..crystal?"
Hou Zi blinked. "…What?"
Others stared at me, momentarily dumbfounded. "…You're asking us?"
"You heard me." My tone stayed flat.
Hou Zi stepped forward and grabbed the front of my robe, his face darkened. "Are. you. Fucking playing with ME?"
"What are you—" Chen Wu's voice cut in.
Hou Zi froze. His face was still twisted with anger, but slowly his fingers loosened. For a moment he held my gaze, then released his grip.
I shook my head and straightened my robe. "If you don't know… then that's unfortunate." and stepped past them.
Behind me, the disciples hesitated, their attention still lingering on me as I walked ahead and my figure slowly distanced from them.
At that moment Chen Wu stepped closer to Hou Zi, placing a steady hand on his shoulder.
The vegetation ahead shifted slowly in the underground wind. I opened the manual again as I walked and turned to the materials page.
"Flesh Binding Grass." The drawing showed a plant made of long strands instead of leaves. Each one thick and slightly translucent, the texture somewhere between plant and skin.
After some time, moving through the field, I stopped and found myself surrounded by greenery. "It's likely nearby."
So I moved deeper, the manual held loosely at my side. My spiritual sense spread outward in a slow sweep, reading the field around me.
Then—
"KYAAAA." A woman cried out somewhere deeper in the vegetation.
I turned slightly toward it, a faint smile forming on my lips. The vegetation behind rustled as Chen Wu's group caught it as well, shifting their movement in the same direction.
The area thinned ahead and I stepped through into a small open space.
A female disciple was on the ground. Her upper body strained upward while the lower half of her body was caught in something that at first looked like a tangle of roots.
"The grass…"
Thousands of them, moving independently of each other like living strands. They wrapped tightly around the girl's legs and waist, layered over each other in coils. And dragging her toward the center of the plant, where the strands thickened and converged at a single point in the soil.
The ground there shifted slightly, as something beneath it began to rise.
"Aaaah!" A desperate cry broke from her mouth as the thing beneath the soil came into view.
A dense mound of tangled strands, packed together so tightly it looked like a nest made of living flesh.
From that mass, grass strands kept pushing outward in every direction, spreading across the ground like hunting limbs.
There, she saw me.
Her expression changed instantly, panic breaking through the strain in her face.
"Help me," she said, her voice shaking. "Please… I can't—"
One of the strands tightened around her ankle and pulled again.
She slid a little closer to the center.
I watched her for a second before my gaze shifted to the center of the plant, where the mass of flesh-like grass was.
"Interesting… it's not just grass."
Almost instantly, two disciples from Chen Wu's group burst forward.
They read the situation in a split second. Both drew their blades and struck at the strands.
The blades hit the outer layer but failed to cut through. They slid off the surface, the strands bending slightly before settling back as if untouched.
The two disciples looked at each other, eyes wide."What do we do now?" The failed strike pattern had already been recognized by them.
Not long after, Chen Wu arrived with Su Ling and Hou Zi beside him, Mei a step back. The rest of the group emerged at different points along the clearing's edge.
They took in the scene. Chen Wu's eyes moved from the trapped disciple to the grass while Su Ling was already on the move, her hand raising.
Spiritual essence gathered in the air before her, forming a series of thin needles. The energy compressed so tightly the air around them turned faintly visible.
"Qi Needle Strike!"
She released them toward the strands in a single precise motion.
The Flesh Binding Grass reacted but the needles still pierced through, their texture shifting as the pull on the trapped disciple weakened. She started to drag herself forward.
But the grass grew again.
Not just replacing what had been affected, but expanding. They pushed up, reaching outward in several directions at once. The two disciples near the edge stepped back quickly to avoid being caught.
I looked at it.
(Even this is dangerous,) I thought, noting it like a revised calculation. Finding materials in this place would not be simple like locating and collecting. It would be very difficult.
Around the clearing, the group had already engaged. Fire talismans burned sections of the outer strands, only for them to regrow. Blade strikes, glowing with spiritual essence, cut deep, yet the grass expanded again from another direction.
The trapped disciple had made it another meter forward but was losing ground again, the strands reestablishing their grip on her.
"It keeps regenerating," Hou Zi said, his voice carrying frustration. "Every time we cut it—"
"It's useless, it just comes back!" one disciple snapped, nervously driving another talisman forward.
"Don't stop, keep pushing!" Chen Wu encouraged him.
Without further words, the formation tightened. Fire talismans began targeting clustered sections instead of spreading fire. The blade users shifted inward angles, avoiding scattered cuts and focusing pressure toward a single point.
The burned sections were already ash on the ground, but even that space was being filled again.
My gaze drifted over the ash-strewn patches.
"What a waste," I sighed, stepping out from my position at the clearing's edge.
I moved forward at once into the space between the group and the grass, drawing my blade.
Several heads turned.
I looked at the grass for a moment. The strands moved independently, but they actually shared a branch system. The dense central mass fed all of them; regeneration came from there.
Circulating my spiritual essence through the blade, I moved in and cut into one of the thicker branches in precise motions—unlike the others' wide, ineffective strikes.
And each cut severed its connection to the root system, preventing immediate regeneration.
The strands fell and did not grow black and as the difference became clear, one of the disciples spoke in disbelief.
"How is he cutting it?"
For a brief moment, the disciples movements slowed—not from exhaustion, but recalculation. Su Ling's gaze flicked once toward me before returning to the grass, her needle formation adjusting slightly in angle.
Right then—
Hou Zi's voice came immediately, flat and certain. "The grass was weakened because we disrupted its structure. He is only benefiting from what we already did."
I crouched beside a section of fallen strands and picked one up. The manual's illustration had been accurate; the texture matched exactly—warm, like touching raw meat.
I Collected some more, folding them carefully, and they disappeared into my inventory without anyone noticing.
The plant responded within seconds. New strands shot in from two directions.
I shifted sideways, then back, leaving them to grab empty space. They tightened, missed, but streched again.
I Changed my footing mid-step, pulling their angle outward. The strands followed off-line, dragged away from the group as I walked straight in without slowing.
Distance closed and I stopped a few steps from the nearest disciple. My attention settled on Chen Wu.
I bowed."My thanks… this was very helpful."
The nearest disciple went still. Another's jaw tightened.
"—You—" the disciple started.
"Focus," But Chen Wu said without turning, stopping them. His eyes stayed on me. " We have work to do." And then moved back to the grass which had expanded again during the exchange.
"Heh." I shifted toward the edge of the clearing, watched the group re-engage the grass. Their attacks came coordinated now and more effective than before.