Zachary’s Divine Sense followed the vine to locate its root.

Weren’t vine traps supposed to drag their prey into the air after capture? Why was the vine that he tracked with his Divine Sense so long on the ground?

Fortunately, Zachary did not rely on his eyesight to see, but on his Divine Sense to locate enemies, so although it took some effort, he eventually found the root of this vine.

What Zachary did not expect was that he thought the vine would be like ordinary vines before the disaster, just a parasitic organism attached to trees.

However, it was not until Zachary used his Divine Sense to search for the roots of the vine that he discovered the roots were deep within the earth.

Looking at the various bone fragments around him, Zachary understood that the traps set by this thing targeted not only humans but also the ancient creatures that appeared in the forest.

Now that he had found the roots of the vine, Zachary began his next attempt.

Although Zachary considered himself strong and the vines on the ground posed no danger, the old saying goes, "A wise man does not stand under a dangerous wall," and Zachary did not want to seek trouble for no reason.

So, what came next was simple: he took some fuel oil from the Storage space, used the Art of Controlling Objects to fling the oil barrels directly onto the root system of the vines.

Though the roots of the vine were hidden deep underground, if Zachary managed to burn all the vines on the surface, then those buried in the soil would no longer be a threat to him.

For safety, Zachary threw four oil barrels in succession. When the barrels hit the vines on the ground, the vines quickly entangled them, and the sturdy barrels were soon crushed by the tightening vines.

When the barrels burst and the oil spilled onto the vines, the vines markedly shrank, seeming to show disinterest in this liquid.

After the four barrels of fuel oil were delivered and burst open, the soil above the vine roots was completely covered.

At this point, Zachary stylishly used the Five Elements Incantation’s Fire Curse, and although the small flame flickered in the air, it never went out.

Under Zachary’s control, the small flame slowly floated to the ground soaked with fuel. When the flame touched the oil-covered ground,

the small flame ignited the fuel, and a fierce fire rapidly spread across the land.

The intense flames consumed everything on the ground, and the vines began to break on their own under the flame’s blistering heat.

Although to the naked eye it seemed like the vines were burned through, in Zachary’s Divine Sense, the vines on the ground actually severed themselves from the vine roots actively.

The broken vines began to ooze a very sticky, milky liquid, which appeared to be a flame retardant. Anywhere it covered, the flames on the ground were extinguished.

Each vine did not produce much liquid, but there were many vines in the area because the roots of the vine were buried below, so there were numerous vines at that location.

The countless vines that had passively broken due to the flames began to exhibit the same behavior, and gradually, the milky liquid covered the ground entirely.

Seeing this scene, Zachary was not too pleased, so he took another barrel of fuel from the Storage space and ignited that area again in the same way.

By then, Zachary wanted to force the issue to see if the vines had any other unknown tactics.

Before long, just as Zachary had anticipated, the originally severed vines, like milkers, continuously extracted the white liquid from within themselves, determined to extinguish the flames swiftly.

Lucky that Zachary decided to wait a while longer; if he had been reckless and gone over, he would likely have faced mutual destruction with the already severed vines. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Zachary wielded a Mountain Splitter, chopping up all the surrounding vines into pieces.

Maybe there were beneficial plants among those, or maybe it was due to other reasons.

Anyway, regardless of the reason, Zachary did not want to put himself in danger.

Perhaps because all the other vines had been burned to ash, the vine roots underground did not make any further moves, resigned to staying put below.

Only when the fire nearby finally died down did Zachary use the Water Curse to wash over the recently burnt area.

As Zachary’s Water Curse, deprived of Spirit Energy, slowly dissipated, he realized that the ground had been scorched black by the fire.

Reflecting on the sight of the dense vines just a moment ago, now turned into a wasteland, Zachary smiled. If the vine had any intelligence, at this moment it would surely be trembling in fear beneath the ground, praying that the one who set the fire would not notice it hiding below.

After Zachary cleared the ground with the Water Curse, he, being learned in the Five Elements Incantation, no longer needed to dig pits by hand. By using the Earth Curse, he could manipulate all the soil underfoot within the range of his Divine Sense.

Of course, Zachary was not going to bother experimenting but directly used the Earth Curse to unearth the roots that had been hiding underground and capturing prey through the vines.

As the roots of the vine slowly emerged from the soil, Zachary actually felt some guilt.