“It's not just that. I've heard it's also infused with spirit water, which not only satiates hunger but also aids rapid physical recovery.”

The little white tiger emerged from the bushes, its fur covered in burdock, having likely gotten into some tricky spot.

With a pitiful look, it nudged its head towards Zhou You and scratched at the burdock on its head with its paw, yet failing to remove any.

Zhou You fed it some leftover roast meat and began helping remove the burdock from its head. It had lost quite a bit of fur in the process. Even after ten minutes, they had only cleared a small area.

The other three joined in the effort. It took the four of them a good while to fully clean the tiger. The pile of removed burdock was massive.

"The quantity is staggering. Is there an entire forest of burdock ahead?"

Setting off in the direction the scout drone had inspected earlier, they soon reached a vast area covered with burdock.

It indeed was expansive. The usually short burdock bushes were now taller than a person, making it challenging to move through.

"Look there! There's a scout drone." Miao Mie spotted the drone at the center of the forest first.

Zhuo Hao tried his **, but it still wouldn’t budge. "Either it's broken, or there's still no signal in this area."

Zhou You checked his phone, already knowing the answer. "No signal."

Miao Mie hooked the drone over with her whip. Zhuo Hao quickly connected it to a computer to extract the data, allowing everyone to get an aerial view of the area.

“Is that a whole shrub forest? And what’s that black basin over there? Burnt ground?”

The footage wasn’t clear, passing over a dark region swiftly. Zhou You gasped, “We might have encountered a swarm.”

“What? That many? The number must be in the billions!”

"Still, it's unbelievable. The Jiangnan base went through so much trouble to eradicate a swarm earlier. How could there still be so many? Can they reproduce infinitely?"

"They have strong cellular regeneration, especially when food is abundant. They multiply faster than we can imagine."

"What do we do? Reports indicated they were migrating south. Though scarcely populated, what if they decide to return?" Just the thought of a swarm passing sent shivers down Miao Mie’s spine.

Zhou You said to them, “We need to get closer and capture clearer footage. Beyond that, there’s little we can do. This forest isn’t like the open area outside the base, where we can just bombard at will.”

Here, unless you drop a missile, exterminating the insects with cannon fire would be impossible.

Any significant commotion would cause the mutated beasts in the mountain to go berserk, threatening nearby bases.

Moving forward, they found another scout drone, but this one was crushed by a mutated beast, yielding no data.

"Be cautious. Those tracks belong to something big," Zhuo Hao warned, only to receive a slap on the back of his head from Miao Mie.

"Are you daft? These are clearly tiger paw prints. There can't be two tigers in one mountain, or at least not another in this vicinity."

Zhuo Hao met the round eyes of the white tiger, hesitated for a moment, and then chuckled sheepishly.

Zhou You grabbed the white tiger by its scruff, and the group slowed their pace as they moved forward.

As they neared the swarm, an odd sensation enveloped everyone, accompanied by an instinctual feeling of impending danger.

The little white tiger turned and dashed away but halted after a few steps upon seeing that Zhou You and the others hadn’t followed. It grumbled in discontent. Zhou You approached, patting its head, "Stay back. I'll come find you."

The tiger might not have understood him, but it hesitated and stepped back. However, seeing them continue, it scratched the ground in agitation before deciding to follow.

Miao Miu jokingly commented, "Having a flying white tiger by our side does seem to boost our sense of security at times like this."

"I didn’t expect this mission to be this difficult, especially with Brother Zhou around. But after earlier, I felt like penning my last will. Should we rest for ten minutes?" Qin Lifeng's intuition urged him to keep a distance from the swarm.

Zhou You glanced at the three of them and finally pointed at Miao Miu, "We have a set of close-range communication equipment. You should go back to our last resting spot and stand by there. If anything happens, run!"

Miao Miu protested, "Why me?"

Zhou You confidently responded, "Because among the four of us, your martial arts skills are the weakest!"

Miao Miu, having recently advanced to a junior martial warrior, had to concede. Carrying the equipment, he headed back, tears unintentionally spilling from his eyes.

"The magnetic field here is disturbed; the compass isn’t working. Could the psychic power of these insects alter even the magnetic fields?"

With such thoughts, Zhou You approached the edge of the burdock forest, where an endless sea of black – countless insects – had congregated.

"No blue light, no mutated beasts. They aren't hunting," whispered Zhuo Hao.

"If they're not using psychic powers, then why are the nearby magnetic and signal fields affected?"

"Who knows? They truly are mysterious creatures."

"I can't stand this sight for too long. It makes me dizzy and nauseous," Qin Lifeng said, pointing the camera at the scene but turning his head away.

Zhou You would remember that day with a shiver, pondering on what had given him the courage to take that step. As if fate guided him.

After recording for ten minutes, the swarm stirred, revealing piles of mutated beast corpses beneath, confirming their previous hunting spree. This explained the lack of mutated beasts in the vicinity.