When Shen Cong had tidied up his experiment and caught back up, he abruptly discovered that the pagoda tree and the Snail Traveler had run into serious trouble.

Through the Third Eye Radar, he could see a crowd of humans surrounding the pagoda tree and the Snail Traveler, attacking with fire, trying to burn the two colossal creatures to death.

"Bug Warriors." Shen Cong grasped it at once — the Twin Cities Republic's Bug Warriors, most likely.

Before dawn, the Pest-Killer Squad had steered the pagoda tree into leveling the Aishan Street settlement, and the Master had fled Gangcheng District with the remnants of his warriors. He and Laicheng District's A-Tai had founded the Twin Cities Republic together — one Premier, one President — so their relationship was presumably decent. That the Master would round up A-Tai and come back to settle the score was entirely plausible.

"Those burning flames should be amber stone — the amber the Fire Cloud Pines produce, which burns like gasoline once congealed. Excellent burn quality; strategic material… But this much fire, against an already-metallized pagoda tree and Snail Traveler, plainly isn't going to cut it."

Shen Cong observed for a minute, then decisively drove the truck around in the other direction, well clear of the battlefield.

Then he told the Four-Legged Dragon: "Little Four, guard the Great Vajra. No running off."

"Bopo… kill…"

Shen Cong shot a glare at the Four-Legged Dragon, forever hollering for blood, and turned to instruct Blackhead. "Blackhead. Mind the house."

Blackhead immediately swore a solemn oath. "Defend the homeland to the death!"

At once, Shen Cong became a shadowy phantom in the night, running to the battlefield, using the tall trees as cover to observe the fighting. There were over a hundred Bug Warriors on the field, better than eight in ten of them ordinary one-core warriors, their physiques falling between ten-bull and fifteen-bull force.

Another twenty-odd were stronger, physiques between fifteen-bull and twenty-bull force — probably two-core Bug Warriors.

Beyond that, two men drew most of Shen Cong's attention. These two weren't fighting, but hanging back at a…