Chapter 276: Earth Fire’s Weakness

It was possible that they had discovered the earth fire at first. However, since the fire appeared to have been extinguished when viewed with the naked eye, they thought that they had already accomplished their goal.

They did not know that the fire was still burning in places invisible to humans, and was even spreading toward the surrounding areas. Eventually, it affected the ecosystem of the entire mountain, making it difficult for many plants to survive there. That was why the mountain appeared so desolate compared with the surrounding mountains.

This kind of abnormality would generally be difficult to discover without a careful investigation.

Most earth fires were not open flames but smoldering fires. The smoldering fire on a certain mountain overseas had even been burning for more than five thousand years.

Naturally, this mountain had not been burning for quite that long, but conservatively speaking, it should have already been burning for twenty or thirty years. After all, if it had started burning since ancient times, the villagers living nearby should have moved away long ago.

In the end, even the reluctance to leave one’s homeland could not compare with being forced to leave by the need to survive.

It was not impossible for the earth fire to encounter the Age of Apocalypse and accidentally become a special elemental boss. After all, the monsters that had appeared so far were basically all things that the Age of Apocalypse had found locally on Gaia and used as materials.

Compared with those bosses with powerful physical bodies, the earth fire was obviously more difficult to deal with, and ordinary methods would have a hard time working against it.

However, just like trees, earth fire had one very obvious weakness. It was inconvenient to move.

The flames could indeed disperse at any time and form new fires, but that did not mean they had no main body and could freely switch their main body between every cluster of flames.

Joo Joowon could not search the entire mountain for the main body, and it seemed that the other party had also taken precautions against this.

Furthermore, perhaps because it was an elemental lifeform, the other party’s intelligence seemed to be somewhat higher than that of mutated beasts. It was actually expanding, trying to break free from its original limitations.

The tree-heart flames were clearly one such attempt.

Most of a tree’s main life activities took place in the phloem, which was distributed near the bark, while the tree trunk mainly served as support. Therefore, even if the inside of the trunk was hollowed out, it would not have much effect on the tree’s growth.

Perhaps it was because of the earth fire, or perhaps it was because of the magnetic field. In any case, the trees here were probably more likely to be struck by lightning, which then gave the earth fire an opportunity to find a way to spread toward the surface.

At least from Joo Joowon’s perspective, he could not see any signs of human involvement at the place where the fire tree had been split open. It looked more like a crack that had genuinely been created when lightning struck and split the tree apart.

However, some of the fire trees that appeared later were different. The openings where they had split apart were quite rough, and their edges did not have the charring that would normally be produced after being struck by lightning. Instead, they looked more like carbonized marks that had simply been burned into the wood by flames.

However, even after figuring all of this out, Joo Joowon still could not locate the position of the earth fire. It was hidden far too deeply.

As long as it was still fire, there would always be a way to extinguish it. The other party could not possibly fail to understand this point. Naturally, it would hide its main body extremely well to prevent its enemy from targeting it.

It was precisely because he understood this that Joo Joowon had continued provoking the earth fire, making it realize that if it did not deal with him, he would definitely keep coming back to harass it.

There could be a thief for a thousand days, but there could not be a defense against a thief for a thousand days. After understanding this point, the earth fire naturally could no longer continue with its original small-scale attacks, thinking that even if Joo Joowon ran away, it would not be a loss.

However, by doing so, it immediately fell into Joo Joowon’s trap.

With a fire spreading across such a large area, even if the earth fire was stronger than Joo Joowon, it was impossible for it to precisely control every single flame. Its energy and presence naturally began to leak out.

Of course, Joo Joowon was also racing against time now. Although the flames did not like water, under such a large-scale fiery assault, it would eventually notice the main body near the water source. By then, before he could find the earth fire’s main body, the earth fire might have already found and eliminated his main body first.

Joo Joowon quickly concealed the aura he had sensed, and immediately activated his own fortune.

Like gears that had been stuck for a long time suddenly beginning to turn, two completely unrelated celestial signs began to collide and draw closer to each other, producing a grating sound of compression that made one’s teeth ache.

The wildfires covering the entire mountain suddenly came to a halt.

There was a saying that a bright moon had no shadow and duckweed had no roots. Once a lifeform lost its "roots," its own fortune would become unstable and float aimlessly. Even the slightest disturbance could then cause extremely serious consequences for the person involved.

It was like how some people could survive even after being involved in a plane crash, while others could simply fall into a small puddle left behind after the rain and end up drowning.