The Domestication of the Prodigy Mage, Shiro-Sakura: From Genius to Bitch

A new tentacle emerged from behind her shoulder. It was thinner than the others—no thicker than a pinky finger—but entirely translucent, revealing a pale, golden, glowing fluid pulsing within. It coiled around Bai Ying’s neck, wrapping from left to right. As it tightened, her throat was gently constricted—a warning of being held at the mercy of a predator that left her frozen in place. Fluid began to seep from the surface of the thin tentacle. The moment it touched her skin, Bai Ying felt a sensation entirely foreign to her—heat. It rolled down from her neck, cascading over her collarbone, across her chest, and down to her lower abdomen. Her form-fitting combat suit, already damp with sweat, clung to her body; the moisture soaked through the fabric, plastering the silver-white material against her skin and clearly outlining the contours of her sports bra beneath. Her thighs, encased in white silk stockings, were slick with a fine sheen of sweat, making the flesh beneath the fabric appear even more translucent, supple, and dangerously tempting. The tentacle tightened. Bai Ying was forced to tilt her head back. She watched as three of her juniors—Xiao Ling, A-Yao, and Xiao An—were swatted away by three thick tentacles simultaneously. Their bodies tumbled through the air, recoiling toward the edge of the rift, shrinking into insignificance amidst the dark purple mist. Bai Ying struggled to look down at herself—two thick tentacles had coiled around her thighs, winding several times from the roots downward. More transparent slime secreted from the tentacles, creeping upward along her white stockings. The hem of her combat skirt was torn away by the pull of the tentacles, leaving a palm-sized gap that exposed the junction of her thighs. Then came more tentacles—wrapping around her waist, chest, arms, and neck—binding her tightly and hoisting her into the air, pulling her into a posture of forced, arched submission. She couldn't move. Every inch of her was bound fast, and even her most desperate struggles felt futile. She could only stare, feeling one cold, slick surface after another press against every corner of her body that remained exposed by her stockings and combat suit. Then, the rift tore open completely. The tentacles dragged her from beneath her feet, pulling her down, coil by coil. The last thing she saw was the dark purple sky of the rift above—receding further and further, until it was sealed off by layer upon layer of surging tentacles. Below was absolute darkness. Her body was dragged deep into the mass of tentacles. They slid over her back—their movements as gentle as if they were handling something fragile. They didn't treat her like prey being hauled away, but rather like a pre-ordered commodity being delivered to its destination. Her combat suit was stripped away during the descent—first one sleeve, then the back was ripped open. Her stockings were shredded, scored with dozens of uneven gashes along their length. She felt the wind—or rather, the sudden draft against the skin previously shielded by her stockings and suit. A large tear appeared in the white silk on her right thigh, exposing the pale, soft flesh beneath. Her left shoulder was left completely bare—the high collar of her suit had been worn away, leaving her collarbone and the point of her shoulder gleaming faintly white in the darkness. All that remained of her attire was a tattered pair of over-the-knee white stockings—split on both sides of her thighs—and a single, shredded rayon sleeve hanging off her right arm. Her bra—a white, wire-free sports bra—had lost one of its straps; the left strap had slipped down to her armpit, exposing a portion of her breast, the edge of the bra digging a pale pink arc into her soft flesh. She tried to channel her magic. She could feel nothing in her circuits—they had been drained dry. The pathways themselves were clogged by the fluid secreted by the tentacles. She wanted to scream—but the pale golden tentacle still pressed gently against her throat. It didn't apply force, but it served as a reminder: screaming was useless. After an indeterminate amount of time falling, her body suddenly came to a halt. Several tentacles suspended her in mid-air. A low, grinding sound echoed from above, like the opening of massive stone doors. Then—in the darkness where she could no longer distinguish up from down—a pair of purple eyes slowly opened. There were no pupils, only two flame-like sigils rotating slowly. A thick tentacle slid past her face—smooth, cold, coated in that same colorless slime—and pressed gently against her cheek. A man’s voice drifted from the depths of the darkness, his tone light— "Welcome to your new home, little mage." Then, total darkness—a tentacle covered her eyes from behind, shielding them. The moist slime on its surface clung to her eyelids, carrying a tepid, living warmth. Bai Ying had no idea how long she had been dragged. All she knew was that her eyes were covered by a tentacle, leaving her in total darkness. The air around her was thick with a damp, slick, and feverish warmth—the tentacles sliding beneath her body emitted a faint, rhythmic friction, like countless serpents slithering against her skin. Her combat suit had been all but shredded during the dragging; the sheer sleeve on her right arm hung in tatters, while her left shoulder was completely exposed. Her white, wire-free bra was twisted and askew, the left strap having slipped past her elbow and slid down to her wrist. The upper curves of her breasts were fully bared, their pale flesh flushed a faint, delicate pink under the dim, violet luminescence of the chamber. Both of her over-the-knee white stockings were ruined—gaping tears ran down the sides of her thighs, with her soft, pale skin bulging through the rents. Where the stockings met her inner thighs, they were soaked through with the viscous secretion of the tentacles, the fabric clinging to her skin like a translucent, wet membrane. She tried to channel her magic several times, but felt nothing. Her magic circuits felt as if they had been stuffed with dense cotton; no signal could get in or out. Even Frostwhisper and Luna—her two contracted spirits—were completely beyond her reach. Then, a thunderous boom echoed overhead, the sound of a massive stone gate grinding open. It was a low, heavy vibration that seemed to rattle her very bones. The tentacle covering her eyes suddenly pulled away. Bai Ying opened her eyes to find herself suspended in mid-air, held by several tentacles in the center of a vast, alien space. The largest structure she had ever seen was the Central Hall of the Silver Star Academy, but this space was immeasurably larger. The darkness above seemed endless, with layers upon layers of tentacles dangling from the vaulted ceiling—thick and thin, intertwined like the viscera of some colossal beast. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of tentacles hung from the apex, their tips curled slightly like living stalactites, undulating in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. At the very top, a faint, dark-purple magical glow emanated, casting the shadows of the writhing tentacles against the walls. The four walls were living structures woven entirely from tentacles—thousands of them braided tightly together, forming a surface that was smooth yet pulsed with a subtle, rhythmic heave, as if the room itself were breathing. In the crevices between the tentacles, dark violet veins of magic pulsed with light. Bai Ying was flipped over in the air; the thick tentacle wrapped around her waist spun her half a circle, forcing her to face the heart of the training chamber. Then, she saw him. He stepped slowly out from the shadows of the side wall—directly from the center of the living tentacle barrier. The tentacles parted automatically to create a path for him, closing seamlessly behind him as he passed. The first thought that struck Bai Ying was that he didn't look like a monster at all. He appeared much younger than she had imagined, perhaps a man of twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He was exceptionally tall; suspended as she was, her gaze was barely level with his. His skin was a pale, grayish-purple, smooth and flawless, without a single pore or blemish. Deep violet hair cascaded down his back, the ends brushing against his waist. His features were too refined to be human—his nose was straight and narrow, his lips thin, and his jawline looked as if it had been carved by a blade. The most unsettling part was his eyes—deep violet, unnaturally large, and devoid of pupils. Within the hollow, purple sockets, two flame-like patterns rotated slowly, like twin cold fires that would never be extinguished. He wore a black robe, the front wide open to reveal a lean, sharply defined chest and abdomen—there wasn't an ounce of excess flesh on him. A high-ranking entity of the Demon Realm, a being who had lived for thousands of years and presided over the entire breeding nest, walked barefoot across the floor of tentacles, approaching her with unhurried grace. He stopped in front of Bai Ying. He was too close—so close she could smell him, a clean scent like sandalwood mixed with an indescribable spice. He raised his right hand—his fingers long and slender, his nails neatly trimmed—and pressed them against her collarbone. His fingertip tapped her once. Bai Ying’s body stiffened at the point of contact—the sensation was bizarre. His touch was warm, a feverish heat that stood in stark contrast to the icy chill of the tentacles. Then, the spot beneath her collarbone where he had touched her began to burn, the heat seeping through her skin, sinking into her bones, and radiating into her chest cavity. Ignis didn't look at her; he was watching his own fingers. They slid away from her collarbone, tracing the curve of her shoulder, and moved downward—gliding along the upper edge of her exposed left breast. His movements were slow, as if he were measuring her dimensions. The path his fingertips traced left a faint, pale-pink trail on her skin. He repeated the motion on the right side—the same path, the same touch. He traced down her ribs and paused at her navel. He pressed his finger gently into her stomach, a gesture that made Bai Ying’s stomach churn, sending a surge of heat she couldn't name rushing through her. Then, he moved to her left outer thigh—his finger slid down the side of her leg, reaching the edge of the torn white stocking. His fingertip stopped at the tear—right where a patch of soft, pale inner thigh was exposed—and pressed down again. Bai Ying instinctively tried to pull her leg away, but the tentacles held her firmly in place. The pressure was applied exactly to the inner thigh, less than a palm’s width away from her slit, separated only by a thin, soaked layer of white silk. Bai Ying knelt on the floor by the pool. The black membrane clung to her from toe to crown, a seamless, integrated second skin as if she had been born encased in it. The only points of contact with the outside air were the two tiny apertures beneath her nostrils. She looked down at herself—her breasts were molded into two smooth, dark hemispheres, the cleavage pressed into a deep, obsidian shadow. Her nipples, hard as pebbles beneath the latex, pushed against the membrane, creating two minute, dark protrusions. She couldn't see the shape of her own nipples—her vision was completely sealed off—but she could feel them pulsing rhythmically against the latex. Her waist was cinched to an extreme; her hourglass figure was no secret at the academy, but the membrane constricted her waistline tighter than any *kyohaku* (rope bondage) ever had. Her abdomen was flat, the navel’s indentation smoothed into a faint, ghostly dimple. The curves of her hip bones were accentuated by the membrane, making her pelvis appear even more pronounced than if she were naked. The soft flesh of her inner thighs bulged slightly against the latex, and her labia, pressed into a plump, mound-like shape beneath the film, throbbed with the congestion of the aphrodisiac, pushing out into a soft, swollen hill. The aphrodisiac continued to burn deep within her honeyed depths. She felt the fluid, having seeped into her mucous membranes, growing hotter with the internal temperature of her vagina. The walls of her canal spasmed incessantly, each contraction squeezing out more nectar. The fluid pooled at the perineum, trapped by the black membrane—the damp patch inside the latex slowly expanding. She tried to press her thighs together, but she couldn't. Ignis hadn't bound them yet, but the fluid, while she was submerged in the pool, had effectively "welded" the membrane of her inner thighs to the membrane at her perineum. There was less than a millimeter of elastic film between her legs, making even the slightest friction impossible. She reached down to touch the space between her thighs—not for self-pleasure, but simply to gauge how wet she had become. Before her hand could reach halfway, Ignis caught her by the wrist. He pulled her arms behind her back, crossing her wrists over one another. A flat, wide tentacle snaked around from behind, spreading over her wrists and the backs of her hands, instantly solidifying into a fused, single-piece black glove. Her ten fingers were forced straight and pressed together, welded into place. Then came her legs—three belt-like tentacles wrapped around her upper thighs, above her knees, and around her ankles. They were wide and flat, with fine, dense barbs on the inner surface that bit into the outer wall of the black membrane to anchor it. The simultaneous tightening of the three bands compressed her legs into a single, latex-wrapped pillar, erasing even the gap between her knees. Finally, a wider corset-like tentacle wrapped around her torso below the navel and cinched tight. As it constricted, a faint, internal sound of her organs shifting upward escaped her; the space for her diaphragm was sealed off from below. Her breathing immediately grew shallow, the airflow through the nasal vents turning into a series of rapid, high-pitched whistles. Ignis stepped back. Bai Ying knelt on the floor—a seamless, full-body black membrane casing from toe to head, hands locked behind her back in a fused glove, legs bound into a single pillar by three belts, her waist cinched up to her ribs. Not an inch of skin remained exposed. Only the two tiny holes beneath her nose allowed for the rapid intake and output of air; even her gasps were restricted. Then, he drew two thinner tentacles from the wall. One pressed against her mons pubis—onto that mound-like protrusion sealed beneath the black membrane—and secreted a small glob of translucent, heat-conducting gel. The gel clung to the soft flesh outside the labia, slowly seeping through the outer layer of the membrane to the inner, making direct contact with her engorged labia and clitoris. The second tentacle pressed against her left nipple, applying the same heat-conducting gel. The moment the gel enveloped her nipple, her entire upper body shuddered. The aphrodisiac had already been burning inside her; now, with this added layer of direct, sustained stimulation on her clitoris and nipples, it was as if she were being scorched from both inside and out. Bai Ying had never been stimulated simultaneously at her vaginal walls, clitoris, and nipples while completely deprived of sight. With her vision and hearing stripped away, her sense of touch was amplified tenfold. She could feel, through the back of her hand, her nipples pulsing and springing against the latex; she could feel her clitoris engorged to an unbelievable degree within the hot gel; she could feel the nectar, squeezed out by the constant spasms of her canal, flowing down the inner surface of the latex along her inner thighs. Trapped in her black membrane shell, her body heated from both sides by the aphrodisiac, her hands bound behind her back, unable to touch herself, her legs locked by the three belts, unable to even find friction—a woman in heat, sealed entirely within a latex casing, could do nothing but kneel there, letting the aphrodisiac burn, flow, and accumulate within her. Then, Ignis left. The stone door pushed open and slid shut with a dull, muffled thud. The sound of his footsteps vanished beyond the door. Total silence descended. Bai Ying knelt on the floor, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, touching nothing. The aphrodisiac continued to burn within her, her clitoris throbbed in the hot gel, and her nipples continued to spring against the black membrane. Her body had completely ceased to obey her—it wasn't a lack of will, but a total loss of control. The frequency of the spasms within her honeyed depths increased, and the pool of nectar inside the latex grew so large that with every breath, it created a faint, wet sound at her perineum. She took a few rapid, shallow breaths through the nasal vents, then forced her focus back—back to her breathing. Count the breaths. *Mayoru* had taught her this during the first-year winter training, after rapping her on the back of the head with a sword hilt. *One. Full inhale. One. Full exhale. Two. Full inhale. Two. Full exhale. Three. Three. Four. Four.* She stretched the intervals between the numbers, leaving enough space for every heartbeat, and leaving room for the relentless spasms within her canal—letting them continue while she counted. By the time she reached ten, her breathing had steadied. The whistling sound remained, but the rhythm had shifted from frantic to uniform. Her body was still burning, but while burning, she had regained the rhythm of the count. She knelt within her black membrane shell, being continuously heated from both inside and out, counting from one to ten, and starting over again. Bai Ying knelt on the floor, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, touching nothing. In the darkness, there was only the sound of her own breathing—the rapid, thin whistling—the sound of her heartbeat echoing against the latex, and the faint, wet sound of the spasms triggered by the aphrodisiac. She knelt there, losing track of time. Her mind was filled with her body screaming. In the training grounds, she had learned that when pushed to the limit, the body says "Stop." Now, her body was saying "More." It didn't want to stop; it wanted that finger she could never reach—the one on her own hand, less than twenty centimeters from her honeyed depths, yet locked away in a fused glove behind her back, unable to even curl a single joint. Bai Ying had no idea how long she had been kneeling. She only knew she was still encased within the black membrane, her body being continuously heated from both within and without by the aphrodisiac. She counted her breaths, struggling to keep from shattering. The effects of the drug had yet to subside—the viscous fluid that had seeped into the mucous membranes of her honeyed slit had been burning for hours; the heat had dulled, but not vanished. Her clitoris remained semi-erect, pressing against the now-cooled thermal gel. Her arousal continued to leak, and the small puddle of fluid gathered at the perineum inside the latex had shifted from lukewarm to matching her own body temperature. She had cycled through her breathing counts countless times, from one to ten and back again, her body hovering perpetually on the precipice of "needing." When the stone door pushed open, she heard a muffled, resonant hum. She had learned to distinguish Ignis’s footsteps—bare feet pressing into the tentacle-covered floor, the ground parting and closing beneath his weight. He stopped in front of her and crouched down. Through the black membrane, she felt his fingers touch the connection point of the single-glove behind her back. The tentacle secretions softened—the black membrane on her wrists shifted from a rigid shell back into a liquid state, and the glove unfastened. For the first time in hours, her ten fingers were free to separate. Then came her legs—the three strap-like bindings at her thighs, above her knees, and around her ankles were softened and released by the tentacles one by one. Finally, the corset—the moment the wide tentacle loosened below her navel, her diaphragm was finally able to draw a full breath from beneath. Bai Ying inhaled deeply, a thin, sharp whistle escaping the tiny pores beneath her nose, several times longer than any breath before. But the freedom lasted less than two seconds. The tentacles on the floor were already moving. The first to arrive were two thick ones, rising from the floor on either side of her body to press against her upper right arm. The tips of the tentacles snaked through the inside of her elbow, wrapped around the outer side of her bicep, and began to tighten. It wasn't a coil; it was a fold. The tentacles forced her upper arm and forearm together, bending the elbow joint to its absolute limit—until her fingertips touched her shoulder. The tentacles wrapped three times around the overlapping limbs, tightening and locking them into place. Her right arm, from shoulder to fingertip, was folded into a lump of black latex less than half its original length. Then came the left arm, folded the same way, bound just as tight. Both arms were pinned behind her back, her elbows bent at an angle she had never reached in any stretching training. Then, her legs. Tentacles rose from the floor on either side of her ankles, tracing the back of her calves up to the hollows of her knees before folding them backward. Her calves and thighs were folded against each other, knees bent to the limit, heels nearly touching her buttocks. The tentacles tightened around the overlap. Left leg, right leg. Once bound, her legs were halved in length, her knees becoming the lowest point of support for her body. Ignis placed a hand on her shoulder and pressed down gently. Bai Ying’s body lost its balance and tipped forward. With her elbows folded behind her, she couldn't use her hands to brace herself; her knees were the only joints touching the ground. She collapsed onto the tentacle-covered floor, her knees and shins pinned beneath her, the weight of her upper body resting on her shoulders and cheek. The black membrane caused the side of her face pressed against the floor to deform slightly, nearly blocking the air holes beneath her nose. Instinctively, she tilted her face, using the side of her cheek to clear the nostrils. She lay there, panting—limbs folded and bound behind her, knees digging into the floor, her entire body like a packaged object waiting to be crated. Her waist, cinched tight beneath the black membrane, looked impossibly slender, while the folded thighs and calves made the curves of her buttocks appear even more voluptuous. Her chest was flattened—her nipples, separated from the floor only by the membrane, pressed into the tentacle surface, the soft undulations of the ground cradling her breasts. The mound of her labia, encased in the membrane, was pressed against the floor; the cool, tentacle-covered ground, separated by less than a millimeter of latex, clung to her slit, every breath causing that small mound to rub rhythmically against the floor. Ignis crouched before her. She felt his fingers touch her neck. Through the membrane, the sensation was reduced to a vague pressure, but she could distinguish his fingertips—tentacles were cold, slick, and jointless; his pads had warmth. He swept her long, silver-white hair from the nape of her neck to one side. She could hear the sound of her hair sliding across the surface of the membrane clearly—the rustling of every strand against the latex was amplified and transmitted to her ears. Then, another hand touched her Adam's apple. She knew the texture of the tentacles all too well—cold, smooth, jointless. This thing pressing against her throat was entirely different: hard, narrow, and surfaced in leather. Deep red leather. As it pressed against the base of her throat, Bai Ying caught a faint scent of tanning—a smell that drifted through the air holes, the first scent she had encountered in days that didn't originate from the tentacle secretions. The inside of the leather was lined with a thin, soft velvet, and the moment it touched her skin, it was surprisingly warm. Her skin, accustomed to the icy chill inside the membrane, reacted to this sudden warmth, and her throat bobbed uncontrollably. Ignis tightened the buckle beneath her chin. The leather closed from both sides, cinching around her neck. Then, his fingers pressed the metal clasp—*click*. It was a faint sound, but her hearing, sharpened to an extreme degree within the membrane, caught every minute vibration of the metal gears locking into place. She had never been collared in her life. She had been restrained by magic shackles on her wrists and ankles at the Silver Star Academy, but that was part of training. Unlocking each other with Zhenye was a standard curriculum. But the neck was different. Above the neck was the head, the eyes, the mouth, the ears—the person known as "Bai Ying." The moment the collar tightened, something in her mind snapped—and once it broke, she realized that in her own perception, a chasm had opened between "S-Class Mage Bai Ying" and "this woman with her throat locked." There was a nameplate on the collar, sliding down less than a centimeter from her Adam's apple, caught by the leather of the collar. The metal edge was cold, rubbing against her skin through the membrane. She closed her eyes—it made no difference beneath the black film, but she closed them anyway. It wasn't about the pain. It was the shame—being pushed, by something she couldn't even see, one step further from a human toward a beast. Bai Ying was jolted awake by the tugging of the tentacle attached to her collar. She didn't know when she had shifted from a prone position to lying on her side—the curve of the tail inside her rectum had pushed deeper during the slide, grinding against her G-spot all night long. The residual aphrodisiac gel she’d secreted had dried and re-moistened against the inner latex lining of her perineum countless times. As the tentacle on her collar began to tighten, she instinctively lifted her head, only for the pull to redirect toward the stone door—forward, toward the corridor. "Move." Ignis’s voice came from ahead. Bai Ying froze—the "move" he meant was not the one she had envisioned. With her hands and feet bound behind her, her knees were the only joints capable of propelling her forward. He wanted her to crawl. The tethering tentacle pulled taut. The collar choked her, dragging her throat downward, allowing no room for hesitation. Bai Ying turned her face from the side to the front, inhaling sharply through the vents beneath her nose, then shifted her right knee forward by a small increment—the latex-clad knee scraped against the tentacle-covered floor with a faint, rubbery squeak. Then the left. Then the right. Then the left. She was crawling. The corridor was different from the stone chamber. The floor of the chamber had been flat, with a uniform texture. The corridor’s floor was undulating—veins of tentacles crisscrossed between the walls and the floor, creating grooves several centimeters wide between the tentacle roots. Her first step out of the stone door saw her knee catch in one of these grooves, causing her to tilt sharply to the left. The tethering tentacle did not stop. Ignis walked ahead, his bare feet landing steadily on the tentacle floor, while she dragged herself three meters behind him, alternating between elbows and knees. Her breasts, encased in black membrane, dragged across the floor; with every forward movement, they were pressed and splayed outward by the ground, only to spring back into shape. Her nipples dragged against the floor—every inch she crawled, they scraped against the surface. The cold, coagulated gel on her nipples had dried into a thin, translucent film, but the nipples themselves remained hard. Each scrape sent a jolt of numbness through her breasts, vibrating through the black membrane. The tethering tentacle suddenly accelerated. Ignis lengthened his stride. Bai Ying had no choice but to speed up—her right knee lunged forward in the widest split she could manage, and as her left knee followed, the lateral ligament beneath the black membrane stretched with a dull, throbbing ache. Her lower back arched deeper as she picked up the pace, her ass thrust into the air at its highest possible angle—she dared not lower it, for if the tail touched the ground, it would push the curve deeper into her rectum, and that pressure would grind against her G-spot. She had been pushed from the inside by that G-spot all night; any more, and she would climax—a threshold that had nothing to do with pleasure, but was simply being worn down by the relentless, microscopic friction. She could feel that threshold waiting for her as she crawled. Then, she looked down and saw her own saliva. The mouth gag held her tongue out, and saliva dripped from the tip. Every few steps along the tentacle floor, there was a small, shimmering puddle—droplets she had shed moments ago. Her knee landed squarely in the previous puddle, and as the latex pressed down, the saliva made a tiny, wet *squelch*. Then, her knee smeared it—stretching it into a shallow, reflective streak under the dark purple fluorescence. She crawled forward, and another drop fell. Another step, another smear. She kept her head down, watching the intermittent trail she left behind: the spots where her saliva dripped, the streaks where her knees smeared it, and the thin, flowing line of drool running from her cleavage down her ribs as she swayed with each movement. She was painting the trajectory of her crawl with her own saliva. The corridor was endless. She crawled until she felt as though her knees had disconnected from the rest of her body. The tentacle padding on the inner side of her left knee had worn thin after she’d been pinned there all night—at the end of Chapter 13, she had been lying on the floor, and the inner knee was one of the primary pressure points. After hours of friction, the latex there was thinner than anywhere else. Now, with every step, the cartilage of her knee ground directly against the tentacle floor beneath the thin padding, sending a dull, radiating ache from the inner knee up through her femur. She tried to shift her weight to the right—the burden on her right knee instantly doubled, but it gave the worn-out spot on her left a moment of relief. Then, the inner right knee began to ache as well. Both knees were screaming. She bit down on the gag—her tongue was pulled taut, her jaw trembling, but the tip of her tongue continued to drip saliva. Ignis stopped in front of her. Bai Ying crawled until she could sense his bare feet on the ground—half a step away from his toes. The tethering tentacle went slack, allowing her to stop at his feet. There was no sign of a break. She knelt there, face down, her breath coming in ragged, rapid gasps through the vents. Saliva dripped from her tongue onto the floor between her knees, pooling into a small, shimmering puddle.