Magical branches

At 6 o'clock in the morning, the alarm clock woke Jiang Lin up on time.

She opened her eyes tiredly, but it was still pitch black outside.

Wen Yan got up earlier than her and the car had already arrived at Jiang Lin's house.

"Have you had breakfast?"

"It's too early. I don't have much appetite." Jiang Lin said as he gave himself a nutrient injection.

"Sleep a little longer, I'll call you when we're almost there."

Jiang Lin nodded. She was indeed a little sleepy.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw an endless expanse of white. She was slightly stunned: "Where are we?"

"We're almost at the border of City A." Wen Yan glanced at his bracelet: "You've only slept for a dozen minutes."

Jiang Lin yawned, feeling inexplicably listless today.

As usual, the two were blocked by a wall entangled with countless tree roots.

"How did you get in yesterday?" Wen Yan got out of the car and was shocked by the scene in front of him. It looked like a natural landscape full of evil spirits.

"Of course I crawl in." Jiang Lin started climbing using his hands and feet.

"I thought it was some other sophisticated way." He didn't expect Jiang Lin's solution to be so simple.

When you climb to the top, you can overlook part of City A.

"It's been a long time since I saw City A from this angle." Wen Yan stood at the highest point and looked at the scene in the distance. It was completely different from the era in his memory where there were tall buildings, lights and speeding cars everywhere.

City A is now covered with snow. Even without the snow, it would be extremely lonely.

Jiang Lin descended to a similar height and jumped directly down, creating a huge pit in the thick snow pile, almost burying her completely.

Wen Yan came over and dug her out of the snow pile: "This road is not easy to walk on. We won't reach where we want to go even if we walk for a whole day."

Jiang Lin calmly took out the system's skis: "Just control it with your mind."

Wen Yan stepped on it half-heartedly, steadying his feet. The snowboard began to slide just as he had imagined. However, Wen Yan's body was clearly not prepared, and he fell straight backwards.

Jiang Lin held his back and said, "Be careful."

"Let's go straight to that cave." She slid in front of Wen Yan.

After the first attempt, Wen Yan quickly became proficient in using the skis, and he controlled the skis to fly across the snow.

Although it was not snowing, some of the snowflakes splashed by Jiang Lin's snowboard in front of him would fall on him, and Wen Yan couldn't help but open the visor of his helmet a little.

The cold wind blew in instantly, and he was so cold that he quickly put it on.

It felt like a long time had passed since he last came to this cave, so he was a little surprised when he saw the cave entrance wrapped in vines and tree roots like a cicada pupa.

"It seems to be afraid of us going in." Shenmu's actions clearly made people feel how important this cave is to her.

Wen Yan: "Could this be a trick? She's deliberately making us think this is a very important place."

"The extreme cold came suddenly. She was not prepared for it. She probably didn't think about the deeper issues. She would first try her best to protect her most vulnerable and important parts."

"Besides, this is where she was born. It will definitely be a huge breakthrough point in defeating the sacred tree."

Jiang Lin squinted his eyes and looked at the entrance of the cave in front of him.

"Has the hidden little hole been sealed as well?" Wen Yan asked.

"We know that the places we can enter are all heavily guarded by sacred trees. I've tried it and it's very strong. It's hard to break it open with brute force." Jiang Lin tried it himself last time.

"But your power is fire."

"Plants are naturally afraid of fire. Maybe I can burn a hole to get in." Jiang Lin turned his head and looked at him.

"Go and try it."

Wen Yan nodded and took a step forward. The scorching flames enveloped the roots and vines at the entrance of the cave.

Even with her helmet on, Jiang Lin could feel the heat coming towards her, and her attention was all on the covered hole.

After a few minutes, Wen Yan's ability stopped.

Jiang Lin took a closer look and found no obvious changes except that the skin was burned black.

She twitched the corner of her mouth and touched the burnt area. To her surprise, the burned area seemed to peel off more easily.

"You take a break and continue burning." Jiang Lin glanced at Wen Yan beside her, and began to use her special ability to destroy the burnt barrier in front of her.

She didn't know if it was her illusion, but it really became easier. She soon peeled off the thick layer of barrier, revealing the unburned tree roots inside.

"She won't fill the entire cave with these weird things." Wen Yan glanced at the tree roots that Jiang Lin had brought down from the ground, and then looked at the still tightly sealed entrance of the cave.

Wen Yan: "The tree's root system is already well-developed. Her roots can cause an earthquake in City A, and they are also enough to fill the entire cave to protect her body."

"At this rate, it will be difficult for us to reach the location where her main body grows."

Jiang Lin had to admit that what Wen Yan said made sense. It turned out that the sacred tree was not so easy to defeat.

She sat on a wooden stake nearby: "So there's no good way to get in and get rid of her?"

"Or maybe she didn't build such a thick barrier at all. After all, she couldn't even properly accommodate the mutants. When I entered the southern base, I saw Chen Guanghai unconscious under a tree."

"So maybe she didn't have as much time to lock down."

Wen Yan: "The sacred tree is much stronger than the mutants, and it's not difficult for her to manipulate the roots. Since this place is so important to her, she must have made preparations to prevent you from entering."

Jiang Lin sat beside her feeling somewhat frustrated. She had thought it was too easy.

"But we can still try. Maybe we can burn off her barrier before the extreme cold ends."

Wen Yan stood up again and started to destroy.

"This will be extremely exhausting for you. This is not a good solution." Jiang Lin stopped Wen Yan's actions. If it was as he had just speculated.

Then using superpowers would only consume their physical strength for no reason.

Wen Yan sat next to Jiang Lin and felt her discomfort: "It's okay, we still have a long time to deal with her."

Jiang Lin was about to say something when she heard some strange noises. She signaled Wen Yan not to speak and to listen carefully.

It sounded like grass scraping against the snow.

Jiang Lin instantly recalled the tender green he had seen on the barren mountain that day. However, this extreme cold had plunged even the sacred trees into a deep slumber. Could Li Qi's mutated plants, which had come from nowhere, still remain awake?

Jiang Lin shook his head, trying to shake off the absurd thoughts in his mind.

The next second she caught a whiff of burning smell.

Even Wen Yan, who was standing by, sensed it. He often used fire and was very sensitive to this kind of smell: "It seems to be the smell of fire burning wood."

He walked over to the burnt area and sniffed carefully: "It's not coming from here."

His fire burned through the roots of the sacred tree, emitting a somewhat unpleasant smell of gunpowder, but the smell was faintly visible in the air.

It's strangely not pungent and has a light woody scent.

This abnormal situation instantly put Jiang Lin on alert.

The next thing, a huge snowflake appeared in front of her eyes. A huge grasshopper flew in front of Jiang Lin, and the snow it brought up almost buried her and Wen Yan.

She was pulled out of the snow by a soft vine, and the first thing she saw was Li Qi sitting on the furry grass with an impatient look on his face.

"Why are you here?" Jiang Lin was ready to attack.

"I didn't want to come here. It was the one that wanted to come to you."

Jiang Lin followed the direction of Li Qi's finger and saw a burning stick. Xiao Kui was holding it beside it with a desperate look, afraid that the fire would burn its head.

Li Qi took the burning stick and threw it towards Jiang Lin.

Jiang Lin caught it quickly.

"Try it."

Only when she took the stick in her hand did she see clearly that it was more like a tree trunk that had been broken off directly, with a faint golden glow appearing on the bark.

The strangest thing is that although the fire was burning, the tree trunk showed no signs of being burned.

Jiang Lin opened his mask and found that the temperature outside was as warm as spring.

The snow beneath my feet also showed signs of melting, and icicles began to drip down.

"What the hell is this thing?" Jiang Lin looked at Li Qi.

"No matter what it is, it's in your hands. You'll know if you try it yourself." Li Qi lay lazily on the grass.

"I'm warning you, don't hesitate any longer. The surrounding temperature is rising, and Shenmu is likely to wake up."

Jiang Lin looked at Li Qi deeply and walked to the side of the cave.

As soon as the fire on the trunk touched the roots of the sacred tree, it began to burn fiercely.

The branches of the sacred tree that had only turned black after being roasted by Wen Yan actually began to slowly burn into ashes under this fire, and there was a tendency for the fire to spread inside.

"Give it back to me."

Jiang Lin threw the tree trunk back, and Li Qi walked away almost without stopping for a moment. The temperature around them began to drop instantly.

"What the hell is this thing?"

When Jiang Lin first held it in his hand, he didn't feel any malice.

Wen Yan shook his head. The two of them looked at the rapidly burning roots of the sacred tree, their hearts beating rapidly.

"It's hot, so hot." The sleeping sacred tree felt the unbearable high temperature. She forced herself to wake up from her sleep and saw the raging flames in the cave.

And the familiar figure distorted behind the flames.

"Why are you here?"

The flames burned through the last of the roots and vanished instantly. The temperature around them dropped rapidly.

The sacred tree was once again forced into a deep sleep.

"She seemed to have woken up for a moment just now." Jiang Lin looked at the body of the sacred tree not far away, which had already merged with the cave.

Tree roots and vines covered the entire cave wall, so densely packed that there were almost no gaps to be found.

Snowflakes drifted in from the hole created by the sacred tree.

I don’t know if it’s snowing outside again or if the snow piled up on top is falling down.

Jiang Lin walked closer to the body of the sacred tree step by step, and the supernatural power in his hands was constantly condensing.

Wen Yan followed behind her, carefully observing the movements around him.

"You can't kill me." A low sigh sounded around.

Jiang Lin thought that Shenmu had woken up again, but he did not detect any fluctuations in his mental power.

"I know He will help you, but you can't kill me."

"These are the words I left before I fell asleep. I knew you would come here."

"Jiang Lin, you might as well try it and see if you can really kill me."