Chapter 48: The Colossal Worm

Mrs. Ryan was waiting at the doorway. Seeing Dougley and the officers arrive, she hurried forward.

"My dear, you must thank Glen properly this time. He saved me. And our child."

Dougley thoroughly checked his wife over, only relaxing once confirming she was unharmed. "Quickly now, tell me exactly what happened?"

A small crowd of onlookers had gathered. One witness immediately voiced loud complaints. "Constable Dougley! What sort of peace are you keeping? Criminals showing up here like this!"

A hot-tempered officer rounded on the complainer, fury in his voice. "Get your facts straight! The victim this time is the Chief's own wife! If you've got nothing useful to add, then clear off!"

Though officers weren't high officials, their authority carried weight with townsfolk. The complainer instantly fell silent.

"Let's speak inside," Mrs. Ryan suggested, aware the doorstep was unsuitable for such a conversation. She ushered the officers in.

Moments later, Dougley felt cold sweat break out as he heard the rough outline of events. Relief warred with profound shock at Glen's apparent capabilities.

"So that's why he dares to live in Byrek... has some real skill after all..." he murmured under his breath. Then, snapping alert he asked urgently, "Darling, you said he left in a hurry afterward? Did he... did he get some kind of information?!"

Mrs. Ryan looked puzzled. "Information? What do you mean?"

But Dougley was already convinced his hunch held water. His voice turned sharp as he barked orders at his men. "Quick! Find Glen's trail! Now! He probably knows where that gang is hiding!"

…

Meanwhile, at the dilapidated tavern.

The fierce battle between Glas and Glen had left the building teetering on the brink of collapse.

Glas stood heaving, his breath ragged like a winded bull. Deep, bloody gouges crisscrossed his body. He'd thought he'd gauged his opponent's strength, but Glen's unnervingly rich combat experience and textbook-perfect offensive moves had constantly put him on the back foot.

Can't keep this up... I'll die... The thought hammered in his skull.

"You! How long are you going to just watch?! Get out here and help me!" Glas suddenly roared at the ceiling, his voice like thunder cracking open the sky.

Glen immediately halted his advance. "So, the mastermind finally shows?" He hadn't finished Glas off precisely to lure out the hidden puppeteer, fearing it might flee if intimidated by his strength.

"Hehehe..." An ethereal, rasping chuckle echoed through the ruined space. The surviving thugs Glen had incapacitated suddenly screamed in terror as their bodies visibly withered before his eyes. Life drained from them in seconds. Visible tendrils of crimson mist coiled upward from the corpses, converging above Glas before surging down into his gaping mouth.

His entire aura intensified at a terrifying rate.

Glen made no move to interrupt. Instead, he focused his strongest senses, straining to pinpoint the source of that spectral voice.

As the last wisps of blood mist vanished down Glas's throat, grotesque changes wracked his body. Jagged bone spikes erupted unevenly from his back. Two neat, circular holes split open on his chest, pulsing rhythmically like obscene breathing vents. And, as Glen had anticipated, his entire frame swelled massively, muscles bulging and tearing his already ragged clothes.

"NOW! Feel despair!"

With a bellow that shook dust from the rafters, Glas unleashed a torrent of searing purple flame straight at Glen's chest!

The intense violet radiance bleached Glen's face stark white. His muscles tensed visibly, a faint layer of dark fur sprouting across his skin as, at the very last possible instant, he twisted aside, the main force of the flame column missing him by inches.

The purple fire chased him relentlessly. Glen zigzagged on all fours, a blur of motion circling the monstrous Glas. It looked like a desperate escape, yet Glen's focus wasn't on evasion. His senses remained laser-focused, probing the ruins, filtering through the chaos.

Finally, on the precise instant his foot slapped down during a maneuver, Glen locked onto the source. There! Below the old well nearby.

"Found you," Glen whispered, a predatory gleam flashing white teeth against his dust-streaked face.

In one fluid motion, he ceased his evasive run, planted his lead foot, and launched himself directly at the massive Glas.

Seeing this suicidal charge, Glas's cracked lips twisted into a cruel smile. He cut off the flame stream. Planting his feet, his massively thickened right arm drew back like a piston. With a sickening SPLOOORCH, a bone spike over a meter long erupted from the flesh of his forearm, aimed like a spear to impale the charging Glen!

Glen leapt, soaring high into the air. His own right arm rose simultaneously. To Glas's utter disbelief, that seemingly ordinary limb swelled with impossible speed, ballooning grotesquely. The hand alone grew large enough to crush Glas's entire bulk.

The monstrous, furred paw descended like a falling mountain. Glas's formidable bone spike shattered like rotten wood against the dense fur before it could even pierce through. Glas himself had only a microsecond to register the overwhelming pressure – a crushing agony – before he was slammed flat into the pulped ruin of the tavern floor.

A raw, inhuman shriek tore through the air, not from Glas (now merely a wet stain), but from the hidden entity. "HOW?! Impossible!" The spectral voice screeched, stripped of its earlier mockery, vibrating with pure terror. "How can a being of YOUR power exist in this forsaken backwater?!"

Glen opened his mouth, intent on uttering 'You're next,' but the ground violently heaved beneath him, cutting off his words.

KRA-BOOOOOM!

The stone rim of the neglected well exploded upwards. A towering column of dust and debris filled the air, momentarily obscuring everything. Within the swirling chaos, a colossal, serpentine silhouette began to rise, blotting out what remained of the light.

Glen waved an arm, clearing some of the choking grit from his face. His gaze, fixed on the emerging horror, turned arctic.

"You have destroyed everything I built," an immense, grinding voice boomed, shaking Glen's bones. "Choose your manner of demise."

The creature was a nightmarish parody of a colossal maggot. Its body comprised vast, overlapping rings of pulsating flesh. Its head was a grotesque horror – a mass of countless, independently rolling eyes surrounding a fearsome maw that seemed layered with smaller, snapping jaws within. While visually overwhelming, Glen's eyes were instantly drawn lower, to the creature's swollen underbelly.

There, packed tightly like obscene fruit, were dozens of semi-translucent, fleshy sacs. Inside each sac, a child – ranging from toddlers barely two years old to adolescents near fourteen – stared out with hollow, pain-glazed eyes. Thick, ropy filaments adhered to their skin, visibly pulsing. One child, perhaps regaining a flicker of strength, gave a feeble, agonized twitch against the constricting membrane.

Glen's chest heaved once, a visible tremor running through him as he forcibly clamped down on the volcanic rage threatening to erupt.

The colossal worm-head seemed to register the human's intense focus. It lowered its gargantuan form slightly, the grinding voice shifting into a deafening, mocking chuckle. "Heeheehee... Recall your inquiry regarding these... human whelps? Behold! They feed me with their purest life essence. I shall drain them to the final dregs. Their end shall be steeped in exquisite agony. So terribly... pitiful, is it not?"

Glen lifted his eyes to meet the cluster of rolling orbs above the monstrous maw. His voice, when it came, was devoid of inflection, colder than deep space. "Soon, you will know agony far greater."

The worm's mocking laughter choked off abruptly. The human vanished, leaving only swirling dust motes.

CRACK! Simultaneously, a sharp, resonant crack echoed – the sound of a powerful protective ward activating – as Glen's massive, transformed fist slammed into a shimmering purple barrier inches from the worm's pulsating belly hide. The barrier held firm.

Recovering from its momentary surprise, the colossal worm didn't recoil in fear. Instead, its laughter redoubled, deeper now, reverberating with cruel triumph. "HAHAHAHA! You believed defeating that insignificant human pawn granted you the right to challenge ME?! In my sight, you are merely a slightly larger insect..."

Damn it! Who's the real insect here?! Glen's internal monologue screamed, the sheer absurdity cutting through his fury despite the peril. Calls me vermin? The fucking nerve!

The worm's grating voice continued, dripping with scorn. "And did you truly imagine brute force could wrest them free? Naive fool! The instant these vessels are severed from my sustaining matrix... they perish."