The first to suffer the viper queen's wrath was the skinny Peak Foundation Establishment man who came with Fu Zheng.

With a flick of her tongue, a lightning-fast stream of transparent liquid raced through the air, aiming for his face.

Because of the differences in strength between the two, when he reacted to the viper's mouth swiftly opening as she projected that stream, it was already on his face.

A wretched scream thundered through the forest with the man falling on his knees, clutching his face with everything he got. The transparent venom, or more so acid from the sight of things, began sizzling on the man's face as if it were cooking him alive.

Due to sheer pain, the man squirmed on the ground violently, and the rest of the captured victims watched everything with terror-filled eyes.

The viper queen, unmoving, cold, and indifferent to it all, continued circling around them.

The skinny man's face was filled with blood, and dirt, and goo gradually began to cave into itself. After a while of continuous twisting around, his face just broke in half as brain matter was ejected because of the last momentum of his squirm, and with that, he became a still mess on the ground.

The others were becoming more frantic at the sight, but instead of running out, they continued huddling up together, knowing that any attempt to stand out from the crowd would be met with the same fate as that man.

The viper queen's mood seemed to slowly turn more upbeat as she continued hearing the screams of those she killed, and more so the expressions of her two enemies, Blood Spear, and Lu Peng.

Suddenly, she cackled out of nowhere like a madman, and then two thick black tentacles sprouted out from her body and twisted around Blood Spear's legs and abdomen.

Once he was firmly secured on the ground, she stopped her continuous circling motion, and closed in on him, as a result scaring him and the rest of the captured people.

Struggle as he could, Blood Spear's strength proved to be too insufficient to make the slightest dent on the black tentacles that he was wildly biting with his vicious mandibles. Glancing at the viper's ruthless gaze that eyed him with predatory intentions, he knew that his life was over. The only thing that could comfort him at that moment was the knowledge of his assured revenge. After all, Blood Spear wasn't a lone ant, and he had tremendous backing.

"It's but a matter of time," He mumbled after he slightly calmed himself down. Meeting the viper's gaze with his slightly improved state of mind, he cursed again, "This won't be the end, I promise you that."

"Why is that?" Asked the viper with amusement once the two were but an arm's length from one another.

Blood Spear's shrewdness was clear even in his last moments, and so without divulging too much information that might probably help her, he just kept shut and met her gaze, calm and collected. Recollecting how he had been acting in this whole fight, he couldn't help but feel a tinge of regret.

Seeing that he wasn't going to say anything else, the viper queen finally opened her gigantic jaws and bit, hard.

With a loud crunch, the awakened Ant, who had such lofty ambitions, simply became one more resource in the viper's personal growth.

Having rid herself of the most dangerous of her victims, she resumed her taunting. One by one, she killed them, apparently using them as practice for her newly leveled skills. Sometimes she would use her acid, other times her tentacles would break people apart, and sometimes she would send a black beam of light that would destroy everything in its path.

Fu Zheng died writhing in pain, covered in acid and his fat lackey was torn limb from limb by several of her tentacles, a shower of blood and body parts drenching the rest of her trapped victims.

Next, the ants who remained were picked off one after another. Then, the low-level human cultivators, working up to the vice-administrators that came with Lu Peng.

Galan was swallowed whole, leaving behind only Lu Peng, his daughter, and two unrelated human cultivators.

The viper hissed a laugh, something that always managed to make people's hairs stand on end due to how eerie it was.

The viper queen's eyes flashed with a vicious glint, and with another astonishingly fast flick of her tongue, a transparent acid dashed through the air, and this time her aim was Lu Peng's daughter, Lu Ning.

Just as it was about to meet Lu Ning's unaware face, Lu Peng intervened and blocked the projectile with his shoulder.

Needless to say, what followed was another bout of screams, ending with his whole right arm falling off

As he stumbled on the ground, with 20% of his body beside him on the dirty ground, Lu Peng's eyes became unprecedently lucid. However, as clear-minded as he was, his life was still coming to an end, and he understood that fact very well.

With teary eyes, he glanced at his daughter who was crouching in front of him with concern written all over her face. "I am sorry," He finally mumbled, voice choked with a mixture of complicated emotions.

A dam of tears streaming down Lu Ning, she lunged at her father and hugged, unwilling to let go. If she was going to die, then she was going to go down like this, in the embrace of the most important person to her.

The viper queen continued to circle her victims, slowly constricting their available space. The humans huddled together, unwilling to look at or even acknowledge the snake. As she gazed at these people, so close to her and yet not daring to look at her, she felt her rage grow.

Just as she was about to directly swallow the two in a single mouthful, she heard a coughing sound behind her.

Startled that someone had sneaked up on her without her noticing, she swung her head around but couldn’t find anyone.

"I'm up here," The voice echoed once again.

Her gaze slowly travelled upward until she spotted the small form of a body forging mosquito in the upper parts of a tree. The viper queen's confident expression morphed into one of utter confusion because she hadn't registered its presence until now. She stared it without saying anything.

Her gaze narrowed, and watched it without saying anything else.

The mosquito was naturally Lei Yan. Keeping a careful eye on the huge snake below him, he said, "I know where the golden dragonfly is."

Hearing those words, the viper queen's eyes narrowed and she asked, "You do?"

"Of course!" Lei Yan affirmed.

With a menacing hiss that would have sent any other creature shivering in fright, she commanded, "Show me."

"No." Lei Yan simply rejected it.

"No?" She mumbled, feeling slightly caught off guard by such an unexpected answer. Her gaze turning cold, she threatened, "Do you not fear for your life?"

"No." Lei Yan assured her.

The viper queen's expression stiffened, and the most ridiculous part was that she actually believed him. There was no Body Forging monster that would be able to stand in front of her now at the very entrance of the Core Formation and remain as calm and collected as this mosquito.

The father-daughter behind her had already separated, and they watched everything unfold with bated breath, recognizing the mosquito as the one who gave them information to come here.

"What do you want then?" The viper studied the mosquito. It was definitely at the Body Forging realm and that fact left her feeling unsettled. In her long years of life, she had never encountered any creature that showed such a lack of fear in the face of death and that made her decide to deal with this mosquito with caution.

"I need those two behind you," The mosquito said, its forelegs pointing at the father-daughter duo.

"You want me to spare them for the dragonfly?" The viper asked as she thrashed her tail into the ground in fury.

Lei Yan was aware of what the Golden Monkey did to her and he didn't want to risk jeopardizing this interaction by making it seem too similar to that one. Thus, he knew that he had to use a softer approach. Pointing in a random direction, he asked, "Can we talk privately?"

Understanding his meaning, the viper queen merely moved a few steps away before she conjured a Qi barrier that separated them from the rest, "You may speak now."

Deciding to throw a word that she'd like, Lei Yan explained, "Golden Eye is not very far from here." Noticing the subtle reaction in her eyes when he mentioned the words, he continued, "I only want you to spare those two for today, I need them for something. Then you can go to their outpost and kill them there?"

"What do you need them for?" The viper asked her voice both intrigued and slightly hesitating.

Already expecting such an answer, Lei Yan said, "I need some knowledge that they have."

After thinking for a long while, the viper queen finally agreed and said, "Alright."

Tearing apart the small barrier, she retreated back in the group's direction. Black tentacles emerged out of her neck, and the two humans behind the duo were killed. But instead of stopping there, she continued toward the two. Once she was but a few paces away from them, she used her own Qi to wreak havoc inside both of their cultivation bases. "Then you wouldn't need their strength." She nonchalantly said without looking back.

Lei Yan's eyes shone with a radiant light at that, and internally rejoiced at how perfect everything had gone thus far.

"Certainly," He said back at her.

The viper queen then came back toward him, leaving behind her two confused and crippled father and daughter. "Lead the way," she ordered.

"Of course," Lei Yan said and began flying east, with the viper queen slowly moving behind.

Once there was enough distance between the two groups, a red-haired woman appeared before the two, following behind her were dozens of insects and a tall man with long dark locks.