Chapter Seventy-Four: A Self-Destructive Tactic

It was clear that between attacking the enemy posing the greatest threat and seeking revenge, the Red-Eyed Poison Toad chose the latter without hesitation.

This strike was swift and concealed, evidently a long-planned ambush.

At that moment, Chen Qi was still excitedly pulling the trigger of his pistol; caught off guard by this insidious and abrupt attack, he had no time to dodge. In this critical juncture, Chen Qi did not pin his hopes on rescue from Sun Ruohai. Instead, he commanded his free left hand to instinctively snatch at the phantom of the long tongue.

There were no miracles. The blood energy Chen Qi had hurriedly mobilized for defense was instantly shattered, and the long tongue pierced right through his left palm. Taking advantage of the momentary pause caused by the tongue piercing his flesh, Chen Qi endured the excruciating pain and desperately activated his skill, Focused Burst.

The sensation of his five senses sharpening flooded back. The pain from his palm, connected to his heart, became even more acute through the sensitivity of his nerves, reaching a point that was almost unbearable. In his pupils, everything around him seemed to slow down into a cinematic crawl: the long tongue, having passed through his hand, continuing its momentum toward his neck; Sun Ruohai, his face changing in alarm, finally swinging his blade to strike the side of the tongue; and the pair of scarlet eyes, brimming with hatred and malice, peering out from the swamp at the other end of the tongue. He even caught sight of Zhao Fan on the other side, lying supine in the mud with his arms crossed in front of him.

Under the stimulus of the crisis, Chen Qi’s grasp of Focused Burst seemed to reach a new level.

There was no time to reflect on this feeling. Chen Qi reacted instantly. He exerted all his strength to command his neck muscles, coordinating with his spinal nerves to perform an exaggerated backward arch, causing the tip of the tongue to graze past his lips.

At this moment, the hatred burning in Chen Qi’s heart surged, overshadowing even the pain in his palm. Driven by this peak of fury, he performed an incredibly audacious maneuver: he opened his mouth and bit down hard on the encroaching tongue!

His lips had already been sliced open by the tongue, and blood from the wound dripped steadily, but he seemed oblivious to it. He frantically gathered all the blood energy from his entire body, channeling it toward his upper and lower jaws. Finally, his teeth pierced the tough skin of the tongue, and a foul-smelling, indescribable blood flooded his mouth.

Sun Ruohai’s sword had also opened a small gash on the side of the tongue, and he was preparing to tear it open further. Feeling the injury and realizing the tongue was firmly clamped, unable to retract, the Red-Eyed Poison Toad let out a piercing, shrill scream, clearly suffering intense agony.

However, as the tongue was its primary weapon, the beast immediately activated its contingency. The Poison Toad opened its massive maw and took a deep breath, its body swelling by a third. This inflation triggered an explosive combustion of the blood energy throughout its body, followed by a series of crisp, crackling sounds.

A deep, crimson ripple surged from the base of the beast’s tongue, rapidly advancing toward the tip. The crimson ripple brushed past Sun Ruohai’s blade, weakening slightly, but still sent him and his sword flying, causing him to roll several times in the mud.

Feeling the rapid approach of the crimson ripple, Chen Qi’s ferocity exploded. His brain instantly dismissed the thought of letting go, choosing instead to fight it out to the death.

With a flash of thought, he activated the skill Blood Energy Impact. A thick layer of blood energy coated the beast’s tongue, joining the energy already released by his bite to meet the incoming crimson ripple head-on. Simultaneously, Chen Qi dug his teeth deeper, and the beast’s blood poured down his throat.

The crimson ripple collided violently with the blood energy, causing the entire tongue to convulse, shaking Chen Qi so hard he nearly lost his grip. After a moment of stalemate, the crimson ripple—the result of the beast’s full-force explosion—proved superior, its remnants continuing to surge toward the tip. Although the original crimson hue had thinned to a pale, listless white, this level of impact was clearly something Chen Qi’s fragile oral cavity could not withstand.

Then, Chen Qi performed another astonishing feat: he controlled the five fingers of his left hand to contract, forming a fist. One must realize that the tongue was still skewering his palm; clenching his fist meant forcing the flesh at the wound to compress against the tongue—an act equivalent to self-mutilation!

How could mere flesh and blood withstand such a force? The residual energy passed through his left fist, shattering the metacarpal bones and causing the hole in his palm to expand by a third. The wound was now the size of a chicken egg, and the pain surged toward his brain like a tide; had it not been for his semi-digitized body, he surely would have lost consciousness.

It still wasn’t over. The last remnants of the ripple finally reached the tip of the tongue, striking the teeth Chen Qi had buried deep within it.

"Snap! Snap!"

Several crisp sounds echoed. Two of Chen Qi’s front teeth, along with several adjacent ones, were knocked loose, falling onto his tongue. The same happened to his lower teeth; white fragments mixed with the flow of blood into his mouth.

With no time to worry about his disfigurement, Chen Qi simply tilted his head, using his molars to clamp down on the beast’s tongue, ignoring the fact that his own teeth were sliding down his esophagus along with the beast’s blood. In other words, he had been punched so hard he had shattered his own teeth and swallowed them.

The Red-Eyed Poison Toad fell into a state of lethargy after its burst. It widened its eyes, confused, unable to comprehend why its tongue was still stuck. In its long, decades-old life, it had never encountered such a bizarre situation; its beastly mind was momentarily lost in bewilderment.

Sun Ruohai, having crawled out of the swamp, finally had a flash of inspiration. He stopped struggling with the tongue and instead lunged toward the muddy den where the Poison Toad was hiding.

After rolling around in the filth, this young, foolish lad had finally learned what it meant to strike at the heart of the matter.

The most important thing now was to buy time for Sun Ruohai. Chen Qi, regaining his focus, realized he had already swallowed several of his own teeth. Deciding to go all out, he retracted his long blade. He moved his intact right hand toward his left, grabbed the tongue again, and yanked it with all his might!

The calf-sized body of the weakened Poison Toad was dragged forward. Chen Qi keenly sensed that the resistance coming from the tongue was no longer as strong as before. He continued to retreat, exerting force with his right hand and neck, engaging the beast in a tug-of-war.

The Red-Eyed Poison Toad realized it was a matter of life and death. Beneath its pitted skin, one could vaguely see veins bulging; it ignored the intense pain radiating from both ends of the tongue. The tongue, already stretched to its limit, was pulled further, and the sound of internal tearing echoed—the sound of muscle tissue separating.

Man and beast pulled back and forth, Chen Qi advancing and retreating, locked in a stalemate.

Sun Ruohai finally reached the beast, sword in hand. Looking at the restricted creature, he did not hesitate, thrusting his blade repeatedly into several points on its body.

The Poison Toad did not give up on survival; it puffed out its belly, using the sudden expansion and contraction of its body to desperately mitigate the damage. Seeing that his strikes were failing to finish off the stationary beast, Sun Ruohai’s expression darkened. His face grew pale as a smoky, blood-like aura vanished into his blade, turning the edge a vibrant, dripping red—beautiful, yet laden with lethal intent.

With another magnificent thrust, Sun Ruohai’s blade finally plunged deep into the toad’s body. Sensing a hit, he did not let up. He fully extended his blade, weaving a dance of sword-flowers within the beast’s body, while simultaneously detonating all the blood energy from his sword inside it.

"Sizzle!"

Suffering such a grievous wound, the toad leaked blood and organs, its aura rapidly fading.

Feeling the tension in the tongue he held with both hands vanish, Chen Qi finally exhaled. Freeing his hands, he turned his gaze toward Zhao Fan.

In an instant, Chen Qi’s eyes widened. He could never have imagined the scene before him!