Wonderful Insane World-Chapter 40: Personal Battle

Dylan felt a click somewhere deep within the limbo of his consciousness. Like a mental lock snapping open. And then—he saw them.

Not with his eyes. Not really. It was more like... an overlay of mental images. As if his mind were projecting a map of his own body. And on that map, they were there.

Thousands of them.

Tiny.

Like translucent worms, embedded in his nerves, coiled in his muscles, slithering between tendons. They weren’t intelligent. Not really. They were made of raw instinct. Simple parasites.

Their only goal: to spread. To claim territory. Cell by cell.

"That’s all you are, huh?" he muttered mentally, with an inner grimace. "Just an infestation."

He tried to flex his muscles. To shake his mind. To eject those things from inside him. But they clung. They latched onto his nervous system like ticks, absorbing, infiltrating.

And then—it burned.

First in his shoulder. An unbearable itch, like his skin was about to burst. Then the pain spread, in waves, across his left side. It sizzled under his skin. Every nerve lit up with fire. He wanted to scream, but even that was denied him.

His left arm jerked on its own. Twisted, bent. Not under his control. The parasites were testing their grip.

"No."

He didn’t scream. Just a raw thought, cold, sharp, clear.

He reached inward, like unsheathing a mental blade. A pure, razor-edged will. He hunted them down. One by one. And he began to burn them.

Not with fire. Not exactly. But with a murderous intent. A pulse of raw, inner spiritual essence. A total rejection.

The first ones writhed, sizzled, then died. He felt them liquefy inside him. Others resisted. Retreated deeper.

But he followed.

He was going to kill every last bastard. From the inside out.

Because out there—Élisa and Maggie were fighting for him. And he wasn’t about to let them die in his place.

He felt something shift. Not around him. Inside him.

The pain was still there, sharp and searing, but it had changed. It wasn’t a wall anymore. It had become a conductor. A network of nerves lit up by the enemy. And every glowing point—that was a target.

He picked one.

He poured everything he had—his hatred, his fear, his survival instinct—into one dry pulse. A discharge. It wasn’t magic. It was raw. Primal. A will to annihilate. He pressed on that point like pushing a button—and the parasite imploded.

Just one.

But it was a start.

A spark lit in his mind. He could eliminate them. Slowly but surely. One disgusting thing at a time.

He picked another.

A third.

Each time, it cost him a bit of energy. Like he was sacrificing part of his own vitality to erase them from within. But he held on. Because with each victory, he felt more of his body return. A bit more stable. A bit more his.

He regained sensation in his fingers. Then his leg. Control returned, slowly, like a tide pushing the invasion back.

Then, there was a click.

Not inside this time—but outside.

He opened his eyes.

A metallic clink. The ground trembled. The two women were still fighting.

Maggie had blood running down one arm, but she was holding off two puppets at once. Élisa, panting, fury in her eyes, had hacked half a puppet apart with her machete and was retreating, covering their flank.

They hadn’t given up.

They were fighting for him.

So he gritted his teeth, reopened his mental map, and kept burning those things one by one.

Because now—it was personal.

---

Maggie tightened her grip on the axe handle, knuckles white with strain. She swung. Again. And again. A puppet’s neck snapped with a dry crunch, its head rolling to the floor with a wet thud.

Another figure lunged at her. She turned, raised the weapon, and brought the blade down without hesitation.

She had never been a melee expert.

She wasn’t a warrior. Not really. She’d grabbed this axe as a precaution, at first. A tool. To chop wood, to clear a path through the forest—not to carve through animated corpses.

But now, it was all she had.

Her rifle was empty. Her shells spent. And the damn puppets didn’t have the decency to drop after the first burst.

So she took that axe—and started swinging.

And with every swing, every head that flew, something welled up inside her. Not rage. Not despair. A kind of raw power. As if her body had adapted. As if exhaustion had become fuel. Her newfound strength—born from absorbing two dozen anima gems and the recent awakening of her soul.

And then there was the damned infection threatening Dylan. Even if he was a bastard most days, he knew how to be loyal when it counted. So Maggie wasn’t about to let him die.

That’s what let her slice through flesh with disturbing ease.

One strike. Always aim for the neck. No wasted motion. No theatrics.

But the puppets—they were learning. Or at least whoever was guiding them was.

They weren’t fast, but fast enough. They tried to flank her. To separate her from Élisa. Some even charged without trying to bite or claw, just to grab, to injure—to infect.

She’d seen them do it to Dylan. They didn’t need to kill. Just get their filth into your blood, and then—you were theirs.

She’d already chopped down three who tried to dig their claws into her side. A fourth had nearly caught her leg. She screamed, spun on her heel, and buried her axe in its chest. A blackish geyser erupted.

She panted.

She sweated.

But she held the line.

The ground was littered with scattered limbs, twitching torsos, vacant heads. And still, they kept coming.

She glanced at Élisa, further off. The elf was still fighting, but her movements were getting sloppier. More erratic. Blood dripped from her right arm.

We’re not gonna last much longer.

But Maggie wasn’t dying here. Not without knowing if Dylan had made it. Not without hacking through every last damn puppet.

And then thunder split the air.

Not real thunder.

Not the sky growling.

A shot. A gunshot. Sharp. Precise. Clean.

A puppet’s head exploded nearby, chunks of bone and blackened brain spraying out. Maggie didn’t even have to turn.

It was Dylan.

That was his shot.

He’d done it.

He was alive, conscious, armed... and he’d just told them to get the hell out. To retreat.

"Finally, fuck..." Maggie muttered, more to herself than anyone else.

She spun, a perfect sweep, slicing through two necks in one arc. The corpses dropped like sacks of meat.

Then she shouted:

"Élisa! WE’RE MOVING!"