“Oops, this is bad, my needle hit the brave female…”

Hearing the latter part of the sentence, Xie Cheng gritted his teeth and rolled his eyes inwardly. He had already charged more than ten meters out of the encirclement of the beast pack, when a sharp pain suddenly shot through his shoulder, followed by a spreading numbness. He inwardly cursed, realizing something was wrong. He quickly rolled over and climbed up a tree, then shut his eyes and focused his mind.

As he breathed, his numbed right hand was quickly covered by a thin layer of light blue ice, and the numbness stopped spreading. However, his entire arm became completely numb, devoid of any sensation.

“Damn it!”

Xie Cheng cursed under his breath, opened his eyes, and frowned as he looked at his useless right hand. He then cast his gaze toward the stone hill he had come from. Over ten meters away, there was no longer any movement. The huge golden retrievers, which had been howling loudly just moments ago, were now lying motionless on the ground. Even the few that he had injured but not killed were also unmoving. It seemed they had all been paralyzed. This was a true case of one creature preying on another. He hadn’t expected that something so powerful could paralyze such rough-skinned, tough beasts so quickly. And what’s more, the creature that had released the poison needle was nowhere to be seen…

“I know you’re there, come out.”

Xie Cheng took a deep breath and spoke. The language he used was the beast language he had heard earlier. It was his first time speaking it, so his tongue was a little stiff, and he couldn’t help but sound somewhat awkward.

“Brave female, it’s great that you’re okay.”

Soon, a rustling sound came from the dense canopy around him. After a while, the owners of the sound appeared in front of Xie Cheng. He had prepared himself to not expect them to be human, but when he saw their true form, he was still taken aback.

“…Uh, bees? Butterflies? A hybrid? Genetically modified?”

Xie Cheng stared at the creatures in front of him. They were about a meter tall, with human-like arms and legs and facial features, but they had the bodies of bees and colorful butterfly wings. He shook his head forcefully, blinked a few times to make sure it wasn’t a hallucination, and then stared at them with disbelief, thinking of “Alice in Wonderland” for no apparent reason.

The creatures in front of him had small, delicate, and cute faces—about the size of a palm—small noses, sparkling almond-shaped eyes, and adorable cherry-red lips. They also had fluffy hair on their heads and a pair of constantly twitching antennae. They resembled butterflies and bees, only much larger. In short, they were a hybrid of humans, bees, and butterflies. If they were on Earth, they’d probably be considered an alien species.

“Did the brave female get scared?”

The closest unknown flying creature to Xie Cheng tilted its head and asked the stunned Xie Cheng. The others also tilted their heads and stared at him, looking as adorably dazed as possible.

“What are you?” 

Xie Cheng scanned the extravagant creatures in front of him, forcing himself to remain calm. He told himself that seeing such things in this unknown place was not so strange. After all, he had seen aliens back on Earth. But he didn’t let his guard down for a second—after all, they were poisonous.

“We are the Angel Tribe, here to rescue helpless Beastmen in the Misty Forest,” one of them said cheerfully, thumping its chest. “My name is Ada, and the Angel Tribe is a noble and beautiful Beastman race.”

Xie Cheng understood. So they were Beastmen. No wonder they looked so unusual. In a place like this, he should have expected it. It seemed like he had arrived in the Beastman world that had been portrayed in numerous curiosity-driven films and books. Everything around him felt so real that it made him experience firsthand what it truly meant when people said “reality is more amazing than fantasy.”

His gaze followed Ada’s hand and landed on its flat chest. Xie Cheng deduced that Ada was male, as its voice was rather neutral, and there were no obvious sexual characteristics. That was the only way to tell.

Looking at the others, they were also male, as all of them had flat chests, with their pale limbs exposed and their bodies and tails covered in a bright yellow, bee-like exoskeleton. Xie Cheng tilted his head slightly and noticed a sharp black poisonous stinger on their tails. That was what had paralyzed him earlier.