74: Chapter 74 Turned into a Toad

Nourished by the great Cthulhu and the Lord of Ice and Flame, Xie Feng's skin gradually regained its elasticity, the newly grown skin presenting a Fusion of dark green and grayish-white.

Cthugha's dark red projection almost occupied the entire dome, and the plasma fire pillars poured down like a heavy rain.

The Night-gaunt's black tide was peeled away layer by layer by the flames, and that gel-like black viscous substance was shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye, screeching as it dashed left and right in the firelight, unable to find a way out.

Flames closed in from all directions, and in the flames from every direction stood angry manifestations of Cthugha.

Out of all space, there was only one place that remained dark, and that was Xie Feng's left eye socket.

That is right, not even the right eye socket was dark; in there was the mark of Tawil at-Umr.

Yog-Sothoth's tranquil Incarnation crouched within, light itself twisted by Its presence, and the moment Cthugha's fire pillars approached the right eye socket, they would silently deflect.

The left eye socket was also pitch-black, with nothing there at all—it was merely an ordinary hollow.

That was a cavity left after he had gouged out his own eyeball with his hands. The Night-gaunt discovered that hollow, and at the very moment it was driven to desperation by the flames, it suddenly turned toward Xie Feng, the entire mass of black viscous substance catapulting out from the depths of the dark red sun, stretching into a slender black shadow in the air.

The moment it plunged into the left eye socket, the light of the entire cavern flickered.

Xie Feng's back suddenly arched, his limbs spasmed, and his ten fingers opened and clenched tight, clenching so hard that his knuckles turned white.

The Night-gaunt shrank into an extremely tiny lump within his left eye socket, its outer layer of sticky, mist-like substance tightly wrapping around its brain, shrinking into a bone crevice at the deepest part of the eye socket.

As soon as the Night-gaunt's aura dissipated from the cavern, Cthugha's fury lost its target.

It had originally been drawn here by Nyarlathotep's aura; the moment the Night-gaunt descended, Cthugha sensed the presence of its arch-enemy and angrily projected its projection here.

Cthugha's projection slowly rotated in the center of the dome, all the plasma fire pillars retracting and gathering once again deep within the core into a constantly throbbing dark red fireball.

Then It re-locked onto the target, capturing the final trace of the Night-gaunt's aura.

Cthugha's projection suddenly contracted. All flames, all plasmas, and all high-temperature rays rampaging between the mountain walls were sucked back into the core, and then the entire dark red fireball dive-bombed from the center of the dome, smashing into Xie Feng's eye socket.

Cthugha's projection was subsequently deflected, and the mark of The Guide in the right eye socket glowed slowly, guiding It toward the position of the King of Volcanoes on his chest.

Ghatanothoa's mark, the mark that had always crouched on his chest, was still frantically absorbing the heat surging into his body at this moment, swallowing Cthugha's flames into its own core with every beat.

Facing this temperature sufficient to vaporize the Earth's crust, the King of Volcanoes had no reason not to start eating.

As Cthugha bombarded down, the cold gray flames immediately made way. The moment the dark red fireball crashed into Ghatanothoa's mark, that mark with volcanic fissure patterns was forcibly squeezed about a finger width to the left from the absolute center of Xie Feng's chest, being squeezed into a vertical fissure.

The original location of the mark was filled by a constantly throbbing miniature fireball—that was Cthugha's new mark.

The blinding orange-red was surrounded by a circle of extremely fine plasma light patterns, and every time the light patterns fluctuated, a layer of dark red light would ripple across Xie Feng's dark green skin.

Xie Feng could see the world once again, with the difference being that his right eye was a complete void inside.

While in his left eye was a mass of firelight divided into three petals, with three eyeballs squeezed together vertically.

Qin Tianzong stood at the edge of the collapsed cliff wall, looking at the figure slowly rising into mid-air in the center of the grayish-white bone dust ground, feeling for the first time in his life that his cognitive framework was somewhat inadequate.

Elder Han of the Tianque Sect beside him had collapsed even earlier than him.

The wreckage of the imperial tribute's Magic Treasure was still smoking green smoke, yet the tribute himself could not care about grieving over his treasure; he only stared fixedly at the two simultaneously glowing marks on the chest of that figure in mid-air, his fingers clutching the edge of the compass with his knuckles making cracking sounds.

Dark green skin, toad-like bumps all over the body, a layer of short, dense black soft hair, a dark red volcanic fissure pattern on the left side of his chest, and a constantly throbbing miniature fireball directly above his heart.

Squeezed into the left eye socket was a mass of firelight eyeballs divided into three petals, while in the right eye socket there was nothing at all, only a silvery-white Void Realm through which even light could not penetrate.

That dark green skin still retained the damp, cold luster of Cthulhu's tentacles crawling over it, and the black soft hair trembled slightly in the residual warmth.

"Is that a Disciple of your Qingyun Sect?"

The tribute turned to Qin Tianzong.

Qin Tianzong did not answer. He also desperately wanted to find someone to ask whether this actually counted as a Disciple of the Qingyun Sect.

The Sect Master only said there was a malicious aura on Xie Feng. Sect Master! Oh, Sect Master!

What on earth are all these other things?! Old Qin here does not recognize them!

He placed the detection board on the edge of the cliff wall, his sleeve having been half-scorched when he helped Xie Feng block the fire earlier.

He stared at the figure in mid-air for a long time, then pushed his scorched sleeve further up.

Xie Feng in mid-air slowly opened his left eye—that newly born left eye pieced together by the Night-gaunt.

The three-petal firelight squeezed together, their pupils split, and every petal was oozing dark red light magma outwards.

He raised his left hand and lowered his head to look at the back of his hand.

Dark green skin, toad-like bumps, and extremely dense short black hair extended from his knuckles all the way to his forearm.

He flipped his palm back and forth twice, then raised his right hand and looked at it as well.

He gently clenched the Void Realm, and the blind cane reappeared in his hand.

On the left was Ghatanothoa's volcanic fissure, and on the right was Cthugha's miniature fireball, the two marks embedded left and right on the dark green skin.

"Fuck…"

Outside the city, the temporary camp had already been surrounded into an isolated island by the anomalies surging in from all directions.

The first to arrive were lava-like anomalous creatures. Dozens crawled out from the depths of the ruins of Ranhuo City, circling above the camp into a dark red halo; every time the halo contracted, the temperature around the camp jumped up a notch.

Then, clusters of unidentifiable black viscous substance oozed out from the cracks in the city wall ruins, rolling back and forth in an extremely unstable form.

The grassland to the north of the camp began to freeze, the ice layer expanding outward at a completely unnatural speed, with a faint grayish-blue vaguely emerging on the surface of the ice.

Three completely different types of anomalies continuously gushed forth, and all the anomalies in Qingzhou were desperately converging toward Ranhuo City.

Tu Ziguan leaned against the crooked-necked willow tree, having already placed the oilcloth bundle on his knees.

The Third Princess stood right in the center of the camp, the Imperial Guards commander's barrier supporting a translucent golden dome around her, and the old man's face was already extremely unsightly.

The arguments between the Tianque Sect and the royal family had not stopped for a single moment since the anomalies appeared, occasionally interspersed midway with the Qingyun Sect's attempts to get everyone to focus first on resolving the immediate predicament.

"What on earth is he right now?"

Elder Han's voice came from the other end of the camp.

No one answered him.

Tu Ziguan tossed the oilcloth bundle onto his shoulder and patted the dust off it.

"He is Xie Feng. You all think he does not look like it, right? I do not think he looks like it either. Every time he finishes messing around, he becomes even less human, but it is always him. This time is probably no exception either."

Saying so with his mouth, his heart was actually feeling creeped out, but he had already grown somewhat numb to Xie Feng's state.

Last time a navigator grew on his chest, this time his skin turned into a toad's, and next time he would probably grow wings directly.

Anyway, as long as Xie Feng could still use his blind cane to tap the top of his foot, he would consider Xie Feng to still be Xie Feng.