Chapter 29: A Defiant Plant-Based Ability
For a moment, the group couldn’t determine whether this tree frog, which was growing together with the tree, belonged to the category of mutated beasts or mutated plants.
However, one thing was certain: the rank of this mutated creature in front of them was definitely not lower than A.
Otherwise, with Ke Lai’s B-rank psychic energy, her perception couldn’t possibly have been blocked by it.
But with their current strength, it would probably be a bit difficult to deal with an A-rank or even higher mutated creature.
The pink vine shot out from the middle of the tree frog’s mouth again, heading straight for Ji Fan. The suction cup in the middle firmly attached to Ji Fan’s abdomen, and the hook-shaped teeth dug into his flesh.
Ji Fan instantly winced in pain.
“Save me… cough cough, Li Xiang, save me.”
The vine wrapped around his waist gradually tightened. Ji Fan’s skin became congested from the pressure, and he couldn’t breathe. He struggled hard while looking at Li Xiang with pleading eyes.
Just as Li Xiang was about to go and help, a white tree root suddenly shot out again. The thick vine whipped down fiercely, and he could only raise his blade to block it.
The pink vine bound Ji Fan and sent him towards the tree frog’s mouth. Ji Fan’s face was pale, and infinite fear spread in his heart. He momentarily forgot the pain in his abdomen, and tears couldn’t stop falling.
Was he, Ji Fan, really done for?
Ji Fan closed his eyes in despair.
Suddenly, a gust of wind, carrying the sound of breaking air, came.
He opened his eyes and saw Jiang Ning’s figure moving extremely fast, grabbing the high-speed flying light blade in mid-air and hacking at the vine wrapped around him.
Ji Fan stared at her blankly. At this moment, in Ji Fan’s eyes, Jiang Ning seemed to be glowing.
The next second, he only heard a ‘crack’.
The vine was fine; the blade was broken.
Ji Fan: “…”
Jiang Ning awkwardly rubbed her nose and blinked, a hint of guilt in her eyes.
The air was silent for two seconds.
“Remember to compensate me for a new one,” Jiang Ning said, looking at the half-blade in her hand, a pained expression on her face.
This light blade of hers had cost 1000 star coins, and she had gotten it from a second-hand market.
It wasn’t cheap at all.
Ji Fan became anxious. “Is this the time to be talking about this!”
The two of them were about to hit the tree frog’s face.
“Hurry up and get this annoying vine off me,” Ji Fan said with a pained expression. “I’m about to be strangled to death by it!”
Jiang Ning held the half-blade, her gaze not on the vine wrapped around Ji Fan, but on the place where the vine connected to the tree.
She leaped down several times and jumped directly towards the tree frog’s wide-open mouth.
“Hey! Jiang Ning, where are you going?” Jiang Ning’s departure made Ji Fan panic for a moment. “Don’t leave me, ah!”
The more he struggled, the tighter the vine contracted.
Jiang Ning ignored him.
Vines mainly relied on the main root to absorb nutrients and water. As long as the connection between it and the large tree was cut, Ji Fan would be saved.
The tree frog seemed to have sensed Jiang Ning’s thoughts. In an instant, countless white roots shot out from underground and rushed towards her.
Seeing that she was about to be enveloped, Jiang Ning actually laughed.
The tree was resisting, which meant her idea was right.
Jiang Ning nimbly dodged the tree roots’ attacks. The broken light blade moved so fast it left afterimages. The white roots were cut off section by section. After a series of actions, she was getting further and further away from the tree frog’s mouth.
“I’ll deal with those tree roots.”
Not far away, Ke Lai had set up her previous energy light cannon, a hint of annoyance in her eyes. “You guys, die for me!”
Damn it, it was inconvenient to use it in the tunnel before, but it’s different now.
Ke Lai pulled the trigger, and an energy light cannonball shot out from the barrel, blasting towards a spot less than a meter in front of Jiang Ning.
‘Boom—’
This shot was extremely powerful. The white tree roots were blown everywhere, and a shallow pit was left on the ground.
Before Ke Lai could be happy for two seconds, the white tree roots began to split infinitely again and soon grew back, even more than before.
Ke Lai tutted in annoyance and continued to pull the trigger, firing two more energy cannonballs in succession.
Jiang Ning seized the opportunity. In the few seconds after Ke Lai’s first cannonball exploded, she smoothly approached the tree frog’s mouth.
Twisting the handle of the blade, the light blade transformed into a double-headed blade, but at this moment, the double-headed blade only had one complete blade body left.
She reached her hand towards the base of the pink vine, released her perception, and fumbled around for a bit. A continuous stream of small, yellowish-green light balls was flowing from the main body of the large tree into the pink vine.
Found it, this is it!
Jiang Ning injected her psychic energy into the light blade and stabbed it into the nutrient transport pipeline.
As the tree frog and the vine trembled continuously, the pink vine withered at a speed visible to the naked eye and turned into a shriveled, dead branch.
Ji Fan’s tense body relaxed. As the vine withered, his entire body fell from a high altitude.
Jiang Ning was quick and caught the falling Ji Fan.
At this moment, the hem of his clothes at his waist was soaked with blood. It was a bloody mess, a truly tragic sight.
“Wuwuwu.”
Ji Fan was a mess of snot and tears, completely in a state of relief after a disaster. “That scared me to death.”
“Don’t be in a hurry to cry. It’s not over yet,” Jiang Ning said, flicking her blade and cutting off a root that was sneakily trying to approach her from behind.
“If you’re still alive, go and help Ke Lai and Li Xiang kill the mutated roots,” Jiang Ning said.
“Jiang Ning, you’re not human. I was about to die,” Ji Fan cried even harder.
Jiang Ning pulled Li Xiang behind her and cut another mutated root that was approaching the two of them in half at the waist.
She reminded him, “If you keep crying, we’re all going to die.”
Ji Fan swallowed his saliva and stopped crying, clearly frightened by these mutated plant roots.
“If you want to live, take out your weapon. Then, when the time is right, seize the opportunity and keep climbing towards the top of the cave,” Jiang Ning said, pointing in the direction of the tree trunk.
Jiang Ning cleared a safe path for Ji Fan to make it easier for him to get behind the tree frog.
Among the four of them, Ji Fan’s strength was the weakest.
The tree frog had its own consciousness. It could be said that mutated creatures above B-rank all had their own consciousness.
Its beloved pink tongue had been cut off by Jiang Ning. At this moment, the tree frog was in a state of rampage.
All the white tree roots suddenly stopped attacking them.
Ke Lai and Li Xiang’s killing hands suddenly paused, and they looked at the center of the tree in confusion.
There, the roots were continuously gathering towards the tree frog.
Li Xiang had long since come down from the tree. He walked over to them and asked, “What’s going on?”
The giant tree swayed without wind, and leaves fell from the tree in large handfuls.
Jiang Ning reached out and caught a leaf, lowering her head in thought.
In the blink of an eye, the tree cocoon dispersed, and the tree frog had actually detached itself from the root system. The bundled tree roots had formed its new tongue and shot towards her.
Seeing this, Jiang Ning’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t block it with her blade in time, and her entire body was swept back, falling into the pool around the small island and choking on several mouthfuls of water.
“Jiang Ning!”
Ke Lai raised her hand and fired several energy cannonballs, but the energy light cannonballs hit the opponent’s body like they were scratching an itch, having no effect at all.
“…”
Ke Lai frowned, her face turning very ugly.
After being strengthened, the energy light cannon could not cause any damage to the tree frog.
On the other side, the tree frog lifted its foot, and its huge sole blotted out the sky as it stomped down on the remaining three.
Fortunately, the few of them reacted in time and rolled to the side, avoiding being flattened.
As the tree frog’s sole landed, the entire small island trembled.
The few of them couldn’t even imagine if that one step had landed on them, whether their internal organs would have been instantly crushed.
Jiang Ning climbed out of the pool, her eyes fixed on the mutated creature in front of her.
They were all plant-based. Why could it be so powerful?
The more Jiang Ning thought about it, the angrier she became. A strange thought spread in her heart.
If she could also summon a plant of the same rank as this mutated creature, would she be able to fight it?
After that experiment five years ago, Jiang Ning had not tried to summon any other plants in the following time. Now that her psychic energy was sufficient, she could just test whether her ability could summon other plants besides sunflowers.
This was all growable planting soil. The plants could survive as soon as they landed.
Jiang Ning held her breath and concentrated. Many plants she had once seen in books flashed through her mind.
After a while, a seedling appeared in front of her.
Jiang Ning gathered her psychic energy and injected energy into the small seedling. In ten seconds, it quickly matured.
The plant was two meters tall, green all over, smooth and hairless, with about 5 pinnately compound leaves. The pods were swollen and oblong.
This was?
A giant pea plant!?
“Whatever, let me see what you can do to deal with this mutated creature,” Jiang Ning had no time to think too much. She controlled the pea plant with her perception and aimed it at the mutated tree frog.
‘Puff—’
The pea pod burst open along the middle line, and round, plump peas shot out from the pod. The moment they touched the mutated tree frog’s skin, they quickly formed a light green silk net.
The silk net looked thin but was actually very strong. A closer look revealed that besides firmly entangling the tree frog, the silk net itself also had a layer of electric current. The current passed through the mutated tree frog’s skin and corroded the main body of the tree.
‘Puff, puff, puff—’
Seeing that there was a chance, Jiang Ning controlled the pea plant and pressed on with the victory.
Two more pods on the plant burst open and shot towards the mutated tree frog.
The mutated tree frog was fixed in place by her and couldn’t move at all.
The other three looked at the suddenly appearing green spherical substances, not understanding why the mutated tree frog was fixed in place and couldn’t move after coming into contact with these spheres.
They looked in the direction from which the spheres were shot and saw Jiang Ning controlling a two-meter-tall plant, a wild smile on her face.
“What new weapon is this?” Even Ke Lai, who was well-informed, couldn’t understand the scene of controlling a plant to deal with an A-rank mutated creature for a moment.
She just felt that the beans on the plant’s pod were very similar to her energy light cannon, so she guessed that this might be a weapon invented by some design genius.
Although there were some subtle differences between the two, she couldn’t think of any other explanation in her mind.
“No,” Jiang Ning shook her head in denial and took the opportunity to explain to them, “This is my ability.”
As soon as she said this, a question mark popped up in their minds: Wasn’t Jiang Ning’s ability plant-based?
Since when was the plant-based ability so defiant?