Martial Demons Ascension

The mist was thicker here than anywhere else, curling like pale snakes around their boots. It muffled sound, it pressed against their skin, it swallowed light. The campfires behind them were distant, their faint glow swallowed whole by the fog. It was just the two of them now, Rhyka and Nero.

Rhyka's golden eyes gleamed in the half-light, sharp and cutting as they locked onto Nero's pale face. His smirk was there, but thinner now, more deliberate.

"You know," Rhyka said slowly, his voice low but laced with derision, "there's a lot about you that doesn't add up."

Nero raised a brow, but didn't speak.

"You say you're a noble," Rhyka went on, spear haft tapping lightly against the tree at his back. "And sure, you've been able to prove something, whatever papers or seals you carry, the caravan believed you. Emmet believed you. Hell, you probably convinced yourself." His smirk sharpened. "But I don't buy it."

Nero's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, though his posture remained calm, aristocratic, like a man on trial who already believed he'd win the case.

"What even is your last name?" Rhyka pressed, tilting his head mockingly. "Because unless I've gone deaf, you've dodged that every single time someone's asked."

Silence.

"Thought so." Rhyka's smirk twisted into something crueler. "And let's talk about the real joke. Your father. If you're really the heir to a marquis house, why the hell wouldn't he send a caravan for you? You expect me to believe they just left you wandering a mountain, this mountain, where a Rank 5 beast has been fortifying its domain?"

Nero's pale eyes flickered with something, irritation, maybe, or amusement. It was hard to tell.

Rhyka didn't give him the chance to answer. He pushed off the tree, stepping closer, his golden eyes never leaving Nero's face. "And don't give me that 'isolated' excuse either. A marquis could buy a team of elites with pocket change. Knights, hunters, hell, even mercenaries. People who could easily deal with a beast that only just became Rank 5. Fresh, unfortified, still building its little devil army."

His voice hardened, smirk fading into something colder. "So why the hell were you here alone?"

The mist thickened between them, the silence stretching heavy. For the first time since Rhyka met him, Nero's composure wavered, not with panic, but with stillness. A blankness. He stared at Rhyka without flinching, without smiling, without defending himself.

"I haven't fooled anyone," Nero said finally, his tone flat.

Rhyka blinked, surprised at the bluntness.

Nero's lips curved faintly, not into a smile, but into something colder. "All those questions? They don't need answers. Because no one cares. Not the caravan. Not the mercenaries. Not even Emmet. They see the coin, and that's enough."

He took a single step closer, his voice steady, aristocratic. "Why should it matter? My money is here. Their silence is bought. Their loyalty, their trust, it all bends to weight of gold. That's the world. That's nobility."

Rhyka scoffed, shaking his head. "You think that works on me?"

Nero's pale eyes glittered faintly. "No. You don't care. I know you don't."

That was true, and not true. Rhyka's lips curled into a sharp grin, but there was no mirth in it. "You're right. I don't care." He stepped closer, close enough now that the mist swirled between their faces. "But I'm curious. And that's worse for you."

Nero didn't move, didn't blink.

Rhyka's smirk dropped into a sneer. His voice was low, cutting, every word deliberate. "So humor me, Nero. What's with the creepy fucking void?"

The fog hung between them, dense and heavy.

Nero didn't answer.

His expression didn't crack. His pale eyes didn't shift. He stood there, still and silent, the mist curling around him like a shroud.

And in that silence, Rhyka felt the tension coil tighter than any blade could cut.

Rhyka could act smug. He could smirk, taunt, and throw arrogance like a blade, but underneath, his chest felt like it was being twisted tighter every passing hour.

It wasn't the beasts. Beasts he understood. Teeth, claws, hunger, those he could read, predict, and cut down. But people? People were different.

The mercenaries, their laughter, their little backhanded jabs, the way they'd goad him just enough to see how he'd react, it all felt off. Too deliberate. Too neat. Like they were waiting for him to lose control so they could swoop in with authority and make him the problem.

Cerys? He still saw her expression when the three hounds closed in. Saw the flicker of her lips, the way she hadn't warned him even though she must have seen. And the way she hung back, throwing her javelins, letting him fight most of the battle. She was testing him. Pushing him. Maybe waiting for him to fail. Maybe waiting for him to die.

And then there was the void. That patch of nothingness in his Martial Vision. No movement, no flow, no intent. Just emptiness, staring back at him whenever he reached out. The rest of the world burned in gold, every thread and line visible, but not that thing. And it never moved. That was what made it worse. If it shifted, if it attacked, if it even breathed, he could deal with it. But the stillness, the stillness gnawed at him.

And above it all, looming like a mountain within a mountain, was the Rank 5. He'd heard whispers from the others, even Nero: how the beast was still fortifying its domain, gathering its devil army, spreading its influence. They said Rank 5s weren't invincible, that humans of the same rank had beaten them before. But Rhyka didn't have mana. He didn't have a core. He had his body, his instincts, his Martial Vision. Was that really enough when something that big came for him?

The questions never stopped. They spun in his head until the smirk on his face felt like a mask stapled to his skin.

And then there was Nero.

Rhyka had been staring at him all night, even when they weren't talking. Running his Martial Vision across him, thread by thread, searching for something, anything, that betrayed ill intent. Normally, everyone had cracks. Tiny gaps in posture, intent that flared a second too late, movement that contradicted words. But Nero?

Nothing.

Every time Rhyka looked, he saw clean golden lines. Balanced. Controlled. Flawless. No weakness. No malice. Not even contradiction. And that was what made it unbearable. Because nobody was that perfect. Nobody hid that cleanly.

It was all of it, everything, pressing down at once.

So when Rhyka sneered at Nero, spitting out questions about his missing last name, about the holes in his noble story, about the void, it wasn't just arrogance. It was pressure. Pressure with nowhere else to go.

But Nero gave him nothing back. Not even irritation. Just blank stares, smooth words, and silence.

And Rhyka felt the walls closing in.

He could smirk at mercenaries. He could banter with Cerys. He could taunt, bluff, and lie. But staring at Nero, with the fog thick around them and the weight of the void and the Rank 5 pressing at the edge of his perception, it all piled too high.

"...Forget it," Rhyka muttered finally, his voice lower, sharper. He cut the air with a dismissive wave of his hand, smirk curling back into place like armor. "I've wasted enough breath."

He turned without waiting for a reply, spear resting across his shoulders, golden eyes narrowing against the mist. His chest felt tight, his jaw clenched hard enough to ache.

"Excuse me," he threw over his shoulder, voice laced with sarcasm. "I'll let you get back to being mysterious and perfect."

The fog swallowed his figure as he walked away, leaving Nero standing alone near the log, pale eyes gleaming faintly in the half-light.

And though Rhyka didn't look back, he couldn't shake the weight in his gut. The feeling that he'd just walked away from a predator who was smiling at his back.