Autophagy

"You guys," Aston said while turning towards the trainees that were in the staircase. "Quickly get used to the smell and come here. We have to deal with this."

Hearing Aston's orders, they forced themselves to get up from the ground. They walked up the stairs with weak steps. They had to hold onto the railings or the walls to stop themselves from falling because of nausea. 

They only managed to pull themselves together after spending a few minutes getting used to the smell. Even then, it was only enough for them to stand up and walk around. IF they were to get into a fight, they wouldn't be able to beat a single infected.

"Come here, stab your dagger in front of the entrances of each room," Aston ordered. The trainees nodded and did whatever they were told. As they stabbed their daggers on the ground one by one in front of the rooms, the flesh that was spreading around stopped its expansion.

Wherever those daggers were stabbed, the flesh would escape as far as it could, even abandoning its extensions. Each flesh that was cut off from the main source withered away in no time, turning into dust.

"It seems like it is working," Song Lei said as he watched. Aston nodded calmly.

"That's right. Unfortunately, if we don't solve the root of the problem, nothing will be over," he said while shaking his head helplessly. Thinking while tapping his chin for some time, Aston started looking through his backpack.

"What are you looking for?" Song Lei asked. Aston didn't answer and kept searching. He managed to find what he was searching for after another minute.

"Here," Aston said as he threw something towards Song Lei. "Take a look."

Song Lei caught the thing in the air and looked at it. It was the soul monocle. His eyes darted between Aston and the soul monocle before he raised it to his eye.

After adjusting its focus, Song Lei looked towards one of the rooms that were filled with flesh. Something weird appeared before Song Lei's eyes.

"What the..." Song Lei muttered as he adjusted the monocle's focus to see if something was wrong with it. After repeating his actions a few times, he realized that that wasn't the case.

There was a wide black soul right in the middle of the room. Although it was covered by the flesh, the soul monocle was able to reveal it to his eyes.

"What do you see?" Aston asked. Song Lei handed the monocle over to him without answering. Aston went through the same few stages of surprise Song Lei went through before. Finally, he lowered the monocle. There was an excited expression on his face.

"This is surprising..." Aston muttered. The reason why they were so surprised was pretty simple. Until now, Aston's soul monocle had never shown a soul with a color other than white. This soul being dark in color implied something marvelous. There was a different kind of soul than the others. This, of course, sparked Aston's scientist instincts.

"We have to destroy it," Song Lei said. He knew what was going through Aston's mind, however, he couldn't let such a dangerous thing keep existing. Aston's face soured up. He knew that Song Lei was right.

"*Sigh... You can deal with them," Aston said. He knew that Song Lei no longer needed his help. Considering this, he gave back the soul monocle to Song Lei and walked away. He wasn't a fan of the disgusting smell after all. The smell was coming from the flesh, which had amplified after getting so close to it.

"Mm," Song Lei nodded as an answer. He raised his soul dagger and swung it at the flesh. As soon as the dagger's tip came in contact with it, the flesh shrunk away like a scared kitten. Its behavior against the soulite daggers was quite similar to that of a soul worm.

Song Lei started walking into the room like he was walking in a tropical forest. He constantly swung his dagger to clear his way from the flesh. A lot of blood dripped out of the flesh and made sizzling noises. Song Lei disregarded this and continued walking.

After swinging his dagger time after time, he managed to reach the middle of the room. The way he came from had already been retaken by the flesh. If he wanted to leave, he would have to cut his way through again.

Turning his back, Song Lei looked at the middle of the room. There was a small, circular piece of flesh that had a different texture from the others. It had a few vein-like appendages that spread off of it, tightly reaching out to the flesh that was trying to spread around. Those appendages also held the ball of flesh mid-air.

It was beating like a heart. The rhythmic beatings of it constantly spread around. Those pulses that the flesh made seemed to be in sync with this piece of flesh.

He raised the soul monocle and looked at the ball of flesh. As expected, the black soul was attached to this piece of flesh. Suddenly, Song Lei heard a few awkward gurgling noises from the. He lowered the monocle.

Suddenly, more than a few dozen pores appeared on the ball of flesh. Out of those pores, a few soul worms appeared and fell down on the ground.

"Uhm..."

Song Lei didn't know what to say. He didn't spend any more time and swung his soul dagger at the ball of flesh. As soon as the dagger made contact with it, the ball of flesh exploded into pieces. With it, all the flesh that had spread off of it liquified and poured down on Song Lei's head.

"Ugh... This is..." Song Lei held his mouth and left the room. The liquified flesh quickly disappeared into thin air, however, the sense of disgust was still there. After leaving the room, Song Lei started puking out everything that he had eaten. Even though he was good with dealing with disgusting things, it wasn't to this degree.

Seeing the state of Song Lei, Aston walked to his side and patted his back. Fortunately, the liquified flesh had dissipated, leaving no smell behind.

"What happened?" Aston asked. After recovering, Song Lei explained what had transpired in the room. Aston held his chin unsure of what to say.

"Maybe this place is the source of those soul worms?" Aston talked to himself. "However, how would these things appear in such a place? This doesn't make any sense. Of course, unless someone has put it there intentionally."

Wiping his mouth, Song Lei got up from the ground. He didn't interrupt Aston's monologue.

Aston opened his backpack and threw a bottle of water at him.

"Here. Drink this," Aston said as he threw the bottle over. Song Lei caught the bottle and opened its lid. "You'll be repeating this a few more times after all."

Hearing Aston's words, Song Lei's mouth twitched. He knew that Aston was right, however, him being so blunt slightly angered Song Lei.

"Whatever..." He muttered as he finished the whole bottle.

After getting himself ready, he entered another room to clear away the flesh. Fortunately, they had executed every part of the plan before this perfectly. Because there was no one that could expose them, they had a lot of time in their hands.

Room after room, Song Lei cleared away the flesh balls and cleansed the floor from the filth. By the end, he had been slightly traumatized. However, it was worth it.

"That's it..." Song Lei muttered as he crumpled down on the floor. He didn't have anything to puke in his stomach anymore. This caused him to dry-heave for a good amount of time.

"Good job," Aston said. From the looks of it, they would have to rest for at least twenty more minutes. Song Lei was one of the most important parts of the operation. Without him, no one would be able to put up a fight against Clark who was the strongest person among the trainees.

After gathering their men and going down to the first floor, Song Lei sat down on a chair and fell asleep as soon as he did so. After a short nap, he had been somewhat revitalized.

"How did you even get here?" Song Lei asked. Aston scratched his head. Aston's team had the task of clearing out the facilities such as the gym and the cafeteria.

"There weren't many infected there," Aston started explaining. "It didn't take long for us to clear those places out. I had already expected that you would have a bigger problem in your hands than us. So as soon as we finished our task, we rushed here."

"That's good..." Song Lei muttered absentmindedly. He got up from the chair he was sitting on and stretched all of his body parts one by one. He slapped his own cheeks to wake himself up.

"Let's wrap this up...."

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