It had been hours since the multinational assault to seize or destroy what was under the town had begun. Consequently dark smog submerged the sky, it being a mixture of exhaust, clouds, and smoke. All the navy blues above and on the desert sank into darkness. The only reprieve from total blackness was the occasional drone firing into descending parachutes, the infrequent but large missiles cruising by, and the sporadic explosion or two on the ground.

  A shadowed paratrooper that shot back at a drone revealed two supersoldiers contorting brand new joints, along with two levitating and idle metal hands holding onto something that already took a different shape.

  The horrid coil of dismembered arms, pale and gangrene, not only matched the colors of the maggot masses feasting on them, but the interdimensional limb made up of smaller human limbs mimicked their sound too. Only a field-full of incessantly active hornet nests could match its disgusting volume.

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  What was reminiscent of a yellow cape past the closing portal groveled away like descending chiffon, its wearer gone from that reality that closed off its connection to this one. Accumulating matter in a way it could to manifest a head for the swarming limb, the supersoldiers that were revealed to have gangrene-clad skin were pulled towards it, their heads bashing into each other like magnets being pulled apart cessantly. Perhaps with the understanding that ve could be used for more mind material, the sea of rotting arms swiveled apart to expose a thoroughly-siphoned Spiderland with only a floating helmet made of an ancient tooth left of ver. Inside the shadows of the superficial cavity, the sole hand that had grabbed vis now non-existent ankle slithered up a wall of drifting arms to attempt to slip its fingers into the helmet until remaining flux from Spiderland spawned a healthy hand from a nascent portal. Jitteringly the hand slapped the slithering hand away.

  Whoever the man with long black hair and a laurel made of grapevine was, he accidentally elbowed a golden chalice and spilled purple wine in the tavern from the other reality he was coming from.