Chapter 162: I’ll Handle It
Its body began to change.
Beneath those lumpy, misshapen scales, huge boils started swelling up. They bulged larger and larger, so growing to the size of washbasins before bursting open.
When they burst, even more putrid blood and pus sprayed out—inky green, thick as phlegm. When it splattered onto the reeds, the reeds instantly yellowed and withered. When it splashed into the mud, sharp white smoke hissed upward. When it struck the ground, the moss blackened at once, rotted away, and crumbled into ash.
The pus and blood sizzled where it landed, burning pits into the earth.
And those pits were still spreading, still deepening, as though sothing were gnawing outward from within them.
That tongue was still lashing wildly.
It swept to the left, striking a clump of reeds. The stalks snapped at once, white smoke rising from the broken ends before the whole patch blackened and rotted away.
It lashed to the right, smashing into a patch of mud. Water and sludge exploded outward, and the scattered droplets killed the grass the mont they touched it.
It whipped toward the sky, flinging that foul ichor from its tip like a rain of dark green filth. It splashed down dozens of ters away, leaving behind broad, scorched patches of blackened ruin.
“Miss—run!”
Rex rushed over and seized Lillian by the hand.
Lillian snapped out of it and ran with him.
But they could not run fast.
Their legs were too weak. That battle just now had wrung every last bit of strength out of them. Rex dragged Lillian along, staggering forward a few steps, falling, climbing back up, and running again.
The tongue kept lashing.
It swung toward them.
Drops of dark green pus-blood splattered down only a few ters behind them, and the ground was instantly eaten away into a smoking pit.
They dodged, but the tongue ca sweeping back again, even closer this ti.
That enormous scarlet mass passed right over their heads. The wind raised by those barbs made their scalps ache. The foul fluid flung from the tongue rained down on them—
There was no ti to dodge.
Lillian shut her eyes and instinctively tightened her grip on Rex’s hand.
Then suddenly her body grew light.
It felt as though an invisible hand had grabbed the back of her collar and lifted her whole body off the ground, hauling her up into the air.
The wind shrieked past her ears.
The world spun.
By the ti she opened her eyes again, she was sprawled on the ground.
Dozens of ters away from where she had been.
Rex was sprawled beside her, covered head to toe in mud, struggling to push himself back up.
The two of them exchanged a look, then simultaneously lifted their heads toward the place they had just been.
The ground there—the place where they had been standing—was now completely covered in that vile fluid. The dark green liquid was still corroding the earth, hissing and smoking.
And standing before that veil of white smoke was a person.
With his back to them.
A dark gray outfit, soaked through with mud and water, clung to his body. A pack was strapped to his back, its straps stirring lightly in the wind. His waist was bare; the short blade he usually carried had vanished at so point.
In his right hand, he held sothing.
It was a long blade.
Its edge gave off a cold white gleam in the dim light, like frozen ice, like moonlight condensed into frost. Fine patterns ran across the blade, like cracks in ice, or the markings of dragon scales. The light it cast was so cold that even the air around it seed to drop by a few degrees.
He simply stood there, his back to them.
Without moving.
That long blade hung at his side, its tip pointed toward the ground.
The tongue was still lashing wildly, the pus-blood still spraying in all directions, the toad still shrieking—but he stood there like a statue, like a wall, like sothing that should not have existed in this marsh at all.
The wind lifted the hem of his clothes.
Lillian caught sight of his profile.
That sharply defined jawline. Those tightly pressed lips. And those eyes—
Those gray-blue eyes were fixed on the massive creature ahead, reflecting that crimson glow in their depths, but holding not the slightest trace of fear.
Ryan Velt.
Ryan turned and walked toward them.
Mud splashed beneath his boots, but each step was utterly steady. The long blade remained in his hand, its tip dragging lightly through the mud and leaving behind a shallow line.
He stopped in front of them.
“Are you alright?”
Lillian froze for a mont and parted her lips, wanting to say sothing.
She wanted to say, “I’m fine.”
She wanted to say, “Who asked you to save ?”
She wanted to say one of the many sharp, easy things that always ca so readily to her.
But when the words reached her mouth, they would not co out.
Her legs were still trembling. Her hands were still trembling. Her whole body was still trembling.
That mont from just now was still replaying in her mind—that tongue crashing down, Rex charging forward, and how she had nearly used that forbidden magic.
That brush with death, that despair, that terror that she might actually die here—it was all still lodged in her chest so tightly she could barely breathe.
She lifted her head and looked at Ryan.
That face was the sa as ever, almost expressionless. Those gray-blue eyes were still and calm, like a pool of stagnant water.
But he stood there between her and that monster like a wall.
For one terrifying instant, she wanted to cry.
“I’m... I’m fine.” She lowered her head, her voice muffled.
Rex flashed a wide grin, showing a row of white teeth. “We’re fine, really! Ryan, your timing couldn’t have been better! We almost died just now!”
Ryan’s gaze swept over their injuries—Rex’s bloody cut at his waist, where the torn clothes exposed the ragged wound beneath; Lillian’s split palm, where the blood had already clotted into dark red scabs. Then he took in the mud covering them both, and the exhaustion radiating from them down to the marrow.
“That’s good,” he said.
Then Rex rembered sothing and hurriedly added, “Right, that thing—it’s really strong! Our attacks couldn’t do a thing to it. Its hide’s way too thick! Shouldn’t we just retreat first?”
Ryan turned and looked toward the toad, which was still writhing.
Ever since that tree trunk had pierced it, it had gone completely mad. It rolled and twisted on the ground, that severed tongue lashing in all directions, while dark green blood sprayed wildly from the torn end.
Wherever the pus-blood struck the ground, it ate smoking holes into it. Wherever it hit the reeds, they withered at once and crumbled into ash.
The air around them stank so badly it was like ten thousand rotting fish had been left to decay in the marsh.
Ryan watched it for a while, then withdrew his gaze.
“I know,” he said. “I ran into sothing similar on the way here.”
Rex blinked. “You ran into one too? Then how did you—”
“I killed it,” Ryan said. “By using a few thods.”
Rex’s eyes widened.
Lillian also lifted her head and looked at him.
Ryan raised the blade before him and glanced at the cold light reflected along its edge. That icy gleam illuminated half his face.
“I’ll handle it,” he said. “You two fall back.”
Rex opened his mouth as though he wanted to say sothing, but in the end he only nodded vigorously and pumped a fist. “Then go for it! I believe in you! You can definitely do it! You’re way stronger than us!”
At his side, Lillian instinctively snapped, “Idiot, don’t say things like that—”
Rex scratched his head. “What? I’m just telling the truth. Ryan even managed to beat Senior Eleanor.”
Lillian choked on the retort and could not think of anything to say.
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