The First Cultivator

Four years later.

The mage Roland looked nervously beyond the walls of Fortunia. Just within his line of sight was a phosphorescent fog bank that towered above the tree line. He couldn't see it from here, but knew from experience that sickly greenish tendrils stretched out from the fog bank as if they were fingers drawing it ever onward. Despite four years of fighting, the mist was here.

He wanted to flee. So did every reasonable person in the city. But they couldn't. The city fortress was nestled in a valley between nearly impenetrable mountains guarding the fertile farmland beyond. If Fortunia fell, so would the majority of the kingdom's crops. They had already lost everything beyond this point.

A flash shone in the fog, followed by several more, leaving an eerie fading afterglow. With each flash, disturbing shadows that were not tricks of the light could be seen even from this great distance. The spawn… it wouldn't be long now.

Roland swallowed. The war had been a slow invasion that neither side could affect directly. The spawn couldn't survive long outside their corrupted mists. Mages, on the other hand, couldn't safely traverse into the mists without dire consequences. Corruption couldn't be stopped without entering the mists to destroy the source. That was why the army of nulls was assembled.

A horn blasted rang through the night, its tone low and deep. Roland sighed. Although he wasn't entering the mists, he was offering ranged support to the nulls on their suicide march. He left the wall filing in with the other mages.

Row upon row of kin of all types stood at attention, armed with cheap blades and even cheaper armor. There was even the rare magicless human among the ranks of the kin. Behind each squad stood the mages. A few were support specialists, most were focused exclusively on combat. None of them were healers. There was no point. Where the nulls were going, there was no coming back. The mages would flee if things looked bad. They were valuable assets. The nulls were not.

"Move out!" The Mage General shouted, his voice amplified by magic. Slowly, the army of nulls started their death march. Of course, they were fed many lies about how they would be heroes and what glory awaited them upon their return. It was bullshit. Roland knew it, and so did they. Most would never return.

The march wasn't long. A measly three hours later, a wall of thick fog awaited them. Signs of corruption spreading could be seen, beckoning the marching army to its doom. From the mist, countless root-like appendages stretched out, as if pulling the wall of fog along. For all Roland knew, they did do that. Each tendril was flat gray with thick veins of phosphorescent green bulging from its surface. The veins pulsed in a steady rhythm as corruption flowed through them. At the end of the roots was the source of the mist, well, one of many.

Commands were shouted from all sides, and the mages casted various fire spells, burning the corruption away. The roots howled like a wild beast and retreated into the foggy depths. The resulting smell was a sickly combination of waste and burnt flesh.

Once all the visible tendrils were burnt, the mages began randomly unleashing fireballs into the mist. Fiery explosions blew part of the misty wall apart. But with each attack, a thin line of hellish energy weaved around in impossible patterns, drawing the mists back together again.

This part was standard practice for fighting corruption. Burn the tendrils away and slow the spread. But they would come back. They always did. What was odd was the lack of spawn. Usually, groups would swarm out, trying to drive off the intruders. Or at least blasts of corrupted energy should be assailing them. Yet, nothing happened, and Roland didn't like it.

Five more minutes of bombardment and not a single response. Roland was sweating at this point, not only from nerves but from mana loss. He was competing with other nearby mages to absorb the ambient mana. Per his training, Roland backed away from the army to accelerate his mana absorption. He focused inward, augmenting the natural pull from his diminished mana pool. As the draw began to increase, a commanding voice boomed over the army.

"Infantry forward! Follow the tendrils and destroy the source! Retreat once that has been done."

The nulls mobilized, fearing the mages behind them just as much as the corruption ahead. With apparent reluctance, they moved forward. Within minutes, the army was lost to sight.

"Good luck," Roland whispered. He knew they'd need it.

***

Martel tried to choke down his fear as he entered the mists. He didn't want to be here, but none of them did. The filthy mages had been starving them out. At the time, he was convinced there was no other choice. He couldn't watch his family starve. Now, though, he wondered if there wasn't some other way. This place was bad. That sounded stupid, even in his own head. Of course, this place was bad. It was corrupted! But even so, the place felt wrong. The ground felt fleshy or perhaps mossy. It had a spongy feel to it and sank slightly with each step. That alone made him want to vomit. In addition, the visibility was crap. He could only see a short distance in any direction. The atmosphere was oppressively crushing. It was literally crushing as well. There was so much moisture in the air that he felt like he was swimming. And the smell… he was glad he wasn't a kin with a more sensitive nose. Otherwise, he would have vomited just like the kin next to him did.

"Ready yourselves," his group leader called. It was quiet, but with his long rabbit ears, it was easy to hear. The army stayed close together, following the ground tendrils as wisps of pale green light floated around as if suspended in the thick fog.

"Charge!" Came the command, and the army of nulls yelled. More out of their own fear than anything else. They rushed forward, eager to get the job done and get the hell out. Quicker than most, Martel was soon ahead, following the path of tendrils. It wasn't bravery on his part. Instead, he feared that if he got stuck in the group, he wouldn't be able to maneuver at all.

His heart thundered as he dashed on. The thundering continued, and Martel realized it wasn't his heart but some type of steady beating further ahead. Screams came from behind, followed by wet, tearing sounds that easily penetrated the mists. Martel swallowed his fear and ran on as the fog began to thin. It was still thick but not unnaturally so. Even as the mists thinned, the floating green motes grew brighter. The light from them was almost painful as he maneuvered to avoid large clusters.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Suddenly, the black cat-kin he'd been subconsciously following abruptly stopped. Martel joined him when he saw what lay beyond.

A fleshy heart was the immediate description that came to mind. It was massive. Four stories tall, it had pulsating gray flesh with thick green arteries covering its entire surface. With each beat, the heart produced thick pulses of eldritch energy that flowed down those veins into the thick roots connected at its base, which supported the massive structure.

A fucking heart, Martel realized in cold dread as he realized his initial impression was accurate. The source was a heart. His hands reflexively tightened on his spear when he noticed dozens of shapes protruding from the ground like small trees. They were the same sickly gray as the roots and unmoving. The figures were roughly humanoid, but that was all they had in common with the kin. They lacked any facial features. No hair. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. No indication of gender. They had two rudimentary limbs for arms that ended in what could only be described as a half-witted child's attempt at creating hands. Their legs were elongated roots that disappeared into the tendrils. He would have sworn they were carved statues if he hadn't just seen them move.

Several long moments went by, and the figures didn't react. Perhaps they were stuck? Martel dared to hope. That was when they burst open.

Martel did vomit this time. The figures were inside out. Several shriveled organs the size of large eggs throbbed as they pushed a bright green fluid into the surrounding muscles. Multiple hearts beat in time with the mist source as they twitched. Random protrusions of yellowed bones acted as natural weapons sprouting from all over their body.

Worst of all were the faces. Each creature had at least two, some as many as four. The eyes were all the same sickly green as the floating moats. Their mouths had irregular shapes that spasmodically opened and closed, revealing shark-like teeth. The noses, or lack thereof, were empty holes filled with blackish pus.

More screams came from behind, startling Martel from his horrified state. As if that was some sort of signal, the figures moved. They were fast. Faster than they should be. Faster than Martel.

The black cat-kin screamed in horror and desperation as he lunged forward, his spear aimed at the nearest spawn. The creature didn't bother to dodge. The spear pierced its body as it continued onward, not indicating that it had been harmed at all. It grabbed the cat-kin with boneless fingers that moved like snakes, pulling him into an iron embrace. The three faces began to feed. The cat-kin shrieked in mind-breaking madness.

Martel fled. His weapon lay forgotten behind him. He wasn't even aware of the soldiers dying around him. He wasn't aware of his direction. He wasn't aware of anything other than the desperate need to be away from the horrors behind him.

Left! Right! Jump! Martel ran on. He didn't stop until a sharp tug on his foot arrested his motion. A distinct crack and twisting pop immediately followed by numbing pain, causing him to fall flat. Coughing, Martel looked back. He expected to see a tree root or some other obstacle that ensnaring him. It would mean his death, but his mind could comprehend such an end. He could not understand the mouth in the ground holding his foot securely. Or the long tongue that was sinuously wrapping around his leg. He watched in numb terror as the tongue climbed along his knee, entangling him further.

"This is a nightmare. It can't be real," Martel whispered softly, his voice breaking. He half expected to be woken by his younger brother Toren as he jumped on his bed.

It became real when the tongue gave a sharp jerk, pulling his entire leg into the open maw, which promptly closed. The agony finally registered as it began to chew slowly.

"ARRRRH!" Martel screamed. He screamed at the violation of his body. He screamed at his impending death. And he screamed at the loss of his sanity. He only stopped screaming when a second mouth seized his head, the wrapping tongue blocking his airway.

From a distance, it would have been a confusing sight. Two unseen forces tugging on a thick piece of spaghetti. Neither one wanted to share as they continuously fought over the delectable noodle. The battle only ended when the hypothetical noodle tore in half. Each greedy participant sucked down their portions before going still once more. In the end, nothing remained to show where another kin lost his life.

***

Roland didn't like this. It was too quiet. His mana pool was full of mana again, and he was again on the front line. Waiting. Other mages were fanning out along the mist wall, burning all the tendrils they could find. Here, though, they waited for the infantry to return… Well, at least some of them should return. There were nearly 3,000 nulls in total. The projected loss of half was the worst-case scenario. So where were they?

Just as he wondered this, a shape emerged from the mist. Roland tensed. Was it some kind of spawn? As the figure drew closer, the distinct humanoid shape became more apparent. A moment later, a blue-scaled snake-kin stumbled out of the mist, his left arm missing. No one went to help him. There was no way Roland would get near the mist for some null. Apparently, everyone else thought the same as the kin stumbled toward them. The snake-kin was female, which was obvious as her mail shirt and most of her clothes were gone. Beneath her breasts was a ghastly wound that she held with her one remaining hand.

Roland looked away. He didn't do so out of any sense of modesty or compassion. He did so because she was already dead. The officers rushed forward, now that she was a fair distance from the mist, to interrogate her. Roland turned his attention back to the mist wall. That was why he didn't see the explosion that tore the kin apart from the inside out. The force of the blast knocked him off his feet, even from a dozen meters away. Pieces of meat rained down from above, none of it recognizable. Roland blinked as he sat up, then froze. It wasn't the crater left behind by the dead kin or the messy remains of those officers eager for intel. No, the surge of spawn rushing from the mist had caught Roland's attention.

A collection of nightmares. That was what Roland thought as they emerged. Some were horse-size spiders with grinning faces like those of humans. Others had human torsos but were a writhing mass of tentacles from the waist down. One of the most disturbing creatures was a massive human-shaped head roughly the size of two carts that crawled on the ground with countless insect-like legs. Each spawn had one thing in common, no matter its shape or form. They all had the same sickly green eyes, glowing with a soft luminescence. A sign that it was an eldritch spawn.

Roland screamed as he scrambled back, unleashing a mana bolt at the nearest spawn. The spider-like creature exploded from the magical attack. His reprieve was short as more and more spawn came. They were the tide. Unstoppable. Unending. Inevitable.

Roland tried to stand, but his leg buckled under the weight. Collapsing to the ground, he looked down. A twisted piece of metal had embedded itself in his upper thigh. It was just bad luck. Perhaps one of the officer's breastplates had been shredded in the explosion. It could have been anything, really. All that mattered was that it was his death.

He screamed in both rage and denial. He unleashed fire blasts and mana bolts from his prone position as fast as possible. As the other mages fell back, erecting mana barriers, those unlucky enough to be in the open were quickly caught. Roland was no exception. After blasting a two-headed crocodile-like creature's head off, a tendril wrapped around his bad leg. The pain was so intense that he lost focus as it dragged him into the mists. He gasped, knowing what fate awaited him. Drawing on the last reserves of his mana, he readied an explosion to use on himself when the overwhelming pressure settled upon him. It squeezed his mana back into his mana pool and held it steady.

"NOOOO!" Roland cried, knowing he was damn. The spawn around him were careful not to hurt him further. Roland had no such restrictions. He reached for his belt knife to use on himself, but hands, tentacles, and all manner of appendages that had no name restrained him as he was pulled deeper inside. Helpless, Roland turned his sight inward toward his mana pool. He watched the mist mana enter his nearly empty pool, dragging the corruption in. Before he had reached his destination, where he would be changed beyond recognition, his eyes had already taken on a sickly greenish hue.