The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

The map marked the locations of various regions. He was currently in the "African Savannah Region," beyond which lay the "Asian Jungle Region," and further ahead was the boundary between the "Predator Region" and the "Herbivore Region." The coordinates of the secret realm intelligence were near that boundary area.

Su Mu put the map away and continued walking.

After walking for about ten more minutes, the trees ahead suddenly became denser, and the vegetation on both sides changed from low shrubs to large-leaved plants taller than a person's head.

The air was filled with a damp, earthy smell, as if something had been churning in the nearby waters.

Su Mu peeked ahead through the gaps in the leaves.

Ahead lay a wide expanse of water... a hippo pool. The gray-black cement walls rose half a meter above the water, surrounded by a rusty iron fence. The water was murky like mud, with a layer of green algae floating on the surface. Bubbles rose from the bottom, bursting on the surface and emitting a strong odor, like a mixture of cow dung and fish.

In the center of the pool, several hippos were half-submerged, with only their nostrils, eyes, and a small section of their backs visible. They remained motionless, like gray rocks submerged in water.

The largest one has a head that is at least half a meter wide, and when its mouth is open, it can fit an adult.

Su Mu frowned, about to walk around it...

A loud noise suddenly came from afar.

It wasn't just the slightest rustling of the wind; it was a real, large-scale movement of living organisms at high speed.

The sounds of trees being knocked down, branches snapping, and birds fluttering in fright mingled together, like a small landslide. Su Mu's steps abruptly halted, his body instinctively sinking down, crouching close to the ground behind the bushes, suppressing even his breathing to a minimum.

A black figure leaped out from the distant woods.

That was a bear.

It's not the kind of brown bear you see in a regular zoo... It's at least twice the size of a normal brown bear, and when it's on all fours, its shoulder height exceeds the waist of a Shetland Sheepdog. If it stands up, it's at least three meters tall.

Its entire body was covered in thick, dark brown fur, with lighter fur on its chest, giving it a dirty, yellowish-brown appearance. Its head was enormous, and its mouth was slightly open, revealing rows of yellowed, badly worn teeth, with dark red bits of flesh stuck between them.

It had something in its mouth, a yellowish-brown, sticky substance that looked like honey or resin, oozing from the corners of its mouth and dripping down its chin.

Its two forepaws were also covered in that sticky liquid. As it ran, it raised its right paw and licked it, letting out a muffled, satisfied gurgling sound.

The most striking feature is its forehead... right in the center is a tuft of golden hair, not dyed or covered in anything, but growing naturally, like a burning flame, which stands out starkly against the black bear's face.

Su Mu's pupils contracted slightly.

Behind the brown bear, a dark, buzzing cloud was rapidly approaching.

It wasn't a cloud, it was a swarm of bees. Each one was the size of an adult's fist, completely black with a dark red ring around its abdomen, and the sound of its wings flapping was like the roar of countless small engines, making Su Mu's eardrums vibrate.

The brown bear was ridiculously fast. Its size and speed were completely disproportionate... Each stride covered three or four meters, its four paws digging deep holes in the ground, sending dirt and gravel flying behind it.

It ran past less than twenty meters in front of the bushes where Su Mu was hiding, the wind it stirred up causing the bushes to shake violently, and a strong smell mixed with honey and the stench of wild animals wafted over.

The brown bear leaped several times and reached the iron fence of the hippopotamus enclosure. Without slowing down, it lightly placed its front paws on the top of the fence, then flipped over like a black cloud, landing on the inside of the enclosure. The iron fence creaked under its weight, but did not collapse.

Then it plunged headfirst into the pool.

"thump......!"

The murky pool water exploded into a huge spray, scattering mud and algae everywhere. The brown bear's body disappeared beneath the surface the instant it entered the water, leaving only a few strings of bubbles rising from below.

In the center of the pool, the largest hippopotamus was half-submerged, its nostrils above the water, breathing slowly. The transition from "rest" to "rage" was so rapid that there was almost no transition.

The sound of the brown bear entering the water startled it... no, it wasn't startled, the brown bear bumped into it underwater.

The hippopotamus jerked violently, its head rising sharply from the water, its mouth agape, letting out a deafening roar like the rumble of a diesel engine. Its body tumbled out of the water, not rising slowly, but leaping out like a giant gray cannonball.

But the moment the hippopotamus emerged from the water, a swarm of fist-sized wasps arrived.

A massive swarm of bees, like a vast, all-encompassing net, swooped down from above the hippopotamus enclosure. They didn't attack the brown bear... the bear had already sunk to the bottom, bubbles still rising to the surface... instead, they all pounced on the hippos. Fine, needle-like tail stingers pierced the hippos' skin.

Hippos have skin over five centimeters thick, making them a mobile fortress that most carnivores cannot bite through. The stingers of wasps pierced through the hippo's thick skin as easily as a hot knife through butter.

Dark red blood seeped from each puncture point, quickly pooling into a small stream that trickled down the hippo's gray skin. The punctured skin swelled up at a visible speed into fist-sized bumps, the color changing from dark red to purplish-black, their edges glistening as if something was fermenting beneath the skin.

The hippopotamus's screams were deafening.

It ran frantically along the shore... not into the water, but towards the land. Its body was so heavy that each step made the ground tremble slightly, sending mud and pebbles flying beneath its feet. It tried to shake off the wasps, but there were too many, densely covering its entire back, head, and even around its eyes.

...................