The Mist Belt didn't look like part of the world. It looked like a tear in the canvas.
One moment, the sky was a familiar, endless blue. The next, The Rusty Bucket passed through an invisible barrier, and the world turned bone-white.
The clouds here weren't fluffy or drifting. They were thick, clinging fog that swallowed sound. The wind died down to an eerie stillness. Even the roar of the mana-propellers seemed muffled, as if the ship was swimming through cotton.
Zain stood on the deck, gripping the railing. The cold here was different—it was wet and sticky.
"The veil is thin here," Nox whispered, his voice vibrating in Zain's inner ear. "I can taste the residue of old wars. Thousands of souls died in this fog."
"Comforting," Zain muttered.
"Zip it, Garbage Eater," Boz grunted. The giant man was sharpening a massive battle-axe that looked heavy enough to cleave a boulder. He wasn't smiling anymore. "Sound carries in the Mist. You talk, you ring the dinner bell."
Zain looked around. The entire crew was on edge. Even Torque, the manic engineer, was silent, watching the pressure gauges with paranoid intensity.
"Contact!" Captain Silas's voice cut through the silence like a whip crack. He was standing on the bridge balcony, his red mechanical eye glowing brightly in the fog. "Bearing 0-4-0. Elevation minus two hundred."
Zain squinted into the white void.
At first, he saw nothing. Then, a shadow materialized.
It was massive.
A derelict ship drifted silently in the mist. It was at least three times the size of The Rusty Bucket. Its hull was painted a dull, military grey, though large patches had been stripped away by wind and rot. The sails were tattered ribbons, and the main mast was snapped in half like a twig.
"A Storm-Class Frigate," Vera whispered, stepping up beside Zain. She was buckling on a leather harness filled with knives. "Military grade. That thing went down during the Rebellion War twenty years ago."
"Is it... valuable?" Zain asked.
"The hull? Scrap," Vera said. "But military ships carry Refined Mana Cores. One of those is worth more than this entire bucket of bolts."
"Grapples!" Silas roared.
Three harpoon cannons on the deck swivelled. Thoom! Thoom! Thoom!
Iron spears trailing thick chains shot across the gap. They punched into the rotting hull of the ghost ship with a sickening crunch. The chains pulled tight, locking the two vessels together in a deadly embrace.
"Salvage Team!" Silas commanded. "Boz, Vera, Jinx. And... you."
The Captain pointed a gloved finger directly at Zain.
Zain froze. "Me?"
"The scanners show a leakage in the lower hold," Silas shouted. "Corrosive Mana gas. If Boz breathes it, his lungs melt. If you breathe it... well, you eat poison, right?"
Zain cursed silently. His lie was working too well.
"Suit up, rat," Vera slapped a heavy gas mask into his chest. "You're going point-man. You clear the gas, we grab the loot."
Crossing the chains between two floating ships was terrifying enough on a calm day. In the Mist, with the Abyss waiting below, it was a nightmare.
Zain clipped his safety carabiner to the chain and shimmied across. The metal was slick with condensation. Below him, the white fog swirled endlessly. If he fell here, no one would even hear him hit the bottom.
He landed on the deck of the Frigate with a hollow thud.
The ship was tilted at a fifteen-degree angle, making the floor slippery. It smelled of stagnant water and mold.
"Light up," Boz ordered.
The team clicked on their mana-lamps. Beams of yellow light cut through the gloom.
"Jinx, watch the rear," Boz commanded a scrawny sailor holding a crossbow. "Vera, navigate. Garbage Eater, stay in the middle. If you see green mist, you walk in front."
They moved into the belly of the ship.
The interior was a tomb. They passed skeletons still wearing tattered blue uniforms, slumped against the walls. Some gripped rusted swords; others held photos of families that had long since died of old age.
"So much wasted essence," Nox sighed. "Dried up. Useless."
They reached a heavy blast door marked with a red skull symbol: HAZARDOUS CARGO.
"This is it," Vera said, checking a handheld scanner. "Readings are off the charts inside. It's a leak."
She looked at Zain. "You're up."
Zain stepped forward. He put his hand on the wheel of the door.
"Wait," Zain paused. "I hear something."
"Don't start hallucinating, kid," Boz growled. "Open the door."
"No," Zain insisted. He tapped his ear. "Inside. Scratching."
"Not scratching," Nox corrected, his tone shifting from bored to predatory. "Slithering."
Zain stepped back from the door. "There's something alive in there."
Boz laughed nervously. "It's been drifting for twenty years. Nothing is alive in there except rats."
"Big rats," Zain muttered.
"Open it!" Boz ordered, raising his axe. "If something jumps out, I'll split it."
Zain took a deep breath. He spun the wheel. It screeched, rust grinding against rust. The mechanism clicked.
He pushed the door open.
A thick cloud of neon-green gas billowed out instantly.
"Back!" Vera yelled, pulling her mask tight.
Zain didn't retreat. He stepped into the gas.
To anyone else, this mist would burn their eyes and blister their skin. But Zain's seal flared to life beneath his sleeve. He felt a tingling sensation, like standing in a warm shower. The gas swirled around him, drawn into his pores, fueling him.
He walked through the green fog, waving his hand to clear the view for the others.
The cargo hold was vast. Rows of crates were strapped to the floor. But in the center of the room, the crates had been smashed apart. They formed a nest.
And in the nest, something moved.
It wasn't a rat.
It was a Corpse-Eater Beetle.
It was the size of a carriage. Its shell was iridescent black, shimmering in the lantern light. Its mandibles were dripping with the same green fluid that filled the air—acid.
It had been nesting here, feeding on the leaking mana cores for years.
The creature hissed, a sound like tearing metal. It turned its multi-faceted eyes toward the intrusion.
"By the Sky..." Jinx whispered from the back. "That's an Alpha."
Boz stepped forward, his axe raised, but his face was pale. "That shell is harder than steel. My axe might bounce off."
The beetle shrieked and charged.
It didn't charge at Boz. It didn't charge at Vera.
It charged at the strongest source of energy in the room.
It charged at Zain.
"Excellent," Nox roared in Zain's mind, the sheer volume of the voice making Zain stumble. "Main course!"
Zain stood alone in the green mist, the monster thundering toward him. He had no weapon. He had no armor.
He only had a hunger that matched the beast's.