Free Web NovelChapter 39: Carry
The second group challenge was harder.
Selene had added offensive formation elements to the course. The shifting terrain and obstacles were the same, but now the grid also generated energy bursts — short, sharp pulses that fired from the floor or walls at random intervals. Not strong enough to cause real damage. Strong enough to hurt, to disrupt concentration, and to break energy links if you weren’t paying attention. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
"Same rules," Selene said. "Link stays connected. Navigate the course. But this time the course fights back."
She looked across the room without any particular sympathy.
"In a real combat situation, threats do not wait for you to be ready. Your team will face pressure from the environment while trying to stay coordinated. Learn to handle both at the same time, or learn what it feels like to fail in front of people counting on you."
Ren looked at the formation grid. The energy nodes along its edges were glowing brighter than before, cycling in patterns he couldn’t predict.
’This isn’t a test anymore,’ he thought. ’This is a simulation of what happens when things go wrong.’
— • —
Team One entered the grid.
Iris took command again. Same formation — Ren on point, Lyra in the center, Iris at the back calling routes. The energy links activated, and the three threads connected with the familiar soft pull.
The first section was manageable. The terrain shifted, obstacles rose, and the energy bursts came — but they were spaced out enough to handle. Ren navigated the front, calling back obstacles. Iris adjusted their path. Lyra held the links steady.
Good rhythm. Working.
Then the course escalated.
Halfway through, the energy bursts doubled in frequency. Two came from the left wall. One from the floor directly beneath Ren. He dodged it cleanly, but the movement pulled his link taut and Lyra had to compensate.
"Tighter spacing," Iris called. "Don’t stretch the links."
Ren slowed. Another burst came from the right. He stepped around it. A panel rose in front of them and he vaulted it, landing steady on the other side.
Behind him, Lyra followed. Her control was holding — the link threads glowed evenly, her energy keeping the connection clean even under the increasing pressure.
But her reserves were thinning. Ren could feel it through the link. The same problem from the energy control test — her talent was real, but there simply wasn’t enough fuel behind it. Each burst she dodged, each obstacle she cleared, cost her proportionally more than it cost the others.
He could feel the exact moment the balance shifted. Her thread in the link went from steady to held together.The difference was subtle — like the difference between carrying a weight easily and carrying it through willpower alone.
Iris felt it too. Her call came sharper: "Moonwhisper, conserve. Don’t stabilize the link unless it’s about to break."
Lyra’s voice came back tight. "Understood."
But Ren knew she wouldn’t listen. He could feel it in her thread. She would keep pouring everything into the connection because that was the kind of person she was — the kind who would rather collapse than let the team down.
’She’s putting everything into the link instead of saving it for herself,’ he thought. ’And she’s not going to stop.’
— • —
It happened near the end of the course.
Three things at once. A terrain shift that tilted the ground hard to the left. A rising wall that split the path into two narrow gaps. And an energy burst from the floor — not at Ren, not at Iris.
At Lyra.
It came fast. Faster than the previous ones. Aimed at the center of the formation where the link holder stood.
Lyra saw it. She tried to dodge. But her reserves were too low. Her legs responded a fraction too slowly, her body heavy from spending everything on the connection. She started to move left, caught her balance wrong on the tilted ground, and stumbled.
The energy burst fired upward from the floor directly in her path.
Ren moved.
He did not think about it. He did not calculate the angle, consider his mask, or run the decision through the careful filter he used for everything else in this room. His body simply turned, stepped back, and put itself between the burst and Lyra.
The energy hit his shoulder.
It was sharp — a hot, stinging impact that flared through his arm and down his side. Not dangerous. Not crippling. But enough to make his teeth clench.
He caught Lyra’s arm with his other hand as she stumbled, steadied her, and kept moving. One smooth sequence. Step back, take the hit, catch, stabilize, move forward.
The whole thing took less than two seconds.
Their links never broke.
— • —
They finished the course twelve seconds later. Ren’s shoulder was still stinging when they stepped off the grid.
Lyra stood beside him, breathing hard, her face flushed. She looked at him with wide eyes.
"You — that hit was meant for me."
"It was closer to me," Ren said. Which was not true.
"It was not closer to you."
"It’s fine. It didn’t hurt."
"You’re holding your shoulder."
Ren looked down. He was, in fact, holding his shoulder.
"...Force of habit," he said.
Lyra stared at him for a second. Then she shook her head, and something in her expression shifted. Not the nervous warmth from before. Not the grateful look she had given him after the breathing tip. Something quieter. Steadier. Deeper. The kind of look a person gives when they realize someone just chose to get hurt so they wouldn’t have to.
In Ren’s experience — both lives’ worth of it — most people did not do that.
Most people looked out for themselves first and found reasons later.
He had just done the opposite without even thinking about it. And the girl standing in front of him had noticed.
"Thank you," she said. Simple. Like she had said it the first time he helped her. No strings. No performance. Just the truth of it.
Ren nodded once and looked away before his face could do something he hadn’t approved.
Kaia pulsed. Warm. Not a warning. Not concern. Something closer to... approval. A feeling without words that settled inside him like sunlight through a window.
Iris was standing two meters away, her disc already removed, her arms folded. She had seen everything.
She didn’t say anything about the hit. She didn’t mention the protection. She simply looked at Ren’s shoulder, then at his face, then at Lyra, and filed the entire sequence somewhere behind her sharp, calculating eyes.
He’s faster than he showed in the solo trials. He reads danger instinctively. And he will take a hit for someone he barely knows.
Interesting data point.
She unfolded her arms. "Good run," she said again. The same two words as yesterday. But this time they carried something slightly different.
— • —
In the observation area, Cassian was leaning forward in his seat.
He had watched the whole thing. The stumble, the step-back, the hit, the catch. Two seconds of movement that told him more about Ren Valis than five days of solo trials had.
Behind him, Team Two was preparing for their run. Kaelen stood at the grid’s edge with his arms folded, watching Ren come off the course with an expression that was difficult to read. Not impressed. Not dismissive. Something in between — the look of a person recalculating a number they had been comfortable with.
When Ren came off the grid and sat down nearby, Cassian didn’t say anything clever. He didn’t make a joke. He just looked at Ren with an expression that was, for Cassian, unusually serious.
Then he nodded. Once. The kind of nod that means I see you.
Ren nodded back.
That was enough.
After both teams finished, Selene posted the day’s group scores. Team One scored highest on link stability again. Ren’s individual marks in the group test showed a noticeable jump from his solo rankings — not impossible, but definitely higher.
’Because I stopped pretending for two seconds,’ he thought.
That was the part that bothered him.
Not the hit. Not the shoulder. Not even the fact that Selene had probably seen the whole thing and added it to her growing file.
What bothered him was how easy it had been.
He hadn’t decided to protect Lyra. He hadn’t weighed the risks or calculated the exposure. His body had simply moved, the way it moved in the Hollowroot Realm when something dangerous was coming and there was no time to think.
Protecting someone should have felt like a strategic decision. A calculated risk, weighed against his need to stay hidden.
Instead, it had felt like the most natural thing in the world.
’That’s the dangerous part,’ he thought as he picked up his bag. ’Not that I did it. That I wanted to.’
The ember pulsed. Warm. Steady. As if to say: yes. And that’s not a bad thing.
Ren almost believed her.
---------------------------------------------------
Thank you so much for reading "Bloodline Plant Lord."
I truly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to start this story and follow Ren’s journey. This is only the beginning, and there is still a much bigger world, deeper mysteries, stronger enemies, and many powerful bloodline plants waiting to be revealed.
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