Chapter 46: It Was Just Short Of Splitting An Earthworm In Half
The Swirling Saliva Toad favors water and appears in streams and rocky crevices with seepage. After rain, even more will hop out.
Li Ye climbed straight to another mountain peak and landed on a flat area near the top. A running water had accumulated here, forming a small pond. Li Ye walked to the side of the small pond and circled around the pond surface.
The pond water is not stagnant; it flows downward, forming a stream on the mountain body.
Li Ye walked to the pond surface near a rock, staring at the spiral white foam appearing on the pond surface ahead, the white frost-like traces in the rock crevices, and the mucus-like spider web marks under his feet.
He hooked the corner of his mouth, squatted in front of the pond water, and probed his fingers into it, causing a ripple.
Those traces were all signs of the Swirling Saliva Toad. The white frost in the rock crevices and the mucus-like spider web underfoot indicated it had hunted nearby, while the white foam in the pond water more directly meant it was right below.
With these signs, it meant there was definitely a cave nearby, probably harboring quite a few Swirling Saliva Toads.
Splash!
Just as he thought that, the water surface where his fingers probed stirred with a commotion. Li Ye smoothly lifted his hand and pulled out a huge gray toad that had engulfed half his arm, reaching as high as his knee.
“Want to swallow me? Your mouth isn’t big enough!”
Li Ye grinned ferociously, probed his palm inside, then hooked upward, forcefully digging it out from the toad’s back spine, bringing out a mass of flesh and blood. With a flick of his arm, he easily flung the toad to the ground.
He washed his arm in the pond water, looked at his arm where the clothes were completely torn, exposing the forearm skin, shook his head slightly, and then looked at that Swirling Saliva Toad that had been dug out from the back spine.
Essentially, aside from being larger, it was no different from a normal toad, but the saliva on its tongue was corrosive. Being hit normally would probably not feel good.
Only someone like him, who had practiced hardening technique and turned his qi and blood into a hard membrane, could resist it.
Yao Lèdān had said before that most martial arts students liked the Ironclad Pig because it was the lowest difficulty; the others weren’t something they could handle.
He had looked up information on Dragon Mountain’s demonic creatures. These marked with green names weren’t much difficulty for him, and he didn’t need to be too cautious.
“It should be nearby.”
Li Ye didn’t look at that toad and followed the running water stream downward. Then, on the left side, he spotted a cave entrance. Looking down, it was pitch black.
He took out his mobile phone and turned on the light, then kicked off with his foot, jumping down from the cave entrance. He stepped out several air waves in mid-air, like descending stairs, and easily landed inside the cave entrance.
This was a cave, with nearby water flowing down from here. The surroundings were full of moss. Compared to the stuffy heat in broad daylight, it felt much cooler here.
“Gurgle—”
The muffled croaking unique to toads sounded from nearby. Li Ye turned his mobile phone and saw numerous toads and frogs jumping around. Among them were about ten gray toads much larger than the rest.
Under the strong light, those Swirling Saliva Toads reacted, opening their mouths and shooting out shadowy trails carrying white foam.
Li Ye shifted his body sideways, his foot just bouncing once. His body seemed to glide in the low air, or swim through it, quickly darting over. His fingers instantly spread open, slashing straight ahead.
“Golden Dragon Grasp.”
Rip!
His fingers like hooked claws easily tore a large gash in this big toad’s head.
Thud!
One move to kill the enemy. Li Ye leaped fiercely to the side, his single hand forming a claw as he lunged forward, bringing a whooshing wind sound.
“White Tiger Leaps Over the Stream.”
One grasp downward tore from the toad’s head down, like pressing into mashed meat, splitting the toad in half from the middle.
A nearby toad seemed to sense danger, exploding its legs to try jumping, but just as its body bounced away, Li Ye grabbed its toad leg and swung it straight toward the front cave wall.
“Golden Palace Suppresses the Prison.”
Bang!
That force was so great it smashed out a muffled bang. The Swirling Saliva Toad’s hardness was only slightly stronger than a normal toad; the difficulty was in its extremely fast protruding tongue and the corrosion on it.
But Li Ye could ignore all that.
His Dragon Gate Technique, with its Swimming Dragon lightness skill, could dodge those protruding tongues extremely quickly. Once he closed in, it was over.
Golden Dragon Grasp complemented the lightness skill for attack, White Tiger Leaps Over the Stream leaned toward burst power, and Golden Palace Suppresses the Prison was pure force.
These were the foundation three forms of his Twelve Golden Palace Dragon Tiger Gate. Just these three forms were enough to handle many enemies.
It didn’t take long before he wiped out all these conspicuous Swirling Saliva Toads, leaving only a mass of mashed meat in the cave. He then used lightness skill to jump back out and head to the higher mountain top.
There were many demonic creatures for experience, but mainly three major ones: the land-based Ironclad Pig, the water-companion Swirling Saliva Toad, and one in the sky.
At the mountain peak top dwelled a bird species called Hidden Stone Owl, a demonic creature like a pigeon that favored high places and nested on rock tops.
As long as he found high bare rock tops, he could spot their traces. It wasn’t hard for Li Ye. With lightness skill unleashed and legs kicking, he soon spotted birds nesting in the nest.
Overall like an oversized grayish-white pigeon, but its long beak held sharp teeth. Seeing someone approach, it immediately opened its mouth and shrieked, unleashing bursts of ear-piercing cries that made the head dizzy and swollen.
This demonic creature’s greatest feature was its ability to produce sonic cries, disorienting enemies with dizziness before charging with its sharp long beak.
But it was equally useless against Li Ye.
He leaped onto the rock top, hands flipping. His left hand grabbed a bird and crushed it into blood paste with a fierce squeeze, while his right hand tore, ripping the bird into several pieces.
These birds required quick battles; any delay let them fly away, making them hard to catch again.
Soon, feathers flew and blood and flesh splattered; nothing remained on the nest.
He exhaled, casually shook the blood off his hands, and laughed:
“Interesting. Ironclad Pig tests endurance, as well as strength and martial arts power. Swirling Saliva Toad tests knowledge of finding demonic creature traces and reaction ability. Hidden Stone Owl tests lightness skill and quick resolution ability.”
Indeed for experience, testing one’s martial arts strength. Overall far less harmful. Not to mention the Five Plagues Ghost that could cause disasters, even the lesser demons he encountered in the city would be more harmful if developed.
No wonder that Fu Chuxue didn’t participate. For someone from the Eight Dragon Gates who seemed to practice breakthrough martial arts like him, this experience was indeed unnecessary unless for resources.
But for Li Ye, this was great news—no one competing with him.
These demonic creatures were his qi and blood sustenance!
Li Ye kicked off with his feet, generating air waves again, heading to other places.
Kill a few more to rack up some points.
Li Ye thought of exchanging for more nutritional supplements, but the caught demonic creatures would suffer miserably.
For ordinary martial arts students, even those at Three Dragon Gates or Four Dragon Gates, facing one demonic creature involved many considerations.
Dealing with one demonic creature, if solo experience, required confirming if it was alone, whether one had a handy weapon, finding demonic creature traces, and planning the approach.
Taking down one demonic creature, no matter what, took at least half an hour.
Someone like Li Ye was less hunting and more confirming his place in the ecosystem, like a tiger entering the grassland—kill on sight. No demonic creature could escape under his fingers.
After clearing the basic three major demonic creatures almost completely, Li Ye turned his gaze to the rarer demonic creatures and began destroying!
Rock Dwelling Ground Snake, a snake species dwelling under rocks or in crevices, best at hiding. Li Ye directly broke open the rocks and tore off the snake body.
No need to specially search; any that looked about right, destroy first.
Pine Needle Demon Cricket, like resin wrapped on tree bark, equally hard to spot. Li Ye tore it open along with the tree.
Rock Armor Mountain Monkey, similar to Ironclad Pig with hardness comparable to hard iron, dwelling in sloped mountain rock caves. Li Ye smashed open the mountain entrance and grabbed the monkey out to tear into fragments.
Steel Needle Spider, a spider lurking in bushes, cleared by him along with the bushes, leaving only wreckage.
Any demonic creature encountered, none could escape.
This gave the monitoring military camp a headache.
A staff member pointed at the screen and shouted: “This can’t go on! Not even an afternoon. What’s with this guy? He hits everything. Is he broke crazy?”
Not just the deliberately released three major demonic creatures—even the demonic creatures naturally developed in this area were all found and killed by this student.
And not by tracing clues, but direct violence to break open. Anywhere he thought looked like it, none escaped.
The reason those demonic creatures were left to develop was first, they wouldn’t proliferate out of control under ecological balance; second, they served ecological purposes.
Like the Rock Armor Mountain Monkey, which could clear gravel from mountainsides to prevent landslides.
Rock Dwelling Ground Snake was food for Hidden Stone Owl, and after death had a chance to combine with rocks to form high-quality ore veins.
Such naturally generated demonic creatures, if quantity controlled, were harmless and even beneficial.
Moreover, they were hard to find, so martial arts students’ experience at most controlled numbers. Didn’t expect this student to raze everything, nearly flipping the ground to halve earthworms.
What was he doing?
Broke crazy?
No, someone trained to this intensity couldn’t be poor.
“Talent!”
The officer attracted by the shouts had eyes gleaming. “Poor is good! The poorer the better! Poor means no sponsorship, no sponsorship means a wild genius, right? Great, great, then we can sponsor him!”
“Situation!”
At this moment, another staff member cried out in alarm. Everyone turned to look—not at the irresistible student, but the two-meter-tall burly student who had now reached the area’s edge, near a mined mountain section, suddenly attacked and sent flying backward.
But nothing showed on the display screen.
But that already indicated the problem!
“Mobile unit!”
The officer shouted once and took the lead to head out.
“That student is approaching too!”
“Use drones to block, make them withdraw!”
The officer paused, turned to glare fiercely at the staff, but said nothing.
Incomplete clearance had a probability of happening; couldn’t blame them. There were always some suddenly appearing demonic creatures.
This was why they were here to monitor—to support sudden situations anytime.
Just as the officer stepped out the door, the staff cried out again: “Gone, it’s gone!”
He turned his head and saw on one screen the main view: a lizard-like thing split in half, lying on the ground.
