Chapter 263: Rot-Gut Flesh Burrowing Worm

The villagers erupted, upon hearing this.

“What is that thing?!”

“He said it was supposed to be inside us?!”

“Please tell me that’s not true—please tell me that thing wasn’t inside my body!”

Leona clutched her daughters tighter, her face pale. Nyx, who could usually stomach anything, looked genuinely ill.

Luca held the creature up, examining it with a detached, almost academic interest until finally saying,

“Let me introduce you to the rot-gut flesh burrowing worm.”

Then he turned to the crowd with a casual smile as he explained like this was a biology lesson,

“This tiny little thing is the reason every one of you has been suffering that horrible pain for so many years.”

Everyone gasped in horror, recoiling at the sight of the grotesque parasite.

Julius’s face twisted in agony—he knew Luca had figured it all out.

Luca, on the other hand, ignored everyone’s reactions and instead started to play with the disgusting thing in his hand, his expression thoughtful and curious.

“This little guy may be quite small, something you could just crush between your fingers.”

He said, pressing down gently on the worm’s head.

It thrashed violently, its tiny legs scrabbling at the air, looking even more hideous than before.

“Well, let me tell you…” He continued with a sneer. “…he packs quite a punch. Something even more horrific than any demonic beast roaming these forests or any monster you’ll find.”

“After all, unlike those creatures that just try to rip you apart and eat you…”

He chuckled.

“…this little thing eats you from the inside out.”

Heads turned pale. Bodies shivered. One elf, trembling uncontrollably, managed to ask.

“What do you mean, Hero? What exactly do you mean by it eating out insides?”

Luca’s enthusiasm seemed almost perverse given the subject matter.

“You see, this guy right here is a parasite. He can’t live on his own—he needs a host. Large living beings, like demonic beasts, monsters, large animals, humans, or…”

“…even elves like you.”

He pointed at the crowd, and they collectively stepped backward. He then went on to explain,

“When they find an opportunity, they burrow into your flesh by making a hole. They make their way through your body until they settle in your gut.”

People clutched their bellies, revolted.

“Normally, they live a peaceful life. They feast on nutrients in the gut and don’t really disturb the host much.”

“But if they become dissatisfied—if the host isn’t providing enough food, if the host gets too old, or if they simply don’t like the body anymore—they start releasing a chemical.”

“It spreads throughout the host’s body, beginning in the gut itself. That causes a horrible sensation, as if the intestines and everything inside are being torn apart.”

Nods of horror rippled through the crowd. He was describing exactly what they had all felt—that initial, crippling pain in their guts.

Luca held the worm up, wiggling its tiny legs.

“Eventually, the pain spreads throughout your entire body. You feel as if a thousand worms are crawling under your skin, eating your flesh.”

The description was so vivid, so visceral, that several elves actually whimpered, as though they could feel that phantom pain washing over them again.

“Eventually the pain becomes unbearable.”

Luca said, his tone almost matter-of-fact.

“The host—whether it’s an animal, a human, an elf, a horse, whatever can no longer endure it. The agony drives them to madness.”

“And in that madness, the only escape they can perceive is death.”

“So the host kills itself. Ends itself. Believing that nothing could be worse than continuing to feel that pain.”

“And the worm?” He held up the worm with an almost amused smile. “The worm accomplishes its goal with cruel indifference.”

“It kills its host—not through any attack, but simply through the sheer agony of its chemical secretions.”

“The host dies not understanding why it felt such pain, confused and tormented in its final moments, unable to comprehend what was killing it from within.”

The villagers felt sick. They’d all experienced that pain—some more intensely than others and now they understood that every moment of that suffering had been caused by something living inside them, something deliberately designed to hurt them.

“Once the host dies and begins to decompose.” Luca went on. “The worm finally leaves the body. If it’s fortunate, it encounters another creature feeding on the decomposing corpse, a scavenger drawn to the smell of decay.”

“The worm latches onto this new host, burrows inside, and the cycle begins anew. Host after host, each one suffering horrible deaths, each one becoming a vector for the next infection.”

The square was deathly silent.

“And this…” Luca said, finally lowering the worm. “…is what’s been living inside all of you.”

Chaos erupted.

Gasps. Shrieks. People grabbing at their stomachs, their arms, their chests, as if they could feel the worms writhing beneath their skin.

Several elves looked like they were about to be sick.

Nyx, despite feeling sick to her stomach, forced herself to ask.

“But Hero, how is it possible that all of us had the same worm inside us at the same time?”

“And…how could Julius activate that pain whenever he wanted?”

Luca beamed at her like a proud teacher. “Excellent question, Nyx.”

He started walking toward her, but she immediately stepped back.

“Don’t come here! Stay away!”

Leona, Luna and Lulu also retreated. Luca sighed dramatically, as if deeply wounded by their rejection of his fascinating new pet.

“That’s because our dear Julius here….”

He grabbed Julius’s head and flopped it around like a ragdoll, the man offering no resistance, completely lifeless.

“…is the one who planted every single one of these parasites inside you.”

Another wave of horrified murmurs.

“You see from records I got from the Library in the Human Palace, I discovered that long ago, some maniac discovered how to tame these creatures.”

“He found that if you made a sound at a specific frequency—”

Luca pointed at the whistle lying on the ground.

“—the worms could hear it. No matter where they were. And when they heard that sound, they’d release that chemical. The pain chemical.”

He picked up the whistle and examined it.

“There are different frequencies. Low frequencies cause low-level pain, the kind you’ve been feeling for years.”

“But high frequencies?” He shrugged. “Those are kill switches. Death whistles.”

“They make the worms release so much toxin that the host either dies or wishes they would.”

He tossed the whistle back to the ground.

“In fact, I’m pretty sure Julius has more of those whistles hidden in his mouth right now…”

“…and I can even show them to you.”

Before anyone could react, Luca grabbed Julius’s jaw.

“ARGHHHH—!”

Julius’s eyes went wide with terror, thrashing wildly, but Luca’s grip was iron. He pried Julius’s mouth open and shoved his hand inside.

He screamed, a muffled, desperate sound as Luca yanked out one of his molars.

“AHHHHHH—!”

Julius screamed miserabley, as blood sprayed across the grass.

But Luca just ignored him as he held up the tooth, examined it briefly, then tossed it aside.

“Not this one.”

He reached in again.

Thwack!

“ARGHHHH—!”

Another tooth came out, root and all. Julius howled in agony. But—

“Not this one either.”

He threw it aside and pulled out another molar.

This time, when the tooth came free, a section of Julius’s gum came with it, tearing away in a wet, bloody mess.

“KRHHHHHH—!” Julius screamed louder, his body convulsing with pain, but he couldn’t escape Luca’s iron grip.

Again and again, Luca reached into Julius’s mouth and tore out his teeth.

This went on until he pulled out eight teeth in total and three of them were a whistle, each one carved and hollowed and crafted to emit specific frequencies.

Of course, with each extraction, Julius suffered increasingly, his mouth filling with blood, his screams becoming hoarse and desperate as his gums were torn and damaged.

But the villagers watched without a shred of sympathy.

This was the man who had deliberately infected them with parasitic abominations.

He was the architect of their suffering.

So, they watched his agony with the kind of grim satisfaction that comes from witnessing long-overdue justice.

Finally, Luca threw Julius down to the ground, and the man collapsed like a broken puppet, his mouth a ruined mess of blood and missing teeth, his groans becoming mewling sounds of complete and total defeat.

Luca held up the extracted molars, and true to his promise, he tested the whistles by blowing air without making contact onto the teeth.

Faint distinct, piercing sounds emerged—different pitches, different frequencies, each one designed to trigger a different level of suffering.

“These are the instruments of your torment.”

Luca announced to the crowd, holding them up for everyone to see.

“Three whistles, crafted from his own teeth. He was thorough enough, ambitious enough, willing to sacrifice even his own body to maintain his control over you.”

He threw one of the whistles toward a nearby elf, who immediately kicked it away, unwilling to even touch something so horrifying.

“The reason Leona never discovered this was because it was so brilliantly hidden.”

Luca continued.

“Sound-based control leaves no magical signature. It creates no residue of mana. It’s impossible to detect using conventional methods.”

“And the whistles themselves were integrated directly into his body, hidden in plain sight within his teeth. Genius, really, if not for the fact that it’s absolutely evil.”

He threw the remaining whistles back toward Julius, who lay groaning on the ground, unable to even reach for them.

Leona stood trembling, understanding now why she’d never been able to uncover the source of the suffering.

It had been so cleverly concealed, so perfectly hidden, that conventional investigation would never have revealed it.

And Julius had been willing to destroy his own teeth, to sacrifice his own body, for the chance to control an entire village.

Lulu watched her father suffer with barely concealed satisfaction, her eyes gleaming. Luna, however, was more focused on understanding.

“But Luca…how did the worms get inside our bodies? Did he put them in the food?”

Luca turned to her with a smile, the kind of smile a teacher gives a student who’s asked a thoughtful question.

“That’s a good assumption, Luna. But it’s wrong.”

He picked up the worm from his shoulder—the one that had been trying unsuccessfully to burrow into his skin and held it up.

“This creature cannot survive passage through the digestive system. The stomach acid would kill it before it could ever reach the gut where it needs to settle.”

“There actually is a small chance it might survive, but the odds are minimal. It’s not a viable transmission method.”

He began walking slowly as he explained, allowing the villagers to see the worm more clearly despite their revulsion.

“In nature, these worms typically locate a sleeping creature, something vulnerable and unguarded.”

“They climb onto its skin and slowly burrow their way inside. The process is gradual, methodical, designed not to trigger immediate panic or alarm in the host.”

Everyone shivered at the description, imagining something crawling across their skin, beginning its horrible invasion of their bodies.

“But this method of transmission has a significant problem.” Luca continued. “Humans and elves are intelligent creatures with heightened sensory awareness who would immediately feel something wrong.”

“They would feel something burrowing into their flesh, and their natural instinct would be to resist, to fight, to tear away whatever foreign object was invading their body.”

Everyone nodded. They would have noticed.

They would have screamed and kill the worm before it could fully penetrate their flesh.

“So how did he do it?”

Nyx asked and everyone leaned in anticipation to know how he did it.

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