CHAPTER 57: BATTLE IN THE FOG

Seraph’s Hollow was a war zone.

The once-silent meadow now screamed with chaos—steel clashing, magic cracking like thunder, and the unholy shrieks of things that shouldn’t exist. Spells lit the battlefield in bursts of color, casting brief snapshots of carnage before vanishing into the crushing blackness. And through it all, the fog crept and curled like it had a mind of its own.

They were surrounded.

Spectral warriors rose from the mist like nightmares born from smoke—half-formed figures with flickering limbs, their eyes glowing faintly through the haze. They didn’t speak. They didn’t breathe. They just attacked.

A small pocket of relative safety remained—silver grass beneath them, the worn bones of a stone road behind. Around it, the fog pressed in, forming a silent, malevolent ring.

Then the silence broke.

One of them lunged—its scream distorted, human-shaped but wrong in every possible way. It charged Lucy, arms twisted like melted wax.

He didn’t flinch.

A fire cylinder erupted from his palm with a boom, boring a smoking hole straight through the thing’s chest. It didn’t fall. It melted into black mist and dripped into the fog like ink spilled into water.

The air reeked of sulfur and scorched cloth, thick enough to choke. Cold fog curled around his ankles, clinging like wet rags. A low hissing sound slithered through the mist, as if the fog itself was breathing.

And then—it came back.

The mist snapped together like a reversed explosion, the warrior re-forming as if rewinding time. It let out a rasping howl and hurled itself at Gindu.

And then it happened again.

And again.

Endlessly.

Lucy slashed one down and immediately had to pivot as another reappeared from the same spot.

"Are you shitting me?" he gasped. "They’re immortal fog zombies now?"

He ducked a wild swing, cut through a torso, then used Double Strike to feint left and catch another in the side. Clean hit. Perfect follow-up.

Didn’t matter. The fog sucked up the damage like it was nothing and spat the warriors back out whole.

"They’re weak, sure," Lucy thought grimly, spinning and parrying. "But this? This is a goddamn endurance match. A haunted treadmill from hell."

He stole a glance at the others.

Gindu was fighting like a man possessed—each swipe of his arms a heavy, hissing arc that left trails of fog-blood. His scales glimmered with sweat. He was breathing hard, shoulders slumped.

Fenric was even more feral. His strikes were brutal, chopping through enemies like meat, snarling with every blow. But his limbs were slower now, his steps heavier. Even he couldn’t keep that pace forever.

Eri was the outlier. Her movements were tight, surgical. Every claw swipe landed. Every pivot was perfect. Still, her chest rose with effort. Her eyes never stopped scanning.

Llarm looked untouched.

He stood near the edge, serene in the chaos. Spiraling wind blades danced at his fingertips, shredding fog warriors before they even got close. He didn’t need to move much—his magic did the killing for him.

Lucy had thought about using wind, too. Would’ve been more efficient.

But he’d learned better.

Two elemental casters manipulating wind in close proximity? A disaster waiting to happen. One misaligned current, and Llarm’s magic could short out entirely. Lucy wasn’t about to be the reason his friend got skewered.

So he stuck to fire—short, lethal bursts—and paired it with Double Strike for maximum efficiency.

Mana flowed through him automatically now, a second heartbeat drumming in his veins. His body moved on instinct. He couldn’t even feel the mana cost anymore.

But the fatigue?

Oh yeah, that was there.

His shoulders ached. His wrists burned. Every movement felt like dragging his limbs through cement. Even with endless mana, his mortal body had limits. And he was brushing right up against them.

Another warrior came silently from behind.

Lucy spun, sliced off its head, and without missing a beat, triggered Double Strike. His blade lashed sideways like a whip, catching a second enemy in the ribs.

Two more down. Two more reforming.

"Great," he muttered between panting breaths. "This is a fog-themed Groundhog Day."

Shapes emerged—blurry at first, then solidifying. Ten. Twenty. Fifty.

Hundreds.

The mist boiled and writhed, constantly birthing more warriors. The empty gaps between enemies vanished. Shoulder to shoulder, they formed a silent army of smoke and steel, slowly closing the ring.

Lucy backed into the group, fire dancing at his fingertips, jaw clenched so hard it ached.

The flames around his hands sputtered, strained—not from lack of mana, but from sheer exhaustion.

The fog pressed in.

The battlefield had become a funnel—a death spiral.

"We’re not gonna make it," he thought. "Not at this rate. They’re gonna drown us in numbers."

He grinned bitterly, sparks flickering in his eyes.

"Well... guess this is one hell of a cardio session."

The onslaught didn’t stop.

Fog warriors poured in endlessly, a tide of mist and steel that refused to break. Lucy slashed, burned, cut, and carved—but they kept coming back no matter how many he dropped.

All around him, the fog closed in, pressing tighter. The circle of silver grass was shrinking by the second. The cohort now stood mere feet from a wall of fog-bound soldiers—hundreds of them still growing.

But no one ran.

They were still standing—barely.

"Keep it up!" Lucy shouted, his voice ragged. "Don’t stop now! They’ve gotta have a weakness—something!"

He hacked through ten more in quick succession, flames trailing his blade. Their smoky bodies hissed and evaporated into the fog—but only for seconds. Then the mist churned, thickened, and rebuilt them.

They came back, as always.

Lucy’s grin twitched. "Right. Weaknesses. That’d be nice."

He ducked under a slash, twisted, and cleaved through another, only to watch the torso reform mid-air. His mind raced.

’Nothing’s working. They’re not dying. Not really.’

A thought sparked—dark and desperate.

’Maybe if I used Atomic Radiation... nuked this whole field...’

The image flashed in his head—white light, scorched earth, silence.

And his friends, vaporized.

’Nope. Can’t do that. Not unless I want Fenric’s ghost to haunt me while chewing my ears off about friendly fire.’

He gritted his teeth, sparks flaring at his fingertips.

’Then what? What the hell am I supposed to do?’

Then... he laughed.

It wasn’t sane. It wasn’t even strategic. But it was real—a wide, reckless grin tearing across his face, teeth bared like an animal.

’Screw it. This is exactly what I need.’

The terror. The pressure. The impossible odds.

This was growth.

He took a deep breath and pushed harder.

Mana circulated through his veins, faster and faster, like fire chasing oil. His body screamed in protest, but he didn’t slow down. He didn’t even think. He moved.

Faster than before. Sharper. Meaner.

Blades of flame erupted from his strikes. Fog warriors lunged—and were cut down. They tried to reform and were struck again with Double Strike, Lucy’s blade flashing like lightning through smoke.

It didn’t stop them.

But it slowed them.

Just enough.

Lucy became a blur of movement and fire, carving and dodging, laughing through gritted teeth. His breath came in bursts, his muscles burned—but his momentum didn’t break.

Neither did the enemy’s.

Minutes passed. Then more.

An hour.

And the battlefield only got worse.

What had been hundreds was now a choking sea of mist and death. Over a thousand fog warriors surrounded them—tightly packed, shoulder to shoulder, blades raised, the mist pulsing like a heartbeat.

Lucy stumbled to a halt, chest heaving, arms trembling.

They were still fighting. But progress?

Zero.

And now, they were buried in it.