The transition from Winter to Spring was not a season; it was a detonation.
The violet sun, crowning the eastern mountains, did not gently warm the earth. It hammered it. The ten feet of snow covering the plain didn't melt; it flashed into steam.
The world instantly turned into a white, boiling sauna. Visibility dropped to zero. The air was thick enough to chew, tasting of wet ash and ozone.
"Flood!" Ji Han roared, his voice muffled by the fog.
He stood in the trench, knee-deep in a slurry of grey slush that was rapidly turning into a river. The water was rushing toward the lowest point: the open door of the Granite Tunnel.
"If the water hits the fire, we lose the heat!" Lin Qinghe shouted from the entrance, frantically stacking Black Iron plates to form a dam. "If it hits the Yin Hollow, it will flash-freeze and crack the foundation!"
"Drainage!" Ji Han barked.
He didn't fight the water. He directed it.
He leaped out of the trench, landing on the steaming mud of the surface. He raised his Frost-Iron War Pick.
"Dig."
He channeled his Qi. Level 3 power surged through his arms. He struck the ground with the digging spike.
THUD. SPLASH.
He carved a trench in seconds, ripping a canal through the mud, leading away from the tunnel entrance and toward the lower elevation of the southern perimeter.
He worked like a madman. He wasn't digging a garden; he was gouging a wound in the earth. The slush followed gravity, diverting away from their home and pooling in the distance.
For an hour, he fought the hydrology of the thaw. His armor was soaked, his boots heavy with mud.
Finally, the roar of rushing water faded to a trickle. The tunnel was safe.
Ji Han stood panting in the steam, wiping mud from his visor.
"Crisis averted," he muttered.
"Ji Han," Lin Qinghe's voice trembled. "Look at the ground."
Ji Han looked down.
The mud was moving.
It wasn't flowing. It was vibrating. The ash of the burnt Azure Grass, mixed with the nutrient-rich melted snow and bombarded by the intense Yang Qi of the sun, had created a biological hyper-accelerant.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Green shoots burst from the soil like bullets.
They didn't grow slowly. They erupted.
A stalk of Azure Grass shot up near Ji Han's boot, growing a foot in a second. It wasn't the soft, swaying grass of the previous year. It was dark, metallic green, with edges that looked serrated.
"It's fast," Ji Han said, stepping back.
"It's hungry," Lin Qinghe warned. "The soil has been dead for six months. The seeds are desperate."
All around them, the plain was transforming. The grey wasteland vanished under a carpet of aggressive green. The stalks grew to waist height in minutes. They rubbed against Ji Han's Bastion Plate with a sound like sandpaper on metal.
SCRITCH.
A stalk lashed out, wrapping around his ankle.
Ji Han kicked it away. The stalk didn't break; it pulled taut, strong as a steel cable.
"They're predatory?" Ji Han realized.
"They are Solar-Blade Grass," Lin Qinghe diagnosed, watching a leaf slice through the leather of her boot. "In the Time Dissonance, evolution is accelerated. The survivors of the Long Fire are heat-resistant. The survivors of the Long Night are hardy. And now... they want biomass."
The field around them was writhing. The grass wasn't just growing up; it was leaning toward them. Toward the heat of their bodies.
"Back to the tunnel!" Ji Han shouted.
He swung his War Pick, severing the vine around his ankle. He grabbed Lin Qinghe and threw her toward the entrance.
He turned to cover their retreat.
The grass lunged. It wasn't a monster; it was the landscape itself. A thousand serrated blades whipped toward him.
[System Notification: Enemy Detected.] [Iron-Blood Grass (Mutation).] [Rank: Hazard.]
"Mowing time," Ji Han grunted.
He spun the War Pick. The Frost-Iron blade met the Iron-Blood Grass.
SHING. SHING. SHING.
He carved a path. The grass screamed—a high-pitched whistling sound as air escaped the severed stalks. Green sap sprayed the air, smelling of cut lawn and copper.
He backed into the tunnel entrance.
"Seal the door!"
He slammed the granite slab shut.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Outside, the grass hammered against the stone. It sounded like hail.
Ji Han slumped against the door, breathing hard. He looked at his armor. The Bastion Plate was scratched. Deep grooves had been carved into the Isopod shell.
"Grass," Ji Han said, disbelief coloring his tone. "We survived the frost monsters, and now we're under siege by the lawn."
"It is the cycle," Lin Qinghe said, examining the cut on her boot. "The Yang cycle is about explosive growth. The competition for resources is absolute. The plants will fight each other, and they will fight us."
She looked at the ceiling.
"We cannot stay underground, Ji Han."
"Why not? We have food. We have air."
"Because of the roots," she said.
CRACK.
A hairline fracture appeared in the granite ceiling of the tunnel. A tiny, white root hair poked through. It wiggled, tasting the air.
"The roots broke the granite?" Ji Han asked.
"They are seeking water," Lin Qinghe said. "And we are sitting on top of the only water source left—the melting Yin Hollow. If we stay here, the roots will collapse the tunnel on our heads."
Ji Han stared at the tiny root. It was growing visibly, thickening as he watched.
"So we can't go out because the grass will eat us," Ji Han summarized. "And we can't stay in because the roots will bury us."
"We need to dominate the surface," Lin Qinghe said. "We need to clear a perimeter. And we need to do it before the grass turns into trees."
Ji Han gripped his pick. He was tired. He wanted to sleep. But the Eternal Domain didn't care about his circadian rhythm.
"How do you kill a forest that grows back in minutes?"
"You don't cut it," Lin Qinghe said, her eyes flashing. "You poison it. Or... you burn it."
"We just had a fire," Ji Han argued. "The ash is what fed them!"
"Then we use the other extreme," she said. "We have a box of winter."
She pointed to the Black Iron strongbox in the corner. The box containing the Yin Spirit Pearl.
"The grass craves Yang," she explained. "It thrives on heat. If we introduce a source of Absolute Yin to the surface soil... we create a dead zone. A circle of frost in the middle of the jungle."
Ji Han looked at the box.
"We salt the earth," Ji Han realized. "With ice."
"It is the only way to keep the doorway clear," she said.
Ji Han stood up. He walked to the box. The metal was cold to the touch.
"I spent six months hiding from the cold," Ji Han muttered, picking up the box. "Now I'm going to use it as a weedkiller."
He turned to the door.
"Cover your ears," Ji Han said. "I'm going to make a garden."