I immediately had the skill loaded and ready to teleport behind the old man, the trigger already half-pulled— and then Jisoo's hand found mine in the fall, and her grip was wrong, or the contact was wrong, or the concentration was wrong, and the skill slipped.
Just— gone, scattered, the focus the skill ran on disrupted by the unexpected contact, and then we hit the water.
Cold. Again. I was really getting tired of being cold.
But the current wasn't there.
I opened my eyes underwater expecting to be swept, expecting to fight, and found— clear.
Not murky and dark like before, not the deep green of the current zone. Clear, light filtering down from the surface in actual visible shafts, and below us the bottom wasn't a flooded city floor.
It was vines— a massive net of them, dense and woven, forming a wide bowl shape maybe ten meters below, live and green and clearly intentional. A contained space.
Looking at it… this is actually so smart… and cool.
Oh, and people were in it.
