"Quite the display of force."

Li Ang looked up. The sky on this side of the road was pitch-dark. In contrast, over the dense jungle, the moonlight was faint and dim. Thunder Python Electric Snakes writhed among the gloomy, dark clouds, thunder roared incessantly, and torrential rain poured down, as if the entire forest were about to be submerged by the flood of rainwater.

"Tsk."

Li Ang shook his head and asked, "Shall we go in for a look?"

"We don't really have a choice, do we?"

Liu Wu Dai silently took out a Good Horn Bow from her backpack slot, pulled metal arrows from the quiver at her waist, and prepared to open the car door to proceed on foot.

Li Ang waved his hand. "Don't get out of the car just yet. We'll drive."

Liu Wu Dai glanced at the dense forest, filled with colossal trees so thick it would take several people to encircle one. "Can we even drive through this?"

Li Ang smiled, opened his car door, and took out two chubby worms the size of gasoline canisters from his backpack slot, tossing them onto the roof of the van. The worms had caterpillar-like rows of legs on both sides underneath their bodies, which allowed them to securely grasp the roof's metal, preventing themselves from falling off.

Afterward, Li Ang took out another beehive. Sensing the Queen Bee within, he summoned Specialized Soldier Bees.

The primary mutated trait of the Soldier Bees in this particular beehive was their extreme adaptability. This allowed them to survive in a wide array of harsh environments, be it scorching deserts, freezing snowfields, torrential downpours, vast oceans, or even pools of corrosive acid—they could navigate them all with ease. While their combat strength and travel speed didn't match up to Soldier Bees from other beehives, their key advantage was this extensive operational versatility.

Li Ang directed countless Soldier Bees toward the dense forest. As the black-and-yellow, variously-sized Soldier Bees flew, they were struck by bean-sized raindrops. Their bodies would jolt to one side, shaking off the water, their speed only slightly diminishing as they pressed onward.

This seemed feasible. Li Ang nodded, took out the Bronze Sickle, and released its long handle.

A pale arm instantly stretched out from under the car chassis, steadily catching the long sickle. Several other arms quietly extended, clinging to the sides of the vehicle's body like centipede legs.

"Ready."

Li Ang settled back into the driver's seat, stepped on the gas pedal, and drove toward the dense forest.

As the vehicle was about to crash into a massive tree, the Corroder worm on its roof remotely spat out a glob of corrosive solution. The solution landed accurately on the tree's bark, instantly melting a huge gap. The white wood corroded to a grayish-black, sending up wisps of smoke.

The other chubby worm also opened its mouthparts, resembling a grenade launcher as it launched a black sphere.

This particular type of Worm was a special model Li Ang had recently cultivated using the "Compensation Alienation" Special Effect of the Abyssal Magic Mirror. It was named the Artillerist. The black spheres it fired were projectiles it created by combining its internally secreted bodily fluids with gunpowder. Their power was not much less than that of the Conscienceless Cannon.

BOOM! The black sphere struck the tree that had already been mostly corroded, snapping the massive trunk in half. It toppled backward slowly, crashing down heavily.

Meanwhile, Miss Chai's arms under the vehicle chassis used the Bronze Sickle to swiftly and cleanly cut through the thick bushes ahead, clearing the path for the vehicle. When necessary, Miss Chai could also slightly lift the vehicle to pass over the stumps left behind by the felled trees.

HISS! HISS! HISS! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The Corroder and Artillerist worms kept firing, yet the noise they produced couldn't even drown out the sounds of the thunder and rain.

Li Ang calmly held the steering wheel, driving slowly, completely unfazed by the commotion he was causing.

"Is all this noise okay?" Liu Wu Dai, sitting in the passenger seat, listened to the cacophony and felt the vehicle's jolting progress. She couldn't help but ask, "There are absolutely no insects or birds in this forest. I reckon this is a scene created by the Shengnan King's Dream. Monsters might be attracted by the disturbance here."

"That's exactly what I want," Li Ang said casually. "Right now, we need to consider how to reach level twenty as quickly as possible. That Butler from the House of Integrity gave us only a tiny bit of Experience Points. How could we not make the most of this dream to collect a hefty sum? If monsters come knocking, we'll just kill them."

...Damn, you make it sound so easy. May I ask how you've mastered such an exquisite skill of showing off?

Liu Wu Dai silently complained in her mind, yet deep down, she inexplicably felt a great sense of reassurance. The oppression from the Shengnan King's Dream and the unpleasant experiences at the House of Integrity seemed to have been diluted by Li Ang's calm and composed demeanor.

With a teammate so adept at spouting witty remarks and pulling stunts, it was difficult for a terrifyingly oppressive atmosphere to even take hold.

Liu Wu Dai shook her head, wondering how much money it would take to hire Li Rising as her bodyguard. Fifty million? Eighty million? Forget it. A person like him must see money as mere dung, completely indifferent to things like luxury villas, fancy cars, and beautiful women. I won't tarnish our tacit understanding by offering him money.

Li Ang was completely unaware that Miss Liu had just been contemplating how to tempt him with the sugar-coated cannonball of money. (If he knew, he would definitely exclaim, "Don't mind if I do!")

He placed the Beehive on his knees, whistling as he consumed Swamp God Power, sensing the map of the dense forest being charted by the Soldier Bees via the Queen Bee.

In just a short while, the mutated Soldier Bees had flown a considerable distance. Due to the heavy rain and thunder, they couldn't determine each other's positions by the vibrations of their wings. However, they continuously released pheromones on tree trunks along their paths to mark their locations, jointly weaving together a topographical map of the forest.

"What a vast forest..." Li Ang murmured to himself. The Soldier Bees had still not found the edge of the dense forest, nor had they discovered any traces of living creatures or noteworthy monsters within it.

Suddenly, Li Ang frowned. A Soldier Bee, flying several kilometers ahead to his left, had abruptly lost contact. It had been killed instantly, without even enough time to leave behind pheromones.

For safety, the Soldier Bees always flew at a height of twenty to thirty meters above the ground. Like other Scout models, they possessed stingers and other defensive mechanisms; they were not prey that ordinary birds could capture.

A monster...?

Li Ang's eyes brightened. He patted the car door, signaling Miss Chai to head toward the front-left.

Monsters, monsters, where are you?

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