Chapter 188
Chapter 188
Sure enough!
After the faint light produced by my talisman arts traveled down the fishing rod and line into the water, the beast’s struggling weakened considerably for the moment.
Croak, croak, croak!
An earsplitting chorus of croaks suddenly erupted.
The sound churned the surface until it seemed as though violent winds and waves had swept across the fishpond.
So the strange, muffled, thunderlike noise Sixth Lu had heard while keeping watch at night was actually the toad monster’s call!
“Come up!”
I bellowed, then hauled upward with every ounce of strength in my body.
At last, I dragged the beast to the surface.
An enormous toad rose from beneath the water… and its hideous, terrifying form appeared before the three of us.
Its body was as large as a truck tire. Its back was warty and pitted, making it utterly revolting.
Its bulging eyes were actually dark green!
Even under the sunlight, they gave off an eerie glow. A single glance filled one’s chest with inexplicable discomfort.
“Mother of heaven! That toad is enormous…”
“Th-this is a monster? It’s terrifying!”
Some distance away, Ma Dayue and Sixth Lu had both gone pale.
Still, the two men were fairly brave. Instead of turning and fleeing in terror, they remembered my instructions and held tightly to opposite ends of the fishing net.
Croak! Croak, croak!
The toad monster thundered as it twisted its enormous body, trying to tear free of the hook in its mouth.
Water sprayed everywhere across the pond.
But after all the trouble I had gone through to hook it, how could I let go so easily?
I kept the rod in my right hand while my left swiftly pulled out a sheet of talisman paper. Infusing it with qi, I hurled it at the toad monster!
In that brief interval–only one or two seconds–the beast nearly broke free.
“Thank goodness I absorbed the primal turbid qi of heaven and earth into my body on New Year’s Eve. It improved my physique and made me much stronger. Otherwise, I could never hold on with one hand, much less free the other for talisman casting.”
The thought flashed through my mind.
Whoosh!
The talisman shot through the air and struck the toad monster squarely on its back, which was covered in protruding fleshy lumps.
Bang! Boom!
A cloud of orange-yellow talisman fire flared upward.
The beast’s thunderous cries grew even louder in pain, but its strength weakened further.
Seizing the opening, I used a deft burst of force to jerk the rod diagonally upward.
At the same time, I used my own weight, dropping and pressing backward with the motion.
“Get up here!”
As I roared, I fell backward into a shallow rice paddy behind the fishpond, where the water did not even reach my knees. It was winter, after all, and many paddies had been flooded.
The enormous toad monster, weighing somewhere between fifty and a hundred pounds, was dragged bodily onto the ridge.
The instant it came ashore, just as I splashed down in the paddy behind the pond, I shouted,
“Pull the net!”
Ma Dayue and Sixth Lu, who had been waiting on either side, hauled hard on the fishing net, drawing it inward and tightening it.
The net wrapped completely around the toad monster the moment it reached the ridge.
Croak, croak, croak!
The beast’s roar brimmed with rage.
I saw the vicious gleam in its eerie green eyes. Its gaze was cold and sinister.
Those were not the eyes of an ignorant animal acting purely on instinct. Clearly, this creature had awakened its intelligence!
Bound in the tough fishing net, the toad monster’s movement was severely restricted.
I shouted to Ma Dayue and Sixth Lu,
“You two can get farther away now! Leave the rest to me!”
“All right, Young Mr. Wu!”
Frightened, astonished, and delighted all at once, they turned and sprinted in opposite directions down the ridge.
Truthfully, helping a cultivator capture a monster would give any ordinary person a strong sense of achievement. That explained the trace of delight I had just seen on their faces.
Croak! Croak, croak!
The toad monster opened its enormous mouth. Its tongue, like a red cord of flesh, shot toward Ma Dayue–the chief was older and could not run as fast.
“You’ve got some nerve, beast!”
As I roared, I hurled a sharp dagger with all my strength.
Whoosh!
A cold gleam flashed.
Squelch…
The dagger’s sharp point pierced straight through the toad monster’s tongue, splattering blood across the ground.
Pain slowed the beast, and it could no longer extend its tongue any farther.
Ma Dayue escaped the danger and successfully ran beyond the toad monster’s attack range.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“If the toad monster had caught Chief Ma with its tongue, then even if I rescued him in time, it probably would have injured him badly enough to leave him in the hospital for a month or two!”
After its first strike failed and the two pieces of “weak prey” escaped, the toad monster naturally redirected its rage toward me.
The fishing net hindered it, but it could still move over short distances.
Its truck-tire-sized body swung around, and its eerie green eyes fixed unblinkingly on me.
Then it leaped with all its strength!
It actually soared into the air, carrying the entire fishing net with it as it pounced straight at me in the drained rice paddy.
If it landed on me, the tangled heap of netting would probably wrap around me too!
Then I would be forced into close-quarters combat with the enormous toad, grappling at point-blank range. That was not a situation I wanted to see.
So I drew a sharp breath, tightened the muscles in my thighs, and relaxed my calves.
I tilted my body slightly to one side.
Whoosh!
With incredible speed, I tore both legs free of the muddy shallows and dodged aside.
Thump…
The toad monster landed a little over three feet away, sending muddy water flying everywhere. My clothes were soaked from head to toe.
Filthy mud spattered all over me as well.
But I had avoided being crushed beneath the beast’s high-flying pounce and had not fallen into a disadvantage.
At that moment, I felt boundless gratitude to Master for insisting that I diligently train in the martial arts branch of the eclectic arts!
The movement technique I had just used to dodge the toad monster’s pounce was the Roaming Body Step from Bagua Palm–an exquisitely nimble form of evasive footwork.
“No wonder Master said cultivators who know martial arts have an advantage in magical combat!”
“Arcane techniques may be driven by the qi in the dantian and have little to do with the physical body, but magical combat isn’t some genteel contest where two people stand still and trade attacks.”
“You still have to dodge, move, attack, and defend constantly! If you know martial arts and combine them with your arcane techniques, the advantage is indeed enormous.”
From that moment onward, I resolved to train hard and truly master martial arts!
But that came later.
Right now, the important thing was to stay completely alert and fight this toad monster.
After dodging its leaping pounce, I already had a sheet of talisman paper pinched between the fingers of each hand.
“Evil-Suppressing Talisman!”
“Immobilization Talisman!”
My two hands cast different talismans simultaneously, striking toward the beast’s back.
Dual talisman casting was another secret technique of our arcane lineage.
An ordinary cultivator would find it extremely difficult!
It demanded extraordinary talent as well as the right arcane lineage.
The Evil-Suppressing Talisman could temporarily suppress the target’s demonic energy, while the Immobilization Talisman could briefly freeze it in place.
Combining the two would allow me to kill it at my leisure.
But just as both talismans were about to land on the enormous toad’s back, the tips of its protruding, warty lumps suddenly opened, revealing holes the size of thumbs!
Packed densely together, they resembled a magnified honeycomb, only far more disgusting and terrifying.
The sight made my scalp crawl and raised goose bumps all over my body!
Only several years later did I learn the word “trypophobia”–the revulsion and fear many people felt when looking at dense clusters of closely packed objects like these.
Worst of all, jets of gray mist suddenly blasted at high speed from those densely packed holes in its fleshy lumps!
“Holy shit! This thing can spray poison gas!”
My heart lurched.
I hurriedly retreated again to create some distance, terrified that the gray poisonous mist would hit me.
Every country child knew that toads were poisonous, so that fact itself was nothing strange…
I simply had not expected this creature to transform its venom into poisonous gas and blast it from the lumps all over its body!
That was rather impressive.
The high-speed jets of poisonous gas and mist blew the Evil-Suppressing Talisman and Immobilization Talisman away before they could land.
At the same instant, the enormous beast turned around in the muddy water.
It leaped hard, carrying the entire fishing net with its tremendous strength, and pounced at me again!
With the net tangled around its entire body, it looked even more like some grotesque monster…
I had staggered backward through the mud while dodging the poisonous gas and had not yet regained my balance. Avoiding the creature now would be difficult!
“Damn it! Am I really going to get rammed by this thing?”
My heart jolted.
Even putting aside the poison gas spraying from its body, the creature weighed somewhere between fifty and a hundred pounds. If it struck me in midair, I would be knocked flat into the mud and probably unable to get up for quite a while.
It might not snap my tendons or break my bones, but my fighting ability would certainly plummet…
At that critical instant,
I stopped trying to steady myself. Instead, I followed my momentum and bent at the waist, planting both hands in the muddy paddy water alongside my feet.
At that moment, I was “on all fours” too!
Huh! Hah!
I expelled a forceful breath from my throat, exerted my whole body at once, and spread my fingers.
The fascia and muscles in all four limbs contracted sharply. That alternation between tension and release produced immense explosive power, instantly boosting my speed.
Tap-tap-tap!
Using both hands and feet, I moved through the mud far faster than I could on two legs. Like a nimble giant spider, I skimmed low over the water in a broad arc.
Not only did I evade the enormous toad’s second flying collision, I also escaped the range of its poisonous gas and circled directly behind it again!
Uh…
If anyone had been watching the battle, it would have looked like two enormous toads fighting each other.
This move was also a Roaming Body Step from Bagua Palm, and it was a relatively advanced technique!
It was called the Spider Treading Water Formation!
The practitioner first relaxed the fascia and muscles throughout the body, then released tremendous force in an instant, twisting every muscle into one coordinated effort. With all four limbs moving in agile harmony, the practitioner could achieve astonishing evasive speed on hands and feet alike.
The Spider Treading Water Formation counted as fairly advanced martial footwork. I had trained it for a long time under Master’s supervision and had only succeeded for the first time three days ago!
I never expected to use it again today.
By then, I was already exhausted… and panting heavily.