Yanzhuang Town.

The dragon-claw pagoda tree stretched its branches and leaves without restraint, absorbing sunlight, drawing in nutrients.

The tree was already hung all over with jade-green little fruits, not yet ripe, but you could smell the enticing fragrance the fruits gave off. Many evolved beasts in the dense forest, unable to bear the smell, came one after another wanting to pluck and gnaw at the fruits.

But these evolved beasts all became, in the end, the dragon-claw pagoda tree's food.

Evening, the setting sun sinking in the west.

The dragon-claw pagoda tree, which a moment ago had branches and leaves waving no differently from an ordinary big tree, suddenly underwent an enormous change. Its outstretched branches and leaves swiftly bent down, bracing against the ground, its roots pulling out from the soil one by one, until at last the enormous roots were drawn out.

Having pulled out its roots, the dragon-claw pagoda tree, just so, used its branches for legs, dragging trunk and roots.

It walked off toward the west-by-north.

The countless jin trees along the way were all violently shoved aside and snapped by the dragon-claw pagoda tree, leaving behind a long, long trail of movement.

...

The Diamond Park settlement.

In the dense forest around the mercury lake.

A giant snail, bathed in the setting sun's afterglow, lazily gnawed at jin trees. Its mouth drew near a stand of jin trees, its tongue gave a slight curl, and several jin trees were rolled into its mouth. Then they were ground to pieces by the radula covered in fine, crushing teeth, and swallowed down into its belly. At the same time, below the mouth of the snail shell, a hole opened on the giant snail's back.

Squelch.

A great mass of thick black matter sprayed out, dousing a large patch of the ground.

After the Snail Traveler had gone off into the distance, the foul, fetid stench drew over several buzzing big flies, circling merrily around the black matter.

And a few strange-looking beetles crawled over too.

The beetles, no smaller than water vats, were just about to…