Chapter 267: Opening The Ear Aperture
Fang Mu covered his ears, shrinking into a corner. In the instant the nail drilled into his ear hole, intense pain instantly erupted, hurting Fang Mu so much he felt like he was dying, nearly passing out.
This kind of pain was something Fang Mu had never felt before, not just his body getting hurt, but even his soul trembled.
But strangely, Fang Mu clearly felt the nail drilling through his ear, yet aside from experiencing the pain, there were no signs of injury or bleeding, as if it was just his own hallucination. The timid he perhaps didn’t really make a move at all, merely his fragile sensitive nerves acting up first, stopping his behavior…
No, it’s not like that.
Fang Mu recovered, slowly rallying his spirit. He was very certain he had really made the move.
Though he didn’t dare guarantee he was an absolutely premium male, he considered himself at least a man who could muster the drive at key moments and act when he should.
He released his hand from the ear he had just drilled through with the nail hammer, clearly feeling that this ear had become somehow different.
His hearing became stronger? It seemed so, but far more than just having ears as sharp as the wind.
He covered his other ear that he hadn’t drilled, closed his eyes, focused his hearing on the ear pierced by the nail hammer, and more details were then discovered by Fang Mu.
Gulp…%#&*#@…
“It’s speaking voices!” Fang Mu was startled. He heard countless toad frogs rapidly approaching, along with dark obscure language mixed in the frog sounds. The frequency of the voices seemed very low, but to him they were exceptionally clear.
That was a language from another system, but in pronunciation and tone it surprisingly had a subtle similarity to the dialect of Wenyatun in the Guinan Region.
“This nail hammer can grant me superhuman hearing. Besides hearing faint distant sounds, I can now hear sound waves beyond or below human hearing.” Fang Mu secretly guessed.
He had little time left for decisions and thinking. He looked at the nail hammer in his hand, his eyes fierce, gritted his teeth, and smashed it toward his other ear.
Soon, another shrill scream echoed through the dark cave.
But this time Fang Mu wasn’t crushed in spirit by the pain. After drilling through, he immediately pulled out the nail, then clenched his teeth and staggered toward a certain direction in the cave.
The place he headed had no toad frog calls or strange whispers, indicating that direction temporarily had no “pursuers”.
Fang Mu struggled forward while forcing himself to quickly adapt to his two enhanced ears. He now felt he could hear too many sounds and couldn’t filter them yet. At this moment, he was like being in a soundproof little room, forced to endure noise beyond human limits, feeling so sick he had physiological discomfort, nausea, tears, snot, and saliva somewhat uncontrollably flowing out.
Faster! Even faster! Fang Mu roared inwardly, commanding himself.
In less than two minutes, Fang Mu heard heavy rapid footsteps thudding from behind. His eyes couldn’t pierce the darkness, but his ears well received the sounds from every part of the tracker’s body in each movement, which in his mind completed into an image, forming a humanoid outline.
Extremely developed limbs, webbed hands and feet, the vocal organ in the neck quite large and elastic, able to expand and contract freely like an air sac.
This isn’t human! Absolutely not human!
They were the anomalous offspring recorded in local legends, born from humans combining with the Toad God, frog people with humanoid forms. They possessed power far beyond humans, having killed fierce beasts and invaders on this land.
And he was now also deemed an invader!
Fear sometimes makes people lose their wits, but sometimes it can also stimulate potential.
Under intense emotion, Fang Mu’s whole body’s nerves reached a high operational efficiency, his spirit became extremely focused, and his originally uncontrolled hearing began to gradually come under control, and this process of mastery wasn’t slow.
Gulp!
Just as a huge figure pounced from behind, Fang Mu’s ears heard the frog person behind powering up and jumping in advance. His body made the judgment first, actually dodging the pounce like a tiger descending the mountain.
Fang Mu felt a gust of mad wind brush past his ears, cursing under his breath. With his super hearing under control, the bodily discomfort symptoms also vanished. He ran faster, hearing successive earth-shaking jumping sounds from behind, gritting his teeth and running wildly, dodging wretchedly.
“Ah!” Fang Mu turned a corner, rushing into the darkness, but suddenly slammed on the brakes and stopped.
He heard the sound of broken stones falling into the abyss. Though he couldn’t see now, he heard there was an abyss ahead, with devil-like howling winds from the abyss.
Fang Mu decisively chose to change direction, couldn’t turn back, had to find another way.
He perked up his ears to listen carefully, hearing empty wind sounds under the nearby wall, probably a natural cavity, not big, had to crawl in, but perfect for his not tall not burly build.
Crawling into the hole, there were many broken stones inside, some stones pricking into Fang Mu’s flesh like nails, but now in extreme “excitement” Fang Mu felt almost no pain. He just felt something stabbing into the flesh of his arm, but these weren’t important now, even bleeding didn’t matter. The important thing was to dodge those terrifying monsters.
Gulp—
Perhaps the frog person discovered its body was too massive to crawl in like Fang Mu, so it could only watch Fang Mu escape, roaring madly at the cave entrance.
“Damn, they can’t chase now, right.” Fang Mu noticed this, excitedly turned back to curse, then crawled faster.
After crawling who knows how long, Fang Mu only heard the calls behind him already very far away. He was temporarily safe.
In the instant his mind relaxed, the pain of his skin and flesh torn open swept through Fang Mu’s brain like ten thousand ants biting. Fang Mu gritted his teeth in pain. Though wretched, the mere superficial wound pain couldn’t compare to the previous ear-drilling agony. He could endure it.
Fang Mu gritted his teeth and crawled forward, feeling the cave ahead becoming narrower, his movable space smaller and smaller, eventually unable to casually stop to rest, because once resting, his body might not find leverage points again.
He suddenly worried he might get stuck to death in some forward section, in which case he might face two cruel deaths.
Either starving or suffocating there from breathing difficulty, or before starving or suffocating, being found by the toads widespread below, watching himself being bitten alive or poisoned to death by the toads.
Thinking of this, Fang Mu’s emotions started becoming unstable again.
Fortunately, after crawling a bit further, Fang Mu discovered the passage gradually widening again, and he seemed to be getting closer to the exit.
