The mist pulled back slowly — not like smoke drifting with the wind, but like a wounded animal dragging its own body away.
Karna held his breath for a moment.
The ground around them vibrated unevenly, as if still echoing the impact of the creatures collapsing.
Soldiers rose with difficulty, some trembling so badly they could barely steady their shields.
Others were bleeding without noticing.
The formation… no longer existed.
He could still feel the bow vibrating in his fingers — he remembered only shadows lunging forward and his arms reacting on instinct — strikes he wasn't even sure had hit anything.
"Hold the line… whatever is left of it," he said without shouting. His voice came out steady, but far too low for what he wanted. The sound seemed swallowed by the heavy air.
The sky was darkening fast.
Too fast.
The transition to night felt as if hours had been skipped.
Karna tightened his grip on the bow.
Something was asserting itself on the field.
Something that froze sound.
Something that wasn't creature.
Something that… breathed.
He still couldn't see it, but he felt the impossible steadiness coming from a single direction — a fixed point in the midst of chaos.
An epicenter.
He swallowed hard.
Zeph gasped when the aura returned — not whole, not stable, but enough for him to feel the world again without it ripping his perception apart.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Sensitivity came back like a dull thud in his chest.
First, the echoes:
twisted metal, shattered shields, short breaths.
Then, the presences:
wounded soldiers, some nearly collapsing.
And memories of the fight itself — frantic movements trying to track creatures he could barely see.
He tried to orient himself, but everything was a blur — sounds without direction, movements without shape, attacks he only noticed when he was already reacting too late.
He felt in his muscles that he had responded to something — maybe struck the creatures, maybe nothing.
The mist had swallowed any clear memory.
But there was something else.
A pulse. Unstable.
Irregular. Far too strong.
Coming from one single place.
Zeph looked down… and saw the marks: two deep trenches dragged across the ground as if the earth had given way to something far too fast for him to track.
Farther ahead, bodies of creatures — the same monsters he hadn't even been able to follow — were torn apart like soft meat.
And then he realized something even worse:
Near that epicenter… no soldier had fallen.
He felt a twist in his stomach.
Humiliation.
Fear.
And disbelief.
Zeph swallowed the truth before it could form.
This… wasn't human.
Kaelir walked slowly, each step controlled — not out of caution, but because the air was too heavy to keep the mind clear.
The mist, once alive, now felt like ash hanging in the air.
The remnants of distortion were unmistakable:
lines of torn ground, deep fractures like tectonic rifts, trees split at irregular angles.
None of it matched creatures.
None of it matched the mist.
None of it made sense.
And his muscles still trembled — the discharge he released by reflex had cleared space around him — and, without noticing, soldiers who were about to fall were dragged out of the attack line.
Not intention.
Not clarity.
Only instinct and explosion.
Except there.
At the center of the devastation, no human had fallen.
He felt it.
A flow.
An echo.
A primitive signature, raw, uncontrolled.
And far too powerful to ignore.
Rynne moved among the bodies with her breath held.
The smell of blood.
Many kinds.
Human blood… beast blood… and something mixed, impossible to identify.
She kneeled to inspect a large black creature.
Its claws had been ripped off.
Its throat broken.
The body hurled far beyond the strength a creature of that size should have.
She had fought too — the blade reacting before she could think, cutting through shadows lunging at her.
And even so, a warrior beside her hadn't been so lucky.
She looked another way and saw three… four… five similar corpses, grouped as if they had been driven there by a brutal impact.
Her hunter's instinct didn't waver.
This wasn't a fight.
It was flight.
They were running from something.
And were killed on the way.
Rynne felt the hairs on her neck rise.
Only a greater predator could have caused this.
And that predator… was still there.
Skýra slid between the wounded soldiers, steady, silent, but the air vibrated against her skin.
Something dominated the field.
Something that pushed the mist as if it were afraid.
Something that made even her aura recoil by instinct — and she didn't back down from anything.
Her spear was still dripping; she had brought down several creatures without even understanding where they came from — just fast strikes toward whatever instinct marked as threat.
But near the epicenter…
no soldier needed saving.
Because none were dead.
Skýra drew a long breath.
The mist wasn't retreating.
It was fleeing.
Brianna was still staring at the body.
The dead human.
The gray skin.
The bulging eyes.
The internal draining.
She said nothing.
Didn't look away when the wind blew again and the mist recoiled in broken pieces.
The field was fully exposed now.
Devastated.
Cracked.
Dark.
Blood everywhere.
And the trail… that double trail carving the ground all the way to the center of the massacre…
She lifted her head.
There, where the air seemed too heavy to breathe…
There, where darkness gathered like a veil…
There, where even the mist hesitated to touch…
He was.
Éon stood unmoving.
Heavy breath, shoulders rising slowly.
The unstable aura escaped in uneven pulses that shattered the last strands of mist like thin glass.
The raw force leaking from him had no shape… only impact.
The ground around him was fused.
Deep cuts sliced the earth behind him.
Blood painted his arms, his face, his chest — but he didn't look wounded.
Night fell across his back, swallowing everything around… except him.
He was the only point of broken light.
And the only point of solid darkness.
The soldiers around him trembled.
And none of them were dead.
Brianna breathed in slowly.
Moving forward.
One silent step.
Another.
With every inch, Éon's unstable aura reacted in short waves, like something that hadn't yet decided whether to attack or recoil.
She said nothing — just approached, careful, steady, knowing any sound could be read as threat.
And then…
The air split.
The blade was at her throat without warning — precise, fast beyond what sight could follow.
One second she was two steps away from him.
In the next… the katana touched the skin beneath her jaw.
"Éon…" she called softly, not as command, not as warning, but as someone testing if he was still there.
He remained still, breathing heavy, his muscles tense past anything conscious.
His eyelids… still closed.
He seemed to act only through instinct.
And then, slowly…
very slowly…
the eyelids lifted.
First, just a thin shadow.
Then, fully — black pupils, dim, unfocused, as if still trying to understand the world around him.
Until they found hers.
The two stayed there, locked onto each other in the same second.
His pulse faltered.
The hand holding the katana trembled a millimeter — almost imperceptible, but enough to show Éon was coming back to himself.
Brianna didn't pull back.
She simply held his gaze, steady, controlled.
"Seems you realized… since you went into a trance," she said, voice low, constant. "You were identifying them by breathing, weren't you?"
For a second, Éon didn't answer.
He only let the air escape between his teeth, as if finally regaining command of his own body. The katana pulled back slowly, without abruptness, as if every movement needed thought to avoid looking like an attack.
"That was dangerous… even for you, Brianna," he murmured, voice hoarse, still unstable.
She lifted her chin slightly, keeping her eyes locked on his.
"I was trained for this," she said, simple, firm. "My breathing changed rhythm. You sensed it. That's what made you stop."
There was no pride in her voice.
No provocation.
Only the cold statement of someone who knew exactly what she was doing.
Silence fell between them.
Dense.
Contained.
Éon looked away, as if trying to purge the remnants of the trance from his body.
The hand holding the katana relaxed a bit more, his shoulders lowering by millimeters.
Brianna didn't take her eyes off him until she was sure he had fully withdrawn the blade.
Only then did she allow her lungs to release air, slowly, like someone finally stepping onto solid ground — even if solid was a generous word for what was left around them.
She lifted her head.
And saw.
Bodies scattered in twisted lines.
Holes in the ground where creatures and men had been crushed.
Deep claw marks where shields should have held.
And, above all… the emptiness among the living.
"Squires," she called, voice firm, controlled. "Regroup everyone still standing. I want an immediate count."
The few who were still on their feet reacted with a jolt, as if only now realizing command still existed.
Some trembled.
Others were smeared with blood — not all of it theirs.
Brianna stepped forward a few paces, analyzing every face, every broken formation, every space where men had once stood.
Nine hundred and fifty had departed.
She didn't need the final numbers to know the total had dropped brutally.
"Bring the priority wounded here," she pointed to an area less destroyed. "If you can walk, help someone who can't."
No one questioned.
No one dared.
Éon remained behind her, a few meters away, still breathing like someone emerging from an inner battle far greater than the external one.
Some soldiers avoided looking at him; others glanced away as if afraid to draw attention.
Brianna noticed.
She noticed everything.
But said nothing.
Instead, she watched the soldiers move with difficulty — some limping, others carrying dead comrades.
Two squires hesitated when passing a small pile of shredded bodies.
"Leave the dead." Her order cut through the air like steel. "The living first."
They obeyed immediately.
A few minutes later came the first report, the soldier's voice breaking mid-sentence:
"Commander… the numbers… have dropped to less than half."
Brianna closed her eyes for a second.
Brief.
Contained.
Opened them again.
"Continue the count." Her voice didn't waver. "I want the exact number."
The soldier nodded and ran back, almost stumbling.
Brianna inhaled deeply, slowly, letting the reality settle.
The world still looked perforated by battle — but the mist had cleared, exposing the raw and naked truth: the battlefield had been slaughtered.
And she had to decide the next step before fear spread faster than any creature.
The squires returned gradually, bringing numbers, tense expressions, and blood that wasn't theirs.
The eldest stopped before Brianna, face rigid.
"Ma'am… we've completed the count."
She didn't respond — just waited.
"Of the nine hundred and fifty who departed… four hundred and sixty-eight remain alive."
Silence.
Not of shock — but of confirmation of what everyone already felt.
Brianna kept her gaze steady.
"How many fit for combat?"
"Three hundred and ten. The rest… one hundred and fifty-eight wounded. Forty-eight in serious condition, but stable. None near death."
She nodded once.
Karna let out the breath he'd been holding.
Zeph clenched his fist.
Kaelir tilted his head, alert.
Éon… didn't react. Or reacted too much, inwardly.
Brianna lifted her chin.
"Regroup. Able fighters in the center line. Lightly wounded behind them. The seriously injured in the middle, protected. I want formations ready in five minutes."
The soldiers moved immediately — not out of fear, but because her voice left no room for hesitation.
As the field began to reorganize through groans, dragging steps, and heavy breaths.
The soldiers moved, forming fragile lines in the ruined field, but order began to emerge — slow, limping, breathing with difficulty… but emerging.
Brianna watched each step, each group recomposing, each wounded soldier being carried to the center.
She drew in a long breath.
"We still have a road ahead," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
Night had already taken everything.
And for a moment, silence returned.
Not peace.
The kind of silence left behind when something too large passed through — and left marks no one yet knew how to name.
The march would continue — with less than half, but with all painfully aware that the worst part hadn't even begun.