Allowing the dinosaurs to roam freely across their new home, Haoyuan set about devouring the monsters.
First using Whale Gulp Dragon Inhale, he drained all the blood pooling on the ground, ensuring not a single drop went to waste.
Only then did he begin feeding on the three colossal monsters.
Both the rhino monster and the bird monster possessed Large Size bodies measuring twenty-eight meters, and each provided energy equivalent to ten pseudo-wyrms.
Haoyuan was thoroughly astonished.
Upon opening his status panel, it all made sense once more.
Evolutionary Paths: 1. Silver Armor (Life Tier insufficient); 2. Giant Wind Blade (Life Tier insufficient)
“No wonder...”
“Still, compared to the water monster, their energy is only half as much. Was that water monster just ridiculously overpowered?”
Unable to figure it out, Haoyuan decided not to dwell on it.
Next, he turned his gaze toward the towering fern; he had high expectations for this one.
Compared to the twenty-eight-meter Large Size frames of the former two, this towering fern—as a special variant—was a staggering sixty meters in length and as thick as a heavy haul truck.
Converted to an equivalent volume of pseudo-wyrms, its energy had to be vastly higher.
That was not to mention its massive root system anchored deep beneath the earth.
Sure enough, after finishing the feast, Haoyuan acquired the immense energy equivalent of a whopping thirty pseudo-wyrms.
It was a massive windfall.
The sheer satisfaction was overwhelming.
As for the lesser monsters, Haoyuan didn't eat them, instead storing their blood within his Whale Gulp Dragon Inhale reservoir to give to the herbivorous dinosaurs to drink.
He froze their bodies with Icy Mist and hauled them up a nearby mountain, planning to thaw them in batches over time and slowly feed them to the carnivorous dinosaurs.
Having done all this, he finally paused, looking down across the entire valley from the mountain summit.
Unlike the valley where he had encountered the water monster, this valley seemed to have been gouged out by a meteorite.
The center resembled a gargantuan crater.
The towering mountains encircling it happened to keep out the acid rain clouds from beyond.
Because the acid rain couldn't penetrate, the plant life within was exceptionally well-preserved.
And precisely because of this mountainous encirclement, water vapor gathered within the valley, forming a self-sustaining internal hydrologic cycle.
Ascending from the foothills to the mountain peaks, different elevations harbored different climates, complete with the occasional gentle drizzle.
Snow blanketed the mountaintops.
Moreover, the enclosed ring of mountains helped maintain the dinosaurs' body temperature.
Haoyuan no longer needed to constantly gather heaps of charcoal to keep them warm like he had in the karst cave and during the migration.
At the center of the valley lay clean freshwater suitable for drinking.
To Haoyuan, this place was nothing short of a perfect paradise.
He named this place Dinosaur Valley, hoping it would be a haven where the dinosaurs could live and thrive in peace.
Two to three weeks later.
Haoyuan was curled up asleep inside a pile of fallen dead leaves when an infantile yip awakened him.
Looking up, he saw the little hadrosaur and its mother standing before him.
Behind them followed a large herd of hadrosaurs, Triceratops, and other Centrosaurus ceratopsians.
What are these dinosaurs trying to do?
He wondered in confusion.
Seeing him awake, the dinosaurs let out anxious cries, picking up withered yellow leaves from the ground in their beaks and wailing mournfully toward him.
Haoyuan blinked in surprise, his gaze tracing up the towering arbor trees beside the herd.
He noticed that their lowest leaves had already fallen off, while the foliage along the midsections was turning yellow and withered, bereft of vitality.
Realizing what was happening, he climbed out of the leaf pile and followed the dinosaurs out into the fern meadows.
There, he discovered to his shock that all the ferns had withered to a dry yellow.
“How could this happen?”
Stunned, Haoyuan raised his head toward the sky.
The sky above the valley was slightly brighter than elsewhere, but in the end, it was still dark.
Without photosynthesis, the death of the plants was inevitable.
Haoyuan lowered his head, glancing around the yellowing fields, then toward the towering arbor trees that were rapidly losing everything except their umbrella-like crowns of green at the very top.
Finally, his gaze fell upon the dinosaurs.
Their eyes held nothing but desolate sorrow.
Without food, how could they survive the days ahead?
“Awoo!”
The little hadrosaur let out an affectionate cry, its eyes filled with something akin to pleading.
It meant that it wanted food.
Haoyuan understood what it was thinking; the little fellow had clearly been starving for days.
Haoyuan reached out to gently stroke the little creature's head, then looked at the dinosaur herd.
From his mouth, he disgorged some of the stored blood from the ordinary mimic monsters.
The dinosaurs were still somewhat hesitant, but faced with starvation, it was far easier to accept than before.
Seeing them drink it, Haoyuan issued a reassuring cry to comfort them.
Then, he opened his flaming eyes of molten gold.
The world seemed to suddenly brighten for an instant.
Indeed, it was noticeably a sliver brighter than the pitch-black darkness that had reigned before.
He opened his panel.
Evolutionary Path: Eyes of the Torch Dragon (??, fused into flaming eyes of molten gold)
As a mighty deity from the 《Classic of Mountains and Seas》, Haoyuan still remembered its description: “...When its eyes close, darkness falls; when its eyes open, light shines. Its gaze brings day, its slumber brings night; its blowing breath brings winter, its exhaling breath brings summer; it drinks not, eats not, breathes not, and its breath becomes the wind...”
This ability to command day and night with a single thought was the exact solution to their current dilemma.
And so on that day, the dinosaurs of Dinosaur Valley beheld Haoyuan's brilliant golden eyes piercing through the gloom, blazing across heaven and earth.
From that day onward, he no longer slept in the warm leaf litter at the base of the mountain, dwelling instead amid the biting winds and pristine snow of the summit.
By day, he kept his eyes open, gazing down over the entire valley without stirring.
By night, he descended to the fallen leaves below to answer the dinosaurs' calls and resolve problems big and small on their behalf.
Time flowed quietly by.
With repeated use, Haoyuan's Eyes of the Torch Dragon gradually expanded their range; their light grew ever brighter, shining even beyond the mountain pass.
More and more dinosaurs noticed this light in the darkness, slowly gravitating toward it.
The dinosaur populations gradually recovered.
At times, unwelcome visitors arrived as well.
The pseudo-dragons were always keen to exploit an opportunity, and they too found their way here.
Over the course of several years, Haoyuan slaughtered countless pseudo-dragons and special variants.
Ten years later.
The dinosaur herds had completely recovered, flourishing and growing increasingly robust.
Haoyuan gradually faded from the dinosaurs' view, taking up permanent residence atop the snow-capped peak.
The newborn dinosaurs had never once laid eyes on him.
The surrounding mimic monsters had also been nearly picked clean.
Without Haoyuan feeding them, the carnivorous dinosaurs began to starve.
The ecological order that had once vanished began to return at that moment.
The little hadrosaur of the past had long since grown up. Distressed and confused by the bloody, ruthless carnage, it climbed to the summit, hoping Haoyuan would descend to rein in the carnivores.
Haoyuan merely looked up at it, uttering not a word.
It seemed to understand something, silently heading back down the mountain.
Watching its lonely silhouette descend, Haoyuan let out a long sigh.
His intention had only ever been to help the dinosaurs restore their ecosystem and rebuild their population.
He merely hoped that somewhere along the river of time ahead, their kind might still be seen.
He had no wish to interfere too heavily in the course of their lives as dinosaurs.
Thus, the natural laws of life were destined to return.
Haoyuan had assumed the hadrosaur wouldn't understand, but to his surprise, it invited him just a few days later to come see its newly hatched offspring.
Haoyuan had already lost count of which clutch of offspring this was, born to who knew which of its mates.
Regardless, he had made about seven trips down the mountain to visit.
One had to admit, small hadrosaurs were remarkably prolific, whereas the larger hadrosaurs reproduced far more slowly.
But regardless, it was wonderful that this little fellow could understand him.
Besides the hadrosaur, the dromaeosaurs often climbed the mountain to visit him as well.
For reasons unknown, the dromaeosaurs had grown extraordinarily attached to him.
Over time, he had learned every nuance of the dromaeosaurs' language.
Although he could communicate through his Language of All Things divine ability, speaking their dialect made him fit in much better.
Other dinosaurs came by to visit him from time to time as well, though none were as diligent as these two.
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