Chapter 179 Worms attack

Chapter 179: Chapter 179 Worms attack

NOTE: I HAVE A SERIOUS EXAM TODAY AND TOMORROW SO I CAN ONLY BE POSTING A Chapter DAILY, BUT I ASSURE YOU THAT THE ChapterS ARE ALL LONG. AFTER EXAMS MASS RELEASE IS ASSURED!!

Miles sat on the couch, staring face-to-face with what looked like a faceless demon.

At least, that was the first impression the creature gave him.

However, it wasn’t entirely faceless. Beneath the horrifying disfigurement, Miles could recognize something familiar about its appearance, and the longer he stared, the more certain he became.

He had seen this man before.

He was one of the attackers who had tried to destroy their base, one of the latest batch of awakened humans whose strength had nearly overwhelmed them during the previous battle.

If Astrid hadn’t been there, Miles honestly had no idea how they would have survived that encounter.

Unfortunately, Astrid wasn’t around right now.

And Miles?

He was still recovering from the injuries he’d sustained during the fight. His body was weak, his movements were limited, and even lifting a finger felt like an exhausting task.

Yet here he was, staring at the very creature that had nearly killed him before.

"Hi there."

The half-disfigured man grinned.

It was a horrible sight.

His mouth stretched into something resembling a smile, but there was nothing remotely friendly about it. His face looked as though it had been torn apart and crudely pieced back together, leaving behind a grotesque mixture of flesh, wounds, and exposed tissue.

Miles had no idea what had happened to him.

And honestly, he didn’t want to find out.

"You and your friends owe me your lives," the man growled. "And I won’t leave here until I take them."

He took another step forward.

Then, without the slightest hesitation, he crossed the doorway and entered the mansion.

His bare toes were badly wounded, with hundreds of tiny pieces of broken glass embedded in the damaged flesh. Blood trailed behind him as he walked across the floor, yet he didn’t seem bothered by the injuries.

Not even a little.

He moved as though he couldn’t feel pain, as though the broken glass beneath his feet was nothing more than ordinary dust.

Miles watched him silently.

He didn’t move from the couch, nor did he attempt to stand. Instead, he studied the intruder with a calmness that seemed almost ridiculous considering the circumstances.

"Who told you that you were invited?" he asked.

The man didn’t answer immediately.

A low, cracked groan escaped his throat, sounding like rusted metal scraping against itself. His head tilted slightly, and his ruined face twisted into an expression that might once have been a smile.

"You don’t need to invite me. I invited myself."

He took another step.

"He’s your boyfriend, right? Well, that bitch and you are both going to pay for what you’ve done."

Miles raised an eyebrow.

Boyfriend?

He didn’t bother correcting the man’s misconception.

That wasn’t important right now.

Instead, his eyes shifted toward the interior rooms, where Astrid had disappeared earlier. He waited for a moment, hoping the other man would return, but there was still no sign of him.

Miles shrugged.

Fine.

If Astrid wasn’t going to be here to deal with this bastard, then Miles would have to handle the situation himself.

Injured or not, nobody was going to enter his home, threaten him, and walk away unscathed.

This was his mansion.

And if the bastard wanted to start a fight inside it, then he was going to get fried.

Miles flexed his fingers against the armrest and settled back into the couch, watching the intruder carefully.

He would wait.

After all, the first person to make a move would reveal what they were capable of.

And if the man decided to attack him, he might discover that Miles wasn’t nearly as helpless as he appeared.

The creature’s eyes narrowed.

They were sunken so deeply into his skull that Miles wondered how they remained in place. His face had elongated unnaturally, and the skin around his mouth was so damaged that his lips barely looked human.

Even his throat was horrifying.

There was a gaping hole where his neck should have appeared relatively normal, and every sound that emerged from it carried a wet, rattling quality.

Miles couldn’t understand how the man was still alive.

What was keeping him moving?

What was allowing him to walk around with injuries that should have killed an ordinary person?

Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t natural.

"I can see it in your eyes," the man said, his voice breaking into a rough groan. "You’re confident. You think you can stand against me."

He glanced around the mansion.

"Is it because of this fancy place you live in?"

Miles yawned.

Seriously?

Was this supposed to be an attack or a conversation?

The man had been standing there for what felt like forever, talking about how he intended to kill Miles, yet he still hadn’t done anything meaningful.

Was he hesitating?

Or was he calculating his next move?

Miles couldn’t tell, and frankly, he was beginning to lose patience.

"If you’re going to attack me, just get on with it," he muttered under his breath.

The intruder’s face twitched.

Miles noticed the movement and smiled faintly.

"Jealous because you don’t have a place like this?"

He gestured vaguely around the mansion.

"Well, that’s unfortunate. I suppose your life was wasted in the worst possible way. You were used as a lab rat, and now you’re probably going to die in one of the most horrifying ways imaginable."

Miles tilted his head.

"That’s tragic, really."

The man’s expression changed instantly.

Whatever hesitation had been holding him back disappeared, replaced by an overwhelming wave of rage.

His body began to twist.

First, his fingers bent backward at impossible angles. Then his arms stretched, the bones shifting beneath his skin with a series of disturbing cracks.

His shoulders widened, and his limbs began changing shape as though something inside him was forcing his body to become something else.

Miles watched with growing interest.

What the hell was happening to him?

The man’s hands swelled until they resembled enormous tree trunks. His fingers elongated, splitting into grotesque claws that looked capable of tearing through metal.

Then one of those monstrous hands came crashing down.

The claw smashed into the furniture nearby, splintering everything it touched. The man swung again, destroying anything within reach as he advanced toward the couch.

Miles remained where he was.

The creature’s enormous claw swept toward him.

It was fast.

Fast enough that an ordinary person might not have had time to react.

The sharp tips came closer, aimed directly at his face. Judging by the force behind the attack, the man intended to rip away a large chunk of flesh and end the confrontation in one brutal strike.

Miles waited until the last possible moment.

Then his thumbs moved.

He pressed the remote control.

The ground beneath the intruder’s feet suddenly shifted.

The man’s expression changed.

For the first time since entering the mansion, he appeared genuinely confused.

The floor opened beneath him.

"Surprise!"

Miles grinned, although the movement pulled painfully at his injured jaw.

The same bastard had beaten him badly during their previous encounter. Miles could still remember the pain of that attack, and his body hadn’t fully recovered from it.

But now?

Now it was his turn.

The man’s enormous claw remained suspended in the air as his balance disappeared. His body lurched forward, and he plunged into the opening.

Unfortunately for him, the hole wasn’t wide enough to swallow his entire body.

His lower half dropped inside, but his upper body became wedged against the edges, leaving him trapped in an awkward position.

He struggled violently.

A savage growl erupted from his throat as he tried to pull himself free, his claws scraping against the floor.

Miles leaned forward slightly, watching him with an expression of mild disappointment.

"Now, that’s no way to behave. A civilized man should treat himself with some respect instead of acting like a savage."

The creature snarled.

Miles ignored him and reached for the control again.

Before he could press another button, a lamp began descending from the ceiling directly above the trapped intruder.

The man barely had time to look up.

A bright light flashed into his face.

Miles winked.

Then the fire ignited.

Flames burst around the man’s head, licking across his disfigured face and swallowing the upper part of his body in a sudden blaze.

His scream shook the mansion.

It was deafening, raw, and filled with so much pain that Miles couldn’t help smiling.

"Now that’s beautiful."

The man thrashed inside the hole, desperately attempting to escape the flames. His enormous claws struck the edges of the opening, but his trapped body prevented him from gaining enough leverage to pull himself out.

The fire continued burning.

His screams grew louder and more horrifying.

Miles watched from the couch, feeling a small measure of satisfaction at finally getting some revenge.

Then he noticed something strange.

Movement.

Something was crawling out of the man’s burning flesh.

At first, Miles thought it was merely a trick of the flames, but when he looked closer, his stomach twisted.

Worms.

Dozens of them.

They were emerging from the man’s neck and damaged body, wriggling through the ruined flesh as though the creature had been carrying them inside him all along.

Miles’s smile slowly disappeared.

The worms looked nothing like ordinary worms.

Their bodies were unnaturally thick, and their movements seemed disturbingly coordinated. Some had strange markings around their heads that almost resembled eyes.

And every single one of them appeared to be looking directly at him.

Miles froze.

Then the worms began moving.

Straight toward the couch.

Straight toward him.

"What the fuck?"

The man’s screams continued, but Miles barely paid attention to them anymore.

His eyes followed the crawling creatures as they spread across the floor. They moved with alarming speed, their bodies twisting and stretching as they advanced.

One of them reached the edge of a broken piece of furniture and climbed over it without slowing down.

Another followed.

Then more appeared from the burning body.

Miles shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

"That’s disgusting."

He lifted his feet off the floor, trying to keep them away from the creatures. His body was still too weak for him to stand and run properly, and the realization made his stomach sink.

He needed Astrid.

Where the hell was that man?

Miles glanced toward the interior rooms again, hoping Astrid would appear at any moment.

Nothing.

He was still alone.

The worms continued multiplying.

Their bodies grew thicker as they crawled, becoming larger and more grotesque with every passing second. The sight made Miles feel physically sick.

Then a memory flashed through his mind.

Astrid.

He remembered the strange movement he’d once noticed beneath Astrid’s neck. At the time, he hadn’t been sure what he’d seen. It had looked like a worm moving beneath the skin, but he hadn’t wanted to jump to conclusions.

Now, staring at the creatures crawling out of this man’s body, Miles couldn’t ignore the resemblance.

His expression changed.

Could this be the result of the experiments?

The thought made his skin crawl.

Was Astrid carrying something similar inside his body?

Were these creatures responsible for the unnatural changes in the attackers?

And if so, what exactly had those scientists done to them?

Miles tried to organize his thoughts, but he couldn’t reach a conclusion before something happened that made every other question disappear from his mind.

The man’s body exploded.

A deafening burst sent chunks of flesh scattering across the floor.

Miles recoiled instinctively, raising his arms to protect his face as blood and pieces of ruined tissue splattered across the surrounding furniture.

For several seconds, he could barely see anything through the mess.

Then the scattered pieces began moving.

Miles lowered his arms.

His blood ran cold.

The chunks of flesh were wriggling.

They twisted against the floor, pulling themselves together in grotesque movements as the worms emerged from the remains. One by one, the creatures grew larger, their bodies swelling until they were no longer small enough to be mistaken for ordinary parasites.

Miles counted as they spread across the room.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

By the time he finished, there were nearly thirty of them.

Nearly thirty enormous worms were crawling toward him.

And they all seemed to have the same destination.

The couch.

Miles.

He scrambled backward, his heart pounding so violently that he could feel it in his throat.

For the first time since the intruder had entered his home, he regretted staying seated.

That remote control had worked beautifully, and watching the bastard fall into the trap had been satisfying.

But he hadn’t expected the man to turn into a pile of flesh and produce an entire army of monstrous worms.

Perhaps setting the bastard on fire hadn’t been such a brilliant idea after all.

Miles tried to move away from the couch, but his injured body refused to cooperate. His legs trembled, and pain shot through him as he attempted to stand.

The worms were already surrounding him.

They spread across the floor, blocking every possible escape route. Their thick bodies writhed against one another as they crawled closer, leaving trails of blood and strange fluids behind them.

Miles stared at the approaching creatures, unable to believe what he was seeing.

He was trapped.

His injuries had left him too weak to fight, Astrid was nowhere to be found, and the things coming toward him looked nothing like any creature he had encountered before.

He swallowed hard.

"Maybe that was a terrible idea after all."