Chapter 97 — Total Stylization
The smoke showed no mercy.
Sonia knew that now in a way that abstract knowledge had never prepared her for — the kind of knowledge that enters through the body rather than the mind, etched into places training could never reach.
The goblins came from every direction.
Not in a line. In convergence — each from a different angle with the coordination of things that shared a single source, moving with the synchrony of one system rather than separate individuals. Knives in hand with that quality of small blades meant not for battle but for precision, which made them all the more threatening.
"Get back!"
The spell left her wand uncontrollably — not chosen, not calibrated. Her body reacted to panic before her mind could select a response. The burst of magic was real but undirected, striking whatever was nearby instead of what was in front, clearing space by accident rather than strategy.
The goblins recoiled momentarily.
Then more came.
Always more.
Sonia spun her wand and tried again. The spell came out with that strained quality of forced magic — a tremor in the motion, a slightly wrong rune, a result smaller than it should have been. She eliminated five, ten came. She eliminated ten, twenty came.
The smoke kept producing them.
Then the idea arrived.
Inferno Flames was the most powerful one she had. The one that had cost one hundred and fifty mana in the previous chapter. The one that completely cleared everything it touched.
Her wand traced the runes with the urgency of someone who had chosen and would not reconsider.
"Inferno Flames!"
The black fire erupted with the ability's usual power — not in a line but in a wave, expanding in a radius with the clean sweep of something that left no residue. The goblins in front dissolved. The smoke recoiled momentarily. Space opened up.
And then the screams came.
From another direction.
"IT BURNS! IT'S BURNING!"
"HELP! SOMEONE!"
"HELP ME!"
Sonia stood completely still.
The screams had the unmistakable quality of real human voices in genuine pain — not creatures, not illusions. They were the voices of Zordis soldiers who had been in that direction and whom her attack had reached before she knew they were there.
Her wand lowered.
The tear was involuntary — the kind that asks no permission and waits for no decision, that simply exists because the body needs to express itself somehow.
"I'm sorry." Her voice went out into the smoke, toward the direction the screams came from, to people who could not hear her or who, if they did, would not know it was her. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry."
The goblins returned.
Sonia raised her wand and tried to cast.
The notification appeared with the specific cruelty of a system that has no regard for timing.
---
**[MANA: 0/400]**
**[MANA INSUFFICIENCY]**
**[MAGICAL ABILITIES: DISABLED]**
---
Her face paled with the speed of someone who had just had something vital taken away. The wand in her hand was now just wood. The grimoire beside her closed with the finality of something that recognized it was no longer needed.
*The shop. I can buy a mana potion at the shop.*
Her hand rose to activate the system menu — and a goblin leaped.
She dodged on instinct. Her body had been trained enough for instinct to exist independently of her mana state. The goblin passed through where she had been half a second earlier and landed on the uneven ground with the force of something that had committed fully and missed.
There was something on the ground.
A sword.
Her hand closed around the hilt before any conscious deliberation. She pulled it free. She rose with the sword in both hands in the stance of someone who had trained with a blade but had never been a swordsman — enough to work, not enough to be fluid.
Then she saw whose sword it had been.
The soldier lay on the ground two meters away. The blue uniform with black trim that had marched out the gates with Foldris's cry still in his lungs was now different — torn in patterns that were not from normal combat, with that specific disfigurement of someone who had encountered something faster than they had time to react. His face still held an expression. The last expression. With the quality of something frozen because there had been no time left to change it.
Sonia looked at the sword in her hand.
Then at the soldier.
Then she closed her eyes for a second — just one — and when she opened them again, something was different in them. Not the absence of fear. Fear and resolve at the same time, which is different from having no fear.
"I am strong."
She said it quietly. To herself. With the quality of a phrase not meant to be heard but to be spoken — to make it real through the act of saying it.
"I have to survive. I can't die here."
The goblins charged.
She stood her ground.
The sword blocked the first. She dodged the second. She cut down the third with the strength of someone using her entire body instead of just her arms. Not elegance — determination converted into motion.
It worked long enough for *working* to mean something.
Then the goblin came from behind.
The knife found her leg with the precision of something that had aimed for the right spot — not luck, but hunting, the precision of a creature that knew where prey hurt most. The scream escaped involuntarily with the raw quality of sharp pain the body cannot suppress. Her leg gave out. The sword fell.
The ground met her with the honesty of a surface that does not cushion.
Sonia was on the ground with her hand on her leg, blood between her fingers, and goblins closing in with the convergence of things that knew they had time. Her mana was at zero. The sword was out of reach. Her leg would not support weight immediately.
The screams continued somewhere in the smoke.
*Mom. Dad. Brothers.*
The thought came with the quality of a memory that appears exactly when the distance feels greater than ever.
*I'm sorry. I think I won't be able to find you.*
---
The sound was of something moving very fast.
Not an explosion — a surgical impact. Once. Twice. Three times. With the cadence of someone choosing moving targets instead of firing into an area.
The goblins around Sonia dissolved.
Into black smoke. Simultaneously. With the quality of something that had been ended so efficiently the process had no visible duration.
"Total Stylization."
The voice came from above and in front. Then the footsteps. Then the figure that emerged from the smoke with the quality of someone who had been in constant motion and had stopped exactly where he needed to stop.
Jack.
The sword still in his hand with the residual glow of a skill that had just been used. His face held that Jack expression of assessment — checking her condition, checking nearby threats, processing what was around him before processing what was in front.
Then his eyes lowered to her.
"Are you okay, Sonia?"
His voice had that Jack quality that was not performative gentleness — it was the direct question of someone who needed real information about an injured companion's status.
Sonia looked at him.
The tears came — not from sadness, but from that specific kind of relief the body produces when built-up tension finally finds a place to release. Her hand was still on her leg. The blood was still between her fingers.
"Jack." Her voice came out small. "Thank you. Thank you for saving me."
Jack dropped to one knee to be at her level. He extended his hand to check the wound on her leg with the practicality of a leader assessing damage before offering comfort.
"Was the knife deep?"
"I don't know. It hurts."
"I'll check."
His hands moved to her leg with the restraint of someone who knew touching a wound would hurt before helping. The check was quick, professional, without unnecessary delay.
"It didn't hit anything critical. It's bleeding but it'll hold weight with support." He looked up at her. "Can you stand if I help you?"
Sonia nodded.
She got up with Jack's hand as support — her leg protested with the pain of a wound still deciding how serious it was, but it held.
Jack stepped back as soon as she was stable. Not far — two meters. He turned toward the smoke with his sword raised in the vigilant stance of someone who had decided what the priority was and would fulfill it.
"Stay behind me. You have no mana and you're injured. I'll cover you."
Sonia remained silent for a moment.
"I hit the soldiers," she said. Her voice had the quality of a confession that needed no audience. "With the Inferno Flames. I didn't mean to. I heard them screaming."
Jack didn't turn his face.
"I know."
"I didn't see they were there."
"I know."
Pause.
"The smoke does that." His voice was firm but without the hardness of judgment. "It hides what you shouldn't attack and reveals what you should fear. That's how the Fear Mage works. It wasn't your mistake. It was his tool."
Sonia stayed silent.
Then:
"Thank you."
Jack nodded once. Minimal. Then he went back to sweeping the smoke ahead with the attention of someone who would not let the conversation distract from what mattered now.
Haru had new scars.
Not many — but present with the persistence of wounds that continued to communicate they were real even after the sharp pain had become a constant ache. The blood at the edges of the cuts had that viscosity of something that had opened long enough to start clotting but not long enough to stop being visible.
The fake Kuto stood in front of him.
With that Kuto posture — the one Haru had memorized without deciding to, over months of walking two steps behind, of constant vigilance, of attention that had never been asked for but had been given anyway because that was what Haru did.
"What is it, brother?" The voice had the right tone but the wrong temperature — too soft, without the characteristic coldness the real Kuto never fully lost. "Come to me. Receive the hug you've always wanted."
Haru didn't move.
He looked at the cuts. At the blood. At the physical evidence that he had been in this scene for too long with the wrong mindset — defending instead of analyzing, reacting instead of deciding.
*If this continues, I'll die here.*
The thought came with the specific clarity of someone who had finally been honest with herself about the situation.
*I won't see my real brother if I stay in this pattern.*
The fake Kuto advanced.
With the speed of an illusion that had the physical capabilities of the original without the emotional limitations — faster than it should have been because it didn't carry the weight the real one carried. The fist came toward Haru's face with the precision of someone who had made this movement before.
Haru dodged.
But he didn't just dodge — he let the fist pass and followed the motion of the false arm with the assassin technique that used the attacker's momentum instead of creating his own. The dagger went to the inside of the elbow with the precision of a pressure point that dissolved the arm without needing more force than necessary.
The fake Kuto's arm dissipated into smoke at the point of contact.
Haru retreated two steps before the rest of the illusion could react.
*Smoke.*
The thought was simple. Obvious in hindsight. But there was a difference between knowing it was smoke and treating it as smoke — and until now Haru had been treating it as the real Kuto, which was exactly what the Fear Mage wanted.
The illusion regenerated the arm with the speed of something that had no biology to limit recovery.
"Are you coming or do you prefer I come to you?" it said with a smile that was not Kuto's.
Haru assumed a different posture.
Not defensive — that of a hunter. The daggers held at the angle of someone thinking about ending it rather than surviving.
The smoke around the illusion had its own density — slightly thicker at the center, as if the illusion needed extra substance to maintain its shape. It was being fed from a specific point. It had an origin.
Find the origin.
The illusion charged again.
Haru was not where the illusion expected.