I Became an Ant Lord, So I Built a Hive Full of Beauties-Chapter 191: Counterattack

---

He rolled just in time, shoulder bouncing off a cracked root. His claws extended and snagged the incoming tongue mid-lash. The impact jolted his arm, sparks flying from the friction. He grunted, his forearm plate groaning under the pressure as the tongue twisted and flailed like a serpent in a fire pit.

"Enough," Kai growled.

His fingers closed tighter.

With a snarl, he heaved the monster limb upward, veins bulging along his neck and arms. His heel spikes dug into the broken stone beneath him, anchoring his stance like a siege engine winding up for the final pull.

The floor didn’t just tremble, it tore.

Ground cracked. Roots snapped. Fungal growths exploded in a haze of toxic spores. Kai pulled the tongue with a brutal and unrelenting force that made his body armor hum with strain.

The Frog-Prince bellowed, suddenly off balance. His legs splayed wide, webbed feet gouging trenches in the ground as he tried to resist. His tail lashed wildly, smashing trees and flinging debris.

Azhara blinked, jaw dropping. "Wait, is he actually—?"

"Pulling out his entire tongue," Naaro said, dumbfounded. "Like... like it’s a parasite tree vines."

"He’s pulling out his soul!" Shael gagged, half-horrified.

Kai didn’t hear them. He was focused on the battle.

Each heartbeat was an explosion behind his eyes. His chitin creaked. Plates along his spine lifted slightly as if reacting to the force.

He wrapped both arms around the tongue now, anchoring it between clawed forearms like a rope in a pulley. His heel spikes dug deeper—stone cracked beneath them.

Then— RIIIIIP— CRACK!!!

The sound was horrific.

A wet, tearing pop that echoed like an organ detaching from the inside of a beast’s belly. The last barbs caught in Kai’s skin shredded loose, taking small chunks of his exoskeleton with them.

But the prize...

The entire 10-12 foot tongue came loose from the Frog-Prince’s body.

Black sludge geysered from the open wound, it was thick and pressurized, like a ruptured septic pipe mixed with swamp tar. The stench was immediate and violent. The survivor ants retched, collapsing into the grass. Even Azhara flinched back, nose wrinkling.

The Frog-Prince stumbled backward, clutching at his belly. His eyes... those few that remained, rolled in pain and disbelief.

He wheezed. "M-my... tongue..."

Kai didn’t reply.

He gripped the severed appendage at the base and gave it a lazy twirl like it was a party streamer. Then, with a grunt, hurled it.

The tongue spun end-over-end, slicing through the thick air with a deep WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP.

It speared straight through a hollow tree trunk on the far side of the battlefield, punching out the back with a wet splatter and embedding into the next rock behind it.

THOCK.

It twitched once. Twice. Then hung limp—like a dead eel nailed to the woods.

Akayoroi trembled—this time not with fear. Her carapace shimmered faintly with orange hue, and her antennae twitched erratically.

"Rip... and tear..." she whispered in awe. "The handsome ends all..."

Vel staggered sideways, pale as bone. "We are... definitely trauma bonding right now."

Naaro just nodded. "Yup. Group therapy starts tomorrow."

The Frog-Prince swayed, his eyes full of fury and pain. His massive bulk hunched forward, trying to comprehend what had just happened. His prized weapon—his ceremonial tongue, forged through generations of swamp-born evolution was gone.

His vision shook. His lungs gurgled. But his rage remained. And Kai... was still walking toward him. His claws were bloodied. His breath was calm. The battlefield... silent.

The severed tongue still twitched where it had struck, steam curling off the acidic barbs. The wound on the Frog-Prince’s belly-mouth gushed black sludge, thick as tar, painting the air in greasy trails. He staggered, a grotesque hiss escaping the corner of his bloated lips as he clutched at the steaming hole with one webbed hand.

But pain did not equal defeat.

The Toad Prince’s remaining eyes pulsed bright red, unnatural. His veins bulge under his warty hide, dark and sludgy, throbbing with aura like worms crawling beneath a transparent drum.

And then—"RRRRAAAAAAAR!"

The roar shattered a nest of birds overhead. The frog shell around his torso split open further, making space for the mass of muscle beneath to bulge outward like coiling serpents. It looked unnatural—more like a sack of moving snakes trapped under translucent skin than anything remotely humanoid.

The beast planted both fists into the ground with a thunderous BOOM.

Shockwaves pulsed outward in rippling rings. Mud fountained. Stones launched into the air like cannonballs. Cave water geysered up from cracks. The battlefield cracked like it had been punched by something huge.

Kai braced, tail-spike anchoring deep—but even his foundation cracked. The tremor hit beneath his stance. He slipped, slightly.

That was all the Frog-Prince needed.

With an unexpected surge of speed for his size, the bloated beast lunged forward, more frog than prince now. And SLAMMED into Kai with a shoulder charge.

BOOOOOOOM!

Kai was flung thirty meters across the field like a meteor. He ricocheted off one rock wall, then another, before crashing through a third. The final one cracked in half, toppling with a bassy CRUNCH as he skidded to a halt against the far embankment, half-buried in pulverized stone.

Dust and steam rose. Blood trickled from Kai’s mouthparts.

Then—WHUD!

The Frog-Prince was already there. He hadn’t even paused. Like a swamp wraith, he descended from the air, his massive elbow crashing down onto Kai’s chest with the weight of a collapsing tree.

The impact folded Kai into the mud. For the first time in the entire battle... for the first time since his evolution, he made a sound.

A grunt. Low, pained. Half growl. Half breathless shock.

Azhara’s cocky grin faltered. Her eyes narrowed in concern. "...Sir?"

She didn’t like this. None of them did.

The Frog-Prince wasted no time. He reared up, breath snarling from his warped nostrils. From his ribs, two thin auxiliary arms unfurled. It was ugly, veined, like diseased tapeworms turned into limbs.

One struck like a whip.

SHHK! It drove clean through Kai’s right shoulder, pinning him to the ground like an insect on a specimen board. freewebnσvel.cѳm

This chapter is updat𝙚d by f(r)eew𝒆bn(o)vel.com