Two screams burst almost at the same time.
"Agh—!"
"Hel—!"
The sounds were cut off abruptly, as if their throats had been crushed from the inside out.
Two silhouettes collapsed in the fog — first the quick glint of a blade falling from a hand, then the bodies dropping without control.
The formation froze for a heartbeat.
That was when the first creature appeared.
Not from the front.
Not running.
It simply emerged, as if the fog had shoved its outline into their field of view.
A tall, disproportionate body — shoulders far too wide, arms far too long.
The skin — or what looked like skin — was black and uneven, fused to the darkness around it.
The eyes were two fixed red slits, unmoving, like embers trapped inside a deformed skull.
No armor.
No weapons.
Only fists and claws scraping along the ground, leaving deep grooves in the earth.
"Zeph!" Karna's voice cut through the fog, but came distorted; it sounded close and far at the same time.
Zeph turned toward where he thought the voice came from… but Karna wasn't there.
Even so, he stepped forward twice.
He lifted his hand, drew in a breath, and let his aura ignite around him — a ring of wind expanding.
The fog reacted immediately.
The aura touched something — several presences — but none of them had a defined position.
It felt like footsteps coming from above, below, from the side… all at once.
The information slammed back into him, as if the mist itself were shoving his perception inward.
Zeph clenched his teeth.
"There's… many. I… I can't tell where."
The pressure thickened around him — a resistance that shouldn't exist, like the air itself was pushing the aura back in, crushing his reading.
The detection collapsed with a sharp crack — and the aura was forced inward.
At that exact moment, "movements" appeared.
No way to tell if they came from the left, the right, or behind.
Contours surfaced where the positions changed every time he blinked.
Red eyes lit up throughout the fog — but distance was impossible to gauge.
They could be ten meters away.
Or two steps.
Similar height.
That same black, irregular skin.
Harsh breathing, scattered in multiple directions — as if the creatures were breathing inside the fog, not outside it.
They seemed to be closing into a circle.
Or several circles.
Or none.
The fog made certainty impossible.
Karna muttered a curse — but it sounded like it came from the opposite side of where Zeph thought he'd been seconds before.
Zeph lifted his chin, steady, trying to anchor his voice into the chaos:
"It's them. They're… everywhere."
One of the creatures tore through the fog in an impossible leap for something that size.
The impact hit like compressed air exploding.
The black fist slammed into the front-line soldier's shield — the metal bent inward with a sharp metallic crack, and the man was thrown aside, tearing open the formation.
The empty space lasted less than a blink.
Another one of those things barreled through the breach — no one saw from where, only a dark blur rising from the mist.
A claw slid through the air and into a soldier's torso as if it were water.
The body was lifted off the ground, hanging by its own flesh, before being flung back without ceremony.
Screams burst — too close for some, too distant for others.
The soundscape made no sense.
It felt like each row was meters away… or centimeters.
No one knew.
Karna tried to move toward where he thought he'd heard the impact.
"ZE—!" His voice vanished, distorted, as if yanked away.
Zeph heard it… but had no idea from where.
It seemed to come from the right.
Or behind.
Or above.
He tried to follow the sound, but the fog pulled his senses in conflicting directions, twisting orientation like a broken echo.
Another soldier was dragged into the mist.
No one saw a hand.
Only the body disappearing.
And the most terrifying part:
Brianna was shouting orders — her voice strong, steady — but she sounded like she was speaking from very far away… and at the same time right beside Zeph's ear.
The fog shredded any notion of unity.
But Brianna paused for a moment — not in body, but in mind.
The fog was vibrating.
No… pulsing.
A pattern. A rhythm. An intention.
She watched the chaos without anchoring herself to anything:
A soldier being pulled.
Another vanishing into the fog.
The sound of hooves? Claws? Impossible to distinguish.
Distances meant nothing.
False echoes.
False steps.
Lying directions.
She breathed once.
Too cold to be natural.
Too silent to be ambient.
Too quick to be something common.
Predator.
Collective.
Coordinated.
Brianna lifted her chin half a centimeter — enough to adjust her field of vision.
If Karna was where he should be, she couldn't trust that.
If Zeph still felt the aura, he was already suffering overload.
The soldiers… were turning into numbers.
The pressure of the fog pressed into her ears, but what truly pierced Brianna didn't come from the outside.
It came from within.
An ancient whisper, buried so deep she barely recognized it at first.
"Tell me…"
The dry voice.
The metallic timbre.
The echo of a narrow corridor where light and warmth did not exist.
"When everything around you lies — eyes, ears, smell — what remains?"
Brianna blinked once.
The fog warped footsteps.
Creatures moved in ways that didn't match the sounds.
The ground felt too close, too far, tilted and flat at the same time.
She tried to cling to logic.
Even if only out of habit.
Even if it was useless.
But the memory didn't let her continue.
The voice's tone hardened — not a question, but an order disguised:
"There is only one thing to do. Let go of everything. Let go of reason. Let go of logic. Return to the primal times."
Brianna's breathing steadied.
"Instinct. Survival. Only that, Brianna."
The chaos continued, but she didn't.
Inside, she went still — a fixed point in the middle of confusion.
The real question rose on its own, cold as a blade:
What is the fog trying to make her ignore? And what does she need to feel, not think?
Brianna dismounted without any hurry.
The sound of hooves touching the ground seemed to come from multiple places at once.
She closed her hand, inhaled… and opened her fingers over the damp soil.
The fog tried to distort even that:
made it seem like the distance between her hand and the ground was larger… or smaller… or that the ground was shifting.
Brianna didn't react.
"Phasmatos…" she murmured, so low that only the earth heard.
Magic answered — not in light, but in pressure, a dry snap in the air that vibrated through her bones.
She pressed her palm into the ground.
And whispered, emotionless:
"RUMPERE."
The earth trembled.
The vibration rushed forward like a subterranean beast — roots twisting, trunks cracking, stones splitting.
The fog warped, as if something inside it had contorted to avoid the shock.
Soldiers staggered, some falling — but Brianna wasn't attacking.
She was measuring.
Her eyes narrowed.
The answer came like an invisible map inside her mind: the fog gave way in uneven waves…
but at one single point, it didn't move.
It didn't tremble.
It didn't breathe.
It didn't absorb the magic.
It didn't return anything.
It simply remained rigid.
Cold.
Too cohesive.
"There you are…" she whispered.
Brianna drew a breath — the rigid point in the fog pulsed like a buried heartbeat.
Then she moved.
She didn't think.
She didn't calculate.
She simply ran.
The fog tried to lie about directions, but her body reacted on its own — muscle memory forged in places where thinking too much meant dying.
Footsteps ahead.
Heavy.
Fast.
A silhouette emerged — not a defined shape, but a dark outline rushing forward at an impossible speed.
Tall in one instant.
Low in the next.
Size uncertain.
Distance deceitful.
Brianna didn't hesitate.
The first strike came as a horizontal cut — no way to tell if it was an arm, a claw, or a projected shadow.
She dropped low, sliding under the attack, the ground nearly scraping her cheek.
The silhouette struck again, a movement far too abrupt for any human.
She twisted her body, planted a hand on the ground, and drove her knee upward — clean impact, straight into the creature's throat.
The outline faltered.
Brianna spun the dagger, plunging the blade into the base of what would be its skull.
The body gave.
Heavy.
Warm.
Silent.
For a second, the fog seemed to resist — trying to keep the outline alive, trying to hold the shape — then it began to retreat… centimeter by centimeter… as if something were tearing its internal structure apart.
Brianna released the body.
The fog was thinning — not by her will, but because the source was dying.
She lifted her face.
The light had changed.
Before anyone could comment, a dry wind swept between the shields, pushing the fog back in shallow fragments.
And there, where afternoon should have been, the sky had darkened.
And the truth appeared.
A man.
A face far too young.
Gray skin, drained.
Eyes wide open, pupils dilated, frozen in the reflection of his final terror.
She stared at the body without any change in expression — but the air around her shifted, heavier, colder.
Not a creature.
A person.
A person being used.
A person devoured by the fog from the inside.
And then — the full scene imposed itself.
The field revealed itself like a colossal corpse:
Bodies of soldiers scattered like sand.
Some torn.
Others reduced to fragments.
Some whole, but lifeless — as if the fog had drained everything, even will.
Farther ahead, at the heart where the core had been densest moments ago…
Creatures dead.
Not dead in a balanced fight.
Dead fleeing.
Claws torn off.
Skulls crushed.
Bodies tossed like rag dolls.
A path forced open — two parallel trenches carved into the ground — as if something had passed through too fast for the earth to withstand.
Brianna lifted her chin.
At the end of the trail, where the fog recoiled as if afraid to touch him…
A figure standing.
Heavy breathing.
Unstable aura, breaking the fog into fragments.
Shadow over blood.
Éon.
And the few soldiers near him…
alive.
Stunned.
But alive.
The only ones on that entire front the fog had failed to touch.