Bai Youwei turned around, wanting to throw up.
Her stomach churned, but nothing came out.
The commotion from the tremors had subsided. No one knew the death toll, but the survivors stood in the mud, terrified and lost.
Hui Ge, the lanky man, surprisingly took charge. "What are you all standing around for?! Find it! We only have 20 seconds! Damn it!"
His words snapped everyone back to reality. They frantically searched for the ball.
"This direction," Shen Mo's voice cut through the chaos, strangely calm. "The last water flower was around here."
He pointed to an area with about a dozen pits, effectively reducing their search area by at least two-thirds.
Tan Xiao, being the closest, immediately rushed to the front.
Hui Ge hesitated for a moment before sprinting after him with two of his lackeys, all of them searching for the ball.
The same people who had fought tooth and nail the night before were now united in their struggle for survival.
But time was running out. The pits were collapsing, the mud burying any trace of the golden ball. The men dug with all their might, their hands sinking into the soft, gooey mud.
Scoop after scoop, they found nothing but mud.
Bai Youwei watched them from a distance.
Then, she turned her gaze to the corpses sinking into the mud.
The fear in her heart slowly receded, replaced by a familiar feeling of excitement.
She wasn't happy about the deaths; she wasn't that twisted.
It was just like last time. This life-or-death situation was like an extreme sport. It was terrifying, frightening, and anxiety-inducing, yet there was an element of anticipation.
Before she could unravel the reason behind this strange feeling, a childish voice echoed from the cave, laced with malicious glee.
"The frog is coming! Bugs, hide!"
Everyone froze.
The ground shook violently, the mud trembling beneath their feet.
A golden ball rolled out from the churning mud.
"There it is!" someone shouted, their voice thick with excitement. "Quick!…"
But a more powerful tremor shook the ground, the entire mud pit practically boiling. Everyone stumbled and fell, unable to maintain their balance, let alone reach for the receding golden ball.
Large chunks of mud erupted and then crashed down. Finally, a gigantic creature emerged before their eyes.
It was the size of a five or six-story building!
Its skin was a vibrant, almost painted, shade of blue-green.
Its eyes bulged from its head. Its massive mouth, stretched incredibly wide, took up almost half of its face.
It was a frog!
The frog that the Warden had never mentioned had finally arrived!
Someone screamed in terror, "Run!!!—"
But it was too late.
Not everyone ran. Some were paralyzed with fear, staring blankly at the colossal creature, their minds blank, their legs refusing to obey.
Bai Youwei saw the frog open its mouth.
A long tongue shot out.
It was bright red, covered in glistening slime. Like a rubber band, it stretched out with incredible speed, then slapped onto a woman struggling in the mud.
The entire process took only half a second, but to Bai Youwei, it felt like an eternity.
She saw the woman's face contort in terror as the tongue retracted with lightning speed, dragging her into the frog's gaping maw before she could even scream.
Gulp.
The frog swallowed.
Bai Youwei's body went numb.
It felt like she was being pricked by countless needles, a painful coldness spreading through her limbs.
The fleeing participants were oblivious to the horror unfolding behind them. They continued to run, legs churning through the mud, desperately searching for cover.
But the frog's tongue followed closely behind, darting out and retracting, snatching up its prey like flies. It was a feast.
The frog is coming, bugs, hide.
Bai Youwei slowly clenched her fists.
So this was the frog's golden ball…