Overlord of the Wilderness

(A thank you to the friends who voted with Recommendation Tickets, and a plea for some Sanjiang Tickets~~~)

”So heavy!” The moment the Mammoth passed through the gate, Zhang Ye’s first sensation was that he had become much heavier. Actions that were normally effortless, like raising his hands or lifting his feet, now required immense effort.

Zhang Ye, after all, was someone with awakened memories. He was stunned for only a moment before he immediately understood. ’The gravity in this place is stronger than outside!’

Zhang Ye estimated the gravity was about double that of the outside world!

The immense gravity pressed down on every part of his body. Zhang Ye felt an indescribable discomfort in his internal organs, and his ears were ringing. He didn’t even dare to snap his eyes open, afraid the pressure would damage them.

Zhang Ye began circulating his Dragon Elephant Skill. Only after his body had adapted slightly to the gravity did he slowly open his eyes.

An impossibly vast world greeted Zhang Ye’s eyes. Here, a faint mist drifted through the air, and within it grew all sorts of trees. These trees all shared one common characteristic: they were enormous!

Even the smallest of them was so thick it would take ten people to encircle, and it stood hundreds of feet tall. As for the tallest tree, Zhang Ye suspected that a hundred people might not even be able to wrap their arms around it. Its canopy stretched so far into the sky that he couldn’t see its leaves even when he craned his neck back.

Row after row of enormous trees stood before him, stretching far into the unseen distance.

The trees were impossibly tall, and even the rocks were massive. Not far from Zhang Ye lay a gigantic boulder hundreds of feet high; it looked like a small hill.

The distant mountain peaks were even more astonishingly tall, like a colossal barrier blocking off half the sky. With his sight alone, Zhang Ye couldn’t even begin to fathom their true height or breadth.

The Mammoth was a behemoth, but upon entering this bizarre world, it was reduced to a mere speck. Zhang Ye, by comparison, was as insignificant as a speck of dust. It was as if they had entered a land of giants.

With Zhang Ye on its back, the Mammoth ventured deeper, one step at a time. Though the gravity in this world was much greater, the Mammoth seemed largely unaffected, its pace not slowing in the slightest.

As Zhang Ye sat on the Mammoth’s back, surveying the bizarre world, he suddenly realized something: there wasn’t a single living creature to be found. As far as he could see, there were only colossal skeletons. All life seemed to have died out. Not only that, but even the titanic trees had yellow, withered leaves and appeared to be on the verge of death.

The Mammoth carried Zhang Ye deep into a forest of colossal trees. There, they found a great tree that towered from earth to sky. It was less a tree and more a mountain. Its base was like a mountain range, with a single scale of its bark being the size of a house and shimmering with a strange luster. It was taller than any mountain, stretching straight up until it disappeared into the mist.

”HRUMPH.” The Mammoth pointed upward with its trunk.

Zhang Ye followed its trunk and looked up. There, hanging high up on the tree amidst the swirling mist, were two jade-green fruits, one large and one small. From a distance, they appeared to be fist-sized, but their actual weight was likely in the hundreds of pounds. Judging by their appearance—translucent and a vibrant, glistening green—they were clearly nothing ordinary.

Zhang Ye gasped. ”Big Guy, are you telling me to climb up there and pick those two fruits?”

The Mammoth nodded.

’This Mammoth never does anything without a reason. It seems these two fruits must be incredibly useful,’ Zhang Ye thought. Gritting his teeth, he muttered to himself, ”If I have to climb, I’ll climb. I’ll risk it!”

Although the tree was massive, its bark-like scales could be used for leverage. Resisting the immense gravity, Zhang Ye climbed upward, scale by scale. He felt like an ant scaling a mountain.

He climbed until he was tired, rested, and then continued climbing. It was fortunate that his cultivation of the Dragon Elephant Skill had reached the 4th Layer. Otherwise, he never would have been able to withstand the gravity and climb so high.

He didn’t know how long he had been climbing, but Zhang Ye finally pulled himself onto a branch. The two fruits were just a short distance away.

Zhang Ye made his way along the branch toward the two fruits. He then used his Thick-Backed Saber to shave off two large pieces of bark. ”Big Guy, watch this!” he shouted. With a flick of his wrist, a piece of bark weighing dozens of pounds shot forward, striking the stem of one of the fruits.

CRACK!

Hit with such force, the stem instantly snapped, and the fruit plummeted. The Mammoth below was prepared; with a sweep of its long trunk, it caught the several-hundred-pound fruit.

Repeating the process, Zhang Ye knocked down the second fruit with the other piece of bark.

After some effort, he returned to the base of the tree. He saw the Mammoth shove one fruit into its massive mouth, then generously offer the other to Zhang Ye. Staring blankly at the fruit, which was several times his own size, Zhang Ye couldn’t help but laugh. ”Big Guy, I’m not nearly as big as you. There’s no way I can finish this.”

The Mammoth grunted and pointed its trunk at Zhang Ye’s saber. Zhang Ye understood. He drew his Thick-Backed Saber, cut off a large chunk of fruit with a few swings, then sliced off a smaller piece and put it in his mouth.

”Ugh—”

As the flavor hit his tongue, Zhang Ye’s brow furrowed deeply. It turned out this beautiful fruit tasted absolutely awful—a bizarre mix of sour, spicy, and bitter. He chewed for a moment, forcing himself to swallow it with great effort.

Once swallowed, the fruit pulp transformed into a faint stream of energy. Strangely, this energy didn’t gather in his Dantian or flow into his Meridians; instead, it seeped directly into his muscles and bones.

Zhang Ye squeezed his fist, then casually punched the ground. With a soft THUMP, his entire fist sank into the earth.

’So, this fruit’s purpose is to make the body tougher! If nothing else, my physical strength has definitely increased a bit,’ Zhang Ye thought, looking at his fist. Now understanding its effect, he immediately cut off and swallowed a dozen more pieces.

With each piece he swallowed, Zhang Ye could feel his strength grow a little more. However, the increase was finite. After eating more than ten pieces, he found that it no longer had any effect. He waved his hand, gesturing for the Mammoth to eat the rest of the fruit.

After it finished the fruit, a look of reluctance appeared in the Mammoth’s eyes. It let out a long cry toward the heavens, then, with a flick of its trunk, tossed Zhang Ye onto its back and began striding back the way they came.

The man and beast had just exited the gate when Zhang Ye heard an earth-shattering roar from within. He whirled around to see the entire world begin to shake. Mountains crumbled, the ground cracked open, and countless colossal trees toppled over. Then, a black storm of unimaginable power erupted from the void, sweeping across the entire dimension.

The black storm was terrifyingly powerful. Wherever it passed, it consumed everything in its path—trees, earth, and mountains alike. The world that had been so magnificent just a moment ago was devoured in the blink of an eye, reduced to a void.

WHOOSH! A jade-green stone slab shot out of the gate. The instant it emerged, the gate vanished, leaving behind nothing but a faintly pale stone wall.

Zhang Ye instinctively reached out and caught the slab. A burst of heat radiated into his palm, immediately followed by an ice-cold will that streamed from the slab into his mind. Once he understood the message within that will, a look of utter shock appeared on his face. He muttered to himself, ”So that’s how it is... so that’s how it is...”