The gate clanged shut and the city cut off like someone slammed a lid. One step forward and Arcadia was gone. Fog chewed the lot, white from the waist down, thick and wet like it wanted inside my lungs.
Black water lapped at my shins, cold as a landlord's smile. Bone spires jutted out crooked, algae slick, like a rib cage dumped and forgotten. Reeds hissed every time the mist pulsed. Planks floated between the pylons—warped, soft, waiting to betray ankles.
Under the surface, I caught shapes: blister-bubbles fat with gas, leech vines curled around bone like wiring, patches of silt that looked calm until they swallowed a leg. My brain made a list called "Ways to Die in the First Five Minutes." It was already full.
Every step made a wet kiss sound. Too personal.
"Keep your weight even," Jax muttered, pole dipping into the water, sword riding his back. The grin was gone; hunter face on. "Ground here'll eat you if you give it the chance."
"Love the motivation speech," I said.
"Better than dragging you out," he shot back.
Hana popped a vial, the sharp stink of alcohol and mint burning through the swamp rot. She dunked strips of cloth, handed one to me, one to Mikey."Cover your mouth. Cuts the worst of it."
I pressed the damp cloth over my face. Bitter, sour, like kissing a hospital floor. "Luxury," I muttered. "Do we get robes and slippers, too?"
"Shut up and breathe," Hana said, calm as ever. She was already threading her silver line between pylons, mapping.
Fangpiercer hummed in my grip, liking the stink. Lightning Step tugged at my calves, eager. Not yet. Be boring.
Mikey set his taped shield, tested drag in the muck. Kid looked like a baby turtle that had decided to pick a fight with a truck. Brave, dumb, kind of adorable.
"Formation," Hana said, calm as a metronome. "Jax point. Mikey half-right. Ethan floats."
Floats. Translation: expendable idiot.
We moved. Boots sucking free of the swamp with little kissy noises that made my skin crawl. The fog breathed with us—six meters of sight, then four, then two. Something brushed my ankle. I told myself it was a friendly stick.
"Plank," Jax muttered. His pole tapped wood. "Two meters. Left."
Hana flicked her spool and slapped silver weave across the water. Lotus pads shimmered, slick and thin, shedding droplets like they were too good for this swamp. They'd hold if you walked polite. Argue with them and you were soup.
"Single file," she said.
I followed Mikey. Blade Dancer cheated the balance; my feet landed exactly where the strips wanted them. Didn't matter. My calves twitched like they were waiting for me to screw up. One slip and I was swamp chow.
That's when they came.
Fog Hounds.
Growl first—wet motor idling in the reeds—then the plank under my boots buzzed with their weight. The mist peeled back and they flowed out low: slick fur dripping, breath like pond scum, eyes filmed white. Gills working behind their jaws like second mouths that wanted a taste.
"Three left," Hana called, hands already sketching a line at throat height. "Two right. Jax—now."
Jax chopped the air. His skill Grav Pull tugged the left pack like he'd yanked a leash. Their jumps went crooked. Mikey slammed Anchor, plate flashing waist-high. First hound face-planted off it and went down looking like it had just discovered gravity was a scam.
I slid past Mikey, let the lunge sail, and jammed Fangpiercer up into the jaw slit. Black heat splattered my knuckles, hot and foul.
[EXP Gained: 28]
[Level 8 Progress: 128/ 800]
Another came barreling. I dropped low, jacket soaking, blade carving the seam as it flew over. Runes burned cold down my bones. The thing folded mid-air like a paper swan done by someone drunk.
[EXP Gained: 28]
[Level 8 Progress: 156 / 800]
The plank buckled under my boot. My gut clenched—then the rafters hissed.
A Fog Hound jumped straight at me.
"Mikey!" Hana snapped.
He was two steps right, shield already half-raised—but not fast enough. Jaws clamped my arm. My skin unzipped like bad luggage. My stomach wanted to bail.
[Absolute Regeneration Activated]
[Trauma: forearm laceration (R). Cooldown: 4s.]
Red timer blinked bottom-left. Four seconds of "don't be a dumbass." My skin had unzipped, blood slick down my wrist. I jammed an elbow into its chest and shoved Fangpiercer into his neck.
The scream was blender-full-of-forks loud, drilling straight through my teeth. It ripped free, left me bleeding hot. Then the system's heat surged, iron closing the cut like shrink-wrap.
[Absolute Regeneration Restored]
[Injury recovered: forearm laceration (R).]
[EXP Gained: 20]
[Level 8 Progress: 176 / 800]
Another hound slipped for Jax's flank. Nope. I sprinted, shoved Fangpiercer into its gill slit, because spite is cardio.
[EXP Gained: 28]
[Level 8 Progress: 204 / 800]
Something slimy wrapped my calf and bit. Needles punched in, fire racing up my leg. I yelped, hop-stepped like a clown, almost toppled Mikey. Blade Dancer turned the panic into "technique."
[Absolute Regeneration Activated]
[Trauma: dermal punctures, calf (R). Cooldown: 3s.]
Timer glared red. My leg screamed dead weight until the heat flared, sealing holes with a hiss like a hot iron on wet cloth.
[Absolute Regeneration Restored]
[Injury recovered: dermal punctures, calf (R).]
"I hate this place," I muttered into the cloth. "Hate. It."
Up ahead, Jax hacked another one down with that no-frills efficiency—no wasted motion, no humor, just D-rank steel. To my left, Hana's line whipped out, pane snapping across a lunging hound's mouth. Teeth clinked glass and stuck. Mikey, bless his turtle ass, swung his shield sideways like a baseball bat and pancaked the last one. The crunch said he'd made the team.
We breathed. The fog breathed back.
The next pylon ring glowed faint through the mist, a doorway half-drowned and chewed like some monster with bad teeth had tried carpentry.
"How's the arm?" Hana asked, calm, eyes flicking once to the pink new skin. Always cataloging.
"Factory reset," I said. "It's still under warranty. So free off charge."
"Save the stand-up," Jax muttered without looking back.
"If I live through this, I'm booking a tour," I said. He almost smiled.
We ducked under a sagging sheet of moss. That's when the swamp got greedy.
Jax probed ahead—pole in, pole out, step, step. Third step, the water looked calm and then swallowed him to the thigh. Pole clattered. He swore in D-rank. Mud clamped him like a jealous ex.
"Silt," Hana snapped. "Anchor!"
Mikey slammed his shield down. The plate flared under Jax's boot, holding the sole, but the swamp still hugged the rest of him like it wanted to keep a boyfriend.
"Lever," Hana barked.
I jammed the pole under his thigh, braced on the glowing plate. "On—"
The rafters hissed. A Crawler dropped, jaws already open.
No spare arm. No time. One bad idea.
Step.
The world tore sideways—pop, fizz, static in my bones. I was half a meter left before my brain caught up, Fangpiercer already punching into the crawler's gut. It hit nothing where I'd been, hiss turned to a shriek.
[Lightning Step: 1/3]
[Cooldown: 2s]
[Bonus: +100% strike speed applied.]
The blade moved faster than my hands knew how. My swing blurred, dagger biting deeper, cleaner, before my body even remembered the order.
I finished so fast, it was like nothing had happened. We hauled, and the swamp let go with a slurp I'll hear in therapy.
[EXP Gained: 20]
[Level 8 Progress: 224 / 800]
"Count your breaths and good job Ethan," Hana said. Calm. Precise. Like nothing had almost killed me.
"Uh… thanks?" I said, like she'd just complimented my haircut. "Not used to getting that right after not dying horribly."
She didn't crack a smile, just adjusted her thread line. Jax snorted like he'd heard worse.
I did. Step fizzed out, bones humming like a bad socket. Nobody said teleport. Bless them.
The fog widened into a new chamber: three bone pylons leaning like teeth, a half-drowned bench in the corner like an office break room lost a bet, and gas pods swelling fat in the reeds, translucent skins pulsing like blistered grapes.
"Don't jolt those," Hana warned.
"What counts as a jolt?" I asked, because apparently my survival instinct's on vacation.
"Ethan." Just my name, but how she said it scalpel-sharp. Enough to shut me up.
Water shifted left. Something fat heaved out, slick with slime, like a drowned couch decided to move. Then the tongue came—belt-wide, glossy, smacking Mikey's shield with a crack and yanking him like a fishing lure.
"Toad!" he yelped, like the rest of us were blind.
[Threat Detected: Bog Toad Brute (C-Rank).][Note: Amphibious predator. Vulnerabilities: jaw seam, belly fold, knee joint.]
The name didn't do justice. Plates oozed slime that smelled like batteries gone bad, throat sacs ballooning and deflating like a busted accordion. Milky eyes rolled at us mean and stupid. The tongue stretched again, veined and wet, dragging Mikey and his shield both.
"Anchor!" Hana barked.
"Anch—" Dome flared, light rippling across the swamp. The tongue strained against it, belt-wide and twitching, black slime hissing where it slapped Mikey's shield. The kid dug in, boots skidding, shield arm shaking. Three seconds before he was frog food.
Jax swung. His blade bit halfway through the tongue. Spray hit my cheek, hot and black blood. Smelled like old fish batteries.
The brute puffed, chest sacs inflating, ribs creaking like warped barrels.
"Belly!" Jax snapped.
It surged. Water hit us waist-high, shock-cold, filthy with reeds and muck. Grav Pull yanked, but the thing's weight just shivered, then kept coming. Dome blinked out with a pop. Mikey braced anyway, shield high, knees locked like a kid at his own execution.
"Knee!" Hana hissed. Her threads snapped tight around the front joint, glowing white. The brute lurched, caught itself, and she bought us one sloppy heartbeat. "Ethan—jaw seam!"
"On it." My bones screamed Step. I wanted to pop out of existence so bad my knees buzzed. But no. Not yet.
Blade Dancer dragged me forward whether I liked it or not. Planks groaned, swamp suction clawed at my boots. I slid low under its belly as it belly-flopped, water exploding up like a damn wave. The world went spray. The seam showed—bone and plate arguing.
Hello, friend.
Fangpiercer drove in like it had been waiting all year.
[Fangpiercer Critical]
[Armor Penetration: 30%]
The brute screamed frog-thunder, stinking air blasting my face. It rolled, plates slick with algae, trying to paste me flat.
I clung to its side, shoulder grinding slime, teeth grit. Shoved the dagger up into the armpit fold because apparently my major is Stupid Risk-Taking 101.
[Fangpiercer Critical]
[Armor Penetration: 30%]
"Down!" Hana cut through the roar.
We hit water, cold choking me, the brute shuddering over us. Then it sagged, whole body convulsing once before sinking dead weight. Fog swallowed the sound like soup.
[Target Defeated: Bog Toad Brute (C-Rank).]
[EXP Gained: 600]
[Level Up → 9]
Stat Points +5
[Level Progress: 24 / 900]
I wheezed a laugh. "Yeah. Totally casual. Just another day frog-jumping my way up the ladder." The box blinked in the corner, polite as hell, asking me to dump stats. I blinked back and thought, later. Not in front of three people who'd start asking why my muscles got shinier mid-swamp.
We dragged the carcass to a drowned bench, ropes and curses keeping it from slipping away. Hana stripped Muck Plate (C) with scalpel cuts, her face calm even when black blood steamed on her gloves. Jax hacked tongue chunks into neat strips, swearing it'd make good noodles. Mikey leaned on his shield, pale, still shaking from the tug.
Me? I was elbow-deep in some gland that stank like rotten chicken until Fangpiercer winked at a glossy core chip.
[Loot Acquired: Brute Muck Plate (C).]
[Loot Acquired: Bog Core Chip (D).]
[Loot Acquired: Lotus Resin (Common).]
The chamber reeked worse now—slime, popped gas pods, iron stink thickening the sour mist. Fog pressed heavy, veins of faint blue shimmering like the swamp itself was awake. Two rings deep. Waist-deep in soup. Bone pylons crowding tighter, ribs knitting into a cage.
"Resin sells," Hana said, wiping her blade. "Bootmakers love it."
"My boots are a cry for help," I said. "Hydrophobic won't fix personality."
That's when Jax finally turned his grin back on. Not the cocky one—the sharp one. "You don't fight like an F-rank, Ethan. You damn near soloed that brute."
"Yeah," Mikey piped in, still clutching his shield. "The way you moved—it was like—like you blinked. And those seams, you just knew where to hit. F-ranks don't know that."
Hana didn't say anything, but her eyes flicked over me like she was making another quiet entry in her mental catalog.
I raised both hands. "Hey, hey. I'm just built different. Milk, push-ups, protein shakes. You'd be amazed what daily stretching can do."
Jax snorted. Mikey blinked like he almost believed me. Hana's eyebrow twitched one millimeter north.
"Eyes up," Jax said finally, but not about me this time. He pointed.
The fog shifted. Not the usual in-and-out. A pulse. White thickened, picked up faint blue like someone lit a lantern inside milk.
Little bulbs floated in the reeds. Fog Crystals. One, then three, then a dozen, making a ring. The mist inside that ring sharpened—edges where fog shouldn't have edges.
"That's not aftershock," Hana said. Too calm.
A voice slid out of the ring in Mara's tone. Warm. Tired. Too close. Be boring.
My stomach dropped. Yeah, thanks, stomach. Real helpful.
"Positions," Hana said.
We tightened. Fangpiercer hummed like it had been waiting for ghosts all morning. Lightning Step tugged at my bones, eager. Not yet.
The water bulged. Something stood up wearing fog for skin and bones for clothes. Ribs, but wrong. Arms, wrong. Jaw, worse.
"Don't chase voices," Hana whispered, like she'd danced this dance before. "Watch the light. Brightest patch."
I locked on the brightest glow. It moved like it was breathing me in.
"Okay," I muttered. "Be boring."
My idiot heart ignored me.
And the thing finished standing.