Chapter 243 – The Malevolent Pnt Army

  Soldier or:

  I found myself in the middle of utter chaos, standing at the heart of a battlefield ripped straight from a nightmare. I’d been yanked from sleep in my tent, chilled to the bone by an unnatural cold that seemed to slice through flesh. A thick fog had swallowed the camp, and everything began to unravel.

  When I reached the fortress walls, I witnessed what could only be described as hell itself: an immense bck cloud desded upon the fortress, sm it in oppressive darkness. Horrifying screams echoed from within, desperate cries for mercy blending with inhuman sounds. The energy emanating from that cloud felt alive, charged with pure malice.

  Now, ba the battlefield, my mind was rag, struggling to prehend the nightmare unfolding before me.

  “Focus!” the ander shouted, his voice trembling as he tried to maintain order.

  “Yes, sir!” we answered in unison, but fear was etched into every face.

  Our oppos weren’t the enemy army we had traio fight. They weren’t regur soldiers, nor fully human anymore. They were our own men, or at least what was left of them.

  One of them came at me, growling like a wild beast. His eyes were vat, his skin marred by glowing green veins, and pnts writhed from his chest and arms like serpents. He held a sword with an unnatural grip, and his movements were erratic, yet terrifyingly fast.

  “Shit!” I barely dodged, sshing instinctively. My bde met resistance as he raised an arm to block, the pnts strengthening his flesh. He spun, aiming a kick at me, enhanced by roots erupting from his leg to aid the motion.

  “What’s happening to them?” I yelled at the ander, panic thi my voice.

  Before he could respond, another soldier beside me was grabbed. A thick root burst from the ground, coiling around his leg and dragging him down as one of the transformed soldiers approached, ughing grotesquely.

  “You’re betraying us?” a fellow soldier screamed, struggling against a deformed enemy who had once been our rade.

  Without thinking, I rushed to help. We had to hold the line, but it was being impossible. They were closing in on us, slow aless like an unstoppable tide.

  “Help me!” a soldier cried out. I turned just in time to see him being dragged away by one of those horrors. A pulsing pended from the deformed soldier’s back, coiling around him like a snake.

  “Hold the line!” I shouted desperately, hag at the root pulling him. But it was too te. The transformed soldier drove an improvised spear through his chest, and his st words drowned in a gurgling pool of blood.

  The nightmare didn’t stop. Everywhere I turned, soldiers were being felled, crushed, ed away. The battlefield, once filled with men, was being a macabre garden of blood, roots, and corpses.

  “Help me!” my superior screamed, as a soldier leapt on him while anrabbed his leg, dragging him away from our formation.

  “Sir!” I shouted, sprinting desperately to save him. But before I could reach him, another ied soldier, twisted and grotesque with pulsating pnts, pounced on him.

  What I saw froze me in my tracks, the horror seared into my mind.

  The ied soldier, his body riddled with writhiacles and blood-soaked flowers, let out a guttural growl. From his gaping mouth, a writhing pnt serpent emerged, slithering with terrifying speed.

  Before my superior could react, the creature forced itself into his mouth, burrowing down his throat.

  I gagged, overwhelmed by a wave of panic. My body shook as I retched on the spot, uo tain the nausea and terror ing me.

  "Help me! It's... it's killing me! AHHHH!" he screamed, his voice ced with agony as his body began to tort unnaturally. His stomach grotesquely swelled, and then, with a siing sound of flesh tearing, tentacles burst forth. Blood and viscera spttered across the ground as his screams tinued.

  He stood up, but the man I onew was gone. His eyes were empty, staring into an abyss of nothingness. Tentacles emerged from his ears, back, and even the gaping wounds across his body. The top of his head began to colpse inward, as if something was growing ihen, a blood-soaked flower erupted from his skull, its crimsoals glistening with gore.

  "No... no, this 't be..." I muttered, my mind struggling to process the horror before me. Desperately searg around for help, I found no soce, only more despair.

  My allies, those who had fought beside me, were now opening their mouths wide. From within, the same writhiacles began to slither out, ready to strike.

  I was surrounded now.

  "What the hell is this!?" I screamed, my voice trembling, a mix of disbelief and terror.

  Then, a chilling, imperious voice echoed through the chaos.

  "e on, my little ohere’s so much more to create!"

  I turoward the void saw something that left me utterly dumbfounded. A woman walked calmly amidst the grotesque soldiers, who parted for her like obedient subjects. Slithering at her feet were dozens of pnt-swisting and writhing with a menag elegance.

  Terror overwhelmed me pletely, and my legs gave out beh me. I fell to my knees, uo tear my eyes away from this sinister figure.

  "W-what... what are you!?" I stammered, my voice barely audible as despair ed me.

  "An angry mother," she replied, her tone as cold as death, her eyes gleaming with a calm, deadly fury. Her words snuffed out the st flicker of hope within me.

  With trembling hands, I gripped the hilt of my sword. A fleeting spark of ce, or perhaps desperation, pushed me forward. I charged at her.

  "Die!" I screamed, but she didn’t even flinch.

  Before I could reach her, I was violently shoved aside and smmed to the ground. The pnt soldiers, former rades now twisted monstrosities, surrounded me, their empty eyes staring down at me. She stood among them, serene, her demeanor exuding disdain.

  "Are you an idiot?" she said, her voice dripping with icy sarcasm. "Do you really think they’d let you harm their mother?"

  "You witch!" I roared, f myself to stae the pain c through my body. "This spell is evil!"

  "Witch?" She raised an eyebrow, letting out a soft ugh that only deepened my fear. "That title belongs to my best friend. I’m just a simple gardener."

  More soldiers appeared, rising from the shadows like the earth itself had spat them out. Their bodies were overrun with monstrous pnts sprouting from within, twisted roots and glowing greeacles pulsating with a macabre light. They surrouhe woman, f a wall of flesh aation, ready to defe any cost.

  "I’ve only used this spell once before," she tinued, her voice calm, almost motherly. "And this is the sed time. I know how abomi is." Her pierg eyes met mine, and the chill I felt was deeper than the freezing winds around us.

  "But you hurt my family. You tried to kill my son. The pain these men are feeling right now doesn’t even begin to pare to the pain you’ve caused me."

  "Just kill me already! You lunatic!" I shouted, my voice breaking, the echoes of my anger mingling with the growing dread.

  She ughed again, that soft yet cruel sound. "No. I already told you. These men are suffering. This spell only works on the living. They haven’t died, you uand? They feel every sed of the pain. They’re scious, trapped iheir own bodies while my daughters devour them from within. Roots grow from their hearts, pierce their brains. They feel every nerve being ed, every muscle twisting. A hell you deserve."

  My eyes fixed on the soldiers arouhere was something worse thas ing them: their eyes. They weren’t dead. Terror, pure and absolute, filled their gazes. They were aware, trapped in a torment I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  I swallowed hard, my body trembling untrolbly. Then it hit me: I realized why I was being held, why I was still alive. Panic crushed any remnants of ce I had left.

  "Please! I have a family!" I begged, my voice breaking uhe weight of despair.

  The woman merely stared at me, her fareadable. "I also have a family, and they’re on this battlefield. Your pain will protect them, being part of our army."

  She stepped closer, holding a rge seed the size of an apple in her hand.

  "NO!" I screamed, thrashing in desperation.

  The soldiers, once my rades, now under her trol, held me firmly. There was no escape.

  "This is a special seed," she said with chilling ess. "Unfortunately, my snakes ’t carry it due to its weight, and I’ve only mao produe."

  She leaned closer. "Open your mouth. You’re about to bee a much stronger soldier."

  "No! NO!" I howled, struggling desperately.

  "Open your mouth," she ordered, her voice eerily calm. Before I could resist further, one of the soldiers forced my head bad pried my jaws open with brute strength.

  "AHHH!" I screamed, but it was futile.

  The seed was shoved into my mouth. It was rough, pulsating as though it were alive. The moment it touched my to unfurled like a worm, its ends writhing and crawling down my throat.

  "STOP! NO!" I tried to spit it out, f it back up, but it was too te. The thing had already desded, burning inside me like liquid fire, chokih the sensation of something alive moving through my innards.

  "What have you done!?" I rasped, my voice raw with desperation.

  She simply watched, serene, like a mother admiring a masterpiece.

  And then, the pain began.

  "AHHHHH!" I screamed as an indescribable torment tore through me. It felt as though something was ripping me apart from the i. My stomach writhed violently, muscles tearing as I felt something pierce my ans.

  Roots began to burst from my skiing like ravenous parasites. Vines coiled around my arms and legs, pierg my flesh and spreading thorns that shredded me from within. I felt my fingernails pop off, repced by wooden cws.

  "What’s happening to me?!" I shouted, but my voice was already muffled by the agony and horror.

  My body, now unreizable, began moving against my will. I could see everything, feel everything, but I had no trol. Every step was a new wave of agony, as though my body had bee a monstrous vessel, driven by something far beyond me.

  I was trapped, scious, feeling every root e me, every thorhrough me. Darkness enveloped me pletely, but the pain opped.

  "Wele to the family," I heard her cold voice echo in my ears.

  My body, now a trolled monstrosity, began to move. I could feel the weight of something monstrous enveloping me, and each step I took reverberated like the toll of a death knell. I was still there, trapped in the darkness, feeling the agony every moment. Now, I was a vessel, driven by her will, while my mind remained in unending torment.