content: time passed , and one day a rider rode in hot haste through the country bearing the most terrible tidings . for the evening before , some fishermen , out in their boats , had caught sight of the mester stoorworm , which , as everyone knows , was the largest , and the first , and the greatest of all sea - serpents . it was that beast which , in the good book , is called the leviathan , and if it had been measured in our day , its tail would have touched iceland , while its snout rested on the north cape . and the fishermen had noticed that this fearsome monster had its head turned towards the mainland , and that it opened its mouth and yawned horribly , as if to show that it was hungry , and that , if it were not fed , it would kill every living thing upon the land , both man and beast , bird and creeping thing . for it was well known that its breath was so poisonous that it consumed as with a burning fire everything that it lighted on . so that , if it pleased the awful creature to lift its head and put forth its breath , like noxious vapour , over the country , in a few weeks the fair land would be turned into a region of desolation .
answer: its breath was so poisonous that it consumed as with a burning fire everything that it lighted on .
question: how did the mester stoorworm kill every living thing upon the land ?
target: how did the mester stoorworm kill every living thing upon the land ?
references: how did the mester stoorworm kill every living thing upon the land ?