156: Chapter 156 If this beast doesn't die, nobody will live today.

Before he could even reach out, the Mutant Wild Boar had already slammed headfirst into a protruding tree root beside a slanted banyan tree.

One of the curved, ancient roots happened to jam the Mutant Wild Boar's tusks.

The beast's momentum was too great, forcing its entire head down. Its tusks were deeply embedded in the crevices of the root, jamming its snout right along with them.

It shook its head frantically, trying to pull its tusks free.

[Writing this down, I hope readers remember our domain name. To read Taiwan novels, go to kn.com, super reliable.]

The tree root creaked audibly under the leverage.

Lin Fan's eyes darkened.

There was only this fleeting moment of opportunity.

He gripped his combat dagger tightly, and taking advantage of the brief moment when the Mutant Wild Boar's tusks were jammed and its head was restricted, he lunged forward.

Aiming the tip of the blade at the Mutant Wild Boar's only remaining left eye, he thrust it in fiercely.

"Puff!"

This time, the sound was heavier than before.

The sharpness of the combat dagger was far beyond what a piece of scrap iron or a homemade crossbow bolt could compare to.

The tip of the blade drilled in along the eye socket, slicing through soft tissue until it hit the hard bone seam inside.

There was resistance.

But it didn't get stuck.

Lin Fan pressed down on the hilt with both hands, throwing almost his entire body weight onto it, and then twisted the hilt.

The Mutant Wild Boar struggled frantically in pain.

Both of its eyes were blinded, and its tusks were temporarily jammed by the tree root, plunging the entire beast into absolute frenzy.

Its massive body twisted, almost flinging Lin Fan away entirely.

Lin Fan's feet stepped on the thick mud, and the soles of his shoes kept sliding backward.

Veins bulged on his arms.

But relying on him alone, he couldn't keep it down.

This beast was too heavy.

Its muscles were too thick, and its bones were too hard.

After the dagger pierced into the eye socket, it did injure the beast, but it didn't go deep enough.

The vitality of the Mutant Wild Boar was far more tenacious than that of a normal wild boar.

What was even more fatal was that the tree root jamming its tusks was starting to loosen.

"Crack... Crackle..."

This section of the tree root was almost about to be pulled up by the Mutant Wild Boar.

As long as it managed to fling its head up—

Lin Fan would be torn apart by its tusks.

With both eyes blinded, the excruciating pain doubled the Mutant Wild Boar's brute strength.

Blackish-red pig blood surged back up along the blade, covering the back of his hand, greasy and slick.

Lin Fan knew this all too well.

When slaughtering pigs in the countryside, what you feared most wasn't the pig's squeals.

It was the pig thrashing its head around wildly.

Once a two-to-three-hundred-jin pig's head wasn't held down, no matter how sharp the knife was, it would be useless.

Let alone the fact that the beast before him was not a domestic pig.

It was a Mutant Wild Boar.

As long as that pair of tusks grazed someone even slightly, half of their body would be ripped open.

He couldn't press the blade down any further.

Pressing down further meant waiting for death.

"Crackle!"

Another section of the old tree root jamming the tusks was pulled up by the Mutant Wild Boar.

Lin Fan let go of the dagger's hilt and slid his body to the side along the direction of the Mutant Wild Boar's head-shaking motion.

Just like watching people slaughter pigs in the village when he was a child, he kept his body close to the front-side of the pig's head, avoiding the direct front of the tusks, and grabbed the Mutant Wild Boar's thick, stiff ear bases tightly with both hands.

Those were not the soft, floppy ears of an ordinary domestic pig.

The base of the Mutant Wild Boar's ears was thick and hard, with edges covered in mud, blood, and coarse bristles.

It was as slick as if it had been smeared with oil.

Lin Fan's ten fingers almost dug into the flesh as his entire body dropped backward.

This action directly pulled the Mutant Wild Boar's head off-center again.

Its massive body lost its balance along with it.

Its front hooves slipped in the thick mud.

"Boom!"

The Mutant Wild Boar half-knelt in the muddy water, exposing the side of its neck.

With a flick of its head, it almost dislocated Lin Fan's arm.

Lin Fan's jaws ached from clenching them; he knew he couldn't hold on for much longer.

This wasn't something a human could keep pinned down indefinitely.

"Zhou Kai!"

"Get the shovel! Chop its neck!"

In the mud pit less than two steps away from Lin Fan, Zhou Kai had just caught his breath from the brink of passing out.

Turning his head sideways, he happened to see the folding military shovel lying right beside his hand.

"Alright!"

Zhou Kai didn't hesitate.

He grabbed the military shovel and scrambled up from the mud pit using both hands and feet.

His chest still hurt.

His back felt like it had been smashed apart by tree roots.

But he couldn't worry about that now.

Because Lin Fan was holding down that fatal pig's head for him.

Because if it weren't for Lin Fan's arrow just now, he would have already been impaled by those tusks.

This life of his had been forcefully yanked back from the jaws of the Mutant Wild Boar by Lin Fan.

Zhou Kai gripped the shovel handle tightly with both hands, raised it high above his head, and swung it down with full force toward the thick skin and flesh on the back of the Mutant Wild Boar's neck.

"Splat!"

The edge of the military shovel could not be considered sharp.

But combined with Zhou Kai's entire body weight, this shovel strike directly chopped through the layer of blackish-red long hair on the Mutant Wild Boar's neck, cutting deep into the thick layer of fat.

But the beast's skin and flesh were too tough.

After the shovel blade cut in five or six centimeters, Zhou Kai swung it up again and continued to hack down.

"Howl...!"

The Mutant Wild Boar let out a shrill and tragic howl.

The excruciating pain drove it completely mad, and its massive body frantically thrust upward wildly.

Lin Fan was still tugging at its two ear bases, and was shaken in the shoulders by this thrust, the webs of his thumbs nearly splitting open.

That pair of tusks grazed past his waist, cutting off the edge of his clothes.

A little more off, and it would have been his stomach.

There was not a trace of panic in the depths of Lin Fan's eyes.

"Stop chopping, pull out the knife! Stab the neck!"

Hearing this, Zhou Kai immediately abandoned the shovel handle, grabbed the pig hair with one hand, and grasped the hilt of the combat dagger stuck in the Mutant Wild Boar's left eye with the other.

He pulled it outward with force.

"Screech"

A column of blood spurted out along with the withdrawn blade, splashing directly onto Lin Fan and Zhou Kai's faces.

Scalding hot and foul-smelling.

Zhou Kai didn't even blink his eyes.

Aiming at the soft flesh where the Mutant Wild Boar's lower jaw met its neck, he stabbed in like a madman.

"Squish... Squish..."

One knife, two knives, three knives.

There was no method, no need for technique.

Zhou Kai only had one thought in his mind right now.

If this beast doesn't die, no one will survive today.

Every time the black dagger pierced in, it would be fiercely twisted half a circle before being pulled out.

Its trachea was severed.

The Mutant Wild Boar's tragic howls turned into a leaky "huffing" sound.

A large amount of bloody foam spewed out from the bloody hole in its neck.

Lin Fan still held tightly onto the Mutant Wild Boar's ear bases, pressing that pig's head downward.

His arms were already starting to tremble.

It wasn't out of fear.

It was because his muscles had reached their limit.

Every time the Mutant Wild Boar twitched, it felt like someone was pulling his shoulders outward with iron chains.

But he couldn't let go; if he let go, the Mutant Wild Boar would break free, and both of them would be finished.

"Stir it deeper inside!"

Lin Fan's voice was hoarse.

"Don't stop!"

Zhou Kai acted as if he hadn't heard, yet also as if he had heard every word.

Gritting his teeth, he thrust the dagger deeper along the wound on the side of the Mutant Wild Boar's neck, and then slashed horizontally.

The Mutant Wild Boar's massive body suddenly stiffened.

Its four thick legs kicked and trampled frantically in the mud.

Rotten leaves, black mud, and bloody water splashed everywhere.

This mutant beast weighing over three hundred jin finally exhausted its very last ounce of strength.

Its front hooves softened, and its massive body collapsed heavily into the muddy water.

Its hind legs weakly kicked the rotting leaves a few times, and the leaking sound from its neck grew fainter and fainter.

Lin Fan didn't let go immediately.

He still grabbed those two ear bases, keeping his eyes locked on the Mutant Wild Boar's shoulders and hind legs.

Anyone who slaughtered pigs in the countryside knew that beasts were most prone to a final death throe right before dying.

Especially things like this.

Whoever dared to approach before it was completely dead would just be waiting to be taken away by its final strike.

Until the red text on his retina slowly faded away.

[Target vital signs are rapidly failing.]

[Danger level decreasing.]

Just at this moment...