The image of May lingered with the koi longer than he wanted. Her hand over her stomach, that quiet, motherly smile—it was an image that belonged to someone else's life, yet it had burrowed into him. He had buried love beneath vows and pain, but the seal was cracking. He did not speak. He only swam in silence at Brandon's side, heavy with thoughts he would never say.
—
Emerald Peak rose like a wall punched through the sky. Its cliffs vanished into storm-wrapped heights, its crown lost inside clouds. The weight of it pressed on them before their boots touched stone.
The koi felt it in his scales: not altitude, but intent. The mountain did not want them.
[Environmental Analysis]
[Pressure Field: High]
[Visibility: Reduced (20%)]
[Anomaly: Mist density ↑ with altitude]
Brandon stood at the treeline, jaw set, spear steady. Frostwing's feathers lay sleek, her good wing half-spread. Together, they pressed forward into the gray.
—
The mist was not weather. It was will.
At first it curled like snakes through roots and branches. Then it thickened until every step erased the one before. Breaths vanished into it, sound dulled to cloth, even color bled away. The world did not blur—it watched.
The koi reached outward.
[Skill: Sense — Activated]
Threads of thought rippled out, but the mist bent them back. Echoes of himself returned. His Sense folded, looped, shrank until it caught only Brandon's determination and Frostwing's guarded aura.
"Nothing," he admitted. "The mist eats direction."
Brandon's hand tightened on his spear. "Then we trust our steps."
But the steps betrayed them.
Landmarks repeated: a boulder cracked down the center. A dead pine trunk, too deliberate. A dagger mark Brandon carved into bark, reappearing six paces later. The path was not a road—it was a cage.
The koi lashed his tail in the bowl. The mountain wasn't blocking them. It was mocking them.
—
Frostwing tried to break it. She flared her wings and drove a gale into the mist. The fog peeled back—then collapsed in denser, brighter sheets, glowing white.
[Observation: Mist is field-reactive]
[Wind input → Density ↑]
[Recommendation: Reduce disturbance]
Brandon touched Frostwing's flank. "Hold it."
Reluctantly, the phoenix folded her wings. The fog thickened in approval.
—
Then came the lights.
At first, a handful: faint yellow sparks drifting like fireflies. Then dozens. Hundreds. Flickering lanterns bobbing in a sea of gray.
The koi stiffened. "Not natural."
The System's voice cut in, sharp.
[Threat Detected: Lightning Bees]
[Tier: 6 — Swarm-class]
[Behavior: Chain discharge. Attracted to static & movement.]
[Range: 1.0 km → 0.7 km → closing]
[Warning: Prepare for defense]
The sparks pulsed brighter, buzzing faintly—a sound like wires sparking in hidden walls. Then louder. A roar, crackling through the fog.
The mist itself glowed yellow. Storm-cloud veins ran through it.
"Positions," Brandon hissed, spear sliding into his hand.
Frostwing lowered her head, frost whispering across her talons. The koi braced at the lip of his bowl, scales humming with Blood Scales, Bounce ready to break his body upward.
The fog tore open.
Bolts of living lightning streaked through, wings crackling, bodies glowing, the air itself vibrating with charge.
The swarm arrived like a storm given teeth—buzzing, blinding, endless.
And the mist swallowed them whole.