Chapter 222: Ch220. The coming of the gods
The ground squelched beneath Sarissa’s boots.
She had long stopped pretending it was soil. Whatever had once made Wonderland a place of whimsy and reflection was now gone.
What remained was a wet, stinking rot. A garden of festering things, crawling with soft-bellied nightmares. As far as the eye could see, the earth twisted with thick, segmented worms, each as long as her forearm and bloated with a dark translucency that let her see the pulsing of their black inner organs.
[Corroding Nightmare - Larva]
The System tag above each one flickered, letters jittered, corrupted. Occasionally, a tag would flash symbols instead of words, marks she didn’t recognize and wasn’t sure anyone could – or should.
Cheshire padded beside her, silent for once. His feline body shimmered faintly, gray stripes pulsing with restrained tension, his ears were flat, his tail high and puffed.
"What are these things?" Sarissa said quietly. "I suppose they weren’t here before...?"
Cheshire didn’t answer immediately. He merely stared at one of the Larvae writhing atop the roots of a dead tree.
The worm turned toward them for half a second, twitching as if aware of their presence, then buried itself back into the loam.
"Yes, my dear." Cheshire finally said. "They weren’t here before. Wonderland was simply decayed after the fall of Alice and the Mad Hatter, like you saw the first time I brought you here, but... Perhaps, your absence allowed it to find this place, and take root in it."
"The Crawling-"