CHAPTER 261: 261: TOAD DADDY’S LAST CROAK.

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Kai grunted, his arms trembling with the strain. But he held the line. Then, without warning, Kai surged forward and slammed his forehead into the frog’s face.

The head butt echoed like a gong struck by divine justice. Even the eggs in the girl’s position flinched in fear.

Toad Daddy reeled back. His eyes crossed. His tongue fell limp. But he did not fall. Instead, he roared.

"Kroak Kraken Cannon!"

His throat pulsed and swelled to the size of a water barrel. Energy crackled from his open jaws. He opened his mouth wide and unleashed a beam of compressed sonic aura.

Kai’s antennae twitched. He leapt straight up just before the beam exploded. The blast tore through the tunnel behind him. The stone wall did not just crack. It did not just crumble.

It vanished. Gone. Erased from existence. There was no smoke. No dust. Just clean, brutal emptiness where there used to be earth.

Azhara’s voice rang through the soul link. "What in the queen’s sweaty shell was that?!"

Kai flipped mid air, his back scorched by the heat of the blast. He landed with a sharp grunt. He wiped blood from his mouth and smiled.

"New trick, huh?" he whispered. "Let me show you mine."

He lifted his claw. The aura surged.

[Skill activated. Predator’s Spiral Drive. (A new move unlocked for his apex form). Aura cost 200. The remaining reserve is seventeen percent.]

His arm twisted violently. The aura formed a spinning drill of red-black death. It looked like a weapon forged from thunderclouds, hurricane winds, and every ounce of fury in his soul.

Toad Daddy turned. But he was too slow. Kai drove the spiral into his side. The toad screamed. Not a normal scream. Not even a warrior’s death cry.

This was the noise of every insult Kai had ever delivered slicing through bone, muscle, and pride all at once.

Flesh tore. Mucus exploded. Bones cracked. Slime sprayed the walls like cursed paint.

"You," Toad Daddy gasped. "You—"

Kai was not done. He reached down and grabbed the frog’s tongue. He wrapped it around his fist like a disgusting and nasty rope.

He jumped. Then he yanked. "You love licking so much?" he shouted. "Then lick the floor!"

He brought the frog’s head down with all his strength. The impact was like a nuclear exchange. The stone shattered. Dust rose. The tunnel trembled. Frogs screamed and ran in all directions like noodles tossed into a typhoon.

[Ding! System notification. Target defeated. Blor’Ghul the Tonguebringer. Six star general. Experience gained: one thousand two hundred. Level up. New level: Forty two. Aura reserve depleted to three percent. Apex mode ending.]

Kai stood still for a moment. Then his form flickered. His red aura dimmed. The chitin softened. The glow faded.

He was just human form Kai again. Exhausted. Sore body. Heavy breathing. But victorious.

Behind him, the girls arrived closer to him.

Vel was first, dragging an unconscious frog like it owed her money. "Did he finally shut up?"

Kai nodded slowly. "He’s done. Tongue, honor, slime, all of it. Buried."

Sha dropped her blades and fell onto a broken barrel like a drunk champion. "Thank the queen’s thighs. If I had to hear one more tongue speech..."

Azhara skipped forward and crouched beside the crater. She drew a little frog ghost on the wall. "Rest in peace, Tongue pervert," she said cheerfully. "Lived moist. Died loud."

Naaro peeked from behind a pillar, eyes wide. "Sir Kai... you won."

He gave a tired smile. "Barely."

Akayoroi walked in last. While everyone else bore battle stains, mud splashed on their legs, slime dried across their clothes, hair tangled from sprinting through tunnels or brawling with frogs, she entered like she had stepped out of a painting. Her robes were perfect, smooth and uncreased, with not a single thread out of place. Her obsidian hair flowed like a calm waterfall behind her, glimmering faintly under the sun’s light. There was not a spot of dirt on her. No slime, no blood, not even a misplaced strand of hair. It was as if she had just stepped out of a holy bath while the rest had rolled through a swamp rave.

Even Azhara paused. "Wait. How the hell are you clean?"

Sha stared at her. "She’s glowing. I look like I lost a wrestling match to an oil barrel."

Vel muttered, "This is the part where I start to question if she’s real or just a mirage."

But Akayoroi did not answer. Her eyes remained calm, her hands cradling something swaddled in silk and faintly glowing. It wasn’t an egg. It wasn’t even the crate of relics that had been mentioned earlier. It was something older. Something weighty with ancient meaning. Something sacred.

Kai’s predator instincts tickled faintly as she passed. That object held power. Not loud power. Deep power. The kind that whispered legacy and secrets and bloodline duty.

Azhara blinked and leaned toward Naaro. "What’s she carrying? That’s a baby?"

Naaro shook her head. "No idea. But it’s not from the hatchery. I have never seen it."

Sha narrowed her eyes. "That’s not on the list. What did she just bring?"

Kai watched in silence.

Akayoroi did not explain. But in truth, while the others had rushed to collect eggs, relics, and injured sisters, she had vanished into a far-off corner of the tunnel. A place no one else knew about. Not on the maps. Not marked by scent. A place personally built by her, carved only by the queens of the carpenter ants.

It was hidden beneath layers of false walls and silk-wrapped illusions. Only a Queen could find it. Only a Queen would even know it existed.

There, she placed something. Buried beneath roots and sealed in ancient resin. A treasure of immense importance to her kind. A symbol of royalty, older than memory. A condensed legacy passed from queen to queen. A treasure laced with pheromonal memory, ancestral instincts, and a fragment of their original mother’s will.

The pressure Queen’s Core. It was the heart of their line. The secret no sisters knew.

And she had retrieved it alone, in silence, while the others fought. Because no matter how far they fled, no matter where they rebuilt, the Queen’s line must never break.

Kai glanced at her as she stopped beside him. He asked nothing. She said nothing.

But for a brief moment, her fingers brushed his arm. A whisper-light touch. Nothing romantic. Nothing spoken. But in that second, Kai understood: she might have secured something that will be helpful for his mountain.

And Akayoroi thought quietly, "My enemy may be strong. But I am the one who will end them. The hive will live... because I carried its soul."

She stood tall, radiant even among slime covered warriors and half fried frogs. Akayoroi spoke softly, firmly, with no drama. "It’s time. Let’s go."

She looked at her husband calmly and said, "I can see all the eggs are safe. All the warriors accounted for. No major injuries."

Kai nodded, then turned to the crater where the Toad Daddy still twitched like a flattened meat balloon.

The twin sisters asked, "...Should we carry his body?"

Vel snorted. "Why? Let the tunnel eat him."

Azhara crouched beside the toad’s belly and drew a smiley face in the slime. "There. Grave art."

Sha raised her hand weakly. "Permission to never speak of this again?"

"Denied," Akayoroi said with authority. "This battle will be remembered in hive songs. We shall call it... the Licking War of Madness."

"No," Kai said, rubbing his temple. "Call it... Toad Daddy’s Last Croak."

Everyone laughed. From far above, a shadow passed over the forest edge. The wind changed. And with a sharp cry that sliced the sky, a massive winged beast descended.

Alka had arrived. And the journey to Monarch Mountain... was about to begin.

"Collect all the star cores, I am giving you thirty seconds. Don’t waste any time." Kai ordered.

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