Chapter 147: In the Dark Mist

Thank you [UpUpDowndown] For your gift - A Magic Castle

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Blood was still dripping from the spearhead, yet Elowen had forgotten the distant roars as she stared at Erik. Realizing that her cheeks were burning, she hurriedly lowered her head to adjust her bowstring.

In her eyes, the man who had just thrown that terrifying punch was still the Erik from their warm evenings together. She had simply discovered another side of him.

"Elowen?" Erik tilted his head slightly. "Is there something on my face?"

"There’s blood."

"Oh." He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, accidentally smearing the blood even wider. "Better?"

"...It’s worse."

Erik looked at the blood he had smeared across his own face and, for a moment, did not know what to say.

Elowen finally laughed, but she immediately raised her bow when she heard claws scraping against stone. "Two on the left!"

A pale green arrow flew through the mist, embedding itself in the front leg of the lead monster. It lost its balance and crashed into a tree trunk.

Erik seized the opportunity to rush forward, slamming the butt of his spear into its jaw before spinning and driving the spearhead through the second creature’s throat.

When the beast tried to bite his arm, Erik stepped half a step closer, rammed his shoulder hard into its chest, and threw it to the ground.

He had barely pulled out his spear when the arrow-struck creature sprang up and attacked him from behind. Elowen immediately fired a second arrow through its eye socket, causing the beast to collapse before it could reach Erik’s back.

"Thank you." He looked at her and smiled between heavy breaths. "Without you, I probably would have been bitten just now."

"Then stop looking at me after every monster you kill!" Elowen scolded, her pointed ears slightly red. "I still have to use my bow. I can’t just stand there and let you stare at me forever."

"Alright. I’ll make up for it when we get home."

"Erik!"

She was both annoyed and amused, but the consecutive roars from deep within the mist immediately made them serious again. Dim red eyes appeared one after another. There were no longer just one or two creatures.

Erik quickly retreated into the narrow space between a stone wall and a leaning tree, forcing the monsters to approach from the front.

"Elowen, keep the ones trying to circle around us in check. I’ll handle the middle."

She nodded and immediately shifted position so her arrows would not interfere with his spear. A claw suddenly swept against the edge of the stone, tearing through her shoulder sleeve. Elowen suppressed the pain and kept drawing her bow.

Erik broke the first beast’s leg joint as it charged, but instead of stabbing it again, he stepped on its back to gain momentum, spun around, and slammed the spear shaft into the head of the creature behind it. A heavy impact echoed amid the roars.

The beast with the broken leg tried to rise, only to receive a kick directly to the jaw. It rolled aside and lay still.

A larger creature suddenly leaped over its fallen kin. Erik avoided its claws, grabbed the jagged horn on its head, and used his strength to drag its entire body toward the wall.

The monster’s head slammed hard against stone, its neck bending at an unnatural angle before its body slid down to the ground.

Blood soaked into his sleeves, Erik’s hands slick with dark red stains, his chest rising and falling after every strike. Yet even as he fought with all his strength, he kept enough distance for Elowen to provide covering fire.

His overwhelming physical power did not make him careless. He understood perfectly well that if the whole pack surrounded them, a single bite to the neck could end everything.

Elowen watched Erik’s rhythm of movement and realized that he always deliberately left an open angle for her to fire from. She adjusted her position and held her bow more firmly. If he trusted her to protect his back, she did not want to betray that trust.

"I’m starting to think I don’t understand you completely," she said softly when the monsters temporarily stopped attacking.

Erik tilted his head and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Why?"

Elowen looked at his blood-stained face and gave a faint smile. "It’s nothing. I’ll tell you when we get home."

"That sounds terrifying."

"Not as terrifying as when you punched that monster."

Erik laughed, but the instant he bent down to inspect the corpse at his feet, the smile vanished from his lips. The black veins beneath the creature’s skin were still twitching even though its head had been crushed.

They slowly crawled out of the body like tree roots searching for soil to cling to. One strand reached toward Erik’s boot, forcing him to use his spear shaft to push the corpse away.

"Elowen, don’t touch their bodies." His voice turned serious. "The body is dead, but those black things are still alive."

Elowen followed his gaze, and the admiration in her eyes immediately turned to vigilance. "Then the one controlling them is probably somewhere in the mist."

"I think so too."

A long roar suddenly echoed from deep within the forest. The surviving monsters all lifted their heads, the veins beneath their skin swelling together as though they had received the same command. Rather than rushing them in a frenzy, they abruptly stopped and turned in one direction.

Erik tightened his grip on his spear and stood in front of Elowen. Despite the overwhelming stench of blood, his eyes remained calm.

"If they can follow orders," he said quietly, "I want to know where the one giving them is hiding."

Roars erupted all around them, violent enough to make the stone wall beside them tremble.

The roar had barely faded when a beast charged out of the mist, its maw stretched wide enough to reveal two rows of crooked teeth. Erik did not thrust his spear immediately. He let it run another two steps, waited for Elowen to send a gust of wind from the side, then struck at its front leg.

The creature toppled sideways and drove its own neck onto the waiting spearhead. Erik immediately pulled out his weapon and dragged Elowen away from the black roots still writhing on the corpse.

"They seem to be testing our reactions," Elowen said, lowering her bow as she looked at the shadows that refused to advance. "If they wanted to kill us, they would have rushed us together."

"They don’t want to kill us right away." Erik pointed his spear toward the gap between two piles of rocks. "That one even waited for you to create the wind. I suspect whoever controls them wants to see how I react to each type of attack."

Elowen released a small gust close to the ground. It carried dust and dry leaves, slipping several meters into the mist before suddenly circling back toward them. She frowned. "Even the Wind element doesn’t know where it’s going."

"Then we’ll use our feet." Erik planted his spear into the ground and carved a long line into the stone floor. He took a few steps, then looked back.

The mark remained where it was, while a boulder in the distance had appeared in a different position. "The things close to us still seem real. I’ll mark the path. You watch our rear."

Elowen smiled faintly. "You just found a way to navigate with a spear?"

"Meira makes me practice with it every day. At least today, it can double as a map."

She was about to reply when the sound of claws scraping suddenly came from above them. Erik pulled Elowen close to the edge of the wall. He no longer watched the distant shadows, focusing instead on the movement of dust and dry leaves.

He was beginning to understand the most important thing. In a place where sight could be deceived, a real footprint was more trustworthy than a hundred images before his eyes.

A black shadow suddenly dove down from above. Elowen immediately fired an arrow, but the monster twisted its body in midair and let the arrow graze its shoulder.

Erik noticed that when it landed, its front paws made no sound matching its body’s weight. He froze, then spun toward the other side.

"Don’t shoot it! This side is the real one!"

The moment he shouted, another monster charged from the mist, its body identical to the shadow that had appeared above. Erik used his spear to block its jaws, his feet sliding backward across the damp ground.

Elowen instantly changed targets and fired through the creature’s eye socket, sending it crashing down with a piercing roar.

Erik exhaled sharply. "So even the images can be fake."

Elowen watched the monster’s shadow above dissolve into a cluster of black smoke, her expression growing more worried. "If this thing can make us see fake enemies, how are we supposed to know where it’s safe?"

Erik looked down at the dry leaves beneath the real monster that had just fallen. They had been scattered by its weight and claws, while the image above had dissolved without moving a single branch. He used his spear shaft to flick up a leaf, watching it pass through the afterimage before falling to the ground.

"Watch the traces on the ground. Don’t look at their shapes," Erik told Elowen. "Illusions can look exactly like monsters, but they leave no footprints. I’ll mark our route, and you watch the things they touch."

Elowen tied a length of rope to the nearest boulder so they could find their way back if they needed to retreat. But when the two of them tried to turn left, another group of monsters immediately appeared there. Erik stopped and tested the opposite direction. This time, the black shadows changed positions as well.

"They changed positions according to the direction we were about to turn." Erik looked at the beastly shadows still blocking the left path. "They aren’t just pursuing prey. They’re closing off every other route to force us into that open path."

"Just like we’re being herded like sheep," Elowen said softly, both angry and worried.

Erik raised an eyebrow. "If I’m a sheep, do you think I’m allowed to bite back?"

"You’ve been stabbing them with your spear this whole time!"

Before Elowen could ask who he planned to bite, Erik raised a hand to signal her to be quiet.

A familiar voice rang out through the mist, so close that Elowen nearly turned and ran toward it.

"Erik! I found you!"

It was Meira’s voice, so clear that Elowen instantly turned her head. But Erik reached out and held her shoulder. He listened again and realized that the voice lacked Meira’s breathing and natural sentence endings. It was like someone was replaying a damaged recording.

"Elowen, she wouldn’t call for me like that and then stand still." He tried to keep his voice calm. "If Meira had truly found us, she would have rushed over and hugged me already."

Elowen was stunned for a moment, then laughed even though her eyes were still red with tension. "That is exactly what Mother would do."

The voice outside continued calling, growing more urgent this time. Erik did not answer. He simply took Elowen’s hand and pulled her toward a section of collapsed wall that was still fairly sturdy. He knew that if they kept chasing those voices, they would never find a way out.

Elowen had barely stepped over a low rock when her legs suddenly gave out. She stumbled, nearly falling onto the damp ground, but Erik was quick enough to wrap an arm around her waist and catch her. He immediately lowered his head, feeling her body tremble slightly in his arms.

His gaze accidentally fell on a streak of red blood seeping through Elowen’s shoulder sleeve. The smile on Erik’s lips vanished completely, his brows drawing together in concern.