Chapter 140 Battle Against the Plant Parasite

She kept the fire under guard a short distance away, while she, Zhou Min, and Lin Yan worked together to quickly cut off several thorny branches and carefully picked a few black berries, sealing them in different containers.

Just as the collection was completed, the fire suddenly roared and turned to the dense forest on the right.

Ruan Ning immediately sensed something rapidly approaching! The energy reaction was strong, carrying the stench of a wild beast.

"Prepare for battle!" she shouted, and a water whip instantly materialized in her hand.

The dense forest trembled, and three dark figures darted out.

They were three mutated lynxes, but they looked extremely strange—they were wrapped in living, barbed, dark green vines, which seemed to have grown into their fur and flesh.

The lynx had cloudy yellow eyes, drool dripping from its mouth, and its movements were somewhat stiff, but it was still very fast.

"A plant parasite!" Lin Yan recognized the troublesome creature. Animals parasitized by living plants possess both the agility of animals and the tenacity of plants, making them very difficult to kill.

Three parasitic lynxes let out a hoarse roar and pounced!

The moment the three parasitic lynxes pounced, the fire was the first to meet the one in front, spewing golden flames that forced the lynx to roll around in a sorry state, the vines wrapped around its body making a scorching sound.

The other two pounced on Lin Yan and rushed towards Zhou Min.

Lin Yan dodged the claw attack to the side and swung her knife at the lynx's neck. The blade sank into the fur and vines with a dull thud, failing to sever them! The vines were exceptionally flexible, absorbing most of the force. The lynx cried out in pain, its tail sweeping out, revealing fine barbs that were also present.

As Zhou Min faced the charging lynx, she condensed her mental energy into an invisible spike and stabbed it fiercely into the lynx's head.

The lynx froze, letting out a painful hiss, but the vines seemed to offer some kind of extra protection or stimulation. It shook its head and pounced again. Zhou Min narrowly dodged, her arm being grazed by the tip of a vine, tearing her sleeve and leaving several bloody marks.

Ruan Ning's water whip lashed out with a whoosh, wrapping around the hind legs of the lynx attacking Lin Yan, and she pulled hard. The lynx lost its balance and fell to the ground, but the vines on its body grew as if alive, coiling back towards the water whip, and even showing a tendency to wrap around it.

"These vines are strange!" Lin Yan shouted, swinging her knife again, this time aiming at the junction of the vines and flesh. The blade sliced ​​through, and dark green sap splattered out. The vines twitched and retracted slightly, but soon new thin vines sprouted from the wound.

"Sever the vines first!" Ruan Ning shouted.

She discovered that the lynx's attack pattern was relatively simple, mainly relying on its claws and teeth enhanced by vines and its charge. The real trouble was the parasitic vines that were constantly regenerating, barbed, and possibly containing toxins.

She withdrew her water whip and instead conjured several thinner, sharper water blades, precisely slicing at the joints where the vines on the three lynxes were most densely packed. With a hissing sound, many vines were severed, releasing even more dark green sap.

The lynxes moved noticeably slower and let out even more angry and painful howls.

Seizing its opportunity, the fire raged again, this time focusing its flames on the vines on the back of a lynx. The fire caused significantly more damage to the vines, filling the air with a pungent, acrid smell. The lynx howled and rolled on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames.

With a thought, Ruan Ning attempted to activate her wood-based abilities. She mixed her mental power with a weak amount of wood-based energy, using it like an invisible probe to pierce the active vines on another lynx. She wanted to sense, and even interfere with, the life activities of these parasitic plants.

The moment they made contact, a chaotic, greedy, and intensely xenophobic plant consciousness returned to them. These vines possessed an extremely primitive "consciousness," driven only by the instincts to devour, grow, and parasitize, yet it strangely intertwined with the lynx's nervous system, forming a symbiotic relationship.

Ruan Ning concentrated his will and forcibly poured his wood-elemental energy into it, attempting to dismantle the vine's structure from the inside or sever its connection to the lynx's nerves.

"Roar—!" The lynx invaded by Ruan Ning's wood-elemental energy suddenly let out an extremely shrill scream, its whole body convulsing violently, and dark green liquid began to seep from its eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

Its vines twisted and turned wildly, sometimes tightening and digging into the flesh, sometimes lashing wildly around, as if it had lost control.

"It works!" Seeing this, Lin Yan seized the opportunity to pounce, plunging her dagger deep into the lynx's throat, which was exposed in pain, and twisting it forcefully. The lynx's convulsions stopped, and the vines quickly withered.

On the other side, the fire had completely burned the lynx that had been receiving special care to death. The last one, seeing the situation was dire, turned and tried to escape.

Despite the headache from the depletion of her mental energy, Zhou Min launched another mental attack. The lynx abruptly stopped in its tracks.

Ruan Ning's water whip arrived just in time, wrapping around its neck and slamming it to the ground. Before it could struggle, several water blades crisscrossed, severing all the main vine connections on its body. Da Huo followed up with a claw strike, smashing its head to pieces.

The battle was over. The corpses of the three parasitic lynxes lay on the fallen leaves, their withered vines resembling ugly scars.

The three of them, panting, checked their injuries. Zhou Min's scratches on her arm weren't deep, but the area around the wound was numb; the vines might have a slight toxin. Lin Yan had several abrasions. Ruan Ning was the most exhausted, especially after trying to use her wood-based abilities to counter the parasitic vines; both her mental energy and wood-based energy had been significantly depleted.

The fire was also struck a few times by the vines, leaving some red marks, but it was tough and its skin was thick, so it wasn't a big problem.

Ruan Ning used clean water to wash Zhou Min's wounds, then condensed a bit of emerald green wood-elemental energy with a healing aura and covered the wounds. The numbness and itching quickly subsided, and the wounds began to heal slowly.

"There are more and more of these ghostly things." Lin Yan frowned as she looked at the corpse.

“Both plants and animals are mutating, so it’s not surprising that they combine.” Ruan Ning put away her water whip. “My wood-type ability… has a certain interference effect on these parasitic plants, but it consumes a lot of energy and requires practice.”

She walked to the lynx corpse that had been affected by her wood-elemental energy and crouched down to examine it closely. The internal structure of the withered vines was destroyed. She tried to sense her surroundings again but found no similar signs of large-scale parasitism.

"That's about enough for today." Ruan Ning glanced at the sky. "Let's find a safe place to camp and continue tomorrow. I need more practice."

They disposed of the lynx's carcass, unearthed three mutated second-order crystal cores with plant-like patterns, and found a suitable spot to spend the night under a rock wall far from the battlefield and at a higher elevation.

The forests were even more dangerous at night. They took turns keeping watch, and remained vigilant about the fire.

Ruan Ning sat cross-legged, recovering while recalling the use of wood-type abilities in the battle just now. That method of forcibly intruding into, interfering with, and even destroying the plant's life structure, although brutal, might be an effective means of attack when facing clearly hostile mutated plants.

She needs to find a more efficient and energy-saving method.

The next day, they continued their exploration deeper into the mountains, searching for suitable mutated plant "seeds." Meanwhile, Ruan Ning constantly sought opportunities to practice the application of her wood-based abilities—soothing, communicating, stimulating growth, interfering, and causing destruction…