Reigen could not recall when his breathing had turned ragged; he only knew that each inhalation felt inadequate, the cold mountain wind searing his lungs as if he were drawing in splinters instead of oxygen. The ground beneath his feet no longer felt stable but rather like a treacherous surface he was skimming across rather than running upon.
Mud splattered against his calves as he descended in uneven strides, the fog tearing past his face in pale ribbons. The mountain slope blurred into streaks of stone and shadow, responding to the singular command that still resonated within him.
Run.
The word had neither been shouted nor pleaded; it had settled within him with a weight that crushed all hesitation. His father's voice had never sounded like that.
The tools on his shoulder clinked together with every step, their hollow echo ringing too loudly in his ears, as though the mountain itself were counting his movements.
His heart thundered violently, each beat shaking his ribs, while blood roared fiercely through him, drowning out even the wind. He did not know where he was headed or what awaited him at the village.
He only knew that the image behind his eyes refused to coalesce into something tangible: five figures and hundreds of others clad in black behind them, the cracked red eye and nine dots symbol.
They stood in perfect silence, as if time itself had been instructed to pause.
Suddenly, Reigen's foot slipped on loose gravel, sending him skidding sideways before he caught himself against the slope, fingers digging into cold earth.
Pain lanced through his palm, sharp and immediate, but it failed to anchor him; his thoughts were too scattered and disordered for such simplicity to register.
Then the mountain seemed to tremble, not from an earthquake or collapse but from a deeper pressure rolling through stone and soil alike. It was a sensation felt through bones before reaching ears, a distant tide whose surface remained unseen.
The fog ahead rippled unnaturally, twisting upward in thin columns as though caught in invisible eddies.
Reigen faltered; breath caught painfully in his throat. The air thickened around him, heavy and charged, as if the world itself were drawing in a breath it had no intention of releasing.
Birds erupted from the forest below in a sudden shrieking wave, dark shapes tearing into the pale sky in frantic disarray. The mountain responded with a low groan, not loud enough to be called sound but palpable enough to be felt.
He turned around; the fog swallowed the path behind him completely, reducing everything to a pale wall. Yet he sensed it beyond sight, a gathering density, an immense weight condensing at a single point hidden from view. His chest tightened involuntarily as a thin sound escaped his lips before he could suppress it.
"Father…"
The word vanished without an echo; whatever lay beyond that fog was no longer meant for him.
With determination, Reigen forced himself to turn away and continue running, the mountain path now belonged to the living.
----------
Fog lay draped across the slope in unmoving layers, pale and dense, swallowing distance and muting sound until the world beyond several dozen paces simply ceased to exist. Where the path should have wound upward into the trees, it instead opened into a corridor of pale earth bordered by black.
Hundreds of figures stood there.
They filled the slope in disciplined formations that climbed between the trees and spilled across the uneven ground like a controlled tide. Their dark garments absorbed the thin mountain light, rendering them less like individuals and more like silhouettes carved from shadow.
Even the fog seemed reluctant to touch them, curling around their forms and parting subtly as if repelled by something that defied nature's order.
At the front stood five distinct figures. One carried himself with casual imbalance, his posture loose and head tilted slightly as though studying something curious rather than dangerous.
Another stood perfectly straight, hands at his sides, his masked face smooth and featureless, a presence defined by its refusal to reveal anything. A third leaned faintly to one side, weight settled on a single leg, suggesting amusement hidden within his stillness.
The fourth remained half a step behind the others; his muted presence was unsettling, creating an aura where the air felt thinner. At the center radiated something colder than intent: authority.
Reigen's father stood alone before them. His black coat hung still against his tall frame, unmoved by faint currents disturbing the fog elsewhere. His hands rested loosely at his sides; around him, space felt wrong, subtly warped as if reality misaligned itself around him.
For several long seconds, nothing happened. Then the central figure stepped forward once, measured and unhurried, his movement carrying no threat yet altering the tension of space as profoundly as if a blade had been drawn.
"You have been difficult to locate," he said calmly, his voice resonant and precise as though instructed by the air itself to deliver it. "Your trail was deliberately severed."
Reigen's father did not move.
"Tell me," continued the Exarch, "how does it feel to be buried while still breathing?"
The man's gaze remained steady. "You already know the answer."
A faint sound escaped from one figure to Reigen's left, something between breath and laughter, quiet yet thin.
"So it really is you," he said lightly. "The Hall's ghost, the one who refused to die properly."
The central figure inclined his head slightly. "Former Grand Inquisitor. By authority vested in us, we confirm your identity."
His gaze swept slowly over Reigen's father as if cataloguing something that should not exist.
"Bearer of the Samsara Bloodline and Holder of Banes... Subject to jurisdiction."
Reigen's father finally spoke: "How did you find me?"
The Exarch's gaze sharpened. "You buried something you should not have."
The air tightened; a low groan emanated from the mountain itself.
"Every burial leaves a trace," the Exarch continued. "You of all people should understand that."
For a moment, silence reigned, then the Exarch raised one hand. "Finish him."
Instantly, hundreds of figures clad in black surged forward in unison. The front ranks moved as one, dozens of Masters igniting their Vis, shimmering distortions rippling through the fog like heat rising from stone.
Their footfalls cracked against the path, and the air screamed faintly as they closed in, weapons and constructs materializing around them with layered momentum.
Reigen's father briefly closed his eyes and exhaled softly.
In an instant, five swords appeared around him, not emerging from sheaths or shadows, nor tearing through space; they simply existed where they had not been a heartbeat before.Long, straight-edged blades aligned at various angles around him, their dark surfaces reflective like polished obsidian threaded with faint veins of dim silver light.
One of the Exarchs lifted his head sharply. "Five," he murmured. "He bears five Banes."
The central Exarch's fingers curled slightly. "Proceed with caution."
But it was already too late. The first Master reached him, and the world seemed to shift. Reigen's father did not step forward or back; instead, he displaced, his form smearing across space for a fraction of a heartbeat as though the air itself could not decide where he belonged. One of the five blades vanished.
CRACK.
The sound was not metal striking metal but rather structure giving way. The Master's body did not fly apart; it separated cleanly along an impossible line, the upper half sliding sideways from the lower before collapsing under its own weight. Blood misted outward only to evaporate before touching the ground, a faint red vapor dissolving into the fog.
Two more Masters arrived simultaneously, and another sword moved without visible arc, only distortion, like heat bending light. Both men convulsed mid-stride; their spines bent backward violently as their chests imploded with hollow ruptures as if struck by a force far greater than any physical blow.
They fell silently, their bodies collapsing inward rather than outward, bones pulped and organs crushed before gravity could assert itself. A fourth Master instinctively raised a barrier; Vis flared into existence as a translucent plane before him.
The blade passed through it effortlessly. The barrier shattered like thin glass as he crumpled inward, his form so completely crushed that the ground beneath fractured outward in shallow ravines splitting stone and soil alike as though even the mountain flinched.
The charge did not cease; they came in waves. And Reigen's father advanced unhurriedly through them, his posture upright while five blades orbited him in controlled paths, vanishing and reappearing with surgical precision.
Each time one disappeared, another body broke, not split or thrown but brokenz as if subjected to laws beyond their design to withstand.
A man attempted to flank him. The sword did not alter the fabric of space; rather, it was the Master's head that vanished, sheared away without a trace of blood. For a brief moment, the air around his neck collapsed inward before releasing a soft thunder that rippled through the fog.
Another assailant leaped high, striking from above with a weapon ignited by condensed Vis.
The blade materialized above the man instead of below. His body convulsed once in midair before disintegrating along invisible seams, fragments cascading like rain. The ground beneath him succumbed to devastation.
Stone splintered into jagged channels as the earth contorted with each step he took, shallow depressions forming and vanishing as if the mountain were breathing beneath his feet. Blood that drifted close to his skin steamed and evaporated, unable to cling. The fog thickened, tinged faintly red, curling and recoiling in slow spirals around him.
The Masters faltered; their formations wavered as perception struggled to align with reality. Attacks were launched at where he had been only to find empty air; strikes passed through spaces that no longer adhered to the laws of physics. Some fell without ever reaching him, their bodies rupturing under pressure from an unseen source.
Others managed a single strike but found their weapons failing to connect with anything tangible before they themselves dissolved into incoherence. Within moments, the front ranks had vanished.
Silence returned, not because nothing remained but because what remained no longer lived. The path was unrecognizable where men had stood; only fog drifted in red-tinged vapor alongside fractured terrain and shallow ravines branching outward in jagged patterns from the solitary figure at the center.
The scene was grotesque: pools of blood formed small ponds amidst bodies strewn in various forms, limbs and heads scattered everywhere while internal organs spilled across the ground. The heavy scent of blood and death hung thick in the air.
The remaining Masters halted; their army did not advance again.
The five Exarchs' focus sharpened.
"I didn't expect that even after being pursued across the world, he still found time to grow stronger. Truly impressive for one of the Samsara Bloodline," muttered their leader under his breath as he regarded Reigen's father.
The other four stood silently, all eyes fixed on Reigen's father as an atmosphere of solemnity enveloped them.
"This is going to be quite difficult..." another finally spoke up, his voice rough like metal scraping against itself.
Reigen's father stepped forward, causing the fog to recoil slightly. Where his boots made contact with the earth, subtle warping occurred, thin cracks forming and closing as if adjusting to accommodate him.
One blade rotated slowly at his side while another hovered behind his shoulder, steady and patient.
The central Exarch inhaled deeply.
"All units," he commanded, his voice resonating with an unusual clarity, "withdraw to the secondary perimeter."
The army responded instantly. Their formations expanded outward in disciplined arcs, clearing the battlefield with a sense of order rather than chaos.
In unison, the five Exarchs advanced. The fog began to dissipate, and an oppressive weight settled over the scene. Reigen's father closed his eyes once more.
For a brief moment, the mountain stood in silence; then he opened his eyes, and reality itself seemed to warp around him.