They defeated creatures one after another. At a certain point from the ridge above the shattered lowlands, Ren felt fog's continuation swiftly. A pressure behind the eyes. A wrongness crawling along his skin, slipping past mana barriers as if they were suggestions, not walls. The air ahead darkened into a gray so dense it swallowed sound. No wind. No scent. Just a slow, living spread.
Behind him, boots crunched on scorched stone.
"Elara," Ren said quietly.
"I see it," she replied. Her hand found his sleeve without looking. She didn't pull close, not yet, but she didn't let go either. "That fog isn't stopping."
As if to prove her point, something moved inside the gray.
A shape staggered out again. A horned beast they'd fought before, one of Terranox's outer-range predators. Its hide was split with old scars. Its mana signature should have been familiar.
Instead, it screamed.
