The formation advanced slowly through the fog, synchronized steps, shields raised, spears aligned like a moving wall.
Nothing but the controlled sound of breathing filled the living corridor of steel.
Zeph walked in the center, exactly where Karna had placed him.
The air there felt heavier than it should.
He closed his eyes for a moment, letting his aura expand — not fully, but enough to catch the signals from Iaso, Lys, Ryden, and Neriah as they moved into their quadrants.
At first, everything was normal.
Regular pulses.
Familiar rhythms.
Calculated movements.
But then…
Something changed.
It wasn't a shock.
It wasn't a presence.
It was as if the air itself had lost a fragment.
Zeph frowned.
His breath caught for a second.
There was no sound.
No light.
No vibration.
But there was a void.
A space where he should have felt "something"… and felt nothing.
It was like listening to a room full of people — and suddenly an entire corner went silent, as if ripped out of the world.
Zeph opened his eyes slowly.
Nothing around him had changed.
The army kept marching.
Brianna moved at the front with flawless posture.
Éon and Karna watched the flanks with absolute focus.
But that subtle absence stayed there, intrusive.
A hole in the flow.
He tried to identify it.
Tried to isolate it.
Tried to read deeper.
But the void had no shape.
It was like reaching out to grab something… and finding only air.
Zeph drew in a slow breath, trying to steady the threads of perception.
The second void came right after.
Sharper.
Closer.
Like an interval — a millisecond — where the world seemed to hold its breath.
Zeph blinked.
And his aura trembled.
He couldn't say what was there.
Couldn't say where.
Nor who.
But he was absolutely certain of one thing:
"There's something wrong."
His hand trembled slightly before stabilizing.
Iaso's and Lys's signals were still steady.
Neriah's too.
But Ryden…
Ryden's pulse wavered for an instant.
Not enough to be an alarm.
But enough for Zeph to feel the same absence at the same moment — as if Ryden had walked through the same hole in the air.
Zeph raised his hand in a quick gesture to Karna.
Karna saw it.
His eyes narrowed instantly.
And the formation slowed its march by half a step.
The fog ahead didn't change.
But Zeph knew.
This wasn't fatigue.
Wasn't common magic.
Wasn't a flaw.
It was a silence that shouldn't exist.
The wind returned to normal.
At least for Zeph.
But miles ahead, someone else realized this wasn't just an oscillation.
Ryden was moving through the eastern quadrant in absolute silence.
A crack snapped through the air — dry, electric.
He stopped.
Not because of something he saw.
But because of what he didn't hear.
The air around him was too still. No insects, no distant rustle, nothing. Only a white, dense emptiness closing in from all directions.
Ryden lifted his chin slightly, drawing in the air slowly.
That was when it happened.
A sound.
Faint.
Brief.
But impossible.
A metallic echo… coming from nowhere.
The second came with something else.
The smell.
A cold, mineral scent — like stone freshly split by lightning. Familiar enough not to be ignored, strange enough not to belong there.
Ryden already had a hand on his weapon before he even realized he was moving.
The curved bow — dark, polished, with pale veins running along the limbs — appeared in his hand like an extension of the gesture itself.
He pulled the string.
There was no target.
But his entire body insisted there should be.
That was when the shadows moved.
Fast.
Elusive.
Passing between trees, over rocks, at the edge of vision — circling him in wide arcs, then tightening.
They weren't shapes.
Weren't bodies.
They were… traces, as if something were moving too fast to exist for more than a fraction of a second.
His instinct screamed.
The fog thickened suddenly, as if the world had held its breath.
Ryden kept the string drawn, the bow aligned with his chest.
The traces in the shadows grew faster.
Closer.
The air vibrated.
It was the only warning he got.
The creature burst from the fog in a single lunge — a blur of irregular form, no defined outline, as though the fog itself had been molded into a temporary body.
Ryden didn't see what it was.
Only saw the impact coming.
He twisted his torso on instinct, the strike passing a few centimeters from his ribs.
A muffled noise — flesh, stone, or something between — sliced through the air.
The lateral force almost knocked him down.
But he held.
The creature was already gone.
Reabsorbed by the fog.
Again, the silence.
Ryden moved back to the center of the clearing, precise steps, the bow angled slightly downward, but ready to rise in an instant.
He turned his head slowly, scanning the surroundings.
Nothing but thick white.
The attack came again.
This time from behind.
A dark slash tore through the fog at absurd speed — no eyes, no stable form, just a mass of condensed shadows.
Ryden leaned, let the strike pass over his shoulder, and slid one step to the right.
His foot had barely touched the ground before the silhouette vanished again, swallowed by the environment.
He controlled his breath.
His chest rose and fell slowly.
His eyes didn't blink.
The fog seemed… to watch.
Ryden stayed exactly at the center, turning slowly, every muscle ready for the next charge.
He still had no idea what he was facing.
But he knew one thing:
The thing was testing him.
Ryden stayed at the center of the clearing, turning slowly, every muscle ready to respond.
The fog felt alive.
Watching.
Testing.
He sensed another vibration in the air — the threat narrowing like a bow about to release.
He couldn't wait for reinforcements.
But he could warn them.
Ryden moved his left hand without taking his eyes off the dense white.
He grabbed a short-shafted arrow, marked with three dark rings: maximum alert.
Arrow up.
He pulled the string in absolute silence.
The creature's sound vanished for an instant.
The fog… paused.
As if it were paying attention.
Ryden fired.
The arrow tore through the air with a sharp snap — and blew open into a vertical line of bluish light that shot upward, piercing through the top of the mist, creating a flash any scout in that sector would recognize instantly.
The echo of the light faded.
Silence returned.
Heavy.
Cold.
And the creature reacted.
Something moved behind him — fast, too aggressive.
As if the signal had angered it.
Ryden swung the bow toward the opposite side, eyes narrowed, body firm.
He didn't expect immediate reinforcements.
He was alone until someone saw that flash.
And the thing knew it.
The blue flare sliced through the top of the mist like an open blade in the sky.
For a second, the light seemed to hesitate — as if it had passed through something too dense.
The air vibrated late, weighted, as if Ryden's alert had been cut in half.
The entire army stopped at once — hundreds of heads turning upward, eyes wide from the sudden burst of light.
Zeph was the first to react.
His aura pulsed — far too strongly.
Zeph opened his eyes as if struck.
"…that's not a normal signal," he said quietly.
Brianna raised her fist instantly.
"STOP!"
The ranks froze.
And then… the wind died again.
But not naturally.
A thick fog — heavier, darker than before — began to rise from all directions at once.
It didn't come from the east.
Didn't come from the front.
Didn't come from behind.
It simply appeared — an enormous circle closing around them, advancing like a ring of dense, hungry white.
It didn't crawl.
It climbed, as if it had weight.
It emerged, it didn't spread.
It advanced in absolute silence, as though it had awareness.
The soldiers stepped back involuntarily when the thick veil touched the first line.
The edges of some shields began to tremble — not from cold, but from the desperate effort to hold them steady.
Vision vanished.
The second line disappeared right behind them.
Not even the sound of metal followed.
The fog smothered everything — even panic.
The third line hesitated, pure instinct.
A soldier stepped back once, involuntary.
The sound of the boot hitting the ground seemed too loud, like a mistake.
"HOLD YOUR POSITIONS!" Karna shouted, but his voice felt muffled, as if the air swallowed the sound.
Zeph stepped forward, eyes wide — almost panicked, for the first time.
He blinked several times, as though trying to focus on a shape only he could see within the fog — a presence that moved, but refused to take form.
"This fog… it's not natural. It's pushing perception — it's like it erases everything at once."
Brianna pulled her horse, trying to stay steady.
"No one advances! Form—"
A scream cut through the air.
Coming from inside the fog.
A soldier's scream.
Then another.
Closer.
Then two at the same time.
Metal clashing.
Someone running.
Something dragging.
The fog drew back for a second — as if breathing — then surged again, swallowing the entire central line.
Muffled screams bled from inside.
A bow hit the ground.
A shield rolled out of the fog… empty.
Zeph staggered a step, clutching his head — as if overloaded.
"I… I can't feel anyone in there… Everything's being wiped…"
The fog devoured another line.
And chaos began.