Chapter 159 : Chapter 159

“Again...” Lillian gritted out, tightening her grip on her sword.

Frost flared back to life along the blade.

“Rex!”

“I see them.”

Rex rose to his feet and lifted his greatsword, taking his place at her side. The earth-yellow glow along the blade ignited as well, though dimmer than before—his Mana was nearly exhausted too, but he did not retreat.

The monsters were getting closer.

One hundred meters.

Eighty.

Fifty.

Lillian drew a deep breath and prepared to meet them head-on.

And then—

BOOM.

The ground collapsed.

Not where they were standing, but beneath the monsters. That stretch of swamp seemed to bulge upward, as if some enormous thing had shoved at it from below, and then it suddenly caved in, forming a crater dozens of meters across.

The monsters racing toward them had no time to react. Every last one of them—pythons, crocodiles, giant lizards—fell straight into it.

Mud and water exploded into the air. Screams rose everywhere.

Lillian froze.

Rex froze too.

“What the—”

He did not get to finish.

A blinding flash of red burst out from the bottom of the pit.

That red was too bright, too vivid, to look at directly. It was not the red of fire. It was alive, fresh, like the tongue of some gigantic beast—

No. It was a tongue.

It shot up from the pit, snapped outward, and recoiled. The monsters that had not yet fallen in—the last few Ironclad Crocodiles, several pythons running at the rear—were all snatched inside.

Then came a tremendous sound.

It was not a roar or a hiss, but a low, thunderous rumble that made one’s chest feel heavy. Like thunder, but deeper, duller, more like the beating of a drum from deep underground.

Guh—guh—

“Look out!”

Rex caught Lillian in his arms and leaped backward. He kicked off the ground twice, retreating more than ten meters.

The place where they had been standing a moment ago was filled by a massive black shape surging up out of the crater.

It landed in the marsh with a crash that sent mud and water flying and made the ground tremble.

It was seven or eight meters tall.

Its body was covered in scales, but not the smooth kind. They were knotted, uneven, warped with ugly bony overgrowths. Those growths varied in size and covered it densely from head to toe. In some places they oozed milky-white pus that ran down over the scales and dripped into the mud, raising wisps of white smoke.

Its skin was black—blacker than the other monsters, darker and heavier, as though it swallowed the light itself.

Yet that black was not uniform. In some places, dark red glimmered beneath it, as though something were burning from the inside out.

Most terrifying of all were its eyes.

Crimson.

Or rather, a yellow-gold so close to crimson that the difference hardly mattered.

Each eye was as large as a washbasin, set high on either side of its head. At that moment, both were fixed directly on them.

A toad.

A gigantic toad, seven or eight meters tall, covered in revolting scales.

It crouched there, the tongue that had just swept away the monsters withdrawing back into its mouth. Then it licked its lips—and that one motion made Lillian’s whole body crawl.

Those crimson eyes were still staring at them.

Lillian tightened her grip on her sword, but the tip was trembling.

That gaze was too heavy, like a mountain pressing down on her.

She felt like a mouse pinned in place beneath the stare of a snake, as though even the thought of running had been nailed to the ground.

Rex stood at her side, his greatsword horizontal in front of him. His hands were steady, but beads of sweat were already forming on his forehead, sliding down his face and dripping into the mud.

The marsh had gone deathly silent. The reeds no longer rustled. The pools no longer reflected light. Even the wind had stopped.

Only that choking stench kept rolling over them in waves—like rotting corpses, like dead fish left to soak for three months.

The thing did not move.

One minute.

Two.

Lillian’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. She stared into those crimson eyes. They looked like two pieces of coal burned white-hot, or two drops of blood turned solid.

They remained fixed on her, utterly expressionless, yet she felt as though they had already seen through every part of her.

Slowly, she took one step back.

Rex took one step back with her.

The thing did not move.

She took another step back.

Its eyes shifted.

Those crimson eyeballs turned ever so slightly, following her movement by barely an inch.

Lillian stopped.

It stopped too.

“...It doesn’t seem hostile?” Lillian said in a low voice. The moment the words left her mouth, she realized her throat was as dry as sandpaper.

Rex said nothing. His eyes were locked on the thing, veins standing out on the hand gripping his sword.

Another dozen seconds passed.

The creature’s mouth suddenly moved, as though it had yawned. That scarlet tongue rolled once inside its mouth and vanished.

The terror that had been pressing down on Lillian eased, just a little.

Maybe... it really was not hostile?

Maybe it had just eaten that whole wave of monsters and was full now?

Maybe—

She took another step back.

The thing opened its mouth.

There was no warning. No gathering motion. It simply opened, all at once.

Its mouth spread wider than its head, a black abyss like the entrance to hell itself.

And then its tongue shot out.

It was scarlet, thick as three or four meters around, more than ten meters long, like a whip hurled out of the underworld. The tongue was covered in barbs, each one the length of a finger, hooked and curved, packed so densely they made one’s scalp prickle.

It lashed at them like a whip, slamming downward from above.

In that instant, time seemed to stretch.

Lillian saw the tongue slice through the air, carrying a blast of foul wind with it. She saw those barbs gleaming coldly in the dim light, every one of them like a poisoned dagger.

She saw the path of its descent, like a scarlet bolt of lightning splitting the dusk, splitting the marsh, and crashing down toward her and Rex.

“Miss, dodge—!”

Rex’s voice came as though from very far away.

He shoved her hard.

He put his entire strength into that push, hurling her three or four meters aside. She herself tumbled the other way, like a rag doll flung through the air.

The tongue smashed down where they had just been standing.

BOOM!

Mud and water exploded upward, spraying more than ten meters into the air. The impact sounded like a giant hammer slamming into the earth, leaving her ears ringing. A deep trench, half a meter deep and three or four meters long, had been gouged into the ground. The mud along its edges instantly boiled, bubbling furiously as white steam rose from it.

Lillian rolled three or four meters and crashed into the mud, choking on a mouthful of foul water. She struggled back up, drenched head to toe, mud streaming down her body, hair plastered to her face so badly she could hardly see.

She wiped at her face and looked up.

The tongue was sweeping toward them again.

This time it came in a horizontal arc.

It skimmed low over the ground like an enormous whip. Reeds snapped cleanly wherever it passed, and the mud was plowed into a deep furrow.

The mud and shredded grass it kicked up whirled through the air like a black storm.

Lillian dropped her head and flattened herself into the mud.