Kai pointed his spear where the cultist had disappeared. Dense plumes of fog swept over them, chilling his skin and obscuring his senses. The burnt woods turned swirling white, though he couldn’t perceive the use of skill or spell.
A deep sense of wrongness gripped his guts. Without realizing it, Mana Observer retreated into his body.
Kai reached for Water Magic to push back the fog—nothing happened. His mana wasn’t responding. It flowed steadily in his veins, but when he called, an invisible barrier stood between them.
It couldn’t happen again. Like when he woke up shackled in the cell, he was powerless. He knew where his skills should be. He could feel them, just a hairwidth away—so close and forever out of reach.
Kai brushed his bruised wrists together. He wasn’t chained. None of the cultists had even touched him; he made sure of it.
Did we step into a warded field?
It didn’t make sense.
What else? There wasn’t—
A grim memory, one he had often replayed in the last month. When Niel was abducted, the fog had grown denser and he lost access to his mana.
“Cursed Depths.” Rain blew at the mist. Three drops whirled above his face before dropping into the mud. His left arm hung limp at his side while the right leaned heavily on his trident. “How bothersome…”
“Can you cast spells?” Kai positioned his back against Rain’s. They might already be surrounded.
“Only on myself,” Rain said. His jaw clenched as if he were exerting physical effort. “There are too many of them. I can’t pierce the void field. Not in the time we have.”
“You mean…” Kai bit his cheek, drawing his own answers. Rain recognized this power—somewhat reassuring. A team was using some kind of joint ability to suppress mana and skills—less reassuring.
If it’s a field, it must have a border.
Could they escape it? The mist was so dense, he wasn’t confident he could run in a straight line. And where would they go? On an island, the cultists could simply follow.
Running’s not an option.
They had escaped a lair of psychos, won a battle against terrible odds, only to encounter a team of bastards with cheat-like powers.
Why did I say we got lucky? I jinxed it.
Kai found himself smiling at the hopeless situation. He was too exhausted to even be angry, but gods be damned if he went down without a fight.
“Can you fight without mana?” He asked. Despite the siren's monstrous power, he nursed a broken arm and leg.
Rain glanced at him with a chuckle. “Yeah, I’ll manage. I can still use Gravity Magic and my enhancing skill on myself.”
A little effort. Kai shook his head.He couldn’t help feeling sour that he couldn’t touch his own mana, and then laugh at himself for being ridiculous. “How many—”
A blade sliced the fog toward his neck. Kai angled the spear to parry. The strike made the silver blade ring with a tail of sparks. He swept a horizontal blow in retaliation, only meeting air.
We were talking, you know. Where has courtesy gone…
“About ten people.” Rain guessed his question, raising the trident with his good arm. “It’ll get easier if we take down a few.”
Just kill a couple invisible foes. Right.
“Arrow!” Kai twisted his upper body to dodge. The dart whistled past him, clashing on Rain’s trident and off into the mist.
“Uhm… Thanks,” Kai scanned their surroundings. Only Hallowed Intuition’s soft whispers hadn’t abandoned him. “You to—”
A spearhead lunged at his head. As he sidestepped the attack, a blade slashed at his leg and an arrow whistled toward his chest. Diving to the side, the arrow drew a bloody line through his shirt.
Kai spun the silver spear to make space, failing to find the attackers.
Behind him, clashes of metal echoed around Rain. Fresh blood gleamed on the blades of his trident, just a scratch from the absence of exclamations.
Another set of attacks forced Kai to worry about his own safety. The hidden assailants retreated after every strike without space for a counterattack.
“Is this the best you can do? Can’t even beat me three on one.” Kai snorted. Taunts were his only means to get them closer. “Or are you scared you’ll end up like your friends?”
He leaned on his spear, slightly panting. “I can do this all day.” His mind searched for murmurs of danger. The sudden quiet unnerved him more than the combined assault.
He squinted at the mist in vain. Twice, he spotted a shadow; twice, it was gone before he could react.
“You’re wounded…” A cultist grunted, the sound echoing around him. “I can smell your blood.”
“…how long can he really last?” A female voice sneered. “Getting desperate, boy?”
“Stop running and let’s see who wins!” Kai pivoted on his right leg to follow the voices. If his taunt weren’t working, the truth could serve him just as well. “Have you finished counting the bodies I left underground? I’m standing and your friends are dead.”
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“You’ll pay a hundredfold for each of them.” The woman snapped with a distinct edge.
“Yeah…” Kai snorted, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Can you only spew threats from across the island? It doesn’t sound very intimidating when you couldn’t catch me in your hideout.”
“…you bastard—” the woman seethed.
“He’s barking like a cornered dog.” An older man interrupted. “You think you ever had a chance to escape…? We’ve tracked you since you crawled out of your cell. Don’t mistake luck for skill. Nothing happens without our knowledge…”
“Right…” Kai rolled his eyes, hoping Rain could break the void field with enough time. “And you let me kill your buddies because…?”
He had suspected they had found a way to locate him after the alarm was raised, though they were probably overselling their abilities.
Kai fished out the blue bead from his pocket. A web of unknown enchantments covered the glassy surface, warning him when the alarm was raised. Was it also—
“…he figured it out.” The woman giggled. “And I thought he was just a pretty face. A bit late now though…”
“He thought he could use our wards against us?” The first male cultists laughed. “Not one of you is going to escape. We already know where your friends ran. They must have already been caught.”
Panic choked his breathing. Mouth dry, Kai tried to keep a steady voice and threw away the bead. He had done everything he could to keep them safe. They couldn’t… “You’re lying.”
“Am I…?” He cackled, circling in the fog. “Is there someone you care about in that group? If you kneel and beg, I’ll give you a cell beside them…”
“This is the last chance you get, boy.” The older cultist grunted. “You can give your life for a higher purpose. We won’t be nice if you continue this pointless escape.”
Yeah, I’d sooner trust Hobbes with a tuna snack.
“Are you scared you won’t win?” Kai chuckled without mirth. “I promise if you leave, you won’t end up like the others.”
“Arrogant brat. Whoever you’re worried about, I promise you’ll hear their screams.”
Ripples of anger shook his focus. If something happened to Kea, Niel or Flynn… He’d hunt down every single one of these psychos, no matter how long it took.
Keep calm. They must be safe.
“It’s you who's hiding.” Kai raised his guard—the talks were over.
An arrow whistled by his ear. Kai had already moved to dodge; two more strikes headed for him. Interpreting Hallowed Intuition’s muffled whispers took his entire focus; conveniently, it was the only skill he could use.
Under the relentless assault, his worries and fears slipped away, leaving only space for survival. The enhancing elixirs flowing through his veins boosted his attributes. His body recalled spearmanship lessons learned ages ago. He would have been more comfortable wielding a sword, though an unbreakable staff of mana alloy had its perks.
His arms and shoulders ached to shoulder the blows. He had to stand his ground. Without Rain covering his back, he would get overwhelmed.
My mana reserves won’t be a problem, at least.
It was a meager consolation.
The silver blade drew a bloody line through the swirling white. It was the fourth wound he inflicted, but even if he inflicted two for each one he received, the odds weren’t in his favor.
Warm blood dripped from a cut down his leg.
Three melee cultists circled him, with three more archers shooting at him and Rain. Kai heaved for breath between each dodge. The cold air stung his throat. His lungs burned—he couldn’t slow down.
Their attacks were predictable. Ambushing helpless people from the mist, they must have never worried about technique, though their numbers more than made up for it. Against six attackers, he was outmatched in raw stamina and attributes, no matter how many blows he parried or evaded.
The realization came to him with eerie calm. He was a mage first and a fighter second. Without his mana and skills sealed, he couldn’t pull a miracle from thin air. His body was barely holding up with the blood loss.
Dealing with the void field was the issue.
There must be a drawback.
No ability was all-powerful—not at their grade. One limitation was obvious: the attackers hadn’t cast magic since the start of the fight, though they must have access to some skill to control and see through the fog.
How does that help me?
It didn’t. Even if the void field affected them both, the cultists had numbers on their side.
From the metal clashes behind him, Rain contended with four foes and the archers, holding on despite his injuries. If he had some secret trump card, Kai couldn’t ask him or wait to find out. His vision was already getting blurry.
I’m out of time. Now or never.
He needed to bridge the gap, without better options, he’d have to bet on his Luck.
I swear I don’t do it on purpose.
Kai twisted beneath an arrow and deflected a spear jab. The cultists always executed a combined assault before retreating to change their position. The archers were less predictable, though they had gotten more frugal with their arrows.
When the last sword lunged at his left, Kai spun the spear on his side and dodged into the attack instead of backing. Dashing into the mist, he lunged where the last attack came from and twisted the butt of the spear to sweep his side. With a satisfying crunch, he hit someone.
Kai pressed after the sound. A dark shadow lay on the ground, eyes full of surprise and pain.
You should have taken my deal.
The spear pierced through his chin into his skull.
The easy part’s done.
Sharp whispers surrounded him. He was alone in the mist, his weapon stuck in a corpse. There wasn’t time to retrieve it. Kai left the spear and dove in the only direction that gave him hope of survival.
A blade grazed his back as he rolled over the burnt grass. He had hoped the void field would weaken if he killed a cultist, but his mana was still inaccessible.
“Mat!” Rain’s shout echoed in the fog, too far to help.
Hope you have better luck with your spells.
He probably wouldn’t survive till then, but better that one of them live.
Crouching and ready to go down fighting, something hard pressed against his knee. His hand closed on a leather hilt, a dagger—probably lost in the earlier melee.
Luck hadn’t abandoned him. Kai jerked to the side to avoid an arrow. Two shadows loomed before him, sharp blades in their hands.
I can take one more down.
As he was about to charge into them, a silver light split the fog above him. The cultists froze before sliding to the ground in four pieces.
A much smaller shadow pranced between their remains.
“Mroow.” Hobbes swatted the mist with his tail. He stepped on the bodies, careful not to dirty his paws in the pooling blood.
The familiar bond brushed his thoughts, brimming with satisfaction.
You did well, buddy. That was a proper ambush.
The wall blocking his skills was noticeably thinner. Pressing his will against it felt like swimming through honey; Kai pushed with a single-minded effort. His head strained with the effort when Body Augmentation surged into his body and woke his sluggish limbs.
He dashed to retrieve his spear, aware the battle wasn’t over. Before he could test his magic, the dense fog rolled back as if pushed by an invisible wind.
A few meters on his right, Rain held the neck of a hooded individual. With a brittle snap, the man flopped lifelessly to the ground. “Are you okay? Sorry I took too long.”
“It’s alright. I’m fine.” Kai downed a healing potion, retreating toward him. “Let’s end this quickly.”
The void field had weakened, but it still messed with his skills.
Another weakness. It doesn’t work well on beasts.
As the realization of his survival sank in, the other worries he suppressed reemerged.
Hobbes, can you find Flynn and Kea? They might be in trouble.
The last spell tired his familiar more than a thousand blinks, but he was the only one who could reach them.
Pride puffed through their bond. In a blink, the furball was gone underground.
Kai hoped the cultists had lied, but he had to save his own skin first. Six cultists still lurked beyond the curtain of fog.
“I’ll take care of them,” Rain pursed his lips. The trident snapped into his hand, dripping blood. “Just catch your breath.”
A myriad of water droplets formed around them and flew into the mist. Before Kai could argue, Rain cast an ice spear and flung the trident after it, his arm glowing with blinding mana.
A scream sounded on the battlefield and the void field grew weaker.
Looks like he got it.
Extending his senses with some effort, Kai felt the void field ripple around him, weaker and stronger in patches—five of them to be exact.
They can’t be that stupid.
The shackles weighing down his skills began lifting as Rain flung his trident between hails of ice.
Kai bent below an arrow, eager to be done. Just three cultists left— Two.
He was wondering whether to activate Nature Healing when Hallowed Intuition’s wails demanded his attention.
A cloud of stone dust burst amidst the birches on their right—the location of the underground passage.
You must be kidding me.
Too tired to feel anything, Kai raised his spear.
A single person walked out of the passage alone—a woman. The fog parted at her sides, not a speck of dust on her lace dress. Straight raven hair was pulled back and fell on her shoulders, though her crimson eyes caught all the attention.
“What a mess.” She clicked her tongue, pouting. Her feet seemed to dance over the destroyed underbrush as she surveyed the battlefield, focusing on the most recent corpses. “You know, it’s not easy to get those professions.”
“Oh, well… Guess you’ll make up for it.” She shrugged with a sigh. “It’s so hard to get decent specimens around here. You did this all by yourself?”
Her smile sent shivers down his spine. She wasn’t particularly tall or imposing, though Kai felt more terrified than if hordes of cultists had marched out of the passage.