The mist trembled.
Sam opened his eyes, his breath stilling. The ambient mana that had once flowed so generously was now coiling in on itself—retreating and swirling around them.
Then, they arrived.
Dark shapes moved within the fog. Elongated limbs, bodies warped by unchecked mana saturation, muscles spasming. Veins pulsed with sickly green light beneath pale, stretched skin.
"Form up."
Victor disappeared. One moment, he stood in loose formation—the next, he slipped into the haze like smoke vanishing into the wind.
Lily darted left, light on her feet, eyes scanning. Using her bow would be too risky under these circumstances—she would have to fight with her fists.
AJ expanded his mass, reforming into a broader defensive shape. Ethan gripped a new, smaller axe in one hand and his shield in the other.
AJ's abundant mana allowed him to freely practise creating weapons. He thought that shrinking Ethan's axe would help, it allowed him to dual wield the axe and shield.
He had also given the others a basic knife each and, even though it couldn't be used now, Lily wouldn't ever be lacking in the arrow department.
The creatures lunged from the mist.
Ethan was the first to intercept. He weaved to the side, caught the nearest beast with an elbow to the jaw, and drove his shield into its chest. It stumbled, stunned—but not dead.
From the mist behind it, Victor struck.
His blade slid silently through the beast's throat—without warning or hesitation. He was already gone before the corpse had time to collapse.
More came.
Three rushed Lily at once, she pivoted low, dodging one, then drove her palm into the second creature's sternum.
She had gathered mana instinctively, reflexively channelling it through her hand just before impact.
It transferred into the beast—and erupted.
A small burst of force from inside its body blew open its back. The creature spasmed violently, before collapsing.
Lily froze for a heartbeat, staring at her hand. "What...?"
The other two creatures didn't wait for her confusion. She rolled backward, narrowly dodging a claw swipe, then leapt back to her feet, shaking off the shock.
"Didn't mean to do that," she muttered to herself.
Walter moved with quiet certainty. He didn't rush. He didn't overcommit.
When a creature lunged at him, he shifted just enough to avoid the strike and struck its legs with one clean motion, then brought the tip of his cane down onto the creature's temple.
It didn't rise again.
He stepped back, calm, breath even. Not faster than the enemy—but always one step ahead.
Ethan welcomed the chaos.
He charged straight into a group of three, his axe cleaving through the first creature's arm in a spray of green-tinged ichor. He roared, swung again, caught a second one in the torso, and drove it into the ground.
But the third caught him off guard. It latched onto his shoulder with long claws, pulling him backward. He twisted hard, breaking its grip, and headbutted the thing in the face before slamming it down with his shield.
"Too slow!" he growled.
However his movements were starting to lose their rhythm. Power was there—but not control. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to breathe—he needed to keep his cool.
AJ watched carefully. Then he moved.
He launched himself forward. Part way through his charge his body began to shift in a way it never had before. AJ hadn't planned it. Hadn't meant to do anything. But a thought had struck him—make it harder—and his body responded. Ravager scale crept across his body like watching water freeze.
It was strange. Disorienting. Not painful, but intense. Like flexing every muscle at once. The transformation wasn't graceful.
But it worked, he smashed through one like a boulder, sending the other flying in a heap of tangled limbs.
He felt movement overhead and reacted.
A tendril launched upward, mid-strike AJ focused—he used more of his mass, turning the tendril into a spike. He wanted to replicate the same feeling from earlier, sharpen and harden the tip.
He concentrated on the sensation. Ravager scale began to form on the end of the spike, the feeling was similar to being turned to stone, or frozen but without the cold.
The spike solidified with a click as the scales locked into place.
It struck the beast mid-leap and punched through effortlessly.
All around them, the mist pulsed with rhythm, like it was syncing with the battle.
Sam moved through the haze, his strikes precise, decisive. He shouted instructions when needed, filled gaps when someone faltered.
Not the strongest. Not the fastest. But kept the storm from collapsing in on itself.
Lily's eyes flickered. "I think I can do that again," she said.
No one really understood what she was talking about and they didn't have the time to ask.
More enemies poured in—drawn by the noise, the scent of blood, and the swirling mana.
The team tightened formation.
This time, they didn't just react.
They countered.
Victor struck from the shadows, blade always waiting. Lily struck out, every palm strike now leaving some unnatural ripple in its wake, though she couldn't replicate the earlier destruction.
Ethan fought with growing control, adapting his tempo, learning to hold back just enough to not lose momentum. Walter flowed from foe to foe, always moving, always striking at the moment of imbalance.
AJ served as a barrier. A wall. He held back multiple creatures—they clawed at his reinforced body to no success. AJ allowed the others to take down the creatures at their own pace. When they dealt with the current ones he allowed a few more to get past.
When the mist finally stopped surging and the last beast collapsed, it was not with a scream—but with silence.
The clearing was littered with warped bodies that were slowly dissolving into mana and disappearing into the mist.
No one moved.
Then Ethan let out a long breath.
Sam lowered his hands. "Good work everyone."
Lily stared at her palm again. "That strike. It tore them apart from inside."
Victor emerged from the mist behind her. "Interesting, how'd you do it?"
"I don't really know. I concentrated mana into my hand like usual but that time the mana continued flowing, going into the creature. I couldn't do it again though." Lily said as she shook her head.
AJ's voice was calm. "The mana in this place lets you do more. But it also punishes you for losing control. It likely caused their already unstable situation to spiral violently out of control."
Sam knelt near one of the corpses and pulled back its skin with his knife. "These things weren't able to adapt to this place—they couldn't handle the large amounts of mana."
"Think they wandered in and got lost?" Walter asked.
"Seems like it," Sam replied. "They adapted just enough to hold on for a while."
Victor crouched beside another body, inspecting the claws. "Nothing worth taking. Too brittle."
AJ hovered over the ribcage of another fallen beast. "The internal structure is breaking down. Holding onto anything from them risks contamination."
"Mana poisoning," Lily whispered.
"Mana poisoning, huh? I like the way it sounds." Ethan nodded approvingly.
Sam shook his head, a small smile crossing his lips. "Of course you would..."
They each settled back into their spots, slowly calming down after the battle. Their focus shifted back to their cultivation.
Sam closed his eyes.
During the fight, something inside him had shifted. His mana had flowed more sharply, tracing paths he hadn't consciously recognised before.
He took a moment to think about it. Why did it feel so natural—so instinctive—to guide his energy through those invisible routes?
A few more days passed as the group cultivated, steadily accumulating mana. Sam spent some time contemplating the strange sensation he had discovered, before deciding to explore it further.
He gathered the mana in his chest once again, then sent it flowing outward through his body. Following his instincts, feeling out the natural pathways—channels where the energy moved faster, cleaner.
Across from him, Ethan shifted in place, exhaling through his nose. "Weird."
Walter glanced over. "Something wrong?"
"Not exactly," Ethan said, frowning. "I just feel... full. Like I'm trying to drink but can't bring myself to swallow."
Lily opened her eyes too. "Same. The flow's slowing down."
Victor, seated slightly apart, spoke without opening his eyes. "Mine's stopped completely."
They looked to Sam.
He had also slowed his absorption of mana but he was clearly too focused on something to notice.
"I wonder if we've reached our max capacity. Maybe our bodies can't hold any more mana?" Ethan suggested.
The others sank into thought. Why couldn't they absorb more mana? Had they really reached their maximum capacity? Or was it something else?
Victor spoke his thought aloud. "It could also be because we absorbed a lot in a short amount of time."
Walter hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe... what if we've reached a threshold?"
Lily tilted her head. "What do you mean?"
Walter gestured vaguely. "What if we've reached the upper limit of what our bodies can contain... but only momentarily, just for this stage."
"Like a bucket at capacity?" Ethan said. "You can't carry more water unless you get a bigger bucket?"
Walter nodded. "Exactly. We may have reached the boundary of our current cultivation realm."
A moment of silence passed as they all considered it.
Before they could think too deeply the mist moved.
Again.
They heard sounds of scraping again. There were more creatures. The next wave was approaching.
Shapes appeared in the mist. Larger this time.
These creatures weren't bloated or misshapen. They moved with a strange, unnatural grace, limbs incorrectly proportioned, muscles coiled with readiness.
Their skin was pale but intact, faint lines of mana tracing beneath the surface like veins of cyan crystal.
"They're not like the others," Lily said, narrowing her eyes.
Ethan rolled his shoulders, stepping into position beside her. "They're standing straighter. No weird growths."
Walter frowned. "Seems they're better adapted. Whatever's happening here—these ones survived the process, or at least didn't degenerate as much."
Sam's eyes opened, locking onto the closest of the creatures. It moved with unsettling purpose. The lines of mana under its skin pulsed wildly like before yet it somehow seemed less out of control.
"They're stronger," He said simply.
AJ's voice echoed. "Their structure is holding the mana. It's far from perfect—but these ones probably won't fall apart on their own like the last wave."
That single comment changed their approach.
The previous wave had been twisted beasts driven by raw instinct, mutated and unstable. These new ones were something else entirely, beasts honed by the environment instead of consumed by it. Almost like they were refined by the mana-dense atmosphere.
Ethan lowered his stance. Lily shifted her footing. Victor vanished again into the haze. Walter took a slow breath, calming his pulse.
Sam stopped drawing mana to the sphere in his chest, instead attempting to have it remain stable without him having to focus on it during the fight.
The creatures watched. Seemingly evaluating them.
Then, without a sound, they attacked.
Not in a mindless charge. This wasn't the creatures' first rodeo—they moved together, attempting to single someone out.
Noticing this AJ called out to the others. "They aren't mindless beasts, they're shaping us up."