The man opened his eyes, his face stern and terrifying.
In the next moment, a symbol gradually appeared on his head.
The symbol slowly grew larger until it transformed into a Chaos Demon, its body a swirling mist carrying the fresh scent of a long-dwelling mountain valley.
The Chaos Demon prostrated itself before the bald man.
"What are your orders, master?" it asked.
"Go to the island and see what's happening with Moba," the man commanded.
"Yes, sir," the Chaos Demon responded, its form vanishing into thin air.
In an instant, it had left the mountain valley and arrived above the Black Sea.
The Chaos Demon searched for Moba's aura at the edge of the Black Sea.
The Chaos Demon prepared to head directly to Moba's dwelling.
Just as it began to move, something ensnared it.
The Chaos Demon tried to move but found itself completely immobilized.
It looked down, searching, and its gaze fell upon a toad.
Only then did it realize that the small toad had extended a long, thin tongue that was binding it.
The Chaos Demon was furious. "How dare a mere toad defy me!"
In the next moment, the toad retracted its tongue.
"Hmph, so you know fear?" the Chaos Demon said with displeasure. "Too late, I'm afraid."
With that said, the Chaos Demon raised its hand, ready to strike the toad.
The warty toad didn't react, merely smacking its lips a few times as its eyes lit up, gazing at the Chaos Demon.
In the next instant, the Chaos Demon vanished into thin air.
The little warty toad below let out a satisfied burp.
At the same moment, in the mountain valley, the Bald Man who had just closed his eyes suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.
He stood up in shock, touching his smooth head.
How had the Chaos Demon suddenly disappeared as well?!
What on earth had happened?
The Bald Man sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, formed a hand seal, and began to mutter incantations.
The space around him started to distort...
"Retrospective Gaze, activate!"
The art of turning back time.
As the name suggests, it was a technique to reverse the flow of time.
It allowed him to travel back through time and space to witness events from a specific period.
After all, the sudden disappearance of Moba and the Chaos Demon made him feel that something unusual had occurred.
These were ancient beasts that he had painstakingly acquired, and now they had vanished without a trace. As their master, he didn't even know what had happened.
So he was determined to find out exactly what had transpired.
As he chanted the incantation, his hand seals became increasingly complex and rapid, time swirling around him...
Soon, he had traveled back through time and space to the moment when Moba and the Chaos Demon's auras had vanished.
The sea surface rippled gently.
Waves occasionally rolled up.
But what the Bald Man found incredible was that a layer of chaotic mist power constantly obscured his view of the sea surface.
It blocked his senses.
Preventing him from seeing clearly.
He also couldn't capture what had happened at that moment.
"Very well... very well..."
"I want to see exactly what force is at work here, daring to oppose me!"
A hoarse voice emerged from the man's mouth.
His hands once again formed seals, moving faster and faster.
Once more, he gazed back.
Returning to the moment Moba disappeared.
As he poured more power into the technique, the chaotic mist blocking him finally dissipated somewhat.
At this moment, he could clearly see that Moba had been instantly devoured by an extremely mysterious force.
The same had happened to the Chaos Demon.
Due to the lingering mist, he still couldn't see clearly.
"Quite skillful, hiding so deep!"
"But I will see just how deep you can hide!"
The Bald Man let out a cold snort, his hand seals accelerating once more, reaching their limit.
They moved so fast they were almost invisible.
Finally, the chaotic mist broke apart layer by layer with great difficulty.
But just when he thought he could finally see what had happened, something went wrong with his retrospective gaze.
There was no Moba on the sea surface.
No Chaos Demon either.
He couldn't even see any other creatures.
The only thing on the sea surface was a warty toad floating on its back, drifting with the waves.
The man's eyes widened.
Just... just a warty toad?
He focused his gaze on the toad.
Suddenly, the toad flipped over, its legs kicking in the water as it stood up in a surprisingly human-like manner.
Its front legs clasped behind its back, and those round, bulging toad eyes stared directly at him.
It made the Bald Man's hair stand on end, despite the vast distance between them.
He nearly lost his soul from fright at this single glance.
At this moment, the toad raised its front leg and pointed at him.
"You disgust me, so I can't be bothered to eat you, but those things you've parasitized are good food. So from now on, you'll come once a month, which will be enough for me to eat for a year!"
"If you obey, I'll spare your life!"
"Otherwise, even if it makes me vomit, I, Frog Benwei, will swallow you whole."
The toad's mouth opened slightly.
An abrupt voice entered the Bald Man's mind.
Then, the time-reversal technique was forcibly terminated.
The sea surface remained as calm as ever.
Only a toad floated on the surface, lying on its back with its front legs behind its head and its hind legs crossed.
Far away, the Bald Man slumped to the ground, his body weak and his eyes wide with fear.
In his mind, those few sentences still echoed.
That mysterious toad had not only seen through his attempt to spy using the retrospective gaze technique with a single glance.
It had also used his own technique to look back through time and see through to his true form.
His true form was actually a parasitic worm that had cultivated to gain sentience.
Through his parasitic abilities, he had infected and controlled the souls of powerful beasts, fusing their bodies together for his use.
Apart from the now-deceased Moba and Chaos Demon, he had parasitized twelve other massive beasts.
Which happened to be... exactly one year's worth.