Yang Yong looked up.
A massive dark shape slowly squeezed out of the dense woods surrounding the village.
Its trunk was as thick as an ancient tree. With every inch it moved, soil showered down from the grooves in its skin.
It had no eyes, but Yang Yong could feel it... looking at him.
Or rather, "sensing" him.
Fine goosebumps rose on the back of Yang Yong's neck.
Every hair stood on end.
He shifted his feet, teleporting from the left side of the village to the right.
The dark shape's head turned with him.
It came straight toward him.
Yang Yong narrowed his eyes.
His chest tightened faintly. That familiar pressure felt like a hand gripping his diaphragm.
He teleported again, flashing from the right side of the village to the left.
The Earth Dragon was not fast, but its direction was unsettlingly precise.
There was no hesitation, no deviation.
It had locked onto him.
Yang Yong clenched his teeth.
"So that's how it is."
The World Tree Sapling had swallowed a drop of Jiang Chen's blood.
This Earth Dragon had likewise been nurtured from Jiang Chen's blood essence.
The two things... shared the same origin.
After Jiang Chen left this world with all the Second-Generation Zombies, the only "kindred" the Earth Dragon could sense was the World Tree Sapling.
It had followed that aura here.
And Yang Yong bore the World Tree Sapling's mark, so to the Earth Dragon's senses, he was equivalent to "one of the same origin."
Yang Yong pressed the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
A faint bitterness spread through his mouth.
He summoned the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace at once.
The furnace materialized from thin air, its intense heat warping the air around it.
Yang Yong stepped onto it, and