Deviant: No Longer Human

Boooooom!

Raj\'s head swelled like a balloon, his body inflating before bursting with the ferocity of a missile strike.

And this horror was just the prelude.

Boooooom!

Boooooom!

Boooooom!

Boooooom!

One by one, hundreds of spectral hell spirits surged through the mist.

They infiltrated deviants and soldiers alike, seizing their corporeal forms and turning them into living bombs.

Sergeant Li grabbed his radio, shouting into it as explosions continued around him. "Command! It\'s not an attack—it\'s an invasion! We need backup!"

Private Chen crouched behind a shattered wall, whispering to herself in a mix of fear and awe, "This is a nightmare... Are these even alive?"

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Maya, trying to rally her unit, yelled, "Hold the line! Do not let these thing get near you! Use everything you\'ve got!"

As the chaos unfolded, Helena regrouped with a handful of survivors, her face grim. "Listen up! We didn\'t sign up for an easy fight. This is where we stand our ground. For Victory!"

Yet— The realization dawned painfully on all:

They had misjudged the situation gravely.

They were not facing an army.

Gabrial had not summoned mere soldiers.

They were in a battle against something far more dreadful, a relentless, inescapable doom.

On this dark night, the Frostholm massacre claimed lives indiscriminately, slaughtering the brave and the fearful alike without granting any a chance to strike back.

_________

"Everyone of you will pay!"

"All my years of work!"

"You\'ve destroyed it all!"

Mary stood at the edge of a colossal crater, one fifty meters in diameter and nearly a hundred meters deep.

Her eyes, previously bleeding, suddenly morphed back to their usual fiery red glow, though the bloodstains lingered on her cheeks like war paint.

Her gaze pierced the far end of the crater where the tunnel to the heavens began—miraculously unscathed by the blast and flames.

Around her lay the debris of what was once a towering facility, now reduced to rubble.

The protective walls that once shielded the entrance to the tunnel were gone.

Everything was exposed, visible to the naked eye.

From above, her figure appeared minuscule against the backdrop of the massive crater.

Mary\'s body trembled with barely contained rage.

"All my research, all my databases—everything is burned!" Her voice cracked with fury and despair. "The dream of my mother, Project Transcendenc — is now in ruins, crumbling before my eyes!"

She clenched her fists, feeling the raw, anger coursing through her veins.

Her body trembled with uncontrolled rage, the anger coursing through her veins like wildfire.

Unbeknownst to Mary, a non-corporeal figure was silently approaching her from behind.

It twisted its form, shaping what resembled a sinister smile, ready to ensnare her.

"!!"

At that critical moment, Mary\'s eyes snapped open wide.

Crack!

She stood in a small, cleared area, but her hand whipped around unnaturally fast, as if seizing the hell spirit\'s incorporeal body within her very grasp.

Squeak!

The spirit emitted a high-pitched squeal, contorting in agony under her grip.

Mary\'s hand moved in ways no human\'s should, her movements sharp and jarring.

Then, in a more horrifying turn, her head rotated a complete one hundred and eighty degrees.

Her eyes began to bleed anew, streams of blood pouring out like an endless river. "It\'s you!"

"YOU ALL DID THIS!"

As her head spun back, she caught sight of Luna and Gabrial, who had crashed onto the land, their battle raging on unabated.

In front of her, the chaos intensified further as an army of Deviants was thrown into disarray, each one being assaulted by similar hellish spirits.

\'These creatures!\'

\'They all are responsible for it!\'

\'They have destroyed everything! EVERYTHING!\'

\'AHHHHHHH—\'

\'I WILL KILL YOU ALL!\'

Mary\'s inward scream, filled with despair, set the stage for something even more horrifying.

SCREEEEEEEECHHH...

In the next second, her head dissolved into a mist-like substance, propelling itself forward toward the hell spirit she had captured within her hands.

The mist enveloped the spirit entirely, merging with it.

The hell spirit produced a high-pitched scream.

Once a spirit possesses a host, their souls merge, and leaving the body becomes impossible for them—they are condemned to die like any mortal being.

However, under Gabrial\'s command, the hell spirits had been forced to abandon their hosts, leaving this particular spirit in a vulnerable, ephemeral form.

In this state, it could survive only briefly; attempting to possess another host would destabilize it further, inevitably leading to its explosive demise.

The spirit\'s scream intensified, a harrowing music that filled the air, until it abruptly faded into silence.

Mary\'s now headless body stood unmoved, like a tree trunk rooted in the ground.

Whoosh!

From her severed neck, a stream of ethereal, red sand-like substance spurted forth, swirling into the air.

This ethereal red glowing sand spread out, blanketing the area and forming what seemed like a protective barrier, a last stand against the unseen enemy that had consumed everything she had worked to build.

____

As the crimson sand-like mist spread across the northern region, a chilling silence began to fill the air, broken abruptly by the desperate cries and screams of those caught in its deadly embrace, mixed with the horrifying screeches of hell spirits being destroyed.

SCREEEEEEEECHHH!

"Arghhhhh!"

Their eerie, high-pitched cries filled the air, loud enough to cause physical pain, making the ears of anyone nearby bleed.

"Cover your ears!" Commander Helane screamed over her voice, as she and her troops clutched their heads in agony.

"Ahhhh—! This burns! Fuck! Fuck!"

The screeches and screams seemed to resonate at a frequency that was almost tangible, vibrating through the very air.

"It\'s like they know they\'re dying!" shouted another soldier, his voice barely audible over the combined screams of spirits and humans.

The psychological toll was immense, with each screech etching a mark of horror on the survivors\' minds.

"No, get back! It\'s everywhere!" screamed one of the soldiers, his voice edged with panic as he desperately tried to retreat from the advancing mist.

"Keep your masks on! Don\'t let it touch you! Cover your bodies!" Suggested Commander Takashi, his voice straining over the chaos as he rallied the remaining troops to maintain some semblance of order.