Zef smirked, stepped over his pistol, and casually waved back at the men, knife still in his hand. Rays of sunlight bounced off the shiny blade as if acting like a beacon.

Opps better hide the loot.

Just as he was about to find a place to put it in his pants, his instincts warned him to look to his side, and the first thought that came to his mind was the Mantis wasn't truly dead.

No longer smirking, he gulped as his eyes caught the sudden jerks and spams of the dead Mantis and the remaining dead monsters surrounding it.

Zef slowly backed up; his heart lodged up his throat just as he was about to run. He tripped over his Beretta and fell on his back; his rifle dug into his spine, he shouted a cry, but his eyes were still glued at the carcasses, which then started to...bubble... but from within, stretching skin and then ripping it apart with bursts from the inside-out.

Zef wanted to cry out, but the stench was just awful... and he was stuck to his position as if pegged by an invincible hand. His mouth shut tight, he watched the behemoth in front of him dissolve within seconds into a liquid-like substance onto the sandy floor. Seeing its skin and flesh transform from a solid-state to a liquid one in an instant while its organs plopped to the ground was shocking, but it didn't stop there as the organs followed suit and expanded the grey pool too to become a small pond.

"Almighty," he finally gasped and finally had the will to shuffle his feet and hands backward, trying to get away.

The scene in front of him reminded him of classic movies where soldiers whose bodies were made of metallic substances could dissolve into liquid metal within seconds. The only difference was that it was much more grotesque as he could see the inside of those corpses. It felt more like a super state of decomposition; the giant puffs of gas that erupted out of those bodies were like something you would see from live volcanoes.

He watched the same occurrence happen with the other carcasses around him, and they too turned into large pools of red instead of white. It was only when they slithered like snakes across the ground in swarms towards his direction that Zef regretted ever coming down here.

He turned around and, like an Olympic sprinter, bolted. Zef didn't even realize that he was still holding that silver knife as his rifle bounced off his back.

Nevertheless, it was too late as the numerous snake-like liquid formed out of the different pools of red and grey coming him from all directions faster and faster, bearing on him, then surrounding him not 20 yards from his initial position. They then rose, forming a circular wall that soon turned pink, finally rotating around him.

Zef gasped, looking for a gap to escape through. The front of his pants wetted slightly as his breath quickened. His eyes wandered left and right. Still holding the knife, he lodged it between his pants and looked for his Beretta, then realized he had left it earlier on the ground. He cursed and instead clutched the rifle from around his back.

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Still frightened out of his wits, he didn't even take a shooter's stance and unloaded bullets into the wall.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!

He kept shooting until his clip ran out. Even at close range, not a hint of damage was detected. The bullets didn't even ricochet; rather, the wall of pink absorbed the bullets. The distance between him and the circular wall was less than 10 feet. He grabbed another set of ammo from his pocket, re-loaded clumsily, fingers shaking, and repeated the same attempt with no results.

Zef cursed and threw the rifle at the wall, which seemed to have enraged it. The wall rotated faster and got closer and closer from all sides as if to suffocate him.

His eyes turned bloodshot, and he screamed, "DIEEEEEEE!!!"

Grabbing the silver knife from his belt, he unsheathed it, ran, leaped, and stabbed at the wall. The wall ironically separated, and he saw a way out, but alas, his hope was instantly crushed as a pink tentacle seized his blade along with his hand. Zef used his left hand to pull his arm away, but it too got caught.

Its proximity was so close that its odor was of something out of a butcher's shop, and he watched it slither towards his face, not caring for his feelings as he cried for it to stop. He tried to shift his head, spewing curses between tears as he felt it slither like a worm behind his head, toying with him until it split and simultaneously entered his ears, followed by his nostrils.

Zef's eyes rolled upwards, showing the whites of his pupils. Urine ran freely down his pants. Luckily his conscience quickly shut down, overloaded by the stimuli.

His body was about to fall to the ground, and weirdly enough, more pink tentacles enveloped him and gently set him down into a fetal position as the rest of the wall morphed around him into a chrysalis.

Outside the cocoon, the men in arms saw the scene where the sergeant called out for Zef and watched the monsters' bodies decompose into a liquid-like state before engulfing their comrade. Some of the men, frightened by the scene in front of them, unholstered their weapons and fired at the wall of pink, regardless of what happened to Zef.

The sergeant tried to stop them, but it was too late as more and more shot at that strange apparition. Nonetheless, bullets just kept getting absorbed till an RPG rocket hit, and it shuddered under a sea of red fire.

The men cheered when they finally saw damage till they saw the tiny rocks and sand around the cocoon of blood start to hover.

Inside the cocoon, after the RPG rocket hit its outer shell. A faint red hue pulsed from the knife's gem still held by Zef. The cocoon itself, which was still rotating, slowly started to hover, and suddenly like a ballistic missile, it rocketed towards the sky, detonating a cloud of dust and sand while leaving off a trail of red gas.

The men, shocked by the blast, didn't have time to look for cover as a wave of dust engulfed them. The smart ones quickly dropped to the ground and covered their faces with their arms and shawls. The slow or not-so-lucky ones grew up coughing dust and sand for days.

By the time the dust settled, the sergeant had got up to look for Zef, but there was no sign of him at the scene where that strange pink object engulfed him. He only found his scout's Beretta close by on the ground.

From behind, some of his men came to him, silent until one stated it was the end of days and they would soon join Zef as per the prophecies.

The Seargent hated him for that statement and quickly ordered them to help the unlucky stragglers crying for water.

He then sighed and did the only thing he could think of. He dropped to his knees, put his dusty forehead onto the ground, and silently prayed for Zef.