Primordial Earthworm

Pangu cleaved open Hundun, the clear and turbid divided Qiankun, the Prehistoric World established heaven and earth, and all things first took shape.

Heaven and earth at this time were chaotic and violent, far from the ultimate paradise later generations imagined.

At first, both time and space were unstable. Spatial rifts were intertwined, the flow of time was utterly chaotic, and as soon as all things took form, they would be torn apart by the chaotic power of time and space, reverting to energy forms such as Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind and returning to heaven and earth.

Magma surged across the earth. Gale winds ravaged the sky. All tangible matter faced the fate of destruction. The entire world was like a massive purgatory, devoid of life force and steeped in chaos.

This violent scene lasted for an unknown number of years. Eventually, time and space gradually stabilized, and the Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind filling the world slowly shed their most violent forms. Between heaven and earth, all things finally began to take shape, while Innate Primordial Qi slowly emerged.

After countless more years, Primordial Heaven and Earth finally became suitable for living beings. Thus, countless Innate things that had been secretly nurturing broke free, becoming either spiritual roots or living beings and bringing a trace of life force to this barren world.

However, these living beings were clearly divided into two categories.

One category was known as Innate Fierce Beasts. Born without intelligence or reason, they possessed only pure desire for destruction and devouring instincts. Wherever they passed, life force was extinguished and all living things vanished. Most were born from the fusion of the Remnant Souls of Innate Demon Gods slain by Pangu when he opened heaven and earth with Chaos Fiendish Energy, existing solely to wreak havoc and destruction.

The other category was the Innate Beings. They were born from Pangu's will to create the world, bearing Pangu's mission of stabilizing heaven and earth and nurturing all things. They were born with the ability to sort out energy and transform Malevolent Qi, standing in fated opposition to the destructive nature of the Innate Fierce Beasts.

From then on, the Primordial World fell into continuous conflict between the Innate Fierce Beasts and Innate Beings. Life force and destruction collided, order and chaos clashed, endlessly playing out the most primitive and cruel laws of survival.

That was the information Lin Yan, a transmigrator, had learned from the Bloodline Inheritance carried by his current body.

At this moment, he was nestled within a layer of earth several million zhang beneath the ground, leisurely chewing on his own "delicacy."

"Pah, pah..." Lin Yan spat out several mouthfuls of the "delicacy" he had just eaten.

"Why does this piece of Innate Earth Essence contain so much Malevolent Qi?" Lin Yan said with some dissatisfaction, then turned and... wriggled forward again.

"Earth Dragon? What kind of Innate Being is that? Isn't it just an oversized earthworm? I was the person in charge of a key national ecological restoration project, an expert in ecological revitalization for ancient villages in the Yangtze River Delta. Yesterday, I was still drinking Maotai at a celebration banquet... and in the blink of an eye, I became an earthworm, forced to survive by eating dirt all day." Lin Yan grumbled nonstop as he wriggled forward.

When Lin Yan had first arrived in the Prehistoric World and discovered that he had become an Earth Dragon, his heart had utterly collapsed.

"Heavens, are you screwing with me? Even if I might have accidentally stepped on a few earthworms in my past life, you didn't have to punish me like this, did you? And even if I had to transmigrate, couldn't you at least give me a better background? What kind of existence is an earthworm? A decomposer at the bottom of the food chain? Did you send me to the Prehistoric World to sort garbage and promote material recycling?"

Still, complaints were complaints. Lin Yan quickly accepted reality. A passive transmigrator had no control over his own fate. Rather than blaming Heaven and resenting others, he might as well figure out how to survive first.

Although he was filled with resentment over becoming an earthworm, as an Innate Being born at the dawn of creation, his foundation was far more extraordinary than it appeared.

His earthworm body—or rather, his Earth Dragon body—had condensed from the fusion of the Innate Earth Element Origin and fragments of Pangu's Will, then absorbed a wisp of Innate Earth Qi from between heaven and earth. It could be considered one of the origins of earth-element living beings in the Prehistoric World, carrying the initial Dao resonance of the Earth Element Laws.

His entire body consisted of eighty-one segments, corresponding to the meaning of nine times nine returning to one. Each segment performed its own duty and possessed a unique function.

A faint earthy yellow halo lingered around his body. It was protection naturally condensed from Innate Earth Qi, allowing him to perfectly blend into the surrounding soil and conceal his aura. So long as he remained within the earth, even living beings far stronger than him would struggle to detect his presence.

His head also possessed a small set of mouthparts filled with dense, fine tooth blades. Even hard objects like Innate Earth Essence or Jīn Shí could easily be ground into powder and transformed into energy to nourish him.

Such a foundation allowed him to naturally wield the purest Earth Element Laws, granting him supreme power to improve soil, transform Malevolent Qi, and control the earth.

But...

No matter how extraordinary his foundation was, he was still only an earthworm.

In terms of combat power alone, before those Innate Beings with profound foundations who possessed world-destroying strength from birth, he was at the very bottom.

Therefore, ever since learning his identity through his Bloodline Inheritance, he had adhered to the principle that staying alive was victory. He hid alone deep beneath the earth, silently eating dirt and rarely daring to venture out.

After moving several li forward, Lin Yan finally found a layer of earth containing Innate Earth Essence. He opened his mouthparts and swallowed chunks of Innate Earth Essence rich in earth-element energy.

This Innate Earth Essence was the essence formed from the condensation of Earth Element Origin after the earth cooled, containing extremely pure energy. After he devoured it, one portion would transform into Innate Spiritual Qi and nourish his Earth Dragon body. The other would become mild Earth Element Spiritual Qi and merge into the surrounding soil, making the originally barren earth layer, which was filled with weak Malevolent Qi, fertile and brimming with life force.

In his previous life, Lin Yan had been one of the nation's top ecological restoration experts, dedicating his life to desert management, soil improvement, ecological restoration, and similar work. Now that he had transmigrated into a Primordial Earthworm, his daily work was still improving soil. In another sense, this counted as professional alignment.

After finishing his complaints, Lin Yan turned and took a few more bites of the Innate Earth Essence beside him. Dissatisfied or not, he still had to eat.

Suddenly, Lin Yan raised his head—if that could be called a head—as a dull vibration faintly traveled from deep underground. At the same time, he keenly sensed that the temperature of the surrounding soil seemed to be slowly rising.

The warning information from his Bloodline Inheritance instantly told him what was about to happen.

"Earthfire eruption? Fuck!" Lin Yan was instantly terrified out of his wits.

Although the Primordial World had stabilized considerably by now, earthfire eruptions still occurred from time to time in many places. These earthfires were Innate Fire Essence containing supreme might, possessing terrifyingly high temperatures and immense power. When they erupted, they formed earth fire torrents capable of destroying heaven and earth. In short, his current body could not withstand them at all.

"Run!" That was the first thought that surfaced in Lin Yan's mind.

He could clearly sense that the rock layer of an Earth Vein beneath him was rapidly collapsing. Scalding innate earthfire, carrying magma and shattered stone, was erupting upward like a surging tsunami.

There was no time to think. Lin Yan opened his enormous mouth and frantically gnawed through the earth ahead. The eighty-one segments along his slender body exerted themselves at the same time, wriggling rapidly as he fled upward at several times his usual speed.

"Boom—boom—" The earthfire broke through the soil behind him with deafening crashes. Scorching Innate Fire Essence raced after him through the passage he had opened. Lin Yan could even feel waves of heat scorching his body until it burned.

"Faster! Just a little faster!" The instinct to survive made him dig upward even faster.

"Come on, Lin Yan! You can do it! You led national-level ecological projects—how could you die in an earthfire eruption? And in the form of an earthworm, no less. That would be too humiliating." Lin Yan kept encouraging himself, but the temperature behind him grew higher and higher, nearly baking the mucus on his body dry.

Finally, just as Lin Yan felt his mucus was about to boil him alive, he burrowed through the final layer of earth. His body shot out of the ground like an arrow released from a bow, then without pausing, rapidly... wriggled toward a giant stone in the distance.

Still shaken, Lin Yan hid behind the giant stone and watched the earthfire frantically erupt from the entrance to the tunnel he had dug not far away. He secretly let out a breath of relief.

"That was close! I almost got roasted into dried Earth Dragon." Lin Yan said fearfully as he looked at his charred body.

"This Prehistoric World is way too dangerous. I was honestly eating dirt down there. Who did I provoke? Why did it have to blast me with earthfire?"

"Transmigrating into an earthworm would have been bad enough, but the living environment is this awful too. Heavens, are you not going to leave me any way to live?"

"When other people transmigrate, they either get a good background or a golden finger. Why are you so stingy? Why give me nothing at all?"

Having just escaped danger, Lin Yan continued complaining at the sky.

[Ding! Detected that the host successfully diverted an earthfire eruption, producing a weak positive impact on the local ecological environment and indirectly saving a small Earth Dragon Clan group (quantity: 9) from being annihilated by earthfire. The minimum conditions for activating the "Ecology Civilization Spark" system have been met. System binding has begun...]