The Predator's Trap

The vines writhed.

One moment they had been perfectly still, perfectly disguised — now they erupted. Thick, knotted tendrils crossed and coiled in relentless motion, and as the plants drew inward the group found themselves caught inside what felt like a vast machine: gears grinding slowly, drive belts hauling the whole mechanism to life.

At the elevator shaft, clusters of thick vines came surging out. Their tips shifted and reformed as they moved, sharpening in an instant into long, lethal spears that drove straight at the group trapped in the corridor.

"We're dead, we're all dead!!" Luo Song screamed.

He and Xu Dalong were at the rear. The vines around the stairwell thrashed in a frenzy, weaving themselves into layer after layer of living walls — so dense not a sliver of light showed through, so thick nothing could break them.

"Aah!! AAAH!!!!"

A shriek tore through the group. Song Xia had been midway through drawing a Fire Element Star Chart when a sharp tendril shot from the side and drove clean through her.

It punched through her abdomen and out the other side. She was skewered, then dragged toward the dense plant wall beside her.

Crimson blood pooled across the floor. Song Xia's mouth filled with it — when she tried to call out again, she had no breath left to do it.

Watching a living person strung up like a kebab drained every mind in the group to blank.

"Stop standing there, RUN!!" Luo Song shrieked, already turning away without so much as a glance at Song Xia as the plants slowly swallowed her.

"We have to save her."

"Save her? Look at her — she's finished!" Lu Zhenghe barked, and the cold authority in his voice forced the group back to their senses.

"Ice Lock!!"

The first to complete her spell was Mu Ningxue, her gaze locked on Song Xia as she sank into the plant wall.

She drove the chains of Ice Lock surging forward. They wrapped around Song Xia's body and bound her fast. Then Mu Ningxue seized the other end and yanked — hard — and with sheer force she wrenched Song Xia free of the tendril.

**Shlick——————————**

A gaping wound opened across Song Xia's torso: a hole punched from belly to back, and the moment it was freed, blood geysered from both sides, splashing vivid and horrifying across the floor.

Ice Lock had dragged Song Xia back from death's door. But with a wound punched clean through her, no one could say how long she had left. Her organs were ruptured. Blood was everywhere.

"Ice Vine: Coagulate!"

Mu Ningxue cast again, releasing Ice Vine onto Song Xia's body. Ice spread across her skin at startling speed, racing toward the bleeding wound and sealing it shut in a spreading white crust—

The bleeding stopped. But Song Xia, left with barely half her life, crumpled in a limp heap. Her eyes were wide open, overflowing with pain and something fiercer than fear.

"Hold on. We'll get you out." Mu Ningxue told her, meeting that wide-eyed stare.

Song Xia kept staring, blood seeping slowly from the corner of her mouth, her expression utterly wretched. She never could have imagined she would nearly die in a place like this — and she never could have imagined that the person who saved her would be Mu Ningxue.

"I'll look after her," Mu Nujiao said to Mu Ningxue.

Mu Ningxue gave a short nod. She turned and swept a cold glance at Lu Zhenghe.

Lu Zhenghe's face stayed neutral. "I was thinking about everyone's safety," he said evenly.

"I'll take command." Mu Ningxue had no intention of leaving it in the hands of someone like Lu Zhenghe — a man born of a military Noble Clan. To his way of thinking, other people's lives were always acceptable currency.

"Fine."

Riding the Spirit Wind, Mu Ningxue flashed to the sealed rear exit in an instant.

Without warning, a vine tendril came stabbing from the side — the same kind that had run through Song Xia — aimed straight at Mu Ningxue's heart. A hit there would kill her instantly.

It moved like a spear, the piercing speed so extreme that no Mage would have time to react, let alone complete an intermediate spell.

But Mu Ningxue was already prepared. With a flicker of Mental Intent, small diamond-shaped ice fragments materialized around her body in rapid succession, clustering outward like iron filings drawn to a magnet, coating her clothes in a dense, interlocking layer—

Each fragment sealed against its neighbors. In under a second, the countless shards had assembled across her entire body into a brilliant suit of white ice armor.

The armor was both supple and unyielding. Against the cold that already radiated from Mu Ningxue herself, it made her look like a princess of snow and ice standing on a battlefield — breathtaking, with an air of absolute authority.

The white armor held. The tendril struck it as though hitting solid metal, and its tip snapped clean off. Like a wounded tentacle, it recoiled back into the plant wall.

"Guard!"

Mu Ningxue unleashed her ice chains to sweep in a constant circuit around the group. Wherever a tendril shot forward, a chain of Ice Lock was already there to meet it, shielding whoever was being ambushed.

"Water Domain!!"

"Sacred Shield!!"

"Water Domain!!!"

The others weren't idle. Defensive spells snapped into completion in quick succession, wrapping everyone in layers of protection.

"The whole plant wall is still closing in — when it finishes, we die here just like those Hunter-mages did. We have to cut a way through, now!" Zhao Manyan said.

"Does anyone have Slash Enchanted Gear? No holding back!" Mu Ningxue called out.

Her Ice Lock could only serve a protective function in an environment like this. Tearing through the thick plant walls ahead of them was another matter entirely.

"Mu Ningxue, freeze the plants — my Light Slash will hit far harder that way." Mingcong said.

"Got it!"

Jingjing and Luo Song, both wielding Ice Element, fell into step with Mu Ningxue and released their Ice Vines together.

With the Domain in effect, all three Ice Vines were amplified. Wave after wave of frost soaked into the vegetation at remarkable speed, and within seconds even the thickest tangle of plant wall had been frozen solid.

"Radiant Slash!" With a pulse of Mental Intent, Mingcong summoned a golden longsword — more light than blade, a blazing outline in the air.

The moment that dazzling weapon appeared, everyone stepped aside to clear a lane.

Slash Enchanted Gear like this cost a fortune. Mingcong's Noble Clan had clearly decided that his life was not the place to cut expenses on a Field Expedition this dangerous.

"HA!!"

Enchanted Gear ran on Magical Energy — and the more poured in, the more of its true power was unleashed.

The Slash Enchanted Gear in Mingcong's hands was worth tens of millions at minimum. The halos of light it radiated outward in ring after expanding ring already blazed with such heat that the surrounding vines dared not creep any closer.

The golden light-blade swung.

A straight line of golden slashing force tore out ahead — the thick plant wall was cleaved open, and the searing heat set the severed tendrils ablaze. One stroke had cut a road, and the width of it was astonishing, far wider than the blade's own path. The vines that hadn't even been touched began to loosen and recoil, cowed by the holy light blazing from the Slash Enchanted Gear.

"That's what I'm talking about!"

"Move, go, the walls are still closing!!"