Chapter 23: Deadly Poisonous Creature

"What the… fuck?"

Nate tried rubbing his eyes to see if he was truly seeing what he was seeing right now, and yet no matter how much he tried to get Lucian off of his eyes; he was still there. The only thing he could really do was stop in his tracks and stare at Lucian from head to toe.

"How… are you even here?" Nate blinked a couple of times again in disbelief.

"Because this is my job, Mr. Cultivator," Lucian also stopped almost right at the same time as Nate stopped; mimicking his movements entirely. And as always, Lucian did not look at anyone's eyes while talking, causing Nate's lips to twitch slightly as he thought Lucian was looking down on him.

"So, you… you learned some fancy movement technique, huh?" Nate let out a tiny scoff.

"I think it is sufficient," Lucian shrugged — after all, he only copied the way Nate was leaping and running across the buildings, "But it could be more efficient."

"You better not fucking use up all of your lith before we even get to the monster," Nate then once again looked at Lucian from head to toe before just leaping to another building without any warning, "But if you don't keep up, you won't get pai—what the fuck!"

And as Nate glanced back to jeer at Lucian, he found himself flinching as Lucian was already right behind him; his face only almost a feet away. This caused Nate to just suddenly stop in his tracks again; unfortunately, this time, he wasn't looking ahead and tripped right over the ledge of the building.

He tried grabbing onto Lucian so he would not fall, but Lucian just quickly took a step back to avoid his hand like it was the plague.

"You… you!" And so, Nate did not really have any choice but to just let himself fall several stories high; his back, completely slamming on an abandoned car, "Kh…"

Fortunately, cultivators are strong enough to survive a fall. But of course, it still hurt.

"Huhhg…" Nate wheezed as he pushed himself off of the car, slightly struggling to stand back up. And before he could even look back up to scream at Lucian, he watched as Lucian just also slammed into the car with his back — unlike him, however, Lucian just quickly sat up and got off from the car without even uttering a single huff of breath.

"I suppose I could survive 20% of terminal ve—"

"Why did you let me fall!?" Nate screamed right at Lucian's face as he was muttering to himself.

"I did not let you fall, Mr. Cultivator," Lucian shook his head, "Gravity did that for you."

"What the—and why did you even fall on the car too!?"

"Because you ordered me to follow you, Mr. Cultivator," Lucian blinked a couple of times in confusion as he looked to the side.

"...Are you fucking abnormal?"

"I have been known to be, yes," Lucian nodded before once again looking away, or more specifically, looking at the several corpses scattered right across the street, with some even hanging over a traffic sign.

"That's… Rick's group…?" Nate forgot all about Lucian as he very slowly approached the corpses. But after a few more steps, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, "They're all dead. But the Muscle Frog should only be—"

And almost as if to answer his question before he could utter it; a loud croak reverberated across the entire street as a frog hopped out from the corner of the building and right in front of him.

"Oh?" Lucian looked at the giant frog — and as its name suggests, its legs and arms were quite muscular, even thicker and larger than Nate. But perhaps even more so than its muscles, the thing that Lucian was staring at was the colors of the frog — green and purple, with the purple markings somewhat glowing.

"That's… not a fucking Muscle Frog," Nate let out a stuttered whisper as he very slowly and subtly took a step back, "...It's a fucking Poison Muscle Frog. It's… a Spirit Warrior threat."

Monsters are categorized the same as Cultivators to avoid confusion — the only difference is that if the monster was at the Spirit Warrior level, it meant that the minimum is at least 3 Spirit Warriors to bring it down, or at least 1 at the late stage with a high Combat Proficiency.

The Muscle Frog is listed below that at Spirit Mortal — and that is exactly what Nate's group consists of; the highest one being him, at the late stage of Spirit Mortal.

The more lith one has, the stronger the body is and the more special abilities one has.

On average, at the late stages, Spirit Infants can lift an entire adult horse with a single hand. A Spirit Mortal could lift an entire sedan, a Spirit Warrior could lift an entire adult elephant, and so on and so forth.

And that means…

"...We're fucked," Nate's voice trembled. And as soon as the frog's eyes turned to look at him, he abandoned all notion of stealth and just outright ran, "Run!"

Nate ran past Lucian But as soon as he saw Lucian just standing there with a blank expression on his face watching him run away, Nate could not help but just scream,

"What the fuck are you doing!? Run!"

Nate was about to jump onto one of the buildings, but he ran back to Lucian as he urged him to move, "Do you want to fucking die!? Run!"

"Why?" Lucian pointed at the frog, "Our target is right there, Mr. Cultivator."

"Are you fucking stupid!?" Nate wanted to pull his hair out in frustration there and then, "That's not our target! Our target is a Muscle Frog, that's a Poison Muscle Frog!"

"Oh," Lucian let out a small hum before nodding, "Then I will follow you, Mr. Cu—"

"Watch out!" Nate then pushed Lucian away as the tongue's frog suddenly shot toward them, also pushing himself away to dodge in the process… or so at least that was what Nate had planned. Unfortunately for him…

…Lucian actually already moved away, leaving Nate with nothing to push himself from to dodge but the air.

"Motherfu—" And as the clearly poisonous tongue was about to hit Nate right on the chest, he felt his vision shift as a sharp pain thumped on his stomach. The next thing he knew, he was already on the wall.

Nate thought he was dead, he looked at his chest, but there was nothing there — except for the obvious shoe print on his shirt.

"What the…?" Nate then quickly turned to look at Lucian, only to see him with his left foot raised, "Y—watch out!"

Nate shouted as the tongue seemed to have a life of its own, curling toward Lucian while retracting back. But of course, Lucian was also able to dodge this with no problem at all by crouching down.

"No!"

What Lucian, however, did not foresee was that the Poison Muscle Frog… has two tongues.

"Oh," the only thing that Lucian could really do was let out a small breath as the tongue stuck to his arm, pulling him almost instantly.

"No… fuck!" Nate gritted his teeth as he watched the Poison Muscle Frog swallow Lucian whole with its large mouth, "Fuck, I told you to fucking run, you fucking retard! Fuck you!"

Nate then quickly got up before the frog chose to whip him up next. There was no use in trying to even rescue Lucian, he was already dead as soon as the tongue touched him due to the lethal amount of poison it had.

"Fuck, why are all supports fucking useless!?" Nate then leaped onto the walls of the building, taking one final look at the Poison Muscle Frog as he got on the roof, "I have to report—"

"Croooaak…"

"...What the fuck?" And before Nate could actually leave, he saw the frog suddenly trembling—no. At this point, it was vibrating. And not even a few seconds after that, the frog just completely froze; its large eyes, turning gray.

Nate then watched as its mouth slightly opened, and there… he saw Lucian just casually rolling out from the mouth with a blank expression on his face.

"Hm…" Lucian then stood up before looking around until he saw Nate on top of the building, 

"...Mr. Cultivator, I think it choked to death."

"Choked… to death?"

No, it did not. Throughout Lucian's experiments to cure the Rot, the only other test subject he had besides the rats… was himself. His body, metaphorically and perhaps maybe even literally, is already completely filled with all sorts of toxins and poison — not only was he immune to a certain point…

…Dr. Lucian Zhang, outside the Demon Continent, might actually be one of the most poisonous creatures in the world.

The Poison Muscle Frog was poisoned to death in almost an instant.