During the past two weeks, the temperature in Lilt Forest hadn't changed significantly, but the bck smoke from the volcanic eruption seemed to be melting the snow somehow.

  Now that the snow covering Lilt Forest had started melting, the ground in many pces had turned into mud. This was causing some trouble with the ants' migration.

  System carried all of the pupae, including the enormous queen, in his tentacles. He and the little meatball flew in the sky for reconnaissance, while Shava and the other ant knights escorted the ordinary ants who were carrying dried meat below.

  In front of the ants traveling on the ground, there was a blue-gray slime that jumped forward under System's control from time to time.

  Because the fallen ash had been mixed into the muddy ground, the frost slime inevitably absorbed a lot of it. After traveling for a few hours, the icy blue slime had turned blue and gray. System guessed that it would become completely bck before long.

  He was considering whether he should abandon this slime friend. After all, a bck slime would be quite toxic, and most ants couldn't eat that kind of food.

  System, who was still scouting in the air, saw a group of gnolls moving through the forest in the distance.

  More than two hours ter, he saw another team of seven gnolls about one kilometer away.

  Unlike the dozen gnolls he'd seen two hours earlier, these seven gnolls had built a fire and made a simple camp. They should be resting.

  System had no intention of contacting these gnolls. After descending from the sky, he notified his ant subjects to change direction in order to bypass the gnoll camp.

  System and the ant caravan weren't moving slowly. They could walk about two kilometers in an hour, which was about the same walking speed as humans.

  After half an hour, the group had successfully circled around the gnoll camp without any issues. However, while they were still only a hundred meters away from the camp, System's antennae suddenly detected gnoll screams.

  The gnolls' screams were so loud that even the ordinary ants could hear them clearly. They stopped walking and looked around, clearly feeling a little uneasy.

  System flew into the sky again. He saw that three of the gnolls had colpsed beside the fire. There were round holes in their necks that were oozing blood, and they seemed to already be dead. Of the remaining four gnolls, two of them were angrily waving wooden clubs around, while the others were checking on their fallen companions.

  System observed for a while, but couldn't tell how the three gnolls had died. He decided to quickly lead the ants away from this dangerous pce.

  However, after System descended to the ground to talk to the ant caravan, he saw a strange, blurry shadow that stood half a meter tall standing in front of the ants.

  He called it a blurry shadow, but it was actually a creature with a completely transparent body, as if it was invisible. If it weren't for the powerful vision provided by [System's Eye], he wouldn't have noticed the creature in front of him at all.

  System's eyes fshed with a blue light.

  After using the object recognition ability in the [Tools Menu], a glowing outline appeared around the blurry shadow.

  It was a half-meter-tall humanoid life form with four arms on its upper body, two of which tapered into spikes at the tip, while the other two had human-like hands. It seemed to have some kind of armor or carapace covering its body, and there seemed to be wings on its back that were tucked beneath the armor.

  After sensing with his antennae, System found that he couldn't detect any aura from this creature that was standing two meters away from him.

  His [Intuition] brought him a sense of danger. The two conical spikes could pierce his brain in a fsh and kill him instantly.

  However, just as System was about to contact Shava, who was still looking back toward the gnoll camp, he suddenly felt a familiar power coming from the creature in front of him.

  This creature actually sent him a mental message using the [Mental Connection] ability.

  "You're very alert. Are you Festantine's new insect beast? You actually found me."

  The mental message was very fluent, even more so than the ones Bck sent. The insect had a very pleasant female voice, which made System feel like he was facing Quin again.

  "Are you Ying?"

  When the other party had sent him the mental message, System had felt the familiar aura of a creature with insect blood. He could tell that she was an insect, and he could also tell that she was one that had completed four metamorphoses.

  In addition, although the other party's blood was a little chaotic, its purest essence contained a grasshopper bloodline, so she could be counted as System's distant retive.

  From the series of questions System had asked the little meatball's predecessor and the vague memories gifted to him by Quin, System easily guessed the other party's identity. She should be Ying.

  After hearing System's mental message, Ying seemed to be a little happy. She quickly asked back, "Do you know me? Are you number 95? Or number 107? No, they couldn't have your wisdom."

  "Is the Festantine you just mentioned a Swarm Druid?"

  System didn't answer Ying's question, instead asking one of his own. After eating the golden acorn, his new knowledge had given him a much better understanding of this magical world. In his opinion, the master of Meatball's predecessor should be a Swarm Druid who controls insect beasts, but he couldn't be sure.

  "Yes, Festantine is a Swarm Druid. Aren't you one of the insect beasts he studied? As far as I know, only he could send insect beasts here from the Abyss."

  Ying quickly answered System's question, and in just a few words, System had received a lot of new information, including the fact that there were Swarm Druids in the Abyss.

  System didn't answer Ying's question. He first disconnected the other party's [Mental Connection] ability, then connected to the other party using his own [Mental Connection].

  While Ying was expressing her surprise, System transmitted several videos to the other party, which included a video of Quin and a video of the conversation between System and Meatball's predecessor.

  "So you were the grasshopper that Quin mentioned. I didn't think she would die..." Ying's mental message was filled with mencholy.

  "Are you here to find her?" System asked after listening to Ying's mental message.

  "Yes, I came here for her." Ying's transparent body gradually grew visible, revealing a bck and purple carapace covering her body. She paused for a while before continuing.

  "I had always wanted freedom, but I didn't expect that I wouldn't know what to do after I was truly free. But now I have found my target, and I want to kill him."

  "You can't beat him," System advised, recalling the old druid's aura of unity between man and nature.

  Ying didn't answer and just shook her head slightly. It seemed that System's attempt to persuade her hadn't been effective at all. Ying was determined to assassinate the old druid.

  At this time, Ying, who had revealed her figure, was finally discovered by Shava. She quickly rushed in front of System and faced off against Ying.

  "It's okay, Shava. She isn't an enemy."

  System expined the situation to Shava before continuing his conversation with Ying.