As Xu Le's words fell silent,
his senses shifted once more. A soft, moist sensation enveloped his entire body, filling him with warmth.
But when that sensation flooded his nose, he abruptly clapped a hand over his mouth!
Was he really drowning?
"Dong-dong-clang, dong-dong-clang, wa-ya-ya-ya..."
Through his hazy senses, Xu Le seemed to hear the music that accompanied a ramshackle opera troupe taking the stage.
Those sounds felt completely out of place. Xu Le had no idea whether he was hallucinating or actually hearing them.
He forced his wet eyes open. Though his vision was still blurred, he could just make out an immensely tall figure standing in front of him.
Whatever touched his skin felt slippery, making Xu Le a little nauseous!
Still, this fellow's arrival gradually steadied Xu Le's senses.
The figure turned toward him and asked gently,
"Really? You really can give it to me?"
But when Xu Le got a clear look at the figure before him, he instinctively tried to step back.
There was a wall behind him, leaving him nowhere to retreat.
This person... no, this wasn't a person at all. Its enormous upper body resembled a swollen ball.
Countless bulges swelled beneath its golden skin, concealed by black markings.
Two legs as thin as chopsticks made its entire body look oddly mismatched.
It held a steel fork in its right hand, and there was actually a cigarette dangling from its gaping maw!
It was a gigantic, hideous... toad? One of those skinny-legged varieties, at that.
Looking at the bizarre toad before him, Xu Le inexplicably felt a sense of safety.
He instinctively wanted to make a few comments, but quickly stopped himself.
This isn't the time to write an essay.
Pushing all the essays poised on his tongue out of his mind, Xu Le carefully considered why the toad had appeared and what it had just said.
It had kept approaching him of its own accord, offering to help him on certain conditions.
Then there was that last line: "Really? You really can give it to me?"
The implication was that he really did have an offering on him, one the toad desperately wanted!
The problem now was that Xu Le didn't even know where this supposed offering was...
He hadn't considered the offering's value. Whatever it was worth, it couldn't possibly be worth more than his life.
If he hadn't let the toad help him, he might already have suffocated.
Having organized his thoughts this far, Xu Le basically understood what he needed to do next.
"Really. I really can give it to you!"
Even after Xu Le agreed, the toad didn't move away. Instead, it wriggled its body in front of him-mostly its backside.
"Then what is this offering you're talking about?"
If a woman had made that movement, there would naturally have been nothing wrong with it.
But when a toad did it, the sight was utterly absurd.
Xu Le suppressed his discomfort and started thinking about what to say next.
As for what toads liked... how was an author with a terminal case of literary pretension supposed to know that?
While Xu Le agonized over it, the monster before him had already furrowed its brow and repeated,
"What is this offering you're talking about?"
Panic made Xu Le feel unbearably hot, and the toad before him began to warp in his vision.
[Croak-Golden Toad, an ancient deity that received faith and greedily devoured all offerings. Ancient God, level 3.]
Xu Le froze briefly. A deity that greedily devoured all offerings?
This toad was actually a god?
Xu Le immediately grew solemn.
"Earthworms. Lord Golden Toad, please get rid of the ghost for me. Besides the usual offering, I'll offer you earthworms as an extra."
That was a bit of a dodge. Xu Le didn't know what the toad wanted, so he had merely said he would provide earthworms in addition to the usual offering.
Toads ought to like things like earthworms, right?
Xu Le had once seen a host feed earthworms to a toad on a science program, which was why he'd suggested it.
He didn't know whether the toads here liked earthworms.
For that matter, he didn't even know whether this place had earthworms at all.
He would agree to give the toad whatever it wanted first. Everything else was just bluffing.
All of that could wait until he was out of danger.
Just as Xu Le thought the toad would refuse, it actually nodded.
"All right!"
In truth, it didn't know why Xu Le's offerings differed from everyone else's. The offerings it had received before were usually meat, fruit, pastries, and paper money.
How could it possibly eat earthworms, things that lived in the dirt?
It was merely a little curious because Xu Le sounded so certain.
"Once this is settled, I want ten earthworms as an offering."
"Of course."
Having received that assurance, the toad wasted no more words. It turned around and exhaled a foul breath.
The sour stench made Xu Le cover his mouth, but that breath also blew the ghost before him away.
The toad hefted the steel fork in its hand and chanted,
"Warrior-battle. Water Style: Spirit Binding."
It hurled the steel fork.
Whoosh! Clang!
Despite being a physical object, the steel fork pierced the ghost's body.
The ghost let out a series of shrill howls. Its piercing screams struck like wave after wave of sonic attacks.
Xu Le hurriedly covered his ears, but even with his ears covered, he still felt dizzy.
Blargh!
Everything he had just eaten came pouring back out.
The toad paid no attention to Xu Le's sorry state. It strolled forward leisurely on its slender legs.
It pulled the steel fork down, along with the ghost impaled on it.
Then it shoved the ghost into its mouth, tearing and chewing.
Its enormous torso heaved as it chewed, and faint screams could still be heard from time to time.
Xu Le couldn't see it chewing, but those strange sounds pretty much extinguished any desire to take a look.
A toad eating a ghost. Just thinking about it feels absurd.
After chewing for a while, the toad slowly turned to look at Xu Le.
Its hazy little eyes held a trace of friendliness and anticipation.
If half the ghost's head hadn't still been dangling from the corner of its mouth, Xu Le would certainly have thought it was a benevolent deity.
"All done. So... can you give me your offering now?"
Xu Le looked at it. Whether he considered the enormous difference in their sizes or the strength the toad had displayed while killing the ghost,
or judged it purely by something as immediately obvious as its appearance, he had absolutely no room to resist.
So, as far as the offering was concerned, he was completely willing to hand it over.
The question now was how to give it to the toad.
"Lord Golden Toad, can you take it yourself?"
"Are you unwilling?"
The toad might not have looked much like a person, but there was nothing sluggish about its mind.
As it spoke, it took another step toward Xu Le.
That single step instantly put all the pressure on Xu Le.
Before you continue