Chapter 157: Touching His Muscles
It saw Parker coming and actually shrank back a little.
Parker stopped ten steps away from it. The Ironclad Crocodile hesitated for an instant, then suddenly lunged. Its jaws spread wide, that row of serrated teeth snapping toward Parker’s head.
Parker did not retreat. He stepped forward instead, seized its upper jaw with his left hand and its lower jaw with his right, and then drove both arms apart with brutal force—
Crack.
Its lower jaw broke.
The Ironclad Crocodile let out a shrill, miserable scream and thrashed wildly. Parker released it, then drove his sword straight into its gaping mouth, the blade punching out through the back of its skull.
In the middle of the marsh, near the deepest stretch of water, Lillian and Rex were fighting.
They had already been killing for nearly two hours.
A great swath of reeds had been cut down around them, exposing the black-brown mud beneath. The corpses of monsters lay scattered everywhere. So were still twitching. Others had already gone stiff. Black blood had dyed this patch of water even darker, and the air reeked of rot and blood.
Another wave of monsters lunged at them.
This ti there were five Abyssal Giant Pythons, three Ironclad Crocodiles, and two creatures they had never seen before—things that looked like so monstrous cross between a spider and a crab. They had eight legs, each one long and sharp like a spear. Their bodies were as wide as millstones, pitch-black all over, with two eyes perched on top of their heads, staring at them.
Lillian drew a deep breath and tightened her grip on her sword.
She was already exhausted. Her legs were trembling, her hands were shaking, and her chest felt as though it might burst open. But she did not retreat.
She stepped forward and swept her sword across.
Frost burst from the blade, condensing in the air into more than a dozen ice spikes that shot toward the monsters.
Three of the giant pythons were nailed to the ground by the spikes and writhed furiously. The other two dodged aside and attacked from the flanks.
Lillian spun and thrust her sword backward.
Frost spread along the blade and solidified in the air into a wall of ice. The two pythons slamd into it, splitting their heads open before sliding back into the mud.
Rex charged out from behind her.
He gripped that greatsword in both hands, and a yellow-brown glow lit up along the blade. It grew brighter and brighter, heavier and heavier, until even the air around it seed to congeal.
One Ironclad Crocodile lunged.
Rex brought his sword down in a single crushing blow. The greatsword smashed into its skull and hamred the whole beast into the mud. Water and sludge sprayed high into the air, and the crocodile’s head was already flattened.
The other two Ironclad Crocodiles attacked together. Rex advanced instead of retreating, his greatsword sweeping horizontally. Both creatures were sent flying, crashing into the reeds and flattening a huge swath of them.
At last, one of the spider-crab creatures moved.
Its speed was astonishing. Those eight spear-like legs tapped rapidly against the ground as though it were gliding across the surface of the water. It circled to Rex’s side and thrust one leg at him.
Rex dodged, but that leg still ripped through his clothes and left a bloody gash at his waist.
“Damn it!” Rex cursed, sweeping his greatsword back in retaliation.
But the spider-crab had already leapt away. It was so fast he could not catch it at all.
Lillian’s ice spikes shot after it, but the creature knocked them aside with its legs as casually as if it were brushing away blades of grass.
“This thing’s a pain!” Rex shouted.
Lillian said nothing.
She stared at the spider-crab, tracking its movents.
Those eight legs were too fast, so fast that she could barely follow them. But she noticed one thing—
Every ti it changed direction, it slowed down a little.
Only a little.
“Rex!” she shouted. “Force it to turn!”
Rex did not ask why.
He charged straight at it, swinging his greatsword in a broad arc. The spider-crab dodged and circled to his side. He rushed it again, sweeping once more. It dodged again and circled away.
Three tis. Four. Five.
The sixth ti, when it turned—
It slowed.
For that single instant, Lillian’s ice spikes arrived.
More than a dozen of them shot into the spot where it was turning. The spider-crab had no ti to evade. Three spikes pinned it to the ground. It struggled frantically, its remaining five legs clawing wildly at the earth and gouging deep trenches.
Rex charged in and brought the greatsword down with all his strength.
Crack.
The spider-crab stopped moving.
The two of them stood there, panting, staring at the heap of monster corpses.
Lillian’s legs gave out, and she dropped to the ground. Rex sat down too, the greatsword laid across his knees.
Out in the reeds, those dark yellow eyes were still there—but far fewer now. The ones that remained stayed well back, no longer daring to approach.
At least, not for the mont.
Lillian leaned against Rex’s shoulder and closed her eyes, breathing hard. Her heart was hamring, her chest felt ready to explode, and every breath scorched her lungs.
But she did not want to move.
She just wanted to stay like that, feeling her body slowly ease out of its tension.
After resting there for a while, she suddenly rembered sothing and opened her eyes, turning to look at Rex.
“Just now... that thing stabbed you?”
Rex blinked, then lowered his head to look at his waist. His clothes were torn there, exposing the leather armor beneath. Even the armor had a slash across it. It was not deep, but the skin below had been cut.
“Oh, this?” He scratched his head. “It’s fine. Just a scratch.”
Lillian frowned.
She sat up straight and reached for the hem of his clothes at his waist.
Rex was startled and jerked back a little. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t move.” There was urgency in Lillian’s voice.
Rex froze.
Lillian lifted his clothes and examined the wound.
The leather armor had indeed been slashed, but only across the outer layer. Beneath it, there was just a shallow cut in the skin, about the length of one finger. The blood that had seeped out had already begun to clot into a string of dark red scabs. The skin around it was slightly swollen, but it was not serious.
It really was only a superficial wound.
Lillian let out a quiet breath of relief.
Her fingers ca to rest at his waist, the tips brushing along the edge of the wound. The blood had already dried there, hard and slightly rough beneath her touch. Without thinking, she lightly traced over the injury, as if to confirm how deep it was, how bad it was.
Then her gaze drifted a little lower.
That was Rex’s waist.
His clothes had been torn open, exposing a broad stretch of skin beneath. It was wheat-colored, not the pale skin of soone raised in luxury, but the healthy tone of soone sun-ward by the open air. The lines of muscle ran down from his waist in distinct layers, clear and taut whenever he moved. His breathing was steady, and those muscles rose and fell faintly with each breath, like gentle waves.
Her fingers were still there.
Beneath her fingertips was warm skin, and the feel of those muscles. They were not rigid, but the kind of firmness that still held spring and life. Like pressing against a drawn bowstring, as though it might snap back at any mont.
Her face went scarlet.
The heat ca too quickly, too fiercely, burning from her cheeks to her ears, from her ears all the way down her neck.
She froze in place.
Her fingers were still resting against Rex’s waist, and she had completely forgotten to pull them back.
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