Herkid couldn't move.
His hands trembled against the faint shimmer of the barrier he was maintaining, thin strands of wind mana weaving between his fingers like fragile threads. He had been focused on the perimeter, on keeping the camp safe.
That was his job.
That was all he was good for.
He was a nonentity in this party, someone no one really noticed. He did his job quietly and efficiently. The moment a campsite was chosen, he set up the wind barrier without being asked, without drawing attention.
He didn't take offense to it.
It was the norm in every party he joined.
Even when Guild Master Brian complained that the barrier was too small and demanded it be expanded despite the strain it would put on him Herkid said nothing. Expanding the barrier meant faster mana depletion, meant risking his own health.
Still, he obeyed.
Even when there were three barrier users and his shifts were increased beyond reason, he never voiced a single complaint.
Herkid endured. He was a D-class wind elementalist, which, by ordinary standards, was respectable. If not for one flaw, one cruel limitation.
He had only one useful skill.
Most elementalists possessed a range of abilities, growing with their mana capacity. Even F-class users typically had three or four minor skills they could rely on.
But Herkid Benovard had only two.
One was Wind Shield.
The other… was useless to anyone but him.
When he first awakened as a D-class elementalist, he had been filled with hope. Born to a washerwoman and a drunken father, he had grown up with a single, burning desire, to get his mother out.
To give her a better life, he had believed his awakening was the answer. Even though wind elements were common he was sure he could get a good job. Herkid naively thought that with power, he could change everything. But that hope shattered quickly.
A single practical skill. A defensive one at that. That was all he had.
Still, he didn't give up.
He trained harder than anyone else. Learned what little he could from scraps of discarded books, stolen glances through cracked walls of classrooms he could never afford to enter. He watched. Listened. Memorized.
He made do with nothing.
Years passed, and through sheer persistence, he clawed his way into a guild low-ranking, barely acknowledged, but legitimate.
And he was proud because it was honest work because it was enough.
Enough to take his mother away from that man he remembered feeling so proud of this his hard work was able to give her peace.
For the first time, things had started to look up.
He had even been glad to be chosen for this expedition. Even though the reputation of Guild master Brian was horrible. He took the job because the commission would be good.
He needed the money; it was enough to buy his mother the medicine she needed.
Enough to keep her safe… just a little longer.
But now—
Now he could only watch.
Herkid had seen everything from the very beginning. No one ever noticed him, and over time, he had become used to observing rather than acting.
The day had started normally, with him assigned to barrier duty.
He was there when they brought in the unconscious girl along with the two Nyxari beast cubs. He saw everything unfold. He saw her fight back. Herkid saw her on the ground, bleeding.
He saw her beaten, broken, and then… rise again.
He saw her help the courtesan.
And then—
He saw her become this.
Now, the thing she had become was terrorizing the camp.
Chaos erupted all around him as the beasts freed by the girl-turned-monster turned on the very people who had once caged and abused them. Screams filled the air, metal clashed, and mana flared wildly.
But Herkid didn't look at any of it.
His eyes were locked on her.
Framed within the black and red mist, she moved as it surged forward, swallowing everything in its path. It didn't rush, It didn't need to. It consumed.
Herkid watched with horrified fascination as it turned its attention to Guild Master Brian. For a moment, he could have sworn he heard laughter soft, distorted echoing from within the mist as Brian scrambled to defend himself.
It didn't matter. Nothing he did mattered.
In the end, Herkid saw it clearly: The red-black mist coiling around Brian's crawling, sobbing form.
The once-arrogant man was reduced to nothing, sprawled on the ground, begging for his life.
But the girl…
She had no mercy left to give.
The mist wrapped around him slowly, almost deliberately.
And the moment it touched his skin—
Brian's screams tore through the night.
High-pitched. Desperate. Animal.
"NO—GET IT OFF—GET IT OFF ME—!"
The sound cut short. Not suddenly.
But in pieces.
Herkid's breath caught in his throat as the mist wrapped around Brian's body, clinging to him like living tar. It peeled away from him in slow, deliberate strips—like something savoring the act.
Skin then muscle then everything.
And the worst part was Brian didn't die all at once. There were several agonizing minutes where all Herkid could hear was his screams.
By the time the mist pulled back, there was barely anything left to recognize. What remained collapsed onto the ground with a wet, hollow sound—a grotesque husk, flayed and emptied as if his very essence had been devoured.
Herkid gagged, clamping a hand over his mouth to stop the sound.
Don't breathe. Don't move. Don't exist.
The thought repeated in his mind like a prayer.
Around him, the camp had become a slaughterhouse. Beasts rampaged freely, tearing into fleeing servants. Hunters fought desperately, their attacks wild and uncoordinated but it didn't matter.
Nothing mattered.
Because the mist was still there.
Watching. Waiting.
Herkid forced his shaking hands to move.
Wind mana gathered around his body, thin at first barely a whisper against his skin. Then it thickened, folding in on itself, layering, bending light and scent.
His skill, Veil of Silence.
That was his second ability, a skill he could use only on himself.
To others, it was useless. To him, it was everything.
It had saved his life more times than he could count.
As a child, it was the only thing that kept him sane, kept him safe.
Safe from the sound of heavy footsteps staggering through the door at night. Safe from the smell of cheap rum and the violence that followed. When his father's temper rose for no reason at all when fists came without warning, Herkid would disappear.
Not truly but it was enough.
The air would bend around him, swallowing his presence, hiding his scent, silencing his breath. He would crouch in corners, under broken furniture, behind thin walls that could never protect him and pray. Pray that being unseen would be enough.
Sometimes it was. Sometimes it wasn't.
At school, when he could even get close enough to watch from the outside, it saved him again. Bullies, stronger and louder, would look right through him as long as he held the skill. Boys who would have dragged him into alleys, beaten him just to feel powerful passed him by.
Because he wasn't there, he had learned, very early on, that survival didn't always mean fighting.
Sometimes It meant becoming nothing at all.
And Herkid Benovard had become very, very good at that.
To him this barrier was not for defense but for absence.
The air warped faintly around him, blurring his outline, swallowing his presence. His scent vanished into the currents. Even the sound of his breathing disappeared, carried away before it could exist.
He became… nothing. He honed the skill enough to the point where people could practically walk through him and never know that he was there.
Herkid lowered himself slowly, inch by inch, he was crouched against the ground until he almost became one with the environment. His heart pounded violently in his chest, so loud he was certain it would give him away.
The creature's red eyes shifted. For a moment, Just a moment…they passed over him.
Herkid stopped breathing entirely.
The gaze lingered. Burning. Searching.
Then… it moved on.
A silent sob nearly broke free, but he crushed it down, biting hard against his lip until he tasted blood.
Stay still. Stay hidden. Live. He coached himself.
The mist drifted away from Brian's remains, turning its attention back to the chaos it had created. Another guard was lifted screaming into the air, his body twisting unnaturally before going limp.
Herkid didn't look again. He couldn't.
He pressed himself lower, forcing his mind to focus—on the flow of mana, on maintaining the veil, on becoming less than nothing.
Because right now…
Being nothing was the only way to survive.