Date- 4 April 2321
Time- 02:06
Location- Southern Region, Blossom District, Sun blossom city, Circle’s Branch Headquarters
Mike’s card allowed him to access various skills, physiques, traits, and complete transformations to choose from. Which meant he had numerous ways to capture Ji Feng at his disposal. So as a fisherman waiting for the fish to catch the bait, I prepared myself some crazy stunt that Mike could pull to capture Ji Feng. But what I was I could never have imagined in my wildest dream.
The frog monster that Mike had transformed into was just a foot long at its mouth suddenly expanded to 30-something feet wide and engulfed everything in its path. And I couldn’t help but think, ‘Damn that frog must be really hungry. Even hungry hippos are put shame by it.’
The interesting thing was that even though the frog had swallowed enough to amount to a small mountain, it remained a foot tall and I bet if I were to weigh it, it would still be 4 pounds in weight. Everything about it had reverted to normal size except the small bulge in its throat.
When you think you have seen enough freaky stuff, the world has its way of reminding you that you haven’t seen nearly enough. It did not take Hive AI long to provide me with relevant information about the frog monster Mike had transformed into. Interestingly enough the frog monster was named Colossal-mouthed frog monster, it seems they did not spend much thought on naming it.
Asides from its name the frog seemed to have other interesting aspects to it. Such as the stomach-like organ in its throat. Like how humans can chew food down to bits and lubricate it with saliva, the frog also seemed to do something similar using a stomach-like organ in its throat and much more, for example, it could store food in it to avoid starving in case it could not find pry’s in time, considering the eco-system of the gate dungeon they were mostly found that was a possibility.
The stomach-like organ in the colossal frog’s throat secreted saliva which was very thick like glue. This saliva not only helped the frog with digestion but also helped the frog to keep its prey from struggling and fresh.
When the prey was engulfed alive by the frog monster, it would be stored in the stomach-like organ in the frog monster’s mouth, where the thick saliva would cover the prey. The thick saliva then would slowly condense like concrete encasing the prey in a cocoon of sorts, immobilizing and preserving the prey for the frog to consume the prey later when it desired.
Learning the abilities of the colossal-mouthed frogs I understood why Mike would choose to transform into this monster out of all the monsters in his arsenals. The frog monster’s actions were so quick that everything had within a second. If I were not paying attention from the beginning, I would have missed this. The amazing hunting ability of the frog paired with the amazing function of the stomach-like organ in its mouth and the properties of the saliva it secreted, the monster made the perfect fit for Mike’s mission to capture Ji Feng.
After engulfing Ji Feng, the frog monster burrowed into the ground like diving into a lake or a large water body. This caught me off guard as this was not the ability of a Colossal-mouthed frog monster.
The Colossal-mouthed frog monster was strictly a swamp monster that was known to prey on crocodile monsters, though it was a good swimmer, on land it was more of a jumper than a burrower. Its webbed feet were not meant to burrow into hard ground.
The only explanation for this could be that Mike’s ability not only allowed him to use skills, physique, and traits in his demon form but also when he had transformed into a monster form. Learning of this, Mike’s origin card became more appetizing to me. And I also realized that Mike did not go all out when fighting against me.
I don’t know why Mike was holding back against me but this made me guess that he did not plan to fight me and was much more focused on escaping now that he had captured Ji Feng.
Feeling that Mike planned to escape, I no longer hesitated and executed my plan.
*Boom*
Hesitation? Yes, I hesitated before I activated the trap I laid for Mike because the trap that I had laid for Mike was Ji Feng himself. I had decided to have my slave consciousness controlling Ji Feng’s body to detonate Ji Feng’s physical body, ego gem, and runes.
The detonation of a single ego elemental made using a broken rune was already devastating. Now consider the damage a bunch of complete runes would cause when detonated. It was a lot, maybe enough to blow a card king to pieces, much less a card lord.
But Mike was no ordinary card lord, his origin card was proof of that. So I was expecting him to survive the explosion thanks to his demon physique but considering the proximity of the explosion, there was no way that he escaped unscathed.
Speaking of the proximity of the explosion, Ji Feng was in Mike’s mouth when he exploded so I saw no way of Mike coming out of this without a scar. Considering Mike’s strength and the resilience of the demon physique, Mike would not die from the explosion in his mouth but he would not be faring well either.
Since Mike had burrowed into the ground before the actual explosion occurred, mud flew everywhere and a cloud of dust covered the surroundings, making it impossible for the naked eye to find Mike in it, let alone check his status. So I turned on my soul pupils to locate Mike, only to find a fat frog with a busted mouth slowly morphing into a humanoid creature with two horns on its head, a pair of wings on the back, and a horned lizard tail extending out of its tail bone. Not surprising that its lower jaw was missing but it was regrowing at a remarkable speed.
