When Lin Fan stood outside the final room, he could smell the strong scent of blood coming from within.
The elders were far back watching over him as he stood at the entrance to the final room of this cave. They looked like they were prepared to act at any moment as long as it seemed like Lin Fan was in danger.
But for now, they would trust him and see what happened.
When Lin Fan saw what was inside this final room, he couldn’t help knitting his brows.
In the center of this room were a bunch of spirit beasts that were lying there unconscious.
On the sides of the room, there were many different corpses where this scent of blood came from. These corpses were like the ones that he had found later in the cave, dripping black liquid and with holes in them as if something had burst out of them.
It was clear that something had happened to these corpses as well.
But that wasn’t the most important thing.
The most important thing was that all around the room were different spirit beasts that were standing around in a circle. They completely surrounded the unconscious spirit beasts that were in the center of the room.
With the way that they stood there, it almost looked like they were holding some kind of ceremony for these unconscious spirit beasts.
But with the blank stares that they had, it was clear that it wasn’t anything good.
When he looked carefully, Lin Fan even saw a few familiar faces among these spirit beasts that had these blank stares.
These were the elders and disciples that had been captured.
They were standing among the spirit beasts with the same blank looks on their faces.
Seeing them like this, Lin Fan immediately guessed what had happened to them.
They had been caught by the Control Toad and had been turned into puppets just like the rest of these spirit beasts. It was evident by the blank looks on their faces that they weren’t in control of themselves.
Lin Fan couldn’t help clenching his fists when he saw them like this, but he held himself back.
He knew that there was nothing to gain from losing his temper, so he forced himself to stay calm and analyze the situation.
All of these puppets seemed like they were gathered here for some kind of ceremony with the way that they were standing, but Lin Fan wasn’t able to find the most important thing here.
No matter how he looked around, he couldn’t find the Control Toad that controlled them all.
If he couldn’t find the Control Toad, then he wouldn’t be able to strike at the true enemy that he needed to take down.
Lin Fan just deeply knitted his brows until the situation in front of him changed.
All of the puppets standing around the room suddenly stirred, as if there was something that they were reacting to that appeared.
Lin Fan realized this as well, so he looked in the direction that all of these puppets had suddenly turned in.
On a rock in that direction was a toad that had suddenly appeared.
This was a toad that was pitch black in colour, the same colour as the worms that he had found.
Just one glance was enough for Lin Fan to tell that this was the Control Toad.
But one thing that surprised him was the size of this Control Toad.
Lin Fan had imagined a giant toad that would be taller than him, but this thing was only the size of a normal toad.
No…it was actually smaller than the normal toad.
If one didn’t know better, they would have thought that it was some kind of toy with how small it looked.
Of course, there was no mistaking it as a toy with the disgusting black colour that it was.
Seeing it now, Lin Fan guessed that he must have missed it when he had scanned the cave earlier. If it wasn’t for this Control Toad suddenly coming out in the open and attracting everyone’s attention, then he might not have even seen it.
However, Lin Fan didn’t go out even though he had now found the Control Toad.
He could tell that something was about to happen, so he just stayed where he was and watched over them.
The Control Toad just remained there on the rock for a bit before it suddenly jumped forward.
It landed right in front of all the unconscious spirit beasts that were lying there in the center of the cave.
After landing, the Control Toad suddenly gave a croak before opening its mouth.
As soon as it opened its mouth, Lin Fan couldn’t help feeling disgusted.
That was because with its mouth wide open like this, he could see clearly what was inside the mouth of the Control Toad.
There were many different black Control Worms that were wriggling inside of its mouth. With how many there were, it was almost as if they were living inside of the Control Toad.
But considering how the Control Toad used these worms to control its puppets, that seemed very likely.
It was only this way that a special bond could be formed between the Control Toad and Control Worms.
After the Control Toad opened its mouth, it seemed to take a large breath before suddenly breathing out. As it breathed out, the worms that had been in its mouth suddenly sprayed all over the unconscious spirit beasts.
These worms crawled all over the unconscious spirit beasts before finding spots that they liked on their bodies.
When they found these spots, these worms suddenly started burrowing into the bodies of these spirit beasts.
When they did, these spirit beasts suddenly woke up in a panic.
The look on the faces of the spirit beasts was enough to show that they were in serious pain, but they didn’t seem like they were able to do anything.
With the way that they struggled on the ground, it was almost as if they lost control of their bodies as they just wriggled back and forth.
In the end, they suddenly stopped moving as if there was something that happened to them.
Was it over or was it something else?
There was only a silence that lingered in the air as the Control Toad, every puppet, and Lin Fan all stared at the spirit beasts, waiting for a response from them.
Then all of a sudden, one of them started to shake.
Before anything else could happen, there was a hole that suddenly appeared in this spirit beast as a black liquid shot out. This was the same black liquid that had oozed out of the other corpses on the side.
Then the spirit beast’s eyes dimmed as the light of life left them.
This spirit beast had died.
After seeing this, Lin Fan finally understood what happened to the corpses that he had seen along the way.
All of those corpses that had holes in them and oozed black liquid had suffered the same fate as this spirit beast.
It seemed that there was a rejection that happened when the Control Toad injected that spirit beast with the Control Worm, which caused this reaction that killed it.
So what the Control Toad was currently doing was creating more puppets.
It was waiting to see which ones would be able to accept the Control Worms and which ones would be destroyed by them.
Lin Fan couldn’t help looking at the elders and disciples standing there.
It was a good thing that they had been able to withstand the Control Worms, or else he wouldn’t be seeing them now. They would have become corpses that would have been dumped in the cave like the rest that failed.
But he also knew that he couldn’t delay for too long or else bad things might happen to them.
He knew that it was impossible for them to have good reactions to having Control Worms in them, so he should try to save them as soon as possible.
The only problem was…he didn’t know how.
He now knew how the Control Toad put the Control Worms in its puppets, but how would he stop that?
How would he get the Control Worms out of all these puppets?
Even if he were to kill the Control Toad, it wasn’t certain that they would leave the puppets.
The worst case scenario was that they would all blow up like what happened to the spirit beast just now.
But even if they didn’t, if the control of the Control Worms weren’t released, then there was nothing that he could do.
So he had to figure out a way to take down the Control Toad and break its control.
“The system said that I already had a way to deal with the Control Toad…but just what is that way?”
Lin Fan couldn’t help muttering under his breath as he stared at the Control Toad.
He used his Appraisal Eyes to check it, but he wasn’t able to find any useful information.
It was just a simple description of what the Control Toad was. It didn’t give him any clues as to how to defeat it and release its control over its puppets…
As Lin Fan was deep in thought, the other spirit beasts started to react.
Some of them exploded and some of them turned into puppets.
But that still didn’t mean anything to him.
As Lin Fan was pondering what to do, there was a sudden fluctuation that came from his Storage Ring.
It was almost as if there was something that was trying to get out.
