Full health is the kill threshold, no matter if you're a god or a demon!

This matter should raise Liu Nian's awareness. The Centaur region is fine, but their region is currently unclaimed territory!

Once the enemy's insect king learns about the situation here, it can invade without any scruples!

And then there's the Council of Eternal Darkness that Nigellas mentioned back then... that might be an even more difficult enemy to deal with than the level 499 Gorgon King.

So no matter what, we can't let these guys get in here!

After putting away Xiao Tuantuan and transforming into Texiu'an, Liu Nian was teleported to Azure Town.

He hadn't been here for a long time. In fact, there were very few players left. Ever since the original human faction failed to upgrade, no new human players from Earth had been brought here. From this perspective, Liu Nian and his group had actually done a good thing.

The arrival of a centaur did not cause much of a commotion. Liu Nian did not linger and summoned the little fire dragon, heading towards the pyramid that could teleport him to the Crystal Forest.

The reason why Liu Nian did not use the Boundary Tree to go directly to the neighboring region was because he wanted to go to the pyramid to check if the enemy already knew about the cross-regional passage.

If the enemy discovers us, then going to the neighboring competition area will be pointless.

After Liu Nian arrived and scouted the area, he concluded that the enemy had not yet discovered it. This was likely because he had only been there a short time and Carotauros had notified him promptly, so there was no sign of the enemy yet.

Afterwards, Liu Nian quickly arrived at the former nest city of the Abe Bees. This city was originally sold to Wang Mian, but due to a series of events, it was later sold to the centaurs.

The city was in a state of panic because an invisible enemy had appeared there and almost killed Laperos, the chieftain of the Sunwalker tribe, who was the strongest of the centaurs.

When Liu Nian arrived here, because his appearance was exactly like that of Texiu'an, he did not arouse any suspicion from others.

Liu Nian also saw a number of human player vassals here. Some were former members of the Eye of Truth, and others were from other human guilds. There were quite a few of them, at least several hundred.

Liu Nian had no interest in these people; he went straight to the central building that had been converted into the Grand Chancellery.

The building still retains traces of the Bee People's style, such as the ubiquitous hexagonal honeycomb structure. Although the centaurs have redecorated it with animal skins and banners, these features are still visible.

Carol Tauros personally led Liu Nian into the conference room. There were no chairs or tables, only a huge map hanging on the wall, marking the distribution of power and terrain of the surrounding competition zones.

Carotaur pointed his silver spear at a dark area in the southwest of the map.

"Zulkin's new city is here," she said. "Underground, very deep. We call it 'The Dark Cave.'"

Liu Nian looked at the area on the map. The markings showed that it was a swamp with almost nothing of value on the surface, but underground—Carol tapped a few times with the tip of her spear to draw a rough outline.

"The Dark Cavern wasn't entirely formed naturally. Long before the trolls occupied it, some kind of creature had already dug there, but it was later conquered by Zul'jin and his trolls. The space there is very complex, easy to defend and difficult to attack. There are only three entrances, all of which are very narrow, too narrow for us centaurs to enter. So we cooperated with the amphibious murlocs. They are smaller in size, making them ideal for attacking. We were almost able to take it down with our combined efforts, but suddenly, those things appeared."

Carol Tauros took out a piece of parchment and unfolded it in front of Liu Nian. On the paper was a sketch, the brushstrokes were rough but very expressive—it depicted a battle scene between a centaur warrior and an insectoid.

The insectoid was a head taller than a centaur when standing upright. It had six legs, an upper body that resembled an enlarged mantis with two sickle-shaped forelimbs raised high, and a lower body that looked like an ant. Its carapace was purple but covered with black spots.

"Those insectoids are level 120, and their individual combat ability completely overwhelms us! Don't be fooled by the fact that they're taller than us when they stand up; they can crawl and dart through the tunnels like insects, and they also have a pair of wings on their backs. Although they can't fly, they can use them to glide..."

"How many are there?"

"At first we only encountered a dozen or so, but the number kept increasing, and now we estimate there are at least a hundred in the dark cave! And—" Carol's voice was filled with worry, "they have commanders, their tactics of flanking, feinting, and ambushing...their coordination is incredibly sophisticated!"

Liu Nian thought to himself, "It seems this invasion is different from the last one..."

"You said before that they were investigating the Abe Bees and Theshus? Where did you get this information?" Liu Nian asked.

"It was reported after our people were killed. The other side seemed to have some kind of means to manipulate minds. At that time, they directly controlled our people and interrogated them."

Liu Nian nodded, then suddenly asked, "You said Zul'jin was in the Dark Nest, so what about the other troll king, Mankor?"

Carol moved her finger across the map to another area marked "Wild Grass Plains".

"Manko has led his people westward and is currently locked in a fierce battle with the minotaurs. We haven't joined in yet."

After a moment's thought, Liu Nian decided to strike at the heart of the enemy's lair.

The Fogborn can invade lower-level regions through the Boundary Tree, but how did these insectoids arrive?

Liu Nian was still quite worried until he figured this out.

"Where is Texiu's saddle?" Liu Nian asked again.

"They are under our close protection," Carotauros said.

"Please introduce me to him!"

Upon meeting Texiu An Liu Nian, he discovered that this guy was actually living in prison...

Well, this guy really got screwed over by Liu Nian, but his level has already reached 99.

Liu Nian met him with the same idea; he could only imitate Texiu's saddle, which he had seen before, but that was obviously a bit outdated.

When Texiu'an saw another version of himself appear, he was also shocked, his eyes wide open like saucers...

Liu Nian knew he had tricked the other party, so he offered some decent equipment as compensation.

Strictly speaking, this incident was directed at him (or rather, Miya'er). The centaur was the scapegoat, and Liu Nian certainly wouldn't pass the buck to his former ally. Since they were here, he had to resolve this matter thoroughly.

Unsure if any Fogborn were lurking in the city, Liu Nian simply wandered around as Texiu'an for quite some time, purely to fish for prey. However, after wandering around all morning without encountering any attacks, he figured that the other party was probably not here.