Chapter 236: The Jungle Didn’t Care
Lingyun couldn’t hold back a snort at my comment, but Commander Li simply sighed and shook his head.
That was probably wise.
After all, it wasn’t like the could argue with the proof that was right in front of them.
The jungle was still eating what remained of Guo Renwang in a way that should have been disturbing if I hadn’t found myself suspiciously numb to almost everything going on in front of me.
I had waited two lifetimes to watch these men die... to watch Meilan being tortured before finally killing her. I had dreams about how it would be done, the blood... the screams... and now... I was feeling strangely... empty... detached.
Maybe it was because the jungle was doing all the work that I had wanted to do myself.
The flowers were still sorting the pieces of Guo Renwang’s limbs with unsettling efficiency, and Meilan was still hanging in the middle of my destroyed front yard looking like reality had finally slapped her hard enough to leave a mark.
Her face had gone pale. Her mouth opened and closed twice without producing anything useful. For once, she looked less like a woman with a plan and more like a person who had finally realized she was standing in someone else’s food bowl.
Honestly, it felt too little, too late.
Lin Cheng recovered first, which was unfortunate for him because recovery made him do something stupid.
He slammed both hands against the ground again and forced a ridge of stone between Meilan and the moving flowers. The wall rose high enough to block most of the yard from view, and for a brief second, I could almost appreciate the instinct.
Protecting Meilan was a terrible life choice, but at least he was doing something other than screaming.
The problem was that he was still using the ground... still using the earth.
I don’t know why he didn’t see... didn’t try to NOT use his powers. After all, the plants were earth, just as much as the ground was. He was fighting earth power against earth power... and expected to win.
Roots pushed through the wall almost as soon as it formed. Lin Cheng cursed and reinforced the stone, packing more dirt and broken concrete into the cracks while sweat rolled down the side of his face.
The effort actually slowed the roots for a moment, and that moment was apparently enough to make him think he had gained control.
That was adorable.
A flower opened near the base of the wall and bit into the packed earth.
I blinked for a second before I leaned forward slightly. Yuche’s arm tightened around my waist to make sure that I was still tucked securely against his chest, like he wanted to remind me that I was with him.
Not like I could really forget.
"I’m looking," I muttered.
"Look with less movement."
"That isn’t how looking works."
"It is now."
I rolled my eyes, but I stopped leaning because my body chose that exact second to remind me that I was still broken in several places. Pain rolled through my ribs and down my spine, sharp enough to make the yard blur at the edges.
I swallowed hard and forced my attention back to Lin Cheng because I was absolutely not going to vomit on Yuche while Meilan was still alive to witness it.
The flower at the base of the wall took another bite.
Then the wall shifted just a little.... and Lin Cheng noticed it too late to do anything about it.
What he had built to protect Meilan became the thing that trapped him.
Roots spread through the packed earth, turning his own barrier into a cage from the inside. When he tried to tear it apart, the wall moved with him. The flowers growing through the cracks opened wider, and several vines slid out from the stone itself before wrapping around his wrists.
Shen Kaiyang appeared beside him in a blur.
His knife flashed twice, cutting Lin Cheng’s hands free before the vines could tighten. He grabbed the other man’s arm and tried to pull him away from the wall, but the jungle had already learned too much. A root snapped up from the ground and hooked around Lin Cheng’s knee. Another vine looped around his waist. When Shen Kaiyang cut one, two more slid out of the wall behind him.
For several seconds, the two of them fought well.
Annoyingly well.
Shen Kaiyang moved fast enough that most of the soldiers on the porch had trouble tracking him.
He cut vines before they fully formed, dragged Lin Cheng away from flowers, and redirected attacks that would have taken the earth user apart one limb at a time. Lin Cheng kept forcing the ground up in bursts, creating temporary platforms and walls that bought him a few seconds of space whenever the jungle got too close.
They were good, but good wasn’t enough to keep them alive.
The jungle had just stopped rushing the final conclusion.
And that was what made it worse.
It no longer threw itself at them in waves.
It waited.
It let Shen Kaiyang cut through one attack and then sent another from the angle he had just abandoned. It let Lin Cheng build a wall and then grew through it. It gave them every chance to show off, every chance to prove they were dangerous, and then calmly adjusted around the proof.
Commander Li exhaled slowly beside the porch railing.
"They’re being herded," he said.
I glanced at him. "Yeah," I replied with a nod.
His jaw tightened and his fists clenched at his side. Apparently, he didn’t approve of the jungle playing with its food. "Towards what?" he asked after a moment.
I looked at the flowers opening near the center of the yard. Several of them were still small, but the one that had eaten Tao Jun was no longer tiny.
It had grown enough that its petals brushed the ground when it leaned forward, and the white spots across its red surface looked brighter every time it swallowed. A few of the newer flowers had started turning toward Lin Cheng and Shen Kaiyang with the kind of patience that made my skin crawl.
"Take a guess."
Commander Li didn’t answer.
That was fine. He was learning.
Meilan apparently wasn’t.
"Do something!" she screamed.
Lin Cheng looked toward her for half a second and that was all it took.
The wall behind him split open, and a thick root punched through the gap before wrapping around his torso. Shen Kaiyang moved to cut it, but a flower snapped toward his face and forced him back. Lin Cheng threw both hands down, trying to raise the earth beneath himself, but the ground that answered him was already full of roots.
His expression changed.
I saw the exact moment he finally understood that you couldn’t fight against the same power and not expect for your opponent to use your weakness against you.
The root tightened around his ribs while another one wrapped around his throat. Vines caught both ankles and pulled in opposite directions. Lin Cheng slammed power into the ground hard enough to make the entire yard tremble, but the jungle held on.
Shen Kaiyang reached him again.
He almost made it.
His knife cut through the vine around Lin Cheng’s throat, then the one around his right arm. He grabbed Lin Cheng by the shoulder and pulled hard enough that, for one second, it looked like he might drag him free.
Then a flower opened beneath Lin Cheng’s left hand and bit down hard.
Lin Cheng screamed loudly, but still, Shen Kaiyang didn’t let go.
That was probably the first truly foolish thing he had done all night, and the jungle used it to its advantage.
A vine wrapped around Shen Kaiyang’s wrist while he was still holding Lin Cheng. He cut it immediately, but the distraction gave the root around Lin Cheng’s torso enough time to twist. The sound that followed was sharp, wet, and final.
Lin Cheng’s scream cut off, but his body didn’t come apart cleanly.
The jungle, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care.
