Chapter 258: Desperate Situation

Liang Wen felt his whole skull cavity about to burst from this sound wave, everything before his eyes wildly shaking and doubling.

Warm liquid flowed down his ear canal, mixing with rainwater, converging into a sticky stream on his chin.

He half-kneeled on the ground, his prized black windcoat already ruined by mud and blood.

In the comms channel, the last screams faded, leaving only a "hiss-hiss" of electrical static, like the gasp of a dying person.

It was over.

The Federation's most elite special forces were completely wiped out in just a few minutes.

They couldn't even put up a decent resistance.

"Cough... cough cough..."

Liang Wen coughed up a mouthful of bloody sputum, struggling to stand.

He saw that the distant ground was no longer solid asphalt.

The ground in that area had turned into a black swamp, slowly undulating and bubbling.

"Save... save me..."

A soldier lucky enough not to have been killed by the sound wave was crawling backward on hands and knees, his face written with despair.

But he was crawling too slowly.

A pallid arm, devoid of blood, suddenly shot out of the swamp and seized his ankle with precision.

"No! No——!"

The soldier's scream was choked off.

Immediately after, a second, then a third...

Hundreds, thousands of ghastly white arms burst from the ground, like a pallid forest grown from hell.

They grabbed the soldier, not tearing, just... a gentle pull.

The soldier's body, as if being dragged into quicksand, silently, was swallowed by that black ground.

Not even a drop of blood splashed.

This, was true despair.

Even death had become a silent digestive process.

And that colossal city built of bone and flesh, "Bone City," after clearing the outskirts of "flies," seemed... hungry.

It was no longer content with passive defense.

"Boom——"

A bone claw thicker than a container truck thrust out from the side of the Meat Mountain, bringing a wind that tore the air, sweeping across the whole street.

Along the way, shops, kiosks, and abandoned armored vehicles were as fragile as matchsticks before that bone claw.

Reinforced steel bars were twisted apart, concrete crushed.

All the debris was scooped up by that bone claw and shoved into the gaping, canyon-like maw on the Meat Mountain's side.

Chewing.

Swallowing.

Bone City was feeding.

It was using this city to feed itself.

Liang Wen felt ice-cold all over.

This thing could no longer be called weird.

This was a natural disaster.

It was the corpse of a god walking among men...

Liang Wenqiang staggered forward with his heavy body, charging toward the core of Bone City.

He had to find Ouyang Feng!

However, as he rushed past half a block, the terrifying bone-worm tide surged over again.

He was like a lone boat struggling against the current, barely staying afloat.

He glanced back.

His steps stopped.

Behind him, there was no road left.

The street he had come from was completely submerged in endless white bone-worms.

He stood on a small, round patch of ground not yet eroded.

Like an island.

And all around was a white sea made of skeletons...

"No way out......"

Liang Wen muttered to himself.

These monsters possessed intelligence.

They deliberately let him break in, then cut off his retreat, forming a perfect encirclement.

He was trapped.

Just then.

The sea of bone-worms ahead slowly parted to both sides, opening a passage.

A figure stepped out from the end of the passage, step by step.

That person wore the standard combat uniform of the Federal Weird Investigation Bureau, though the clothes were torn to shreds and smeared with black filth.

His steps were stiff, like a marionette on strings.

Liang Wen's pupils suddenly contracted.

"Nie... Yang...?"

He could hardly believe his own eyes.

But he wasn't...

In Liang Wen's mind flashed the report that Nie Yang's vital signs had dropped to zero.

The person who stepped out slowly lifted his head.

That was not a living person's face.

Half of his cheek had been gnawed away by something, exposing the stark white bone beneath.

The other eye held no spark at all, only a dead, gray‑white emptiness.

More terrifying, his back sprouted several ferocious Bone Spikes that pierced his combat suit, like a malformed bone wing.

He had been altered.

He was turned by Bone City... into his own puppet.

"Damn!"

Liang Wen's eye sockets reddened instantly.

An indescribable fury erupted violently from his chest!

He could accept a comrade's sacrifice.

But he could not accept that a comrade's corpse, after death, would be desecrated by the enemy in such a way!

"Ouyang Feng!!!"

Liang Wen let out a hysterical roar, a sound filled with endless pain and hatred.

"You motherf***er... still a human?!"

Answering him was Nie Yang's rigid movement.

That corpse‑like puppet raised its hand, its five fingers clenched into a blade, and slashed straight at Liang Wen.

It moved at breakneck speed, carrying a strong stench of decay.

Liang Wen's lips trembled.

He stared at his former colleague's lifeless face, at his hollow eye sockets.

He knew that Nie Yang was already dead.

The one standing here now was only a pitiful shell, controlled by the monster.

"... I'm sorry."

Liang Wen closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, those ever‑smirking peach‑blossom eyes held only an inescapable sorrow.

"I'll give you... the final journey."

A dark silhouette flashed.

Liang Wen drew a uniquely shaped short blade from behind.

The blade flashed.

Nie Yang's head flew high into the air.

The headless corpse wavered, and finally fell upright into a heap of Bone Worms, instantly being swallowed.

Liang Wen stood in place, his hand gripping the blade trembling incessantly.

Ouyang Feng.

Had completely become a monster.

A wholly inhuman... beast.

"Does it hurt?"

A cold, emotionless will suddenly descended upon this space.

The voice, like a chorus of countless men, women, and children, rang directly in Liang Wen's mind.

"No more suffering is needed."

"Soon, you too will become one of them."

With the arrival of this will.

The entire Bone Sea boiled!

Countless sharp bone spears shot out from all directions— from the ground, the walls, the ceiling...

From every imaginable corner, they tore through the air!

Dense and countless, blotting out the sky.

Each bone spear locked onto Liang Wen!

Liang Wen's pupils suddenly contracted.

"Damned it, break...!"

He roared wildly, pushing every ounce of power from his wrist device to the limit.

His surrounding invisible force field expanded to its limit, crushing the first wave of bone spears completely!

But he was only one person, one piece of equipment.

And these bone spears were endless.

Before the absolute disparity in scale, all his struggles were like an ant trying to stop a tsunami.

Petite and powerless.

"Pfft!"

A thick bone spear ripped through his force‑field defense, brutally piercing his right thigh.

The massive force pinned his whole body to the ground!

Intense pain instantly swept over his entire body.

Liang Wen let out a low hum, knelt on one knee, and blood instantly stained his pant leg red.

He was finished.

A massive shadow descended, enveloping him from above.

Liang Wen lifted his head with difficulty.

He saw, on the massive main body of Bone City, a gigantic face belonging to Ouyang Feng, composed of countless building ruins and flesh, slowly looking down at him.

That face had no expression.

Only indifference.

Divine-like, indifferent as a deity gazing at ants.

Then.

That massive mouth, capable of devouring an entire building, slowly opened.

Bottomless darkness pressed down on him.