The tremor didn't come from the ground this time.
It came from the air.
John felt it while resting inside his cave, half-asleep on a bed of cracked bones and glittering monster cores. It wasn't a sound. It wasn't even a vibration.
It was a pressure.
A weight that pressed against his chest and made his instincts scream.
His eyes snapped open.
The cave felt smaller.
The mana in the air twisted, like something massive had entered the forest and the world itself was trying to make room for it.
John slowly stood, wings spreading slightly, every scale tightening.
"That thing…" he muttered. "It's closer."
He stepped out of the cave and climbed onto the cliff above his territory.
The southern forest stretched endlessly below him — black trees, glowing fungi, rivers of silver mist.
And far away…
Something moved.
At first he thought it was a storm cloud.
Then the cloud opened its eyes.
Six enormous crimson lights burned in the distance.
A colossal shape drifted above the forest, not flying — **floating**, as if gravity had given up on it.
Its body was serpentine and impossibly long, wrapped in layered plates of obsidian and gold. Four massive wings beat slowly, not to stay airborne, but to bend the air around it. A crown of curved horns rose from its skull like a broken throne.
**Species: Astral Devourer Wyrm**
**Level: 10**
John froze.
His system window hovered in front of him.
And for the first time since he was reborn as a dragon…
His mind went blank.
*Level 10…*
He had fought Tier 7 monsters.
He had barely survived a Tier 8 Sovereign.
This thing was not just stronger.
This was **a different world of power**.
John felt it even from kilometers away — the difference between them was not a gap.
It was a cliff.
If he fought it head-on…
He would die.
Not "maybe."
Not "probably."
He would be erased.
John slowly lowered his body and pulled back into the shadows of the cliff, heart pounding.
*Think. Think, John.*
The Astral Devourer Wyrm drifted closer, its gaze sweeping across the forest like a god searching for prey.
Every monster below went silent.
Tier 6 beasts fled.
Tier 7 monsters hid.
Even the arrogant high-tier predators John had fought before shrank into burrows and caves.
This wasn't a hunter.
This was an extinction event.
John clenched his claws.
*It's coming for me… or for my territory.*
He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe.
Brute force won't work.
Ambush won't work.
A single mistake means death.
"So I need a plan," he whispered.
His mind raced.
Traps.
Terrain.
Luring other high-tier monsters.
Poison.
Starving it.
Exhausting it.
*I can't kill it fast…*
*So I kill it slowly.*
John's gaze hardened.
"If I want to live… I need to become the most dangerous thing this forest has ever seen."
Far away, the Astral Devourer Wyrm turned its head.
And looked directly at John's mountain.
---
**Chapter 32 — The Hunt Before the Hunt**
John didn't sleep.
He moved.
He hunted with a purpose he had never known before.
Tier 6 monsters died first — not for EXP, but for materials.
Venom glands.
Crystal cores.
Shadow silk.
Void spores.
He harvested everything.
Then Tier 7 monsters.
He didn't fight them fairly.
He stalked them.
Waited for them to battle each other.
Waited for wounds.
Waited for exhaustion.
Then he struck.
One bite.
One Abyssal Flame burst.
One crushed skull.
Gone.
He dragged their corpses into hidden valleys and began building something terrible.
A kill zone.
Spikes of crystal.
Mana mines.
Poison fog pockets.
Collapse traps made from unstable stone giants.
Every trap was layered.
Every layer was meant to bleed the Level 10 monster.
Not kill it.
Just… weaken it.
And far above the forest…
The Astral Devourer Wyrm circled slowly.
Patient.
Smiling.
Because it could already smell the little dragon trying to survive.
And it was coming anyway.