Parasites

Kneeling down, a person picked up something from the ground, it writhed around as they did so, the person immediately crushed the creature out of disgust, before even getting a closer look at it, the person looked to their right, the source where the small and horrid creature had crawled from was right before their eyes.

The corspe of what most likely used to a humanoid was nothing but a skeleton full of holes from which malformed maggots like the one the person had crushed were spewing out of, they were so numerous that they covered the entirety of the skeleton except from the upper half of the face but it was soon to be covered too.

Their movements made it seem like they were some sort of substance rather than a congregation of disgusting, wretched little beings, the person took a few more steps inside of the town which they had just entered, taking a look around but all they found were more aggregations of maggots, most likely covering other bodies, no one was to be seen, seeing that all had been killed, the person sprinkled a liquid on every buildings and maggot nest before lighting a match and letting all of it be cleansed by fire.

Truly, nothing was better to erase such things than fire, at least, that's what the person thought.

That person had been following the trail of maggot covered corpses for a while now but it seemed like the perpretator of such nasty sights was always one step ahead or perhaps the person was simply a step behind, what it may be, it seemed like they were finally about to cross that step, never had the person found a maggot nest that had yet to fully cover a corpse, they were getting close.

The person followed another trail, this time of animals, whatever or whoever was responsible for this seemed unable to stop themselve from doing it.

Leaving piles of burning maggot in their wake, the person noticed that the corpses were getting less and less covered until the trail completely stopped, at this point, they were deep inside of the forest and the straight line of corpses certainly seemed like a trap but it didn't matter as long as the person got to unleash the flame of cleansing upon the one spreading these maggots.

However, contrary to the person's belief, it wasn't a trap, nothing came to attack them, they looked around for a while, walking around to try and find a trail and ended finding a broken down carriage not so far from where the trail had stopped, there, two corpses were to be found, the maggots were very few at this point, meaning that it must have been extra recent.

The person checked the area and found out that there must have been a third person on the carriage, they stopped moving for a moment, deciding to use a skill of theirs to try and find the person in question, if they hadn't been killed on the spot then they might still be alive, the person didn't have much hope but it appeared as a possibility and it proved to be true as they sensed to presences not so far from their position.

Arriving as fast as possible, they were finally able to take a look at the one they had been chasing for a long time now, a tall and lanky humanoid creature, it appeared to be just as white and slippery as the maggot it produced, it had no face and possessed dark claws, however, its looks weren't the thing that got the most attention, as the person had just arrived, they were fairly certain that they saw it pull out of the woman it had abducted, they doubted themselves as they saw nothing allowing it to reproduce at all.

Not allowing them to think about it any further, the monster attacked them, demonstrating an impressive speed as it closed the distance in a moment, the person was able to keep up with the monster's assault, preparing an attack of their own, it was no secret for them that the maggots were extremely vulnerable to fire and since it ressembled them so much, the person had to assume it was the same for their spreader.

The person pulled out a scroll and opened it, revealing what was written on it to the monster, the scroll lit up before sending a powerful, stream of fire right at the monster, it took on fire instantly, showing that it indeed shared its weakness with the maggots.

However, it wasn't enough, the monster seemed capable of regenerating its burned tissue as soon as they were inflicted, it rolled around in the grass to try and shake off the flames but the person pulled out a large vial and threw it at the monster, covering it in oil and making the fire stick harder to its skin.

Not able to had more things on top of that, the person simply prepared more ways to set it on fire, were it to manage to extinguish itself, keeping a safe distance from it.

The monster stopped rolling around as it proved ineffective, instead pointing its head toward the sky as if it was looking at it, a mouth appeared on its face as it started puking blood on itself, succesfully extinguishing the flames.

Before the person could repeat the burning process, the monster leaped back and grabbed the woman tossing her to the person who couldn't help but catch her before she hit the ground, during that time, the creature moved behind them, preparing to impale the person with its claws, as they prepared to dodge, their eyes caught notice of a strange movement on the woman, her belly seemed to be moving.

As the person barely had time to register the strange phenomenon as they were trying to dodge a lethal attack, the woman's belly bursted as many, much large maggot-like beings sprouted out of her, covered in blood, the shock caused allowed them to sink their teeth into the person's flesh and with their attention being taken, they failed to dodge the monster's claws and ended with its whole arm through their ribcage, their hearts had been completely destroyed, they closed their eyes as their body fell to the ground.

The large maggots, scuttered away into the woods as, from the wounds inflicted on the person, the small maggots they had grown used to, came pouring out, covering both theirs and the woman's body.

The monster simply left, walking away from the scene, still covered in its own blood.