A priest in North America, what the hell is the Demon Gate system?

"So Father, what exactly happened to Mark and the others..." Allen's voice trembled slightly, his fingers gripping the green pebble in his pocket.

"Do you want something to happen to them? After all, they bullied you like that."

Li Ang suddenly turned to Allen and asked, still with that gentle smile. Speaking of which, Li Ang noticed that since investing billions in Wang Bingbing, his murderous aura had significantly improved, and his personality had returned to its former relaxed and lively state.

"I...I don't want that. Even though Mark, Josh, and Roddy are awful, they also have families and people who love them..."

Allen stammered, then muttered something under his breath:

"Even if it's revenge, I have to beat them up myself. That's what my favorite character said..."

Li Ang nodded; this kid has potential.

With a flick of his hand, the compass vanished as if by magic, and Li Ang turned to face Allen.

"One thing is certain now: their place must be very cool."

Allen was stunned for a moment, then his face turned pale.

"Father, do you mean...they're already...dead at the bottom of the lake?"

The boy's voice trembled slightly, filled with fear, self-blame, and regret.

"Don't worry, I didn't say they were dead." Li Ang walked over and patted the boy on the shoulder.

"I'm just saying it literally. They were probably dragged into the water by someone or something, so the place they're in now is definitely cooler than the shore. Does that make sense, right? Haha."

Allen suddenly looked excited: "Father, could it be that there are monsters?!"

"?" Li Ang was a little confused. Why did this child get excited after hearing this?

"Father, should we do what Aquaman did and dive into the water to save them? Is there a lost city beneath the Sleeping Lake, like Atlantis?!"

Allen's eyes shone with excitement, and he began to dance with joy.

"Calm down, boy..."

Li Ang interrupted him, rubbing his forehead in exasperation: "The most urgent task now is to figure out their disappearance route."

Upon hearing this, Allen's expression became focused, as if he were truly deep in thought. Li Ang ignored him and pointed towards the Sleeping Lake.

"It's about a ten-minute walk from this riverbank to the shore of Sleeping Lake. Even on a weekday, there are always plenty of people picnicking and fishing by the lake. If Mark and his two companions were forcibly kidnapped, even if they were knocked unconscious and dragged along, someone would definitely have seen them."

"Not to mention you might be bringing Jennifer along, who must weigh over 300 pounds, right?"

"Jennifer is very slim..."

"..." Li Ang couldn't explain it to someone with a lovestruck mind, so he could only draw a groove in the gravel with his toe and continue his analysis:

"Dragging heavy objects will leave obvious drag marks on the forest floor and may also break bushes or something, but as we walked along, did you see any marks in the forest?"

Allen shook his head.

"So, the answer might not be on the ground." Li Ang stood up, turned around and looked at the body of water where the lighter had been found, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Allen followed his gaze and saw the creek flowing swiftly and clearly, splashing and churning among the rocks.

"Father, you mean...the waterway?" Allen's voice sounded somewhat puzzled.

"Smart." Li Ang snapped his fingers, said nothing more, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

The divine sense spread out slowly from between the eyebrows like an invisible net.

This time, instead of scanning a wide area, he focused downwards, penetrating the clear stream and going deep into the water.

Water flow, sand, seaweed... and...

A tiny fish fry?!

Li Ang's brows furrowed sharply.

Is this a blackfish?

How did this thing end up in a place like this?

His consciousness locked onto the small fish, and memories immediately flooded back.

When I was a child, I used to go fishing with my grandfather in the countryside. The old man would often explain to me that snakehead fish are ferocious by nature and like to stay in murky, weed-covered, quiet waters.

A stream with crystal-clear water and a relatively rapid current like this is definitely not their food source.

"Did they swim back up from Sleeping Lake?" Li Ang wondered to himself.

But he immediately dismissed the idea; the fish fry was too small and had clearly only recently hatched.

If it swam upstream from the lake, it would have had to swim a considerable distance through waters unsuitable for survival, which does not conform to the habits of snakehead fish.

Unless... there's some other way around here.

Li Ang's consciousness followed the little black fish fry, moving downstream for seven or eight meters.

Suddenly, the little fish flicked its tail and darted into a seemingly ordinary layer of sand at the bottom of the water.

In that instant, Li Ang sensed a subtle anomaly.

That layer of sand... was too easy to penetrate.

When you probe into normal underwater mud and sand with your spiritual sense, you will feel uniform resistance, like sticking your hand into a bag of rice in a supermarket.

But just a moment ago, the resistance below the sand layer decreased sharply, and my consciousness slid in easily, very smoothly.

The space below appears to be empty, covered only by a thin layer of loose sand as camouflage.

Li Ang opened his eyes, a faint, dark red light flashing in his pupils, disappearing in an instant.

"Allen," he said, his voice calm.

"Yes, yes!" Allen replied immediately, having somehow pulled out a comic book with Aquaman on it.

"Take a few steps back."

"Huh? Oh, okay!"

Although the boy didn't understand, he obediently moved back three or four meters.

Li Ang twisted his neck, looked around, and spotted a rock about the size of a basketball.

The stone was half-buried in the sand, its surface covered with moss. He bent down, gripped the edge of the stone with both hands, and, using his waist and abdomen strength, gave a low shout:

"rise!"

The stone lifted off the ground with a thud. After my constitution level increased to 3, lifting such heavy objects became quite easy.

Li Ang weighed the item in his hand and nodded in satisfaction.

"Father, you! How did you do that?" Allen shouted from behind, his voice filled with shock.

"Let's do an experiment." After saying that, Li Ang tensed his arm muscles, rotated his waist to generate power throughout his body, lifted the rock above his head like a shot put, and then slammed it down into the unusual body of water!

"God! Is this Superman?!" Allen stared in shock at the flying boulder. Even the toughest guy on the school's football team couldn't throw such a big rock that far!

"boom--!"

The boulder crashed into the water, creating a huge splash.

A dull thud came from the bottom of the water, and the entire stream trembled! The waves surged more than two meters high, splashing onto the shore.

Li Ang had already taken two steps back the moment he threw the stone, and was only splashed by a few water droplets.

He squinted, staring at the gradually calming river surface.

The murky mud churned in the water, like ink poured into clear water.

But soon, as the stirred-up silt slowly settled, an irregular black hole about 1.5 meters in diameter appeared on the bottom of the murky water.

It is a bottomless underwater cave.

"Oh My God..."

The comic book in Allen's hand fell to the ground.