The Broken Feet That Wouldn't Heal

16:30.

Mista had successfully driven the SUV back to meet up with Li Qing and the others, and then drove them away from the mall, a journey that took several minutes.

"Aaaaaah!!!"

Throughout the journey, a series of piercing screams echoed from inside the vehicle.

The shouts, interspersed with heavy breathing, were loud, piercing, and extremely penetrating, drawing the attention of drivers and pedestrians passing by on the road.

Feeling that strange gaze that seemed to be fixed on him even through the car window, Li Qing, sitting in the passenger seat, couldn't help but feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Hey, hey."

He couldn't contain himself and turned back to the group of muscular men screaming like pigs being slaughtered, saying:

"Could you please turn the volume down a bit?"

"I don't want to be taken away by the police in a foreign country for some strange reason."

"Easier said than done!"

Fugo clenched his teeth, his face covered in cold sweat.

"You try to reconstruct flesh and nerves inch by inch yourself and see what that pain is like!"

"Damn it."

He looked down at his legs, which were not yet fully grown:

"Why... why does this happen twice in half an hour?!"

"Betraying the organization was definitely a mistake. Including that bastard Orlanto, I've 'died' countless times already! I could never have died enough!"

"Aaaaaah!!!"

The Gold Experience turned a piece of cement into flesh and blood, and when it was pressed slightly onto Fugo's half-grown leg, it immediately aroused a heart-wrenching scream.

The process of rebuilding flesh and blood is extremely painful.

In order to restore the complex and delicate limbs of the human body, this treatment process cannot be completed overnight; it can only be repaired little by little.

Before Fugo, Bucciarati, Abbacchio, Narancia, and Giorno himself, who were severely injured and unable to move, had already undergone the "anesthesia-free surgery" that enabled them to fully recover through Gold Experience.

First, the broken bones and tissues are cut out, and then they are put back in with Meat Chunk made of mud. This process is obviously extremely painful.

So even though their injuries had actually healed, Bucciarati and the others were still exhausted and collapsed in their seats, their foreheads covered in cold sweat from pain and fatigue.

"What exactly happened to you guys just now?"

Mista drove cautiously, asking with a mixture of shock and lingering fear.

He had originally intended to complain in detail about his misfortune of being alone in the underground parking garage, but now, seeing the miserable state of Bucciarati and the others, he realized that being separated from the main group was not a misfortune at all, but the greatest fortune.

It's a long story.

Bucciarati sighed deeply, then immediately reminded him:

"Let's not talk about these things now, let's just focus on driving."

"Since you caused such a commotion in the underground parking garage and even killed a member of the Royal Guard, the enemy will definitely know that we were there immediately."

"So you must be careful from now on, and follow the route I have planned to avoid road surveillance and hidden sentries on the perimeter."

"If we take the wrong turn, our tracks could be exposed to the enemy."

The Passion Organization had a very strong control over Italy. Fortunately, Bucciarati was a local strongman in Naples, which enabled him to ensure that everyone was not discovered so quickly during their escape.

Mista immediately nodded seriously and drove carefully as Bucciarati instructed.

By this time, Fugo's injuries had been almost completely healed.

The Gold Experience consumed all the cement blocks he had brought with him before, and only then could he painstakingly repair his legs, which had been crushed into mincemeat.

"Call"

Giorno let out a long sigh of relief; he was utterly exhausted from the long battles and healing sessions.

"Fugo, give it a try."

"This is also the first time I've created such a complete and complex human limb, and the finished product... well... may have some minor flaws."

"Flaws?" Fugo's face darkened considerably.

Having experienced having fleshy growths under his head before, he really didn't want to grow a pair of strange-looking legs.

Under Giorno's helpless gaze that said "looking at me won't help," he could only grit his teeth and adapt to his newly grown legs, trying his best to move them around and test their performance.

"It seems fine."

Fugo offered a relatively positive user experience, then briefly left his seat and squatted down in the fairly spacious carriage:

"The strength is just right, not bad."

"Try flexibility again."

Fugo sat back down and started moving his legs around, kicking his knees and ankles.

Then click

Amidst a series of strange, tearing sounds, Fugo's newly grown feet were severed.

It didn't break cleanly like it was chopped with a knife or axe, but rather slumped down limply, as if it had been corroded by something, with countless strands of flesh and tendons that were about to break off.

"Aaaaaah!!!"

Fugo let out that extremely unfriendly howl to people with keen hearing once again, making Li Qing want to cover his ears.

But this time the scream was not from actual pain, but from unprecedented terror:

In fact, he hadn't felt any pain at all.

It was as if someone had given him some powerful anesthetic and then inexplicably cut off his feet.

"Egg, egg roll!"

Fugo, his face pale, bluntly called out the nickname he had given Giorno:

"Can this really be called a minor flaw?"

My foot just rotted away on its own!

"Forehead"

Fugo, after all, single-handedly tricked Dio into using a time stop plus several seconds of Team Shield, so Giorno, who provided him with the inferior product, couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed:

"I'm sorry, I really don't have much experience. Let me try again."

As he spoke, the Gold Experience once again appeared around Giorno.

It rummaged through the remaining cement blocks, kneaded them into a healthy lump of flesh, and then, supporting Fugo's severed feet, forcefully filled the rotten gap with it.

"Aaaaaaah!!"

Fugo was in so much pain that his whole body was curled up like a shrimp, and he made noise pollution again.

"Is it... all done?"

He asked breathlessly, on the verge of tears.

"It should be fine."

"The flesh and blood I created this time are absolutely healthy and normal, and will not rot so quickly."

Giorno made that promise, and then...

Silently.

The piece of healthy flesh that had just been added quickly began to rot at a visible rate.

Even more terrifying, a patch of pale green fuzz gradually grew from the wounds of the rotting flesh.

These tiny hairs intertwined and clung to Fugo's limbs like a spider web, constantly extending, spreading, and growing.

Wherever it went, flesh and blood rotted.

"This... this..."

"Velvety, fluffy, with a spiderweb-like structure, and an abnormal pale green color."

As a top student, Fugo quickly recognized the tiny creatures devouring his flesh and blood in his horror:

"This is a fungal colony."

"It's impossible! How could there be fungus growing so fast? My feet are almost... almost completely eaten away!"

He swallowed hard, then shouted at Giorno in a panic:

"Giorno, how could your inexplicable ability create such a mutated, man-eating fungus?!"

"This"

Giorno was initially startled, but his expression quickly turned serious:

"No, this couldn't have been created by my abilities."

"The Gold Experience will only create what I want to create; it's impossible for it to produce any unexpected results."

"Could it be..."

"This is a substitution attack!"

Abbacchio solemnly expressed Giorno's thoughts.

He raised his hand, which was covered in green fuzz, and said, "I've been infected too."

"What?"

The others hurriedly checked their bodies and were horrified to find that each of them had a small patch of pale green fungal colony on their skin.

These fungal colonies take root firmly in human flesh like stubborn athlete's foot, while simultaneously proliferating and spreading uncontrollably like cancer cells.

Flesh and blood are devoured by bacteria, and even bones decay.

In short, they are eating people.

"How is this possible?!"

Mista slammed on the brakes and glanced at his chest, now covered in a layer of green mold, in the mirror:

"Where is the enemy? When did they make their move? How did these fungi infect us?"

"And another thing... we just left that mall not long ago, and we were following the safe route Bucciarati provided the whole time. How could the enemy have discovered our presence so quickly?!"

He bombarded me with a barrage of questions.

Li Qing answered one of them correctly:

"No, they probably haven't discovered our presence."

He glanced out the car window:

The once bustling and lively road had become eerily silent and terrifying without anyone noticing.

The vehicles were parked haphazardly on the road, and the drivers and passengers inside were slumped and barely breathing, having lost all strength to escape or call for help.

The pedestrian collapsed in terror on the roadside, his body covered in that creepy green down.

Those colonies of bacteria that feed on human flesh are relentlessly devouring their bodies, causing them to die in agony amidst the immense fear of their flesh slowly disappearing.

The entire neighborhood has become a living hell.

The car that Li Qing and his group were in was merely a small boat that had stumbled into this hell.

Damn it!

Li Qing clenched his teeth, his face filled with indescribable anger.

Yes, in this "game world," he felt anger like never before.

"Those scumbags didn't even notice our presence; they were just trying to..."

"Destroy the entire city in one fell swoop!"