Terrifying Destruction from Hell

The thing was about the size of a tennis ball, oval and pale pink all over. Its interior still had a jelly-like texture, springing back when gently prodded with a finger.

Strangely, it gave off no nauseating stench. On the contrary, bringing it close revealed a faint, inexplicably cloying sweetness.

Altogether, it looked like a strange egg.

Cheng Sheng searched the entire pit and found three such eggs in all.

Three eggs in four days of cultivation was a pretty good result.

With a rubber-gloved hand, Cheng Sheng peeled one of the eggs like a chicken egg. He carefully peeled it all the way down to the center, revealing a rouge-colored maggot no longer than a finger joint.

Cheng Sheng peeled all three eggs in one go. Three pink maggots lay quietly in his palm, occasionally wriggling.

The Plague Flies were still in their larval state. There was one final step left-

Cheng Sheng took off his gloves, pulled out a knife he had prepared beforehand, and made a deep cut on the inside of his left wrist.

Blood flowed out rapidly.

"Whew-"

Cheng Sheng let out a soft breath and endured the pain as he placed the three pink maggots against the bleeding wound. Then he lowered his head and began murmuring under his breath.

"@#￥%..."

The mysterious incantation seemed to serve as the final catalyst. The three translucent, slightly pink maggots began to move, and, guided by the incantation, quickly burrowed in through the wound.

The blood flowing from the wound stopped almost at once. Half a minute later, both the maggots and the blood had disappeared.

The wound on Cheng Sheng's wrist had healed until only a faint red line remained. He gently pulled the line apart with his fingers and felt no pain. He could see the pinkish-white muscle and blood vessels beneath the flesh... No blood flowed out. It was as though two invisible membranes had grown in between, and the three maggots that had burrowed into his body now lay quietly between them.

This was the most important step in the entire cultivation process.

-Feeding the maggots with his own blood not only provided the final nourishment needed for the Plague Flies to hatch, but more importantly, allowed them to obey Cheng Sheng's commands.

Hiding a few live maggots in his own flesh was a little disgusting, no matter how he looked at it.

But considering that the three maggots had been hatched and cultivated using fresh internal organs, he felt a little better.

"I've already done it, so why am I still thinking so much?"

Cheng Sheng shook his head, casting the jumbled thoughts aside. "The most important thing now is to test what these Hell Plague Flies can do."

A test naturally required a living creature.

And preferably a fairly large one...

Half an hour later, Cheng Sheng returned leading an ox.

He had bought it from the nearest slaughterhouse for fifteen hundred Nan Currency.

This breed of ox was native to Nantu. Unlike ordinary water buffalo or yellow cattle, it was relatively small and lean, with huge ears that hung almost down to its mouth and a hump the size of a watermelon on its back.

The locals called it a "Menhuo Ox." Menhuo meant "able to endure hardship and work hard" in the Nantu dialect, which suited the breed's strengths: it could tolerate Nantu's extremely hot, humid climate, ate poorly and little, yet worked hard...

It had only one drawback: its meat was coarse and tasted bad.

Cheng Sheng left the Menhuo Ox to graze in one spot and walked about ten meters away. Then he began calling in his mind for the Plague Flies beneath the flesh of his wrist to come out.

There was a response almost immediately. The wound concealing the Plague Flies suddenly became unbearably itchy, so itchy that Cheng Sheng couldn't resist reaching out to scratch it.

He seemed to hear the sounds of sucking and a cocoon breaking open. Immediately afterward, a fly the size of a grain of rice emerged from beneath his skin.

Cheng Sheng's eyes brightened slightly. Rather than hastily sending the fully formed Hell Plague Fly out, he brought it close for a careful look.

-This tiny creature, said to come from the hell of the Abyss, looked a little smaller than an ordinary fly. Its body was a blend of eerie blue and dark green, with a band of flowing dark red around the edges of its wings and countless tiny red dots covering its legs...

It rested quietly on the back of Cheng Sheng's hand, without rubbing its forelegs together out of habit like an ordinary fly. Its mouthparts also seemed different, more like a needle.

Cheng Sheng watched it for a while, then said softly, "Go."

The Plague Fly obediently took flight, heading straight for the Menhuo Ox grazing leisurely nearby.

Throughout the whole process, it made not the slightest sound. It was quiet to an almost eerie degree.

Once the Plague Fly had flown more than five meters away, Cheng Sheng could no longer see it, but he could clearly sense its position. Obeying his command, it flew soundlessly onto the Menhuo Ox's back and settled among a few cattle lice, completely inconspicuous.

Cheng Sheng "ordered" the Plague Fly to drive its mouthparts in, then fixed his gaze on the target ox, watching for its reaction.

One second...

Two seconds...

Three seconds...

Just as Cheng Sheng couldn't help frowning, he was suddenly shocked to see a huge pustule rapidly forming on the Menhuo Ox's back!

The pustule was like a balloon being filled with water. In the blink of an eye, it swelled larger than the hump on the ox's shoulder.

That wasn't all. Similar pustules rapidly spread across every part of the Menhuo Ox's body. Before long, enormous pustules covered the entire ox, swelling its body to more than twice its original size!

Most bizarrely, though its body had become like this, the afflicted Menhuo Ox hadn't noticed a thing. It was even still "leisurely" grazing-even though its neck had swollen as thick as a bucket and it could no longer lower its head. It remained utterly unaware, as if even its thoughts had been completely paralyzed.

"Not good!"

As the pustules on the Menhuo Ox swelled larger and larger, Cheng Sheng recovered from his shock. His expression changed, and he hurriedly retreated.

"Bang!!"

He had barely retreated a few meters when the Menhuo Ox in the distance exploded completely with a bang.

Amid the countless splashes of red-and-white pus, a large swarm of flies rose into the air like a small black cloud. In an instant, they vanished into the sky, disappearing without a trace like smoke scattered by the wind.

The Hell Plague Fly Cheng Sheng had sent out was gone too. He could no longer sense its presence.

"They won't spread, will they?"

Cheng Sheng looked in the direction the swarm had disappeared, his expression somewhat grim.

But he soon shook his head. "It shouldn't come to that.

"With such terrifying toxicity, if it could spread rapidly too, a single Plague Fly would be enough to destroy the world..."

Most importantly, if Cheng Sheng's actions just now really had accidentally released a disaster capable of destroying the world from a hellish box, there was nothing he could do about it. He had no way to call back the flies that had flown away.

In any case, the results of the test shocked Cheng Sheng.

"Is this the power of a creature from hell?

"Is this the effect of a true spell?"

After watching the whole thing, Cheng Sheng was left with only one impression-terrifying, chilling!

The sight of the Menhuo Ox utterly unaware as death drew near was especially chilling.

"From the Plague Fly's bite to the ox exploding and dying, it only took seven or eight seconds...

"If it were an ordinary person, they'd probably die even faster."

"Then what about a boxer?

"Could an expert at the level of a professional fighter be bitten to death in one go?"

Cheng Sheng subconsciously reached out to touch the wrist that still held two flies. His eyes flickered as he silently pondered.