Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Between Man and Beast

Over the course of two months, I ate, slept, trained, fought, and sketched the fog-dwelling beasts in my bestiary. It took me many weeks just to adjust to my new height and weight. The first hunts were anything but graceful—I nearly fell into a long sleep more than once, mainly because my rapid growth had destroyed my sense of coordination.

My old throwing spears, crafted for a child's dimensions, became nearly useless. I kept using the few I had left out of habit but soon replaced them with larger ones that matched my new build. Even so, I found myself relying on them less and less.

The same went for my daggers. I always carried them, even if I chose not to use them. Instead, I turned to my new flesh-based weapons. Yet in doing so, I slipped into a beast-like mindset that even Kara struggled to pull me out of at times.

I heard her voice echoing in my head, but I ignored it unless she spoke of training. In that domain, she pushed me to lengths I never thought possible, devising new drills each time I surpassed the old ones. No matter how fast, strong, or agile I became, she had another routine ready to challenge me. And I welcomed those trials—they fed some primal hunger inside me.

This morning, by all rights, I should have been in training again. Instead, I stood atop a mound of diremaws. A massive pack ambushed me during my warm-up, leading to a prolonged fight. The ruined city of Araksiun around me was now littered with almost a dozen diremaw corpses, their forms slumped against crumbling walls, blood pooling across the stone floors.

I stood on one beast in particular, its face crushed into the ground, brain matter merged with the cracked stone from the force of my punches. It was barely recognizable as a head anymore, the flesh mangled beyond description. My nails—long and sharp, reminiscent of gloomwing nails but smaller—glistened with fresh gore. A hush fell over the scene, broken only by the slow dripping of viscera. The warmth of distant sunlight touched my back, adding a strange sense of calm to the carnage.

With a sigh, I let my nails retract, studying my naked body. My clothes no longer fit me after my transformation, and I had half-intended to fashion new garments from the hides of these creatures. But I discovered no spark of creativity for it. Without even noticing it, I had allowed myself to live like a beast out here.

No humans, no nobles, no courts or banquets—just the fog and the beasts within it. I did not need to worry about stares or whispers. We fought whenever they saw me, a pure dance of life and death. It had become more frequent, too, because to test my new strength, Kara's training demanded more noise—walls shattering under punches, and so forth. That racket drew beasts like moths to a flame.

Still, I had not lost my love of crafting. I simply found no inspiration in using these beast parts. These creatures were too familiar, Tier 1 or lower, with nothing that stirred my imagination. Another reason I felt disheartened was Hazeveil—my hooded cloak—remained badly damaged, and I had no idea how to repair it. I had tried using a gloomwing hide, but the piece I sewed in decayed. It seemed Hazeveil was more alive than cloth, and patching it was not as simple as stitching leather.

By now, I understood I had to treat the cloak like a living being. Yet that solved nothing if I could not figure out how to heal it. Where I could just slip into a slumber to regenerate, a torn cloak did not have that luxury. So I hid it away in my makeshift shelter, hoping to discover a solution later.

My link to mana had strengthened over these months, and I realized at last that beasts did not need to physically carry other beasts' cores to progress. They could absorb and refine that power naturally. I needed such cores earlier because I lacked my own channel of absorption. But now that I had an onyx heart core, I could consume a slain beast's core and grow in power.

There were limits, of course. I had to reach a certain threshold and grasp more of the beastly rules before I advanced further. Moreover, it meant other predators might start hunting me for my heart core or my flesh, which held mana like any beast of the fog. They might be in for a nasty surprise once they encountered my corruption, but it still unsettled me to think I was also a juicy target now.

Glancing around the field of broken bodies, I started counting the dead diremaws when a rumble in my belly reminded me of my hunger. After all, I was surrounded by fresh meat. I tore off a hunk from the closest diremaw carcass, still warm and dripping, and bit into it. The taste burst across my senses—rich iron tang, raw and undeniably savage. I devoured roughly ten kilograms of meat in minutes. Farther off, I noticed other creatures watching me from the shadows, unsure whether to risk attacking or wait for me to finish eating and leave.

I did enjoy cooking meat sometimes, but there were logistical issues—dragging a beast back to my hideout, cleaning and cutting it, masking the scent with weeds, building a fire, and waiting for it to cook. Out here, I could feed immediately, continue training, and by dusk, I would have the option to hunt another. Simpler, if more brutal.

All this time, I had stayed near the gap between District 99 and District 100. Now and then, I lugged a few beasts close to District 99's ward, tossing them just outside the guard post's perimeter. The ward itself prevented the bodies from fully entering, but the guards could drag them in without stepping into the fog. I always waited long enough to make sure no beast ambushed them during the retrieval. Over many days, I repeated this—though it was time-consuming.

Today, however, I felt no urge to do so. I had my fill, and if other creatures wished to feast on what remained, that was their right. As I turned to depart, I spotted more beasts creeping in, drawn by the smell of blood. Predictably, another fight exploded among them, each one striving for dominance, leaving still more corpses in their wake.

They were all Tier 1. They clearly saw what happened to the diremaws, but now that the strongest presence—me—had vacated, they clashed among themselves for a chance at the prime carrion. Intrigued, I paused to watch, a strange pride flickering through me as the conflict raged.

"Good," I murmured softly. "Soon, you might understand the first rule as well."

I felt a strange sense of kinship with these beasts, though it was a twisted one. By the end of the day, I would probably track one down for dinner, yet in this moment, I found myself admiring their success.

Or perhaps it wasn't twisted at all. Maybe it was something pure—only my human way of thinking made it seem otherwise. But I was no longer among humans. I was among beasts, bound by the laws of life and death, where survival meant everything. Death was not an aberration, but a natural conclusion, just as life had once been.

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Was I truly becoming a beast?

The thought lingered, unsettling yet inevitable. I needed to reach District 100 soon, to continue my search for artifacts—before I lost myself completely.

It wasn't as if I had ignored the artifacts all this time, but there was little to be found in these desolate gaps. The ones I sought were likely buried deeper, hidden within the lower districts. If I wanted real progress, I would have to push beyond this limbo.

I gazed back once more at the chaos among the Tier 1 creatures, letting out a faint sigh. This realm is pure… in its own brutal way.

The rest of my morning was spent in training, exactly as Kara deemed necessary. Even though I had fought earlier, she insisted that was no excuse to skip the session, and I agreed. Still, my thoughts kept drifting to Hazeveil.

How would I fix a living hooded cloak? I kept pondering that question.

Treating it like any ordinary piece of fabric did not help it recover, so maybe I had to treat it as a living being. But how did people normally heal? Rest was the obvious first step, yet even two months of rest had done nothing for Hazeveil. Unlike my own long sleep, which effectively reset me, I had seen no improvement for the cloak. It still radiated a sense of pain.

Nor could I administer medicine to it, since it lacked any organic biology. So how?

Eventually, I broke the problem down to basics: Hazeveil was sustained by mana. But it did not have a core to store that mana, unlike the beasts I hunted. I had even noticed it grew weaker inside the ward, where mana was limited. It seemed to rely on ambient energy from its surroundings.

That fact alone did not solve anything. I needed to recall what had caused it to become "alive" in the first place. My memory returned to the moment I named it. In that instant, I felt a powerful resonance with mana, as though my words carried an inexplicable authority that breathed life into the cloak.

That night, I sat facing the cloak and spoke to it quietly:

"Heal yourself."

"Come back to me."

"I command you to recover."

As I suspected, nothing happened on the spot. Frustrated, I gave up for the evening, convinced there was something crucial I still did not understand.

The next day, however, I had another idea. I recalled how I perceived the hooded cloak as an extension of myself. If I could not figure out how to heal it with mana, maybe some deeper part of me would know. After all, Hazeveil felt tied to my own being. With that in mind, I found myself staring at my blade, heart pounding.

"I hope this works," I murmured. Then I plunged the weapon straight into my heart core while wearing Hazeveil.

A few moments later, I descended into that familiar dreamworld, the forest with the eerie sunlight and those same strange figures. Time seemed blurred as if I floated through a trance of memories and visions. Eventually, I woke up, and Kara informed me that a few days had passed—another long sleep, but this time self-induced. It took me a moment to recall why I had done it. When I looked at Hazeveil, though, I sensed no more pain.

It had healed during my long sleep. Not only that, but it had stretched to accommodate my new height, as though evolving along with me.

"So Hazeveil truly is an extension of myself," I whispered in awe. I had been nearly certain it would not work, but I still did it because I was desperate. Now I saw it moving with renewed vitality, twisting its edges in a faint ripple—more alive than ever.

"It's good to have you back," I told it, running my fingers along the runic patterns on the hood.

The very next day, after another dose of training, I killed three massive beasts—together they weighed at least two hundred and fifty kilograms. I piled them onto my shoulders alongside my backpack and headed toward District 100. My journey to the lower districts waited, and I planned to continue as soon as I concluded any dealings here.

Deep down, I recognized the same urge as before, I needed human contact so I would not lose myself entirely to the fog. Walking confidently toward the guard post, I braced for potential confrontation.

Sure enough, a few guards loosed arrows at me, assuming a threat when they saw something large and hulking approach their boundary. The projectiles thudded into the carcasses I carried, missing me. Compared to the dead weight on my shoulders, I was a small target.

"This is Omen, an apprentice Chainrunner from District 98!" I called, not daring to raise my hands in surrender for fear of letting the beasts tumble to the ground. "I mean no harm."

Some of the guards lowered their weapons, though others remained uneasy. I noticed a group of Chainrunners nearby, likely preparing for a run that day. As I stepped fully inside, I dropped the beasts onto the ground with a series of heavy thuds. Their sightless eyes gazed up at the ward's sky.

"Thirty thousand credits each," I announced. "They still have cores, but those are cracked after I absorbed them, so they're worthless now."

A few guards looked horrified at the sight of the beasts. Others just stiffened. Many still kept their weapons raised, forming a tense half-circle around me. I tried to calm them, noticing the flickers of agitation in their expressions.

"I'm human," I said again, "there's no need for alarm." Although deep down, I suspected that statement was only partly true. The ward acknowledged me, and that was enough for its barrier, but what about these soldiers?

"Monster, go back to where you came from!" someone shouted. A guard lunged forward with a spear, intending to stab me. Acting on reflex, I caught the blade between my palms and snapped the spear in half. A swift kick sent him flying backward several meters.

Despite my attempt at restraint—used to fighting tougher creatures—my blow was strong enough to break at least a couple of his ribs. I heard him wheeze as he landed, but he was alive.

Confusion seized me. Why had he attacked so fiercely? I still looked human enough—though I felt my nails growing slightly, and my canines pressing against my lip after what just happened. To everyone else, I must have seemed monstrous as my human façade waned. I saw fear and raw hatred in their faces as they prepared for another assault.

An alarm began blaring somewhere deeper in the district. Normally triggered when a beast breached the ward, it now sounded out a clarion call of danger. More armed figures rushed in, some carrying weapons that crackled with mana or glowed with runic inscriptions, artifacts.

I did not want this. I had merely defended myself out of instinct, but now they saw me as a creature of the fog. Horrifyingly, they were not entirely wrong.

"Kill it!" another guard screamed. He charged, and I sidestepped, refusing to fight back. Crossbow bolts whizzed through the air, easy enough for me to avoid—but the unlucky soldiers in front of me were not so fortunate. I watched in horror as two men took bolts meant for me.

"He killed another one!" a bystander yelled, although none of them had actually died. The bolts had missed vital spots, as far as I could tell. But the crowd's panic only escalated.

At that point, I did not bother arguing. My heart hammered with regret. Clinging to the only sense of safety I knew, I turned and fled, ducking into the fog's warm embrace before any more chaos could erupt. In one swift motion, I left District 100 behind, retreating into the safety of the fog.