Chapter 59: Great Fog
Not willing to give up and just accept that fact, Morden kept scanning his surroundings again and again. His eyes didn’t land useless except for some small stones, twigs, and the vegetation.
"We need to take care of this guy; it seems like they are trying to leave here too."
"They must be running from something."
Slightly distracted by Lisa’s statement, Morden didn’t notice the multiple Vital Energy beams heading straight for him. Since he hadn’t attacked since the battle had started, the beasts must have thought Morden was the weak link that could be taken care of quickly.
"Now that is something I can do something about," he muttered.
The beams of Vital Energy were moving at speeds that made it almost impossible for Morden to dodge normally without using his ability.
[Speed +20(temp)]
With his newfound speed, he managed to move off the attack path by a hair’s breadth, leaving him without holes all over his body.
"I pity those stones," Morden laughed, some stones ended up being hit by those beams, and they were all almost completely melted.
’Wait, Stones! Lisa is throwing needles why can’t I just bombard them with stones, combined with boost, it will be like hitting them with a shotgun.’
A devilish smile formed on his face.
With that smile on his face, Morden began enacting his plan. Using his other teammates as cover, he began running all around that battlefield, picking up the right-sized stones.
He made sure there was a high level of uniformity among the Stones; he did just that until he managed to get enough for one shout.
"This should be fun,"
He repositioned himself in such a way that he wouldn’t be interfering with his friends’ attacks while also not having any tree or anything affect his own.
After concluding that he was in a position that felt perfect for him, he did what he had in mind.
[Strength +20(temp)]
He put one leg before the other, arched his back further, and stretched one hand backward, and like releasing a catapult, he sent the same hand forward with all his power.
BANG!
A loud banging sound resounded from that attack, attracting the attention of both the beast and his friends.
The rocks moved at speeds almost comparable to a sniper bullet as they tore through the air and headed for the group.
For the first time since the fight had started, Morden noticed the group of Dark Magpies attempt to scatter and dodge, but sadly the attack was just too fast.
The rocks hit with a rough precision, but the sheer number was enough to cover for the lack of accuracy. In the end, with that single attack alone, Morden was able to kill about a half of all their remaining enemies.
’Another Round,’ He thought with a strange excitement.
But he was soon disappointed when he noticed a different behavior from the beast they had been fighting, instead of showing anger at the death of most of their companions at this point.
They all turned around in tandem and immediately scattered in all directions, completely forgetting their group formation.
Darlus, who had been excitedly throwing Needle thin icicles at the beasts, and Morden, who was just about to excitedly throw a large number of rocks at them again, both turned to Lisa with a face of disappointment.
The disappointment didn’t last for long, though, as the two of them felt the infusion of multiple tiny streams of Vital Energy into them, growing their tree further.
After taking a short moment to assimilate the power increase they had just obtained, the two boys turned to look at Lisa, expecting her to give answers to the anomaly.
"Don’t look at me; I don’t understand what just happened."
"I know they appeared to have been running from something, but they never appeared so frantic."
"There’s only one thing in the forest of chaos I know that
everything and everyone runs so far away from,"
"What’s that?" Darlus asked.
"The unexplained anomaly of the Forest... the Great Fog,"
"Don’t go explaining anything about it; I don’t want to hear it at all," Morden suddenly shouted.
"Uhhhhh? why?" the other two said in unison.
"If you explain it now, you have jinxed it, and then we would actually encounter the fog."
"Jinx? What the hell does that mean?" Darlus asked loudly.
"Forget about the word; just don’t speak about the great fog, and we will be fine."
The two of them looked slightly confused, but they still listened and didn’t attempt to speak on the topic.
"Forget jinxing it though. If it’s really the great fog, then we can’t stay here; we need to run as soon as possible," Lisa said with urgency in her voice.
"Then what else are we waiting for? Let’s get running."
The trio were just about to start their run of escape from what they weren’t even sure was coming; Morden suddenly remembered something and immediately stopped to raise the point to the others.
"Wait, in what direction are we running exactly?"
"Those things were coming from in front of us, which means if the fog is coming, it would be from there too, the people after us are also coming from behind us, and it’s illogical to run to The left or the right."
Hearing Morden had just said Darlus also fell into the same dilemma.
"What the hell are you talking about? can’t we run in a diagonal direction between the two?" Lisa said while shaking her head.
"Stupid weird boys," she said with a smug smile.
But that smug smile was soon wiped away as they all noticed a thick fog creeping all around them.
It started slow very soon; it was already so thick that visibility was already greatly affected even for the three of them standing in close proximity.
Panic started setting in, especially for Lisa, who had an actual idea what the fog was capable of, but soon she also looked just as confused.
[Ding!]
[First Event Checkpoint Reached: Great Fog]