Location: Murky Swamp
In the Murky Swamp, the five Mages locked their eyes on the charging monsters. The Swamp Crawlers shrieked, their heavy claws tearing through the mud.
At the same second, the five Mages ignited their Etheric Vents (Aura Tail). But they did not just fire blindly into the fog. They had already cast their Aura Threads, weaving them seamlessly through the dense, rotting trees to lock onto the fast-moving beasts.
A visible, aggressive tail of blue energy erupted from the back of every single fireball and ice block. The sudden, violent recoil kicked wet mud up around the Mages' boots. The spells shot forward like fired arrows, violently curving around the massive tree trunks to track their targets. They left thick, swirling trails of exhaust cutting through the heavy gray fog.
---
Location: Medical Ward
Margot grabbed the edge of her tin soup bowl. "Does the Aura Tail push it forever?"
The off-duty Mage shook her head. "Tails run out of fuel. That pushing explosion on the back of a fireball only lasts for about three hundred meters. Once it flies that far, the Tail completely dies."
"So the fireball stops and falls down?" Elodie guessed.
"No," the Mage explained. "The fireball is moving very fast. It wants to keep flying but crashing through the wind takes a lot of energy. Since the pushing Tail is dead, the fireball has to start eating itself. It eats its own fire just to keep moving forward. It gets smaller and smaller."
The Mage traced a long line in the air with her finger. "By the time it travels around nine hundred and ninety meters, it eats its very last drop of fire. It completely vanishes into thin air. A normal fireball can never reach a kilometer."
---
Location: Murky Swamp
The Swamp Crawlers were only fifty meters away. The Aura Tails were burning at maximum capacity.
Guided by the invisible threads, the fireballs and ice blocks slammed directly into the thick, scaly armor of the monsters. Huge explosions rocked the mud.
These Hazard-class monsters were called Venom-Scale Crawlers. They slept in the toxic sludge of the swamp and made their thick hides entirely immune to poison.
But the Mages did not use poison. They used a brutal, perfectly calculated clash of elements: Fire and ice.
The blazing heat of the fireballs struck first. The flames instantly boiled the swamp water and baked the monsters' outer scales until they were scorching hot.
A heartbeat later, the heavy blocks of solid ice smashed directly into that exact same burning armor. The sudden, freezing cold caused the tough scales to become incredibly brittle.
The armor shattered instantly like cheap, thin glass.
Monsters shrieked. The combined physical force of the exploding spells blew their heavy, broken bodies backward into the murky depths.
Mud rained down on the road. The five Mages lowered their hands.
---
Location: Medical Ward
"What about the Healers?" Margot asked, pointing a small finger at the man across the room again. "Do they build Aura Tails too?"
The Mage shook her head. "Healers are different. They do not throw rocks of fire or ice. Healing magic acts like sunlight."
"Sunlight?"
"Imagine you are standing in a dark field," the Mage said. "If you open the shutter of a lantern, the light does not need an Aura Tail to reach the trees. It does not need to be pushed. It shines in a perfectly straight line the second you open the door. Healers do not build Tails. They just point their hands, and the healing energy flashes in a straight line to whoever needs it."
---
Location: Murky Swamp
A surviving Swamp Crawler burst through the thick curtain of smoke.
It leaped over the smoking craters. Its jaws unhinged. Its claws slashed downward, raking a deep, bleeding gash across the shoulder of the nearest fire Mage.
The Mage stumbled backward and cried out in pain as black blood soaked her robes.
The two Healers standing in the backline raised their wooden staffs. They did not form floating balls and build Aura Tails. They pointed their staffs forward.
A perfectly straight, concentrated beam of warm green light flashed from the wood. It crossed the distance instantly, striking the injured Mage's shoulder.
The torn flesh knit back together in a few seconds. The bleeding stopped before the Mage even hit the mud.
A heavy Swordsman stepped up and slammed his broadsword into the surviving monster's skull, dropping it dead on the ground.
The battle ended. Twenty Hazard-class monsters lay dead in the mud.
Lumina and Celia stood completely still in the middle of the group. They had not lifted a single finger.
Kaelen stood on a dry patch of dirt near the back and rested his hands on his heavy iron shield. Thorne stood beside him, leaning on his staff. They watched the Mages let the residual smoke clear from their hands.
"Clean hits," Kaelen noted flatly. "Good elemental shock. Burning the armor before freezing it never fails."
"They stayed within the three-hundred-meter threshold," Thorne replied as he wiped a speck of mud off his gray robes. "They didn't waste fuel. It is the core law of casting. You never fire at a target past the Aura Tail's limit unless you are desperate. The damage drop-off will be too severe if the spell starts eating itself."
Kaelen grunted in agreement. The laws of Mana were strict. You could not cheat the distance or the fuel. Every veteran in the capital understood this simple math.
---
Location: Medical Ward
Back in the medical ward, the loud, heavy bell rang from the front of the public hall.
The Mage turned her head. Two men in official government uniforms were standing in the doorway while holding thick clipboards.
Behind them, a few city officials were talking loudly about a large supply ship departing from the harbor before the tide turned. They were shouting for the volunteers to line up for the transport carriages to help move the heavy crates.
The Mage sighed. She stood up and brushed the dust off her combat dress.
"My break is over," she said as she picked up the iron pot of soup. "Eat your broth before it gets cold. Remember what I told you. The rules of the furnace never change."
Elodie and Margot nodded, their eyes full of wonder. They watched the off-duty Mage walk down the long aisle. Her boots thudded against the floor.
The heavy wooden doors at the front of the hall swung open. She stepped out into the cold street, disappearing into the crowd of shouting guards.
---
Location: Murky Swamp
Thousands of kilometers to the east, the Rules of the Furnace (Rules of Mana Core) were about to be tested against a nightmare.
The road had entirely vanished, replaced by a sunken trail of thick, foul-smelling black mud.
The twenty-five Adventurers of the raid team marched through the Murkwater Swamp.
The air was bitterly cold. Dense gray fog rolled between the rotting, dead trees. The mud sucked at their boots with every step.
The silence was heavy. It was broken only by the sloshing of their boots and the ragged breathing of the Adventurers.
Kaelen raised a thick, scarred hand. Without saying a word, he closed his fist.
The line stopped. The heavy Swordsmen leaned on their shields and wiped sweat from their foreheads despite the freezing air.
"We are getting close," Kaelen muttered as he looked at the unnatural thickness of the fog ahead. He turned to his right. "Vance. Korinn."
Two Level 6 Thieves stepped out of the formation.
"Scout ahead," Kaelen ordered. "But you can't breathe that fog. Take Nia with you."
A young capital Healer stepped forward. Her face was pale. Vance crouched down in the mud.
Nia climbed onto his back and locked her arms tightly around his neck. She pointed her wooden staff down and released a sharp, concentrated pulse of warm green light.
The flash washed over the three of them, instantly flushing the accumulated swamp rot out of their lungs and off their skin.
"A normal man would melt in seconds, but your bodies can endure the raw miasma for about fifteen minutes before the toxicity actually starts to take effect," Kaelen warned as he looked at the two Thieves. "Nia, you just need to flush their systems before they hit that limit. The Mana cost is low, so keep the rhythm steady. Don't engage. Just get eyes on the target."
Vance and Korinn nodded. They dashed forward, completely disappearing into the gray mist in seconds.
Kaelen walked over to a rotting stump and sat down heavily. His armor clanked. Thorne walked up beside him and leaned on his wooden staff. Both veterans looked back down the line.
Lumina sat on a dead log while chewing a piece of dried meat with a completely blank expression. Celia stood quietly beside her while checking the straps on her medical bag.
"They are just kids, Thorne," Kaelen whispered. His voice was rough, scraping like coarse sandpaper. "I looked at their Association records. The elf is probably older than all of us here, sure, but the human girl... she shouldn't be here."
Thorne tightened his grip on his staff without looking away from the two girls.
"This is a Calamity class," Thorne said quietly. "If the shell doesn't break. If the Mana drains faster than the rotation."
He stopped. He did not need to finish the math.
Kaelen looked down at his huge, scarred hands. "I have fought for thirty years. My knees ache before it even rains. I have seen enough."
He looked up, meeting Thorne's eyes.
"If the line completely shatters," Kaelen said, his voice dropping into an unbreakable vow. "If we cannot kill it. You and I do not run. We burn our Cores until they burst. We hold the gap, and we make sure those two girls get out of this swamp alive."
Thorne did not hesitate. The old Mage just gave a single, firm nod. "We buy them the time. That is our job as veterans."
The heavy silence of the swamp dragged on. The gray fog swirled.
Ten minutes later, the sound of splashing mud echoed ahead.
Vance burst through the tree line. He sprinted so hard his lungs wheezed, coughing heavily as the miasma rapidly built up in his chest.
Nia clung to his back. Her wooden staff sparked as she cast another green pulse, instantly washing the fresh poison from his system before his legs could give out. Korinn slid to a halt in the mud right in front of Kaelen.
The Thief's face was entirely drained of blood. His hands were shaking violently as he gripped his daggers.
Kaelen stood up, his hand dropping to his broadsword. "Report."
Korinn swallowed hard, his eyes wide with pure terror. "Boss. This is bad. This is really, really bad!"