How to Raise a Baby in an Apocalypse - Chapter 402

The giant tree “monster” walks straight toward An Ran, its trunk crawling with mutated snakes.

Seeing this, Zhan Lian releases a circular ring that slices the tree in half at the waist. Luo Feifan takes the chance to throw another big fireball.

The shrieks of the mutated snakes mixed with the crackling of burning wood fill the air, making the scene wildly chaotic.

Yun Tao and Liang Ziyu guard Zhao Ru, Little Mint, and Hengheng. The group works together to kill the snakes on the ground. After a while, Little Mint runs over to An Ran’s car carrying a small bucket. She opens the door and hands An Ran the crystal cores inside.

Any mutated animal has a crystal core in its brain—just like with mutant rats and cats—so naturally, mutant snakes are no exception.

“Why are you running around?!” An Ran pulls Little Mint into the car and scolds her. “It’s chaos outside! Forget the crystal cores—stay put and don’t move!”

Little Mint nods but still hands her the crystal cores in her hand.

An Ran glances at them occasionally. It seems Little Mint is able to collect crystal cores from the snakes burned to death by Luo Feifan. Since those corpses are incinerated clean, the shiny little crystal cores are left exposed on the ground.

As for the snakes that aren’t burned completely, their heads are mostly intact.

Could it be that Little Mint’s ability level isn’t high enough to extract the crystal cores directly from intact bodies?

Looking again at the giant tree—after being cut in half by Zhan Lian—it now shows signs of life reviving in the sea of flames. Several vines begin sprouting from its trunk, still heading toward An Ran.

Zhan Lian continues fighting, golden swords dancing through the air, cutting down vines even more than snakes.

An Ran keeps unleashing her ability, trying to support Zhan Lian. But the more her energy spreads out, the more trees around her seem to spiral out of control.

Not all of them come to attack her. Some simply grow madly in place, as if they’ve lost all direction.

Amid the panicked cries and screams of the others, An Ran frowns, deep in thought—and suddenly, she realizes something.

Right now, she’s not getting any feedback from the plants. Releasing her ability now is like walking blind—she doesn’t know if she’s stepping onto flat ground or off a cliff. She can’t tell what effect her abilities are having on the plants.

It’s not that her ability doesn’t work. It’s that the ordinary plants are out of control. She isn’t receiving any response, so she can’t guide them properly to attack the right targets. The plants are only passively receiving her energy. Without direction, they either attack humans at random or just grow wildly in place.

Are these uprooted tree monsters a result of her own ability?

Realizing this, An Ran immediately throws away the crystal core in her hand and stops releasing her energy.

The moment she stops, the wildly thrashing vines immediately fall down, and the mutated snakes once again become the main threat to humans.

With the trees no longer interfering, Zhan Lian and Luo Feifan can finally concentrate on handling the mutant snakes. Compared to the earlier chaos with both snakes and tree monsters, just having snakes to deal with now feels almost like a relief. The tension eases slightly.

An Ran, sitting in the car, also lets out a quiet breath. Listening to the sounds of Zhan Lian and the others battling the mutant snakes outside, she gathers her energy inward, calming herself.

She closes her eyes and silently begins searching for the thorny plant—the only one still able to give her feedback.