Chapter 40, It’s Your Credit
After the vines spread out, the oppressive feeling that had been following Jiang Ran like a shadow and making her almost breathless disappeared.
Being held in Si Xu's arms with one hand, Jiang Ran still felt a little dizzy - what was going on now? Was the thing that had been staring at her just now, and the sense of incongruity she felt, all caused by these vines?
"It's a mutant plant of the spiritual system." Si Xu reminded Gu Yunqing, "Be careful."
"knew!"
There was a constant rustling sound in his ears. Jiang Ran caught a glimpse of the vines shaking their leaves wildly, climbing up the parking lot, trapping them in the middle.
"Jiang Ran, get in the car." Si Xu took two steps back, opened the car door with one hand, and stuffed Jiang Ran in. "Don't look. Wait until I call you out."
"good."
Si Xu told Jiang Ran not to look, but he still observed the situation outside through the car window.
Unlike ordinary ivy, the leaves of the mutated vines are as hard as iron, and the outer edge of the leaves is a circle of sharp saw-like objects. Wherever it goes, it destroys everything like a rotten tree or rotten wood.
Some of the psychics guarding the outermost perimeter were caught off guard and were immediately cut with several wounds deep enough to see the bones.
"Burn it with fire!" Gu Yunqing leaped onto the roof of a car, blocking the incoming vines with his wind blades, and shouted, "It's a spiritual power! Those with powers below level three, retreat to the back!"
With Gu Yunqing in charge, the team, which had fallen into panic due to the sudden attack, quickly regained their composure.
Just as Gu Yunqing judged, even after mutation, the plants still retained their fear of fire.
After being set on fire by the fire-type mutants, the vines that had been attacking ferociously and continuously decisively retracted their leaves and retreated.
Si Xu did not join the battlefield. He stood beside the car with a Tang sword in one hand. His eyes circled around the vines on the outside and stopped at a certain place.
The parking lot was surrounded by lush green vines. After all, the number of fire-type mutants was limited. After burning one side, they would continue to attack from another direction.
However, plants are plants after all. No matter how smart they become after mutation, they cannot leave the roots on which they stand.
Si Xu held a Tang sword and walked in one direction.
Beneath the collapsed walls is where the vines gather corpses—they store human bodies here to provide themselves with nutrition.
so……
As soon as Si Xu moved, the vines seemed to notice.
The green leaves suddenly stood up and trembled slightly in the wind.
Si Xu frowned: Is this...mind control?
Sensing something was wrong, a white figure flashed out, leaped over the shriveled corpses on the ground, and landed lightly on the collapsed wall.
The vines swarmed over, waving their sharp leaves and slashing at Si Xu.
"Si Xu!" Jiang Ran, who had been staring at Si Xu, blurted out a low cry and quickly raised his hand to cover his mouth, fearing that he would distract him.
Around the parking lot, the vines that had not retreated were still shaking with their leaves facing the sky. Su Qin and Gu Yunqing looked at each other and attacked at the same time in tacit understanding.
The two men used all their strength to chop down the low-level vines as easily as cutting fruits. However, before they could finish the job, a scream was heard from the group of people trapped in the innermost part of the encirclement.
Song Rong turned around and saw He Ru pouncing on Jiang Yu and biting his ear fiercely.
The woman's mouth was full of blood, but she was unconscious and looked no different from a zombie.
"It's mind control. Knock her out!" Su Qin grabbed a vine with her bare hands and gave Song Rong an order in the midst of her busy schedule, "Knock out all the low-level psychics and ordinary people."
"yes!"
There were fire-type mutants and two captains outside, and Song Rong led his men to knock out their companions who were affected by mental abilities one by one.
Ordinary people are fine, no matter how fierce they are, they are no match for those with special abilities, but those low-level special abilities become troublesome once they are controlled.
They began to cast their special powers continuously, indiscriminately attacking everyone present.
The scene was once in chaos.
…
A stream of silver light suddenly rose up, like a firework exploding, and the scattered strands were full of murderous intent.
Wherever the light passed, the hard leaves were cut off by their stems, fell to the ground, and turned yellow in an instant.
Swinging his sword to cut off the vines that were attacking him, Si Xu drew his sword, leaned forward, and stabbed the ground hard.
Click.
The Tang sword wrapped in a space blade penetrated the broken bricks and stones of the wall, stabbed into the soil, and continued to move downwards, accurately cutting off the solid roots of the vines.
The vines that were baring their fangs and claws seemed to be paused. After a moment's pause, the withered yellow color of death quickly spread out with Si Xu's roots as the origin.
"Dead?" Su Qin casually shook off the vines she was pinching, retreated to Gu Yunqing's side, and whispered, "Seventh Brother cut off their roots."
"Phew, luckily Brother Seven is so helpful." Gu Yunqing wiped the sweat off his face. "Otherwise, I don't know how long this would have lasted." As he spoke, he couldn't help but curse: "Fuck, I'm so unlucky lately. I keep encountering spiritual things everywhere."
Amused by her boyfriend's angry look, Su Qin touched the top of his head and said, "I will definitely meet you again in the future, just stay calm~"
After the vines withered, the controlled people gradually regained their sanity.
Knowing that she almost bit off Jiang Yu's ear, He Ru pushed away Yi Xi who was supporting her and squatted aside to retch.
"Why are you vomiting? I was the one who got bitten, okay? I haven't said anything yet!" Jiang Yu covered his ears with a handkerchief and said angrily, "I haven't vomited yet!"
"I'm sorry..." The girl said in a hoarse voice, choking, "Are you okay?"
"It's okay." Jiang Yu rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, you won't die."
What bad luck! He just thought He Ru was pretty and wanted to show off in front of her when the mutant plants attacked, but he didn't expect that this woman would become like a zombie after being controlled.
Fortunately, his teammates knocked her out in time, otherwise he would have had his ear bitten off by her.
Bad luck, so unlucky.
…
With one blow, Si Xu severed the roots of the mutant plant, sheathed his knife, and leaped down from the ruins. He said to Gu Yunqing, who was approaching him, "Dig out the roots and burn them."
If we don't eradicate it, this thing is likely to come back to life.
Today they encountered them - a team with fire-type and high-level abilities - if it weren't for Jiang Ran's reminder, they would have been caught off guard, let alone those ordinary teams.
Thinking of this, Si Xu looked in the direction of the girl.
She leaned against the car window, biting her lips nervously, her almond-shaped eyes wide open, staring at him eagerly.
His cold eyes were tinged with tenderness as Si Xu extended his hand towards her. Jiang Ran understood and immediately opened the car door and ran towards him.
Catching the girl running towards him with one hand, Si Xu put his arm around her waist, his eyes gentle as he praised her frankly: "Jiang Ran, it's all thanks to you that everyone is safe today."
"Right, right, right!" Gu Yunqing kept saying as he spoke of this matter. "Luckily, Ranran, you were alert and noticed something was wrong in time. If those things had fully unleashed their spiritual powers, we would have been trapped, and we might have ended up like these corpses."
Those vines are mutant plants of the spiritual system, and the spiritual power they release will affect humans' normal senses.
They are very smart. When they sensed that there were higher-level psychics in the team, they did not launch a direct attack, but instead quietly released their mental power - that is, mental pollution.
The strange and uncomfortable feeling that Jiang Ran felt was due to the influence of the mental power they released.
"So, sister Ranran, you see, you saved so many of us. I want to praise you on behalf of the team!" After explaining the reason, Gu Yunqing began to praise Jiang Ran profusely, "What do you want? As long as it's in the team's supplies, I'll give it to you as a reward!"
"So that's how it is." After being praised again, Jiang Ran waved his hands quickly, "No need - I'm glad I didn't cause you any trouble..."
She knew that since she followed Si Xu, everyone treated her as Si Xu's property. They were polite to her and took care of her because of Si Xu.
She was very clear about this, so she tried her best not to cause trouble for Si Xu.
In fact, when those vines were attacking, she felt a little relieved.
It's not that she didn't hear what Zhou Jian and the others said - there was something unusual here, which at least showed that she was not being unreasonable.
"That won't do. The reward must be given!" Gu Yunqing also remembered what those people had said about her before. He curled his lips and smiled, "Ranran, if you keep a low profile, people will think you're easy to bully. Some people need to be stepped on hard before they understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and know who to provoke and who not to provoke."
Knowing what Gu Yunqing meant, Jiang Ran shook her head decisively: "Thank you for your kindness, Captain Gu, but the words of that kind of person don't matter to me. I think for that kind of person, as long as I live well, that's enough to make them angry."
"Haha, what you said makes sense." Gu Yunqing didn't force her. "But the reward still needs to be given—well," he raised an eyebrow at Si Xu. "How to reward Ranran is up to you. I'll go deal with the remaining roots of that thing first."
Gu Yunqing called on the team members to dig up the roots of the vines, while Su Qin led people to bury those who were killed by the mutated plants.
Jiang Ran looked at the corpses on the ground, showed an expression of pity, and looked away.
She could almost imagine the despair of these people as they were bound by vines in the corner, watching their bodies being sucked dry but unable to do anything.
"Those vines feed on human flesh and blood. If they are caught, they will not die immediately." He paused, "It's very pitiful."
Being described by Si Xu as pitiful, it seems that what those people experienced before they died was really painful.
"Jiang Ran, if you hadn't reminded me today, many people here would have become like those corpses." Caught by the vines, he turned into a dried corpse as time passed.
“…”
After hearing his explanation, Jiang Ran had two questions in her mind. Out of instinctive vigilance, she only asked one: "Si Xu, have the abilities of these vines evolved significantly?"
She remembered Gu Yunqing saying that psychic abilities were only effective on people of lower or similar levels than herself.
"No." Si Xu said, "It's only the second level."
"Then..." Jiang Ran was even more confused, "Why didn't you notice?"
"Well, I blocked out their mental interference."
Jiang Ran: "..."Oh, what he meant was that the ability level of those vines was too low to have any effect on him, so he didn't feel anything at all... Is that what you mean?
No wonder those vines seemed to be afraid of Si Xu. As long as she stood next to Si Xu, she would not feel any threat from them.
I think, if Si Xu was the only one passing by here today, they would definitely not attack rashly.
…
After finally finishing the cleanup, Gu Yunqing asked the team members to have a good rest and rush to the next destination before dark.
There were only two people in the car, and Jiang Ran asked his second question.
"Si Xu, why can I sense the spiritual power released by those things?"
(End of this chapter)
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