Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Frog, the Ox-Head, and the Horse-Face

Two ravens wheeled through the air above, and their eyes were no longer black as before, but red as fresh blood.

Several small figures crawled out of the swamp. Their bodies were caked in filth as they dragged themselves to the edge of the corruption and opened their mouths to gnaw at it, a vile, shuddering sound issuing from their throats, their matted hair hanging low to the ground.

This was the sight Ye Ran and Xia Li saw when they turned back. Even Ye Ran, bold as brass, was rattled by such a scene on this pitch-black night.

Xia Li had gone ashen.

In strength, she surpassed Ye Ran by who knew how much, yet her courage was not necessarily greater than his. Especially when faced with such horrors, she was terrified to the core.

She seized Ye Ran’s hand and stepped back, her foot making a faint sound as it pressed into the swamp.

When the small figures heard it, one of them made a strange noise deep in its throat and turned around. That single movement drove the already-frightened Xia Li nearly out of her wits.

Beneath the moonlight, that face was not human at all, but a wrinkled frog’s face, its cheeks swelling and shrinking as red veins flickered faintly beneath the skin, blood dripping from its mouth.

Their limbs were short, their bodies grotesque, and with those monstrous frog faces they were more dreadful than ghosts in the night.

Ye Ran could not help but retreat a step as well. He had never seen such monsters before, did not know where they came from or what manner of creatures they were. His first instinct was to flee.

But before he could move, two ravens cried wildly and fluttered down to hover above his head, wings beating furiously.

The frog-faced monsters glanced up at the red-eyed ravens, then at Ye Ran and Xia Li. Without another word, their short limbs shoved against the swamp and they lunged. Their movements and posture were no different from frogs in a field.

Yet their ferocious expressions were entirely unlike any frog’s. In their eyes seemed to burn an endless hatred.

When they were half a meter from Ye Ran and Xia Li, the two frog-faced monsters suddenly spat out purple-red tongues.

The stench of rot and blood slammed into them. Xia Li’s stomach turned at once, but Ye Ran reacted with lightning speed. In one motion he slashed through the tongues with blade and sword, then sent the other two frog-faced monsters flying with a punch each.

He himself was also grazed by one of them, leaving bloodstains across his chest.

The four monsters hit the ground almost at the same time. Two had lost their tongues; two were unharmed. When they looked at Ye Ran, there was no fear in them at all. On the contrary, their eyes had grown even more bloodthirsty than before.

“Who are you, exactly...”

Whoosh.

He meant to ask, but the frog-faced monsters gave him no chance. Their short limbs sprang, and they pounced straight for his head. There was not a trace of source power or inner force in them, yet they possessed an unmistakable, blood-drunk savagery. For Ye Ran, that feral nature was far more troubling than any exquisite fighting technique.

He snorted coldly and strode forward to meet the first beast head-on. With one stroke he severed the tongue whipping toward him, then leaped high, seized its head, and slammed it down with a thunderous crash, forcing the whole body into the swamp. With his left hand, the short sword flashed and stabbed into its back.

Wet, tearing sounds rang out again and again. Ye Ran drove in nine swords in succession, each one sinking to the hilt into the frog-faced monster’s body, while the short blade in his right hand kept plunging into its skull. Soon bubbles of blood began to rise from the swamp, and the monster pinned beneath it had nothing left in its lungs but air rushing out.

The remaining three frog-faced monsters had intended to slaughter the youth before them, but when the first of their companions was brutally stabbed to death in less than a minute, the boy who had looked so harmless and indifferent only moments ago suddenly radiated a blood aura that made the heart quail.

The three monsters drew a sharp breath and, unable to help themselves, stepped back, their bodies sinking quickly into the swamp.

The two ravens overhead immediately became displeased, flapping their wings and crying even louder.

“Xia Li, let’s go.”

Ye Ran ignored the two small creatures and walked toward Xia Li, but after only two steps a low roar came from beneath the swamp.

A powerful hand suddenly shot out of the mire and seized Ye Ran by the ankle. Caught off guard, he staggered, dropped to one knee, and half his body sank into the swamp.

Before he could gather his strength and rise, that hand suddenly yanked with great force and hurled him flying. Waiting for him ahead was an incomparably sharp battle axe.

“Ye Ran...!”

Xia Li cried out in alarm and could not help exclaiming. Forgetting her injuries, she forcefully summoned her mental power. Invisible force swept like wind toward Ye Ran, and the enormous monster just emerging from the swamp also froze for an instant under the impact.

But it soon realized that this power posed no real threat to it. With a low growl, it lifted the frogman it had just seized from the swamp, tilted its head back, and shoved him into its mouth.

The frogman let out a miserable scream before being torn cleanly in two by its jaws. Blood splashed across its face, mud sloughed off in clumps, and a ferocious bull’s head gradually took shape.

This monster, over two meters tall and carrying a giant hammer, was in fact a half-man, half-bull creature, its arms and legs thick beyond measure.

“Half-orc...”

Xia Li’s face turned even paler. In ordinary times she would of course have had no fear of such offspring born from the union of humans and beasts, but now she was injured, and what she feared most were the irrational brutes that relied only on raw strength. Their monstrous power was simply the bane of her weak mental force.

But what manner of place was this, exactly? First the frog-faced monsters she had never seen before, then these rare half-orcs...

Bang.

Ye Ran, attacked from behind, was also cleaved down by a giant axe and slammed hard into the swamp. If Xia Li had not thrown up a wall of force for him, he would likely have been split in two on the spot.

Even so, he could scarcely withstand that terrible impact and coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Blood stained the swamp a pale red. Ye Ran wiped the corner of his mouth and stood up, glancing at the half-man, half-horse monster before him.

Like the bull-headed half-orc wielding the warhammer, this two-meter-tall horse-faced monster was also a half-orc. Its muscles were knotted and corded, and it stood there like a tower of iron.

Blood streamed beneath its feet; one frogman who had not managed to flee in time was crushed by a single stomp into a pulp of flesh. Of the four frog-faced monsters, only one had escaped, vanishing without a trace.

Only then did Ye Ran notice that many of the corpses rotting in this swamp were neither human nor beast, but some fusion of the two. Some were even crudely put together, as though stitched by a sewing machine.

Corpse fragments lay strewn everywhere, blood dyed the swamp red, and the two half-orcs stood gripping their immense weapons like twin iron towers.

Ye Ran tightened his grip on the jade-hued short blade, his body flashing like an afterimage as he moved around the bull-headed brute to stand before Xia Li. A shocking burst of blood aura surged from him as he said coldly, “Monsters, let’s end this quickly. I’ll grant you a swift death.”

He had never shown mercy to bloodthirsty beings.

Roaring, the bull-headed half-orc came charging in, dragging its warhammer behind it. Each heavy step left a deep footprint in the swamp.