I knew this merit wasn't so easily obtained

Lu Changsheng scanned his surroundings with vigilance.

Although it took me some time to break through, that massive golden light of merit from earlier must have drawn the attention of many living beings.

No one came to disturb me for these past three thousand years, likely because the natural pressure formed after the ley lines were reconnected deterred some petty creatures.

But now that the aura of the ley lines has stabilized, those overly curious great demons might come creeping over to investigate at any moment.

Lu Changsheng made a decisive choice.

Time to go home!

He had secured his fortuitous encounter, broken through in cultivation, and lined his pockets.

Quit while ahead; never be greedy!

He strode to the Red Sun Fruit tree, skillfully used his claws to dig it out roots and all, and stuffed it back into the jade box around his neck.

He didn't even glance at the remnants of the array discs on the ground. Those pieces of junk, having been squeezed of their last shred of value, were no longer worthy of entering the storage space of a True Immortal expert like himself.

Time to slip away, time to slip away. I need to hurry back to my Nameless Low Mountain and reinforce those three thousand layers of arrays once more.

Lu Changsheng made up his mind and immediately activated the breath-concealing technique he knew by heart.

He suppressed his True Immortal-level mana deep within his body, even disguising the dark golden feathers on his surface to look like ordinary fire-red ones.

He transformed once again into an ordinary Fire Crow, the kind that would be impossible to pick out from a pile of demonic beasts.

However.

Just as Lu Changsheng turned around, preparing to skim the ground and use an escape art to bolt.

"Rumble..."

A dull, muffled vibration, as if coming from the deepest depths of the netherworld, suddenly erupted beneath his feet.

The tremor was extremely faint; had he not just broken through to the True Immortal realm and significantly heightened his five senses, he never would have detected it.

An earthquake?

Lu Changsheng paused, his brows knitting together.

The Primordial Land was incredibly sturdy; unless great experts were battling, natural earthquakes almost never occurred.

He released his newly birthed divine sense, carefully probing through the soil beneath his feet and down into the depths of the earth.

One thousand zhang.

Two thousand zhang.

Three thousand zhang...

"Hiss—"

When his divine sense reached a depth of nearly five thousand zhang.

Lu Changsheng gasped, recoiling his divine sense as if he had been electrocuted.

His bird face was instantly covered in terror, his voice cracking in alarm.

"Damn it..."

In his divine sense's perception.

Deep in the earth, five thousand zhang down, right beside the micro-ley line he had just reconnected.

A creature of indescribable size, its body covered in gray-brown, rock-like scales, was slowly opening a pair of massive eyes that glowed like blood-red lanterns.

It was an Earth Dragon!

Not a True Dragon of the Dragon Clan that soared through the nine heavens, but an ancient Earth Dragon born in the depths of the earth, surviving for eons by devouring ley lines and rock!

The most fatal part was this.

From that fleeting contact with his divine sense, Lu Changsheng clearly felt the fluctuations of the creature's realm.

Mystic Immortal!

And it was a veteran Mystic Immortal with an aura so dense and heavy that it had clearly polished its cultivation for countless epochs!

This goddamn Heavenly Dao, I knew the wages you paid wouldn't be easy to collect!

Lu Changsheng cursed wildly in his heart.

He finally understood why no demonic beasts had dared to approach when he had summoned such a massive golden light of merit earlier.

It wasn't the pressure of the ley lines at all!

It was because this terrifying overlord of the Mystic Immortal realm was coiled beneath the earth for ten thousand miles around!

Those ordinary little demons and monsters had sensed the sliver of aura radiating from the slumbering Earth Dragon and had long since fled in terror!

And just now.

The wave of energy Lu Changsheng released when he broke through to the True Immortal realm, while seemingly insignificant on the surface.

Had traveled directly along the ley lines into the depths of the earth, striking—neither too far nor too close—right against the forehead of the slumbering old Earth Dragon.

Morning crankiness is a terrifying thing, whether you are human or beast.

What's more.

Lu Changsheng still had an incredibly dense aura of Heavenly Dao Merit and Innate Pure Yang Qi lingering on his body from his breakthrough.

To this Earth Dragon, which wasn't very bright and acted purely on instinct, this aura was ten thousand times more tempting than the most delicious, all-encompassing tonic pill in the world.

"Rumble!"

The vibrations from beneath the ground intensified instantly.

The earth began to heave and crack crazily.

Massive fissures, several zhang wide, spread rapidly in all directions like a spiderweb, with the spot where Lu Changsheng stood as the center.

A violent gust of air, carrying a thick, earthy, and putrid stench, erupted from the cracks.

It's charging up! This beast wants to eat me!

Lu Changsheng felt his scalp tingle, and every feather on his body stood on end.

He could even sense that the Earth Dragon, a creature at the Mysterious Immortal level, was drilling straight up through the soil layers toward the soles of his feet.

One thousand zhang.

Eight hundred zhang.

Five hundred zhang!

Lu Changsheng felt as if the soil beneath his feet had turned into a turbulent sea; the violent shaking made it difficult for him, a cultivator who had just ascended to the True Immortal realm, to even stand steady.

Run!

That was the only thought that popped into Lu Changsheng's mind.

Any pretense of the peerless demeanor of a newly ascended True Immortal, or the nouveau riche mentality of holding top-tier forging materials, was cast to the winds at this moment.

Are you kidding me?

That was a Mysterious Immortal!

In this early era of the Primordial Land, where the Ferocious Beast Tribulation had just ended and the Dragon-Han First Tribulation was still brewing, Zenith Heaven Golden Immortals remained in seclusion, and Primordial Unity Golden Immortals were the overt overlords.

A Mysterious Immortal was absolutely a formidable existence that could reign supreme and walk sideways across any territory!

He was just a True Immortal in the early stage who had scraped by for eight thousand five hundred years by scavenging scraps and inhaling the exhaust of Sha Qi.

What was he supposed to use to fight an old monster that had been slumbering in the depths of the Primordial Land for who knew how many eons?

His head?

Lu Changsheng exerted force with his legs, his True Immortal mana—vast as a great river—surging within his dantian and pouring entirely into his legs and wings.

He didn't even dare to look back, transforming directly into a golden afterimage skimming the ground as he sprinted toward the Nameless Low Mountain.

"BOOM--!!"

The very moment he had dashed less than two hundred zhang away, the ruins where he had been standing exploded.

Countless massive boulders, each weighing ten thousand catties, mixed with soil, were flung into the air like hidden weapons by the terrifying force, blotting out the sunlight for a hundred miles around.

A gray-brown figure, so massive it was suffocating, erupted from the abyss of the earth with an arrogant, violent aura.

"ROAR--!"

A terrifying roar, neither quite dragon nor quite beast, exploded across the Primordial Land.

The sound waves turned into tangible shockwaves, instantly leveling the remaining small hills in the vicinity.

Lu Changsheng, who was in the middle of his sprint, was struck in the back by the shockwave. He felt a tightness in his chest, and his newly stabilized True Immortal mana was nearly scattered.

He stumbled, nearly face-planting into a mud pit ahead.

Using the momentum of his forward lunge, he rolled across the ground to steady himself, unable to resist glancing back out of the corner of his eye.

Just one look was all it took.

Lu Changsheng's scalp went completely numb, and every dark golden feather on his body stood on end.

It was too big.

The old Earth Dragon that had broken through the soil had only revealed a small portion of its body, yet it already stood ten thousand zhang tall!