Chapter 265: 261: The Toad in the Darkness

261: The Toad in the Darkness

Fang Mu crawled up from the ground; although his entire body groaned in pain, he felt a sense of relief and joy as if he had survived a catastrophe.

He looked up at the cave entrance, from which there was absolutely no way to climb out; thick, wall-like fog shrouded the space above. Though he could not see the distance, he knew he had fallen from a height sufficient to have killed him outright, and it was only by luck that he had touched a buffer within the fog, allowing him to survive.

Leaning against a nearby rock wall to sit down, Fang Mu rested while taking inventory of his remaining supplies.

His belongings were almost entirely gone; his backpack was tattered and beyond use, but fortunately, not everything inside had been lost. Including what he had on his person, he now had one bottle of mineral water, three energy bars, a small knife, and a lighter.

It was a pity that both his flashlight and mobile phone were broken; the flashlight bulb and the phone screen were both shattered and unusable, otherwise, he might have had a more suitable lighting tool than a lighter.

After hesitating for a few minutes, Fang Mu chose an energy bar with severely damaged packaging, snapped it in half, and regardless of whether there was dirt on it or how cloyingly sweet it tasted, he swallowed it whole, finally washing it down with a gulp of water to barely ease the discomfort of choking.

Fang Mu sighed and looked to his left and right; the cave was pitch black, leading in two directions.

Although he could not be one hundred percent certain, he believed he had most likely arrived in the Nong Mountain Shandong, and the Nong Mountain Shandong mentioned in that diary must refer to some part of this interconnected network.

Both the left and right directions were undoubtedly Abnormal and dangerous for Fang Mu.

"I'll go left," Fang Mu thought, making a choice contrary to his own inclination.

This was Fang Mu's consistent way of thinking; when he fell into a dilemma, he would go against his own preferences.

The reason he fell into a dilemma was simply because he was unlucky enough; since he was this unlucky, he might as well not follow his own ideas.

This was an experience he had summarized from childhood to adulthood, after countless times of falling into a dilemma and becoming even more unlucky after choosing his own inclination.

Inside the cave, the further in he went, the darker it became, and Fang Mu had to take out his lighter for illumination.

The flame was hot to the touch, but the illuminated range was very limited; Fang Mu could actually only see things about half a meter in front of him, and beyond half a meter, it became increasingly unclear—nothing but darkness, nothing but the unknown.

Croak...

The sound of toad croaking rang out in the darkness, seemingly nearby. Fang Mu's heart tightened instantly; he turned around with force, looking toward where the sound came from, and holding his breath, he walked forward slowly, finally seeing a toad the size of a palm crouching on a rock.

That toad had bean-sized bumps all over its body, densely packed and arranged without pattern, and it was covered in protective patterns almost identical to the rocky environment.

Fang Mu had never seen this breed of toad; its slowly swelling and heaving belly looked like a leisurely old man, and that pair of eyes with cross-shaped pupils were pitch black, watching him with a sense of aged vicissitudes.

As if... as if this toad possessed intelligence?

Fang Mu felt a palpitation and hurriedly shook his head, wanting to shake the absurd thought out of his irrational brain.

Croak...

Fang Mu heard the croaking of another toad from a different direction in the darkness. He immediately turned the flame toward that side and, sure enough, discovered another toad. It was slightly smaller in size than the one he had seen just now, but the eerie aura it emitted was no less, and he could still feel a sense of scrutiny and appraisal from the eyes of the toad before him.

Suddenly, whether it was his own hand slipping, the cold wind in the cave, or... something unseen in the darkness that blew out the lighter's flame, Fang Mu fell into terrifying darkness in an instant, and a tide of toad croaking erupted all around him.

In just a fleeting moment of darkness, Fang Mu felt fear about to erode all his reason; instinctively, he quickly flicked the lighter switch to relight it.

When the light became bright again, Fang Mu could not help but let out a low, rapid gasp, because he discovered that the toad that had been crouching before him had disappeared. He tremblingly turned the light back to where the large toad had been, only to find, with his scalp tingling, that that toad had also disappeared.

Whoosh!

A strong, distinct sound of exhaling breath rang out, and Fang Mu only saw a large, flat head briefly flash before his eyes, instantly blowing out the lighter's flame.

Fang Mu could now be completely certain that the flame of the lighter in his hand was not extinguished by his own carelessness, nor by the cold wind in the cave, but as if a group of toads were deliberately teasing him, blowing out the fire in his hand to destroy his hope.

Fang Mu could not help but let out a small scream; while backing away and relighting the fire, his right heel was tripped by something thick and sturdy, and he sat down on the ground with a thud. Accompanied by a shrill scream, he sat on a piece of soft flesh that suddenly burst and loosened, and the sound of bones shattering and internal organs being squeezed to the point of exploding reached his mind against his skin.

Trembling violently, the panicked man held up the relit lighter and saw the surroundings illuminated by the firelight.

A group... a group of toads were staring at him with furtive gazes, staring at him coldly with those cross-shaped pupils.

Under his buttocks was the corpse of a toad he had unfortunately sat on and burst; it was cold and greasy, yet it pricked his heart like needles, and his soul felt as if it were being pulled away by something at the same time.

Vaguely, a huge frog leg appeared within the range illuminated by the flickering firelight, and a vaguely visible toad-human face was slowly passing through the area of his reason.

Fang Mu screamed and scrambled up, roaring while running; along the way, he felt he had trampled to death many toads blocking his path.

As if they had heard some command, a group of toads suddenly erupted in unison with a shrill screech that did not belong to toad croaking; they rioted in the darkness that Fang Mu could not see clearly, chasing the man running in the cave.

Fang Mu heard a series of short, powerful sounds of barefoot running; something flexible and huge was moving rapidly across the ground, the walls, and the ceiling, and they were chasing him.

Fang Mu, whose spirit was nearly on the verge of collapse, had no way to deal with this; he could only keep running. If he were even a little slower, he might die in this dark cave that no one knew about, and there would be no future.

Just as Fang Mu was in despair, he discovered that he had stepped across some unknown boundary; the part of his body that passed through felt an unprecedented lightness, and when his head passed through, the air was purified in an instant, fresh and tranquil, making one greedily want to take a few more breaths.

The view before him suddenly opened up; although it could not be considered very bright, it felt much brighter than the misty forest and dark cave he had walked into.

There was also fog here, but it was thin to the point of perfection, hazy and psychedelic.

He seemed to have escaped the dark cave and arrived in another forest...