Derick explained, "When your hand came into contact with the insect's venom, it caused ulceration. The medicine I applied neutralizes the venom's toxicity. The pain is normal. Once the venom burns off a layer of your skin, the pain will gradually subside."

Dodge quickly asked Derick for painkillers, took them immediately, and only then did the pain subside.

After traveling for a while, Derick changed Dodge's dressing again. This time, it was obvious that the skin on Dodge's hand was showing signs of ulceration. The powder seemed to set the surface of the ulcerated skin on fire.

Seeing the miserable state of his hand, Dodge stopped talking and questioning Derick.

The Fatty saw this scene and sarcastically said, "There are all kinds of poisonous creatures in this rainforest. Poisonous insects only sting other poisonous insects."

Hearing the Fatty's sarcasm towards Dodge, Zoe giggled.

Dodge knew that the Fatty was mocking him, but in his current state, he didn't have the energy to argue with the Fatty, so he pretended not to hear and continued walking.

Derick led the team to successfully find the nineteenth marker.

Derick thought to himself, "Soon we will be able to join up with our comrades from the advance team. This 'babysitting' job has been really difficult."

Continuing to push deeper in the direction indicated by the marker for about forty minutes, Derick finally found the twentieth marker, but there was no sign of the advance team nearby.

Huh? Derick wondered.

He quickly tried to contact the advance team using the communication equipment, but there was no response.

"Damn it."

Derick immediately made a judgment. There were only two possibilities now: either the advance team had encountered trouble, or they had taken the wrong path and mistakenly identified another marker as the twentieth marker.

But the most urgent task was to contact the members of the advance team as soon as possible to find out what had happened to their team.

He repeatedly called the advance team with the radio, but there was still no response.

At this time, the position of the two stacked stones below the marker caught his attention. He turned back and carefully checked the marker symbol on the tree again, and he noticed some anomalies.

Derick quickly shouted to the others—

"Be careful! Ambush!"

As soon as he finished speaking.

An unusual sound came from the trees near Dodge's team. Just as Derick issued the warning, a huge woven net was cast down from the layers of leaves, and the team was caught in one fell swoop before they could dodge.

Immediately afterward, several figures leaped down from the trees and tightened the net, binding the seven members of Dodge's team into a ball.

The team members observed through the mesh.

At first, they mistakenly thought that they were attacked by primates such as chimpanzees, but upon closer inspection, they discovered that they were a group of scantily clad primitive people living in the rainforest.

More precisely, the primitive tribes of the Amazon rainforest.

These Amazonian primitive tribesmen were barefoot and naked. Their skin was the color of coffee beans, and their hair was a messy clump decorated with feathers and animal horns. They wore necklaces made of animal bones around their necks. They only had a small piece of cloth covering their private parts, and the rest of their skin was exposed, covered with tattoos painted with colorful pigments.

Among the tribe members, some held stone spears directly against the team members' throats, and some drew their bows with arrows pointing directly at the team members' heads. They rhythmically shouted "Ula", "Woo ah", and "Ah hong", threatening and intimidating the people in the net.

Dodge, the mercenaries, and the Fatty quietly took out their guns, preparing for a head-on confrontation with the tribe members.

"There are three people in front and two people in the back. Take out the archers first."

Dodge whispered.

Dodge's judgment was correct, but his hand was injured, and it was trembling, making it difficult to hold the gun steady. He had no confidence and didn't know if he could succeed.

Derick quickly stopped them: "Don't shoot! There are more than just these five people on the ground."

Derick glanced over the leaves above his head and focused on a point. After repeated confirmation, he said to the others, "There's an archer on the second tree at my four o'clock, aiming at us."

The others looked in the direction Derick indicated and sure enough, they found a discordant yellow-brown color among the dense green leaves.

After observation, the Fatty also found a person hidden in a tree—

"There's one in the tree at my one o'clock."

Dodge was unconvinced. He said to Derick in a low voice, "We have guns, they use bows. It's obvious which is stronger."

Derick's voice trembled slightly: "Don't act rashly. These primitive tribes of the Amazon rainforest live by hunting. Their archers are all excellent marksmen who can shoot tigers and leopards with ease. They know the rainforest very well. The rainforest is their home. We are no match for them in the rainforest. We are trapped in the net now, which is equivalent to being a living target."

"And..." Derick continued, "Their arrowheads are poisonous. Death is instantaneous upon injury. The toxicity is thousands of times stronger than the insect venom that splashed on your hand just now."

After hearing Derick's words, Dodge's hand trembled even more, and he could hardly hold the gun.

The tribe members continued to threaten Dodge's team with spears and arrows, and supplemented it with strange threatening sounds.

The atmosphere dropped to freezing point as tensions rose.