"right."

"I see," the man sighed sadly, turning to look at the wreckage in the basket on his back. "My name is Ayu. Da Niu is my and Shi Dan's best brother since childhood. I never thought he would die here. His body is only half-destroyed... Shi Dan, why aren't you saying anything?"

Ah Yu was calling out to someone standing next to her.

Half of the stone egg's body was covered by tree branches, and its posture looked as if it had been pulled away by someone, making it look extremely awkward.

But he never straightened up.

Ayu reached out and tugged at him: "Stone Egg?"

With that pull, the stone egg fell to the ground with a thud!

"Ahhh!"

Suddenly, everyone screamed in terror!

Ah Yu was completely stunned, still holding onto half of Shi Dan's left arm.

It's a genuine half of my left arm—

The area from the elbow to the neck and shoulder was completely gone, the cut surface showing jagged bite marks, blood dripping onto the ground, emitting a strong stench of blood.

Stone Egg fell to the ground, his body as if it had been bitten in half by a giant mouth. From the waist down, his chest, left shoulder, neck, head, right arm and right hand were all gone!

"This, this is what it means to be eaten..."

Before he could finish speaking, the ground suddenly began to shake, and the dim sky flickered, casting terrifying projections onto people's faces—

Looking up, they saw that the towering, layered branches were moving to each other. One by one, the trees, which were dozens of feet tall, stood up from the ground, as if they had come to life, and raised their huge branches to smash down on them!

The wind howled, turning into a sharp, piercing mockery. The holes in the tree trunks opened and closed like mouths, revealing sharp, tooth-like edges stained with blood!

"W-What's going on?!"

The group was so frightened that their legs trembled and they turned to run, but they tripped over a tree root that suddenly rose up and fell to the ground with cries of pain.

Immediately, tree roots entangled their feet, dragging them into a tree hole with its trunk wide open like a mouth!

Just as they were filled with terror, several scorching arrows suddenly flew from the sky, piercing through the tree roots and severing them completely. The arrows immediately exploded, setting the tree roots ablaze with flames!

As soon as the tree root snapped, the tension eased, and everyone quickly bent down to tear off the things wrapped around their ankles, scrambling and crawling away.

Tong Su sheathed her bow, drew her sword, and roared, "Run! Don't let him control the tree branches to grab you again!"

Someone cried out in alarm, "What is that?"

"It's something you can't beat!"

Several others completely ignored Tong Su, focusing only on picking up the fallen remains: "It must be her hallucination! I told you not to believe demons, she's a liar, even the elders were fooled by her!"

Some people even grabbed machetes, wanting to chop down the big trees, but when they slashed hard, they didn't even break the bark. Suddenly, their eyes widened, and the next moment they were caught by branches and fell into the air. The branches twisted and tore them in half!

Half of its body fell down, landing right in the mouth of a wide-open tree hole.

The tree hollow chewed voraciously, with splattered blood and flesh occasionally flowing out from the cracks. After a moment, it opened its mouth and disgustedly spat the chewed corpse, which was now just crumbs, aside.

The crowd turned pale with fear and finally believed Tong Su's words, screaming as they fled back as fast as they could.

Tong Su urged loudly, "Foxes, hurry up and ride the clouds to take everyone away. I'll cover your retreat—"