Chapter 567. I Came to Rescue Kaela and Left With Nothing to Do but Watch

Chapter 567: 567. I Came to Rescue Kaela and Left With Nothing to Do but Watch

William lunged forward, his hand already reaching for the concealed blade at his hip, but he skidded to a halt. Kaela was not waiting to be rescued; she was already mid-war.

She hung suspended by a single ankle, her head dangling inches from the floorboards, but there was no paralysis of fear in her eyes, only a white-hot, murderous rage.

The blood was already rushing to her face, turning her skin a deep crimson, but she used the momentum.

With a guttural snarl, she twisted her torso with inhuman flexibility, braced her free palm against the stone wall, and drove her free heel upward with bone-shattering force into the thick vine coiled around her waist.

A wet, fibrous crack echoed through the corridor as the plant tissue split like overcooked meat. The vine recoiled with a hiss, spraying green sap across the floor.

Her gauntlets were still locked away in her room, but Kaela had never needed steel to be lethal; her bare fists were calloused, scarred, and possessed the blunt force of sledgehammers.

"Get. Off. Me!" she roared.

Grabbing the vine that held her wrist with both hands, she planted her feet against the wall and rolled her shoulders with a violent wrench.

With a primal scream of effort, she heaved backward, using her entire body weight to tear the tendril free. The force was so immense that the wooden beam above her shuddered ominously, sending dust and splinters raining down like morbid snow.

But the jungle was not done.

A new vine, thicker and darker than the rest, whipped out from a cluster of ferns like a striking cobra. It lashed toward her exposed ribs.

Kaela didn’t flinch. She threw her forearm up to block the impact, making a meaty thud that sounded like a fist hitting raw steak, and then she spun.

Using her trapped ankle as a pivot point, she executed a perfect, desperate gymnastic rotation, bringing her elbow down in a devastating arc. Her elbow connected with the main stem of the vine with enough force to send a spray of bitter, milky sap across her face.

Then came the violation.

A third tendril, thin and wiry as a whip, shot out from the writhing ivy. It didn’t aim for her limbs or her torso.

It coiled around her scalp, wrapping tight around her ponytail with the precision of a garrote.

"Not the hair!" Kaela screamed, her voice cracking with genuine fury. "I washed this yesterday, you overgrown weed!"

The vines began to constrict, pulling her head back at an unnatural angle. Just as the pressure looked like it might scalp her, a flash of silver cut through the green chaos.

Lia appeared at the mouth of the corridor like a wraith born of steel. Her sword was already singing as it left its sheath, a clean, deadly whistle in the air.

She didn’t hesitate, didn’t scream, and didn’t panic. With the cold calculation of a predator, she stepped lightly over a creeping root that tried to trip her, her eyes fixed on the target.

With a single, surgical flick of her wrist, her blade carved through the air.

The vine around Kaela’s ankle severed with two clean, wet snaps.

Kaela dropped like a stone. But she didn’t crash; she caught herself on her palms, rolled through the impact, and flipped back onto her feet in one fluid, unbroken motion.

Her breathing was ragged, her face streaked with green sap and sweat, but her posture was immediate defiance.

She stood there for a heartbeat, shaking her hair back into place with a sharp jerk of her neck. Her fingers closed around one of the oranges she had managed to keep hold of during the chaos.

Without breaking eye contact with William or Lia, she peeled it with a fingernail and took a massive, aggressive bite.

"I had it under control," Kaela said defiantly, orange juice running down her chin like sweet, sticky blood.

William stared at her, his heart still hammering against his ribs from the terror of seeing her strangled. "You were hanging upside down, Kaela."

"You were seconds away from being turned into fertilizer."

Kaela swallowed the fruit, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and gave him a look of supreme, unearned confidence.

"It was a tactical position," she snapped. "I was assessing the enemy from a different angle."

Lia did not join in the confrontation; she simply moved through it, a blade of silver light cutting through the emerald chaos.

She advanced down the corridor with the detached precision of an executioner, each stroke of her sword sending severed tendrils spinning to the floor with wet, sucking sounds.

Her eyes never stopped scanning not just the vines at shoulder height but the ceiling beams where something large and muscular still writhed in the shadows.

"The residents of this dormitory are hereby advised to refrain from disturbing the flora until the maintenance staff has issued proper protocols," Lia stated, her voice flat and devoid of emotion as she severed a particularly aggressive creeper that tried to coil around her boot. "That is rule number seven."

Kaela, still chewing her orange with aggressive defiance, rolled her eyes. "There is no rule seven, Lia."

"You just made that up to sound intimidating while you’re playing gardener."

"A rule that has been established in the moment is still a rule," Lia countered without breaking her stride. "And considering you were nearly garroted by a fern, I suggest you start following it."

"Oh, hush." Olivia wandered out of her room, wrapped in a silk bathrobe that looked entirely too dignified for a jungle.

She didn’t seem frightened by the carnivorous plants or the fact that the hallway looked like a swamp.

Instead, she walked straight to the orange tree that had erupted through the floorboards, plucked a ripe fruit with practiced grace, and began to peel it with excruciating deliberation.

She popped a segment into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

"This is surprisingly excellent," she remarked, wiping a drop of juice from her lip. "For a fruit that resulted from a magical catastrophe."

William looked at Ellie. The poor girl had both hands pressed hard against her face, her shoulders shaking violently.

For a terrifying heartbeat, William thought she was breaking; the stress of the last fortnight and the terror of her own power had finally snapped something fragile inside her.

He moved toward her, hands outstretched. "Ellie? Ellie, hey, it’s okay—"

Then he heard it. A muffled snort escaped from between her fingers.

Then another.

"Are you... are you laughing?" Kaela asked, pausing mid-chew.

Ellie finally lowered her hands. Her face was flushed pink, her eyes streaming with tears, but she was grinning.

"It’s just..." she gasped, clutching her stomach, "it’s so stupid! Kaela, you looked like you were being eaten by a giant snake, and you were still holding an orange!"

The absurdity of it hit them all at once. Kaela snorted, a sound that broke the last of the tension.

Then Lia let out a single, startled huff that sounded suspiciously like suppressed amusement. Even Olivia threw her head back and let out a rich, melodic cackle.

The sound reverberated off the stone walls and through the thick canopy of leaves, transforming the corridor from a scene of supernatural horror into something almost... human.

The laughter was contagious, a desperate, healing thing that warded off the creeping dread that had haunted them for weeks.

The sound of approaching footsteps drew their attention. Clara appeared at the top of the stairs, moving with her usual careful gait.

She carried two steaming cups of tea, the ceramic clinking softly. She navigated the new terrain with practiced ease, stepping around a sprouting fern as if she had been expecting the jungle all along.

She reached Ellie first, pressing a warm cup into her shaking hands.

"Drink this, Ellie... It will help steady you," Clara said softly.

William watched her closely. Up close, the cracks in her composure were more evident. The shadows beneath her eyes were darker than they had been yesterday—deep, bruised hollows that spoke of sleeplessness and something far more corrosive.

Her smile was there, warm and comforting as always, but it arrived a fraction too quickly, like a mask being snapped into place before anyone could see the exhaustion beneath. It was a performance of normalcy that required terrifying effort.

He allowed himself to watch the scene for a moment longer, letting the warmth of the laughter settle in his bones.

The leaking power was no longer a source of paralyzing terror; it was something they could face, something they could even laugh at together. That was progress. That was survival.

But as the laughter died down and the group began to disperse, William’s gaze lingered on Clara.

He couldn’t shake the instinctual warning bells ringing in his skull. The peace they had found was a thin veneer, and the trouble with Clara was beginning to manifest in small, insidious ways.

The first of those signs was the sleep.