Chapter 164: The Fair-Faced Grenade King
It was afraid.
This towering monstrosity, this seven- or eight-ter-tall aberration, was staring at him with a pair of crimson eyes now filled with fear.
It took a step back.
But Ryan gave it no chance. He charged again.
Mud and water splashed behind him as he shot forward like a streak of light, crossing the corroded pits, crossing the ground still smoking with white vapor, and closing the distance to the toad in an instant.
That tongue lashed out again.
Ryan ducked.
The tongue swept over his head. Its barbs sliced through his hair, severing several strands. Those cut hairs drifted through the air, only to be struck by the next wave of poisonous spray and instantly reduced to ash.
Ryan did not stop.
He straightened and slashed down on the tongue.
One strike.
Then another.
Then a third.
All three struck the exact sa place.
At last, the tongue was severed.
Half of it fell to the ground, still writhing madly, its barbs still contracting like those of a dying giant python.
Dark green blood sprayed from the stump like a fountain, splattering everywhere.
The toad let out an earth-shaking scream.
It had gone mad.
Its whole body began to swell, the bulging blisters on its flesh expanding larger and larger before bursting one after another.
Pus and blood sprayed in every direction like fountains, drenching the ground for dozens of ters around. Wherever that foul liquid landed, it ate pits into the mud. Wherever it struck the reeds, they instantly withered and died. When it splashed back onto its own body, even its scales began to rot, releasing thicker, fouler smoke.
Ryan moved across the patches of ground not yet eaten away, light and precise as a cat, leaping through the gaps in the poisonous rain. Every landing found the exact safe spot. Every spring carried him just clear of the splattering filth.
His eyes remained fixed on one place.
That tree trunk.
The trunk hurled from the tornado was still lodged in the toad’s body. It had punched through one side and out the other, pinning the monster to the ground. That wound was still gushing blood.
It was the weakest point on its whole body.
Ryan locked onto that wound and sprinted straight for it.
Poison rained underfoot. The severed tongue thrashed behind him. Before him towered that frenzied behemoth.
He ignored all of it.
He only wanted to reach that wound.
The toad saw his intent and writhed desperately, trying to hide the injury.
But it was too huge, too clumsy.
That wound could not be hidden.
Ryan reached it, leaped, and detonated both wind and lightning beneath his feet with full force. Blue and violet light exploded under him, propelling him like an arrow straight toward the wound.
For an instant, he felt as though he had taken flight.
Wind roared in his ears. The mud beneath him receded. The long blade in his hand trailed a tail of fla behind it, like a falling star.
He watched the wound rush closer and closer, until he could see the viscera moving inside, until he could sll the stench of rotting innards.
The toad’s claw slamd toward him.
Ryan twisted in midair.
The enormous claw swept past him. At its closest, it ca within less than a foot. He could see the patterns on its scales, the pus oozing from between them, and feel the wind of its passing snap his clothes against his body.
He landed beside the wound.
The wound was as wide as a millstone. The flesh at the edges had been ripped open by the tree trunk, exposing a blur of blood and at within. Dark green blood gushed from it, thick as phlegm and hot as boiling water.
Ryan drew sothing from his waist.
Three red potions.
Explosive potions.
The potion bottles glimred with a deep crimson light, like three drops of solidified blood, like three slumbering bombs. He could feel the violent power trapped within them, imprisoned by the glass, waiting for the instant of release. The bottles’ walls were thin as paper, faintly hot in his hand, as if the flas caged inside them had been captive for far too long and were whispering for freedom.
Ryan stared at the wound.
A wound as wide as a millstone, its torn edges peeled back by the tree trunk, exposing a blurred mass of flesh inside. Dark green blood poured from it, thick as phlegm, hot as freshly boiled water, hissing and smoking where it struck the wood.
He drew a deep breath and tightened his grip on the blade.
In that mont, ti seed to slow again.
He could hear his own heartbeat, thud, thud, thud, each beat like a war drum. He could hear the rustle of reeds in the distance, the toad’s heavy breathing, and the hiss of that foul blood dripping onto the ground.
He raised the blade.
Only the last thread of bluish-white fla still clung to it, weak as a candle on the verge of going out, but it still burned. It still endured.
He fixed his gaze on the wound, on those writhing innards, on the dark green blood spilling out.
Then he struck.
A flash of steel.
The blade sliced through the charred flesh at the edge of the wound. That flesh had already been scorched brittle by the flas, and the sword passed through it with almost no resistance, as though cutting into a loaf of baked bread.
More blood burst from the opening. The dark green liquid splashed onto his hand, scorching his skin with sharp pain.
But he did not stop.
The blade carved deeper, opening a wider gash, deep enough for him to see the writhing organs inside, deep enough to sll the foul rot of its insides, deep enough to feel the heat pouring from within against his face.
He shoved the three potions inside.
The first bottle went into the gash, wedged into a seam in the flesh. When the glass touched those organs, he felt a shudder, as if sothing inside the monster had convulsed.
The second was thrust in deeper, into the recesses of those organs, buried in the center of that bloody mass. The bottle was imdiately swallowed by the viscous fluids, vanishing from sight in an instant.
The third he pushed in deepest of all, into the very core of the creature’s body. He could feel an even hotter pulse there, as if it were the beat of the monster’s heart.
Then he infused them with Mana.
In that instant, he felt all three potions flare to life at once.
It was as though sothing had awakened in his palm, as though three sleeping seeds had sprouted all at once, as though three bombs had had their fuses lit in the sa instant.
He could feel that berserk power churning, roaring, struggling to break free from the bottles.
He left them there.
Then he leaped back.
Wind and lightning exploded beneath his feet again, hurling him away.
His body tipped backward, as though an invisible hand had seized him and dragged him into retreat. The scene before his eyes shifted in an instant—the wound growing farther away, the tree trunk pinning the toad growing farther away, those crimson eyes growing farther away.
And he saw the potion bottles still buried deep in the wound, their dark red light shining through flesh and blood, pulsing like three beating hearts.
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