Chapter 254: Annihilation

Fire! Fire!

Damn! This wall is alive!

Panicked roars echoed through the fleshy tunnel, but were absorbed by the thick flesh walls, sounding dull and feeble.

The Special Forces members rained fire wildly at the bone wall that kept pressing in.

Specially-made bullets struck the pallid bones, splashing trivial sparks, leaving not even a white mark.

Bullets fired into those writhing flesh walls were like striking a sponge.

The bullets sank in, raising a few blooms of blood, then were enveloped and devoured by the writhing muscle tissue, the wounds fully healing within seconds.

This is not a battle at all.

It's a mouse in a cage, gnawing pointlessly at a steel prison.

Everyone, hold fire! Conserve ammunition!

Nie Yang's roar drowned out the gunfire.

His square face no longer held any warmth, only steel-like hardness.

The group ceased fire, watching in despair as the bone walls on both sides creaked with a teeth‑gnawing "creak", inching inward.

The usable space was compressed to the limit; the members were almost back‑to‑back, forming a circle, their muzzles vigilantly pointing in all directions.

The air was thick with a pungent stomach‑acid stench and blood scent, nearly corroding one's lungs.

At that moment.

The ceiling above, a constantly pulsating dark‑red flesh membrane, began to surge violently.

It was as if a massive object were rising beneath the water's surface.

A silhouette slowly sank, becoming clearer.

It was a face.

A face so enormous it defied real‑world logic.

The skin of that face had a pallid, jade‑like texture; the features vaguely resembled Ouyang Feng, yet were stretched and twisted to an inhuman proportion.

The most chilling aspect was the eyes.

Those eyes, once as sharp as knives, had now turned into two pools of dead gray‑white.

There was no anger, no madness, not even a hint of emotion.

Only one… the absolute indifference of a deity overlooking a fungal carpet.

He looked at them as humans look at microbes in a petri dish about to be consumed as nutrients.

"Ouyang… Captain?"

A young squad member's voice trembled, almost unable to hold his gun.

That name, like a key, instantly unlocked the deepest fear gates in everyone's hearts.

The massive, indescribable monster before them had once been their ace partner in battle.

It was the Federation's sword.

"Ouyang Feng…?"

Nie Yang suddenly opened his wide eyes.

Then, he realized something.

All this, could it possibly—

He hurriedly shouted:

"Ouyang Feng, look at who we are!"

"Look whose land you tread under your feet! What you are protecting!"

The huge face gave no response.

Nie Yang inhaled deeply, his voice tinged with a complex, hopeful yearning to awaken something.

"Wake up! Don't let this damned thing control you!"

In response to him.

It was that massive face, tracing an extremely slow, faintly mocking smile.

In that instant, the last shred of hope in Nie Yang's heart was utterly shattered.

What stood before them was no longer Ouyang Feng.

He was dead.

"Beast…"

Nie Yang forced a few words out between his teeth, and that gentle square‑faced visage turned completely feral.

He raised the oddly‑shaped shotgun in his hand, its silver‑patterned barrel glinting faintly, aiming at the giant face's right eye.

"I don't care what you are now."

"Since you are no longer the Federation's sword."

"Then I will personally shatter this tainted weapon of yours completely!"

"Boom!"

A teal projectile, bearing a destructive aura, burst from the barrel, striking precisely at the gray‑white eyeball.

However.

The face merely stared coldly at it all.

Just as the projectile was about to touch the eyeball,

Pssht!

Pssht! Pssht! Pssht! Pssht!

There was absolutely no warning!

The entire fleshy ground, like a drumhead pierced simultaneously from below by ten thousand spears, burst upward violently!

Countless grim, pale bone spikes, at a speed too fast for the naked eye to catch, erupted madly from the earth!

A feast of slaughter.

It began.

"Ah—!"

Harsh, mournful screams rose and fell, then abruptly ceased in an instant.

The Special Forces members didn't even have time to react before those bone spikes that surged from beneath their feet precisely pierced them.

Their bodies were lifted high, hanging in midair like pieces of meat skewered on bamboo sticks.

A more terrifying sight occurred.

Those pierced bodies were withering at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Skin, muscle, organs, blood… all the substances that constitute life were frantically extracted and absorbed by those grim bone spikes, turning into streams of dark‑red light that rose along the spikes and finally merged into the huge face on the ceiling.

In less than three seconds.

Dozens of the Federation's most elite warriors became hanging, desiccated corpses on the forest of bone, like wind‑dried bacon.

Nie Yang, relying on instincts honed through countless battles, rolled on the spot the instant the bone spikes broke the ground, narrowly evading the lethal strike.

But as soon as he lifted his head, his pupils contracted sharply.

A massive bone spear, several times thicker than any other bone spike, rose silently from the shadows beneath his feet, aiming precisely at his chest.

Too fast.

Fast enough to surpass the limits of human neural response.

Puff—

A muffled thud as it entered flesh.

Nie Yang's body went rigid.

He slowly lowered his head, gazing at the ivory‑white tip of the bone spear that protruded through his chest.

He was lifted high, his feet leaving the ground.

Life force was draining rapidly.

The custom shotgun in his hand slipped away helplessly.

Clang.

Nie Yang struggled to raise his head, casting one last glance at the utterly indifferent face on the ceiling.

He opened his mouth, as if to say something.

In the end, only a gush of blood mixed with fragments of entrails spurted from the corner of his mouth.

The light in his eyes was completely extinguished.

"Zila—"

Inside the black executive vehicle, the laptop screen in L's lap flickered a few times before turning entirely into static.

The final frame froze on the moment Nie Yang was hoisted high by the massive bone spear.

Time seemed to stand still.

Despair appeared for the first time on L's eternally pale, expressionless face.

Her lips parted slightly, yet no sound could emerge from her throat.

The eyes beneath her heavy black‑rimmed glasses stared rigidly at the dark screen, pupils shrinking to the tiniest dots.

She tried to treat everything before her as a data‑glitch hallucination.

But she couldn't.

She merely reached out, trembling, and clamped her hand over her mouth.

Enormous fear and sorrow, like an invisible boulder, jammed her throat, preventing even the slightest sound.

At that moment.

Boom!

The entire command vehicle jolted violently, as if a massive beast had slammed into its side.

L was ripped from her seat by the force, slammed hard onto the roof, then fell down.

The alarm blared throughout the cabin in an instant.

She ignored the searing pain in her forehead, struggled to lift her head, and stared in terror out the window.

The downpour stopped.

No.

It didn't stop.

It was… blocked by something.

She looked upward through the cracked bullet‑proof windshield.

A "mouth".

A gigantic maw made of twisted Reinforced Steel Bar, shattered concrete and countless pale bone fragments, large enough to swallow an entire building, was covering the whole sky.

With a crushing sense of pressure, it slowly, inexorably descended over the tiny command vehicle she occupied.