Chapter 96 — What the Smoke Knows
The chaos had that quality of something that didn't begin suddenly — it settled in with the specific speed of collective panic, where each person reacted to the reaction of the person beside them until the sum became greater than any individual part.
The screams came from all directions.
— Help! Someone help me!
— Please! Over here!
— I can't see anything!
The soldiers of Zordis — the same ones who had marched out through the gates with swords raised and General Foldris's cry still in their lungs — were now running in directions that held no tactical logic. The black smoke enveloped everything with a consistency that was not merely dense but active, moving with its own intent, closing the spaces that tried to open.
---
One soldier stopped.
He held his sword with both hands. His hands were shaking — not from weakness, but from that specific tremor of a nervous system that had received too much information in too little time and was now discharging the excess in any way available. Teeth bared. Eyes sweeping the smoke in every direction with the attention of a person who knew something was there but couldn't locate where.
— Stay back! Don't come near me! Stay back!
The shout came out ragged. Into the smoke. To no one.
Then he felt it.
Contact on his back.
His heart raced with the violence of an organ that received a danger signal before any conscious processing could arrive. The soldier spun around with his sword raised, muscles already moving before his eyes had any information—
A face.
Familiar. Brown hair. The posture of a soldier who had been in the same formation less than an hour ago.
The tremor in his shoulders eased.
— Hamm. — His breath came out in a sob of relief. — It's just you, Leiz. What a relief to see you.
The Leiz in front of him did not answer immediately.
He stood with a stillness that was not of a person processing — it was of something calculating. The smile that appeared was visually correct but wrong in quality, like an expression copied from memory rather than produced by emotion.
— Leiz? Are you okay?
The hand moved fast.
It was not Leiz's hand — the thing that had the shape of Leiz's hand. The claws pierced through the uniform with the ease of something that encountered no resistance because it hadn't expected any. The soldier looked down with the slowness of a person whose brain was still trying to reconcile what his eyes were seeing with what he had believed two seconds ago.
The sword. The blade that was not a blade — ending in black werewolf claws that pulsed with the darkness of something that came from the same place as the smoke.
He slowly raised his eyes.
Leiz's face was dissolving with the speed of an illusion that no longer needed to be maintained — the skin peeling away into smoke, the bones beneath revealing themselves as the structure of condensed shadow they had always been. Red eyes where the brown ones had been.
The soldier opened his mouth.
The monster pulled back and threw him to the ground with the strength of something that had never been human and therefore had none of the limits a human would have. The body hit the uneven earth heavily. The claws still dripped.
The monster began to walk.
The screams continued.
---
SansVl and Angrela were close enough to hear.
— So this is the famous mist of the Fear Mages — said SansVl. His tone was that of a person classifying new information. Neither urgency nor fear — cataloguing. — Perception manipulation. Personalized illusions.
— We've heard about it — said Angrela beside him, with the quality of confirmation from someone who had done her reading before reaching the battlefield. — We had never seen it in action.
— Nothing interesting — said SansVl.
The orc emerged from the smoke on the left.
Large. With that specific musculature of a creature built for impact rather than speed. Its arm rose with the axe before SansVl had finished the sentence.
Angrela was already moving.
Not thought — body deciding before mind. She crossed the space between her and her husband with the speed of a person who had measured distances without realizing she was measuring them. The blow meant for SansVl struck her shoulder with a force not calibrated for a smaller target.
She fell.
The impact with the ground was that of a body receiving a real blow from something with real mass. The uneven earth offered exactly the hardness it always offered — no concessions.
SansVl stood completely still.
He looked at her on the ground. At her shoulder. At the blood beginning to darken the fabric of her clothes.
His expression was… strange. Not shock. Something being processed that wasn't immediately finding the right processing.
— That was weak — said Angrela, with the voice of someone inventorying damage and reaching the conclusion she preferred. Her mouth was half-pressed to the dirt. — You owe me for that, SansVl.
— I don't owe you anything.
His voice came out cold. Different from his usual tone — without the lightness that was always present even in combat.
Angrela lifted her face slightly.
— What? I just saved you, you ungrateful oaf.
— I'll return the favor.
The axe moved in one hand with that speed of motion that didn't need elaboration to be effective. The arc was short. Clean.
The head of the orc standing behind Angrela — the one that had attacked, the one still standing with its arm raised for a follow-up strike — separated from its body with the quality of a cut that had been precise rather than brutal.
The body fell.
SansVl looked at it.
Then at the ground where Angrela lay.
His expression changed — not dramatically, but with that quality of something returning to where it belonged after briefly being in the wrong place.
— I hate impostors.
He said it to the body dissolving into black smoke.
He extended his free hand to Angrela.
She took it without ceremony, with the naturalness of a couple that didn't need to make the gesture into anything more than it was.
The ground trembled.
Not from an explosion — from a step. The kind of vibration that carried scale beneath it, communicating mass before the mass became visible.
From the smoke, the goblin warrior emerged.
Not the scale of a common goblin — the other kind. The kind impossible to ignore due to the difference in proportion. Its armor had that quality of worked metal that indicated not just protection but intent — not standard equipment, but choice. An axe in each hand with the symmetry of a combatant who had learned that two points of impact were more efficient than one.
The red eyes met SansVl with the attention of something that had evaluated and reached a conclusion.
— If I can't manipulate you — said the goblin, in a deep voice that carried an intelligence a normal goblin should not have — then I'll crush you.
SansVl remained silent for a moment.
Then he smiled.
The real smile. The one of a person who had found exactly what he was looking for without knowing he had been looking for it.
— Now we're talking — he said, spinning the axe in his hand with the casualness of a man about to do something he enjoyed. — This is worth my time.
He assumed a stance.
---
On the other side of the field — a distance the smoke made impossible to assess accurately — Angrela advanced with her spear.
Not running. Walking with the quality of a person who had a destination and knew that arriving was inevitable, so there was no need to hurry.
The monsters she encountered were dealt with briefly.
The spear pierced, withdrew, and continued. No pause for assessment between each one. Her gaze fixed forward with the concentration of a person searching for something specific, and everything else was merely what stood between her and that thing.
— Where is my husband.
Not a question — a declaration of intent spoken aloud.
A black sprite materialized in front of her with the quality of something that had emerged from the smoke with specific purpose. Condensed darkness in a vaguely human shape. Eyes with that red light all the creatures on the field possessed.
Angrela stopped.
She looked at it with the expression of a person evaluating whether what was in front of her deserved her time or not.
— I hope you give me answers — she said, with that specific patience of a warning. — And don't make me waste my time.
The spear rose.
---
In the air — or what the air had been before the smoke rose high enough to compromise that perspective too — Sônia floated with her grimoire open, wand in hand, and the weight of screams rising from below with that quality of distress from real people in a real situation.
The problem was the geometry.
The smoke covered everything. The screams came from directions the smoke made ambiguous — sound traveled in ways dense mist distorts, arriving from angles that didn't match the real sources. Every time she chose a direction, she had that uncertainty of a person who knew she might be heading to the wrong place but lacked enough information to go to the right one.
— Where are those screams coming from — she murmured to herself, with the frustration of a problem that had elements but no solution.
She saw the axe too late.
Not because she wasn't paying attention — because the smoke had hidden the trajectory until the moment it was already too close for normal reaction speed to be enough. The axe spun with the rotation of a projectile thrown with force and calculated angle.
The wand traced a rune in the air.
It came out with emergency speed — not the spell she would have chosen with time, but the spell her body chose with the time it had. The shield materialized. Insufficient to fully absorb — sufficient to deflect.
The deflection's impact still sent her flying.
She descended through the smoke with the speed of a fall that was not controlled because there was no time to control it. The ground arrived with the honesty of solid surface.
She lay there for a moment. Her head throbbing with that specific pulse of recent impact.
— What the hell was that.
She got up slowly — and saw.
The goblins were small in scale but had that quantity that made scale irrelevant. Knives. Eyes with that expression that shouldn't exist in a battle creature but did, and which Sônia recognized with the immediate discomfort of a young woman who understood what she was seeing.
The wand rose.
The grimoire opened to the right page with the automatic quality of a system that recognized a threat before it was fully processed.
*Not today.*
---
Haru moved through the smoke with that specific quality of an assassin trained for reduced visibility — not without difficulty, but with less difficulty than most. His daggers found things that were not fully visible with the efficiency of senses that had learned to work with incomplete information.
But the smoke did something else.
It didn't just darken — it whispered. With that quality of sound that was not of the ear but of memory, arriving from within rather than without, with the specific texture of something the brain produced when the smoke found what each person carried.
Haru carried his brother.
The voice arrived with that specificity of memory that made the distance of time irrelevant — present, immediate, with the exact quality of a specific person's voice that could not be invented because it was too particular for invention.
*Haru.*
He stopped.
He shouldn't stop. He knew he shouldn't stop.
He stopped.
— Brother? — The word came out small. Involuntary.
*Haru, I'm here.*
The direction. The smoke now had direction — or seemed to, which was what the smoke did: make things that weren't seem real. But his body was already moving before any decision about whether it should or shouldn't.
And then he saw.
Kuto.
Standing in the smoke with that Kuto posture — the specific posture Haru had memorized without realizing he was memorizing it, the way a person occupied space that was unmistakable.
— Brother! — The shout came out with that quality of relief from someone who had been searching. — Brother, are you okay?
He began to approach.
The sword left its sheath with a speed that had no visible preparation — it was in the sheath and then it was in the air, and the interval between the two states was too short to be fully registered. The cut was horizontal across the stomach with the precision of someone who knew exactly where the target was.
Haru dodged.
By instinct — not by decision. The body that recognized a strike before identifying it as one. The somersault that carried him backward and sideways, depositing him two meters away with the lightness of someone who had performed this movement countless times.
His hand went to his side.
The cut was there. Superficial — just enough for the fabric and the skin beneath to know it had happened. Not deep. But present.
He looked at his hand with blood on his fingers.
Then he looked at Kuto.
— Brother. — The voice of the Kuto in front of him had that wrong quality the smoke produced — too soft, too inviting, without the characteristic coldness that was so consistent in Kuto that its absence was more disturbing than any direct threat. — Why that look? Come here. Come give your brother a hug.
The hand extended.
*Come. Come. Come. Brother.*
Haru stood completely still with that immobility of a person who was in two places at once — the place where his body was and the place where the thing the smoke had found to use was.
Then his eyes grew cold.
With that quality of a decision that was not emotional but definitive — like a switch flipping position.
— You are not my brother.
His voice came out flat. Without declared anger. But with that quality of a line drawn that would not be moved.
He assumed a combat stance with his daggers with the readiness of a person who had finished processing and was ready for what came next.
---
The real Kuto was thirty meters away.
With Romeu and Selina, in a space where the smoke was slightly less dense — not by protection but by an accident of the field's geography.
— This isn't good — said Romeu, with the honesty of a person who would have preferred a different conclusion. — That smoke is messing with our heads.
— Exactly what it's doing — said Selina. Her voice held that concentration of someone managing more than one thing at once. Her hands glowed faintly with magic that was not offensive but still had a cost.
Kuto looked at her.
— How do you know?
— I have a mental protection shield active. — Brief. — Learned it from Zenk.
The name arrived with that inevitability it had begun to carry — present in every solution, every tool, every ability the group had that exceeded what was expected. Kuto said nothing about it. He stored it.
— Protect them too — he said.
Selina didn't argue. She placed her hand on Romeu's head with the practicality of someone with a task to complete. The magic transferred with that brief glow of something being installed rather than used.
Then Kuto.
— How long does it last?
— I don't know. — Honest. — It drains mana. When the mana runs out, it ends.
— Sufficient. — He turned to the two of them. — Find the others. Use the magic on them.
— And you? — asked Romeu.
— I'm going after the mage.
Selina remained silent for a moment with that quality of a person evaluating an argument before agreeing or disagreeing.
— He knows too much about you — she said. — He's using it.
— He thinks he knows — replied Kuto. — There's a difference.
Selina's expression communicated that she wasn't fully convinced but understood the distinction. She grabbed Romeu's arm with the decisiveness of someone who had chosen a direction.
— Let's go.
They left.
Kuto stood alone in the smoke for a moment.
Then he began to walk — not run, but walk with the deliberation of a person who knew that urgency in terrain he couldn't see well was a mistake he would pay for later.
In the direction the voice had come from.
---
Leiz cut.
Not strategically — out of immediate necessity. His sword found what the smoke briefly revealed before hiding again, with the efficiency of a person trained to react to a threat before fully processing it.
— I have to find the king.
He said it quietly, to himself, with that quality of a phrase that served as an anchor — something repeated to keep hold of what mattered when everything else was trying to displace that thread.
The smoke whispered.
Haru knew what the smoke did. Leiz didn't — but he felt it. With that quality of sensation from a person who realizes they are being affected by something before understanding what it is.
The name arrived.
Not in the smoke's voice. In the quality of memory — with the specific texture of something that only existed inside one head because only one head had stored it in that exact way.
The woman. Her name. Her hand on his chest before he left.
He stopped.
Not for long. Just long enough for the smoke to register the pause and know it had found access.
Then Leiz clenched his teeth and continued.
With that quality of a person who had felt the pull and decided he would not be pulled. Not without cost — his forehead was sweating with sweat that was not from physical effort. But he continued.
— I have to find the king.
He said it again.
Louder this time.
And he began to run.