Mist Empire’s Rise: Fake Noble to Fog Queen

Hol's ancestral iron pot was practically Magic Beast‑certified—every Magic Beast that ever "used" it (by being clobbered) would agree it was excellent.

That one pot strike knocked Axina not only out of her hallucination but out cold; her eyes rolled back and her limp body tipped backward.

Fortunately Hol moved fast. One hand braced her back; with the other he scooped a little fresh rootless water (rainwater) into the pot, swished it twice, then poured it between her lips.

The "pot rinse water" was—needless to say—proven effective by extensive field trials.

The instant the liquid touched her lips she sucked in a sharp breath, doubled over, and retched violently onto the ground.

"What—what did you make me drink!" She clutched her throat.

Hol twirled the iron pot. "What else? Healing potion."

"Hea—healing… ugh—"

Ever since teaming with Hol, Axina could no longer even hear the words "healing potion" without a surge of nausea.

"You were bewitched by the Monsters and hallucinating. I was saving you," Hol added, hoping to head off team friction.

Explaining hardly mattered. He had already maxed her hatred—successfully squeezing Luo Wei out of first place to become Axina's current most‑wanted target.

Hol, of course, felt things were going great.

He glanced at the clarity—plus anger—in her eyes. Good. She shouldn't fall back into hallucination.

With all three teammates awakened, his mission complete, Hol hurried to deliver the good news to Luo Wei.

Three fireballs shot skyward, three blazing little suns that instantly drew every gaze.

"Fireballs—three?" Jack looked up and rubbed his eyes.

No mistake. Three!

The Monsters hadn't breached the defense—why switch to the Second Plan already?

Gladys stared upward too; the three bright spheres reflected in her ice‑blue eyes like golden yolks. The ferocity the hallucinated brown bears had triggered drained away; her pupils went wide and round.

That was Luo Wei's signal she'd quietly told them: three fireballs meant it was time to send the Monsters "round and round."

"What's this? Didn't we agree to save that move for last?" Axina muttered, eyes on the sky.

Confused or not, the instant the fireballs fell, the three moved like lightning—wands in hand—charging past the defensive line.

Professors outside the magic mirror frowned at the sight.

"Rushing out now is suicide. Has Siria's team panicked?"

"Exactly. Sludge Monsters are real Monsters, sure, but they're low-tier. With patience you can kill them. Why throw sense away?"

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A second earlier they'd praised Siria's cautious defense and sharp reactions—then Luo Wei led her teammates over the flame wall and outside the line.

They had confirmed the Sludge Monsters were genuine and knew close proximity meant dark aura contamination and hallucinations—so why leap into the firepit?

No one was happier about apparent stupidity than the professors from the Ten Academies.

"Ahem—" They cleared their throats, ready to sneer—then felt a faint, cool gaze drift over them.

They glanced up—and their hearts nearly iced over.

Heavens. How had they forgotten Prince Alfried sat above them?

Luo Wei was his personally chosen goddaughter. Someone His Highness favored was not theirs to critique.

A cluster of professors ground the words already on their tongues into mental pulp and swallowed—frustration bloating their chests.

Prince Alfried withdrew his gaze; he had no interest in the useless noise of mediocrities.

He cared only about one thing: why Luo Wei made a move that looked so foolish.

Inside the arena, the four members of Siria's team vaulted beyond the line. Under the Sludge Monsters' assault they chanted their strongest spells and swiftly cleared a strip of open ground along the wall.

They tossed the Teleportation Array stones (each a Teleportation Magic Rune set in stone) onto that bare ground—but did not inject mana. Instead they retreated seven or eight meters.

The Sludge Monsters, dimwitted to the extreme, saw prey retreating and suspected nothing—only lunged more frenziedly.

All four focused hard, eyes locked on the foremost Sludge Monsters. Just as the leading forelegs were about to cross into the Teleportation Magic Rune's range, the four snapped their wands downward in an attacking pose.

Monsters possess a reflex to counterattack: when they sense danger they mobilize internal magic, spurring their dark aura's growth and spread.

Sludge Monsters do the same—and in addition violently shiver to fling dense sprays of acidic mud droplets at a target.

Those droplets are corrosive; on contact they inflict severe burns.

They never got the chance.

The instant their forepaws came down on the rune, it absorbed a trace of their magic and flared.

Feeling the threat while trapped in the rune's center, the Sludge Monsters instinctively poured out more magic; the rune only brightened faster—two or three seconds to full activation.

All Luo Wei's team actually did was run along the wall brandishing wands, the gathered fireballs at each wand tip never released—one fireball bluffing a whole mass of Monsters; they squeezed every drop of their meager mana.

Once that "primitive accumulation" of mana jump‑started the first array, the rest required almost no further input from them.

Frontline Monsters triggered the array and dropped into the channel; those behind shoved forward and fell in next; startled, they dumped more magic to keep the array powered—only to be teleported too.

At the foot of the hill the teleported Monsters bolted right back up, ramming the front ranks into the array again—then taking their own turn, shoved from behind.

Round and round—up the hill, down the hill, down then up—endlessly.

Had a Sludge Monster possessed a sliver of intelligence, it would have complained it was trapped in an endless loop: why was this path so absurdly long?

Alas, none did. They simply kept cycling, burning through their own magic. Mud sprays thinned; bodies shrank.

The mana cost to open a Teleportation Array scales with distance: the long‑range channel Luo Wei drew before—linking Siria and Demon Island—stretches over three thousand kilometers and eats half her mana per activation. One round trip in a day drains her.

This looping array—from hilltop to foot—spans under two kilometers; each activation uses little.

But small costs add up if you keep running them.

One loop, two loops… over a dozen. Accumulation. The plump, grease‑fat "big black dogs" dwindled into panting, skinny curs after dozens of laps.

Luo Wei's brow creased. She hadn't expected the Sludge Monsters to be this "not very squeezable"—in under half an hour they were flagging, sparsely dotting the slope like slowly crawling black warts.

At this rate the array would soon shut down from insufficient magic. When the second wave hit, would they have to go outside and bait them again?

Every extra venture past the wall increased risk. If the next wave's dark aura was denser and spread faster, they wouldn't so easily spark the array a second time.

"Boom—"

The ground shook; dust billowed at the hill's base.

This time fortune finally favored Siria's team: thick black fog surged, a mass of dark Monsters burst from the earth, roaring as they charged the jagged hilltop.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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