I calmed my thoughts, trying to control my breathing. I remembered the concealment classes with Felipe: to enter the state, I needed to erase all vital signs and the flow of the light of life.
It was essential to regulate the heart, to slow down the beats as much as possible. A master of concealment was able to move in this almost invisible state.
I placed the bow behind my back, under the halberd, and removed a dagger from my waist, the gaze blank and concentrated.
I contracted both knees and jumped with all my might.
Smash!
My fingers gripped the window of the watchtower. I leveraged my body inside, landing in a filthy room.
Windows on all sides, a broken table, a fallen chair. Feces, fluids, and bones strewn across the floor—the smell alone was suffocating.
I jumped out of the window again and fell into the inner courtyard, crouching around.
My consciousness picked up various signs of life fading in all directions.
Beyond the towers, inside the wooden enclosure, I saw the city: several sturdy buildings of stone and sturdy wood.
The siege had four towers, four gates, divided by four roads that crossed in the center, where a stone chapel stood.
Along the paths, houses, three wells, a blacksmith shop, a lumber yard, a simple general goods store — all the doors wide open.
But each of these buildings had been taken over by breeding nests, a horrific scenario.
I sneaked through the buildings around the entrance, attentive to any sign of life. I only found movement inside a nearby barn. I climbed up the upper side passage, silent as a shadow, and eliminated two goblins that were keeping vigil at the entrance before entering.
What I saw inside was just horrible.
The barn was filled with a rotten smell, the air heavy with moisture and death. A green goo covered the floor and walls, sticky and cold to the imaginary touch.
Women were chained to wooden columns driven into the ground, most of them already dead — only the upper parts of their bodies remained, as if they had been mutilated.
The few who were still alive were going through unimaginable torture. Their swollen bellies, four or five times larger than normal, looked like they were about to explode. Suspended in mid-air, they writhed in pain, while fist-sized larvae came out of their rectum or vagina, crawling and feeding on their two legs.
The green and disgusting larvae had four curved teeth, but, strangely, when they bit they did not cause bleeding. They fed slowly, crashing into the victim's body. I saw one of them dipped in a viscous green liquid, already taking the shape of a Goblin's body.
In the center of the barn, an altar made of white skulls drew attention—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of those skulls formed a small hill. A dark green liquid gushed from the altar, oozing and creating pools under the broodstock.
A Goblin worked there, grabbed the larvae and threw them into the pool.
"Aaahhh!" a tied woman screamed, and her breasts began to tremble. From her nipples, two maggots the size of my fists came out, tearing and chewing everything in their path.
Her belly swelled, pumping as if it was about to explode.
Before I could move, it exploded, releasing a foul green gas and countless larvae that spread across the pool and around.
The woman died on the spot. Only the part from the ribs up, marked by the horror of that transformation, remained.
I felt disgust, horror. My blood ran cold. I never imagined that such disgusting creatures could exist in this world.
With a firm step, I grabbed my sword and jumped towards the goblin that was just below.
KA!
The blade hit his heart, and at the same time I heard several high-pitched squeaks coming from the pools. The larvae sensed my presence, invading their territory, and began to jump towards me.
Wielding the sword with both hands, I began to cut without hesitation, determined to put an end to it once and for all.
Whenever I separated one of those maggots in two, I could hear echoes in my ears, as if they were rejoicing in the situation—repeating each step, each cut, like a danse macabre. With a single movement, I mowed and divided five, six larvae.
When I finally finished, all that remained was the heavy breathing and the murmurs of suffering of a few young women hanging there. They were conscious throughout the process, staring at me with empty, lifeless eyes.
"M... and... Ma... The nearest opened her mouth, speaking with difficulty.
I didn't hesitate. I pierced his head.
The larvae felt the death of their mother and began to erupt. I repeated the process seven more times, hoping that they would disperse.
But to my surprise, once the mothers died, only deformed larvae fell off, dying within seconds.
(Do these things feed on something other than biological material?) I thought, intrigued, but there was nothing to confirm this suspicion.
I opened the barn door and found the seven of us waiting outside. They looked inside, frowning as they realized what was there.
"Clean?" I asked, starting to clean the blade of the sword. The disgusting liquid that flowed caused me repulsion. All I could think about was taking a shower and forgetting all that.
"Yes, the whole place was cleaned. The town hall is reasonably intact" Ermmind said, as he stared curiously at the makeshift altar inside the barn.
"Well... I need some alone time" I said, trying to find calm inside me. Her blood ran cold when she remembered what those women went through inside. That affected me more than I expected.
The sight of the larvae crawling through her guts, exiting through her breasts and consuming everything, made a sincere weight form in my chest. What a damn bad luck that was...
"I think we agreed not to interfere in each other's conflicts" Faceless said, pointing to Number 01. She looked gloomy, and Morrissa was no less angry.
"Yes, but I don't want the two of them to end up killing each other" Morrissa retorted, clearly worried.
"Why? I wanted to teach that arrogant jealous woman a lesson" replied Faceless, full of venom.
"Lesson? You seemed so scared when I attacked you that your scream almost alerted those insects" Morrissa countered.
I nodded, sighing. That could complicate things for all of us.
"I believe that this can impact everyone, including me. There's a chance, maybe 2 in 10, that we need each other's strength. If we cross paths with other groups and are one down, someone will have to take on a greater load here" I said, trying to be practical.
"Hmph! You just want to protect her because she has a pretty face" Faceless gritted his teeth, making me let out a sigh for the first time.
"I don't care if you die or not, I'm being selfish and thinking about myself" I admitted. "But, have confidence in yourself, you're not as bad as you look" I winked at the young woman, and saw her expression change, incredulous.
"He's right. We must avoid attacking each other. We don't know when the skills we have might be useful, nor what might happen" Orisis agreed with me.
Now he wore a short pink dress that contrasted with his brunette body. Her hairy legs, on muscular limbs, made that outfit look totally inappropriate, and the light red lipstick only added to the strangeness.
"Alright, I'll leave that for another time" Morrissa seemed to have lost interest, while Hircine lowered her head a little.
"If it matters so much, I'll control myself from now on" the bald woman glanced at Morrissa, pursed her lips and gave up.
"Well, if there's nothing else, I need to calm down a bit" I walked away from the group. My plan was to burn those totems and make the echoes disappear from my ears.