozing pus and blood. He begged us to let him go, but if we did, perhaps we would be the next to suffer. We could only pretend not to see."

"The wizard said the gnawing parasite had already entered the room, wandering among us, only we couldn't see it. He said it was looking at us curiously and was currently blinking at me."

"Only when the man dies will it enter his body. Before that, we must absolutely remain conscious, or else it will crawl into our bodies to play for a while, and our seven orifices will rot and bleed."

"Night has fallen, and the man is still wailing. The fragrance from the black candles makes it impossible for us to sleep. I am so afraid. This agony weakens my body, occupies my thoughts, and makes my soul bleed. My brain is singing in places I cannot see."

"Tonight, the stars must be hanging high in the sky, beautiful yet indifferent. My god, Mother, if you can see this from heaven, please protect me."

"Miranda has been driven mad by the torment. He keeps muttering strange words. He actively extinguished the black candle in his hand and even tried to snatch ours."

"A heavy sound came from the darkness. When we saw him again, his limbs had been snapped by an unknown force, his entire head twisted backward, his face covered in blood. He is dead."

"That wizard didn't lie. There truly is an invisible presence wandering in the room, right between you and me."

"If the candles go out, we will die."

"That wizard named Sirius laughed at Miranda's corpse, but I don't understand what's so funny about it."

"Darkness approaches, and a weak life can only pray in despair."

February 14th, weather unknown.

"That prisoner cursed us with the most vicious words, saying we would meet horrible deaths. His eyes glared at all of us with such malice, even though his body was swollen beyond recognition and his lips were as purple as a piece of pig liver."

"He roared that he would drag us down to die with him. Under these circumstances, he actually held on for another day."

February 15th, overcast.

"The night passed amid the man's weak groans. He seemed to have fallen into a feverish coma, repeatedly murmuring that he wanted to go back to see his mother. Fortunately, we all pulled through. The man died in the end."

"The wizard said the gnawing parasite has entered his body. We let the man's long hair hang down until it covered his face and stuffed a bell as large as a walnut into his mouth. I heard from the wizard that doing this could trap the gnawing parasite within his body."

"Thank goodness we left that room. Those were the two most difficult nights I've ever spent in my life. Aside from my throat being a bit itchy, everything else is fine. I really want to take a bath."

February 16th, overcast.

"Late last night, as I lay on the guard's bed, both my body and spirit were exhausted, yet I couldn't sleep peacefully."

"In a half-dreaming, half-awake state, I seemed to hear the roar of some kind of creature, sharp and hoarse, making my heart race. Was that my hallucination?"

"I clearly saw those guys dressed as wizards leading a giant rat with a hunched back out of the room?"