The mist hung heavier now — thick like wet silk clinging to their skin, making every breath feel like swallowing cold, damp cloth. The strange wolf of smoke still sat patiently, head bowed, while its translucent body shifted and wavered like a dying flame. None of them spoke for a moment. The only sound was the faint, steady thump of something unseen — like a heartbeat in the earth.
Vivy was the first to move.
She knelt beside the Wargon's battered wooden side, brushing a hand against her satchel. Her fingers trembled slightly, not from fear, but anticipation. Her eyes were sharp, focused — the kind of focus that drew a cold line down your spine if you happened to catch it.
Then she drew out the book.
The thing looked almost alive in this place.
Its cover was worn, cracked and ancient — dark leather shimmering faintly in the pale light, hints of green and gold glimmering like lost constellations under the mist-veiled sky. Symbols writhed across the cover like words refusing to settle, languages forgotten by every tongue but the fog itself.
Despite its age, the book felt… wrong. Too intact. Too solid.
Like it defied time.
Kairo watched it uneasily, his hand unconsciously tightening around the hilt of his blade. His thoughts churned.
That book again… damn thing looks like it belongs more to this swamp than any of us. What's it hiding? What's she hiding?
Liora crouched nearby, leaning on her spear, her sharp, amber eyes flicking between Vivy and the book. Her breathing was steady, but her expression was tight — like a bowstring pulled back, waiting for something to snap.
Luke remained silent, arms crossed, but his face was a storm of flickering emotions — worry, curiosity, a heavy thread of something like dread.
Vivy opened the book.
The pages whispered against each other, dry and brittle, though she turned them like a woman handling something sacred… or dangerous.
I hate this part, Vivy thought. Every time I open this damn thing, it feels like something's watching. Like the book reads me too.
Page after page — drawings of twisting vapors, half-formed things, symbols no one else could read.
The pages seemed to flicker in strange light, faint hints of green and gold threads running through the paper itself. The strange shimmering made her eyes itch and burn, but she ignored it. She always did.
Then she stopped.
Laying the book down carefully in the middle of them, she looked up.
Her voice was steady, but quiet — weighed down with the kind of truth that didn't care whether or not you wanted to hear it.
"This," she said, pointing to the page — a swirling depiction of colored vapors surrounding a great shape made only of lines, symbols, and wind, "is what we saw in the sky. It's called Fraylume."
The others leaned in.
"It happens beacause of this creature called Vel'Kyren.
Its body is… pure air element. Not flesh, not spirit — just air, in its rawest form."
A heavy silence followed. Even the mist seemed to pause.
Kairo's brow furrowed, and he almost laughed.
A creature made of air?
But something in Vivy's face stopped the scoff in his throat.
She continued, moving her finger slowly, pointing drawings of swirling clouds — one like fog, one smoke, one a roiling storm.
"They don't eat. They don't drink. They sleep. Drift. Always staying where air of their kind gathers — fog, mist, dust clouds, pure wind… or smoke."
Her gaze rose, pinning them all.
"That's why it's here. This place — the Bleakroot ดen — used to be filled with smoke. Over time, it mixed with fog and swamp air, becoming… this."
Luke's face shifted — realization breaking through the storm clouding his mind. His voice was low.
"So it stayed here. Made this place its den… but now the balance is wrong."
Vivy nodded. "Yes. Though they can absorb other air elements, it harms them. It corrupts them. Makes them impure. What we saw — that sky signal — was it purging the impure parts… all at once."
Luke ran a hand through his hair, the unease clear in his face now.
His shoulders tensed, his voice sharp.
"And what happens to… that impure part? What does it become?"
Vivy's eyes darkened.
"Monsters. Like those we just fought. Smoke that moves like wolves. Shadows given form. Broken things — pieces of a Vel'Kyren that it doesn't want anymore."
Vivy's gaze lingered on the swirling image in the book. The mist around them seemed to thicken again, curling like fingers, listening.
She spoke softly — but there was weight behind her words.
"Even though those are pieces it doesn't want anymore… it can still control them."
A chill passed between them. The words hung in the air like ice crystals refusing to fall.For a moment, no one said anything — they all knew where this was leading.
Liora was the first to break the silence, her voice dry and grim.
"It needs help, doesn't it?"
The others exchanged glances, their faces shadowed by the pale light bleeding through the mist.
Luke grunted, arms still crossed but his jaw tense.
"Well… only if it really needs help, that is."
Kairo exhaled slowly, one hand brushing the hilt of his blade like it was a habit now.
"We don't really have a choice, do we? Either way — we've gotta move past it. Meet it… deal with it. Might as well play nice while we can.What do you think, everyone?"
Before anyone could answer, a voice slithered into Kairo's mind — half amusement, half disgust. The Flower.
Ahhh yes… dangerous. Right where you like to get yourself, isn't it?
Kairo clenched his teeth, not speaking aloud.
I don't need your opinion right now, he snapped back in his mind.
But he felt the Flower's smirk, cold and thorny, before it fell silent again.
One by one, the others nodded.
Vivy's face was unreadable — her eyes distant like she was already seeing the path ahead.
Liora gave a low, almost bitter chuckle, adjusting the strap on her spear.
"Guess we're going, then."
Luke sighed, rolling his shoulders like a man preparing for a cold dive.
"We've come this far. Not turning back now."
They checked their bodies, testing bruises, cuts, and the weight of exhaustion in their limbs.
The Wargon — cracked and battered — still hummed faintly, though it wouldn't go much further on this ground.The strange beast of smoke sat where it had been, patient as a stone, waiting.
Vivy ran a hand along the Wargon's hull.
"We leave it here. On foot from now."
Luke raised a brow.
"You sure? We could rig it to roll for a bit longer."
Kairo shook his head.
"It'll slow us down. The ground's too soft… look."
He pointed down. The muck was almost swallowing the wheels whole. They all knew he was right.
Liora smirked.
"Well… more mud for the boots. How charming."
Luke sighed again, resting a hand on the smoky wolf's head. The creature didn't flinch. Its eyes — or where eyes should be — glimmered faintly, like twin coals in a dying fire.
Luke knelt slightly, speaking low and clear.
"We're ready now. Show us the way, please."
The wolf rose in one smooth, silent motion — vapor drifting from its form like shed skin. It nodded twice, the gesture unnervingly human, before turning and gliding ahead, deeper into the mist.
They exchanged one last look.
Vivy's voice was barely a whisper.
"Stay close. And whatever happens… don't stray."
And they followed.Step after step into the thickening fog, drawn toward the heart of the Bleakroot Fen, and whatever waited for them where the air grew thickest.
Toward Vel'Kyren.
They walked in silence.
The mist pressed against their faces, thick and cold, wrapping around them like damp shrouds. Every step made the soft, wet earth sigh beneath their boots. The air was changing — they could feel it in their lungs, heavy and warm now, less like mist, more like smoke. A dense, cloying presence that clung to the throat.
Little by little, the fog around them began to thin.
But what replaced it wasn't clarity.
It was smoke.
Gray, silver, black — endless, moving like slow rivers in the air.
It had weight. It had warmth.
It moved with intent.
Luke noticed it first. His brow furrowed, hand tightening on the hilt of his blade, instinct prickling sharp beneath his skin.
The mist's gone… but this—this feels worse.
Then the wolf stopped.
Mid-stride, it halted.
Silent. Still.
Head raised like it was listening to something far away.
Kairo's voice was low.
"What's it—?"
But before he finished, the wolf's form scattered.
Like a dandelion caught in a sudden gust — smoke blew through them, splitting around their bodies, passing through skin and cloth and bone, leaving a strange numbness in its wake.
Vivy flinched — her stomach twisting.
Gone. Just like that…
She looked up.
That's when it appeared.
Something vast moved in the sky above — a shape breaking through the ceiling of smoke.
A wing.
Then another.
Huge, ancient, cloudlike but terrifyingly solid.
It was shaped like a bird — or something bird-like, except impossibly massive.
A predator made of storm and ash.
Its feathers drifted and coiled like stormclouds.
And its eyes — two hollow, luminous orbs — blazed down on them like twin moons.
A single beat of its wings sent waves of smoke rolling outward.
Then it landed, folding those endless wings down around them, creating a dome of living vapor.
For a moment, no one moved.
No one spoke.
They could hear it — the sound of its breathing, a soft, steady rush, like distant waves crashing again and again against a shore made of nothing but sky.
Then its mouth opened.
It wasn't sharp, or monstrous — just vast. A glowing hollow, lit from within by flickering, pale green and gold light.
A passage.
An invitation.
Or a trap.
They hesitated.
Liora's fingers tightened on her spear.
"Is it… is this what we're meant to—?"
Luke shook his head, voice rough.
"We don't have a reason to stop now."
Kairo exhaled through his nose, tension bristling down his arms.
"Could be worse. Could be teeth."
Vivy glanced around, heart pounding against her ribs.
Everything about this screamed danger.
And yet…
It doesn't feel hostile.
Not yet.
She stepped forward.
"We go."
Slowly, one by one, they moved.
Luke first, then Liora, then Vivy.
Kairo lingered for a second, feeling that flicker of cold laughter inside his head — the Flower, watching.
Ahhh yes. Straight into the mouth of the storm, little moths…
Shut up. Kairo thought bitterly.
He followed.
Inside the mouth… it felt like stepping into another sky.
The world turned soft, unbound.
The smoke surrounded them like drifting cloudbanks, no ground, no walls, no ceiling — just endless vapor lit by soft glimmers of green-gold light.
Their footsteps made no sound.
It was warm here.
Too warm.
Like the air inside lungs that hadn't exhaled in centuries.
Slowly, the clouds shifted. The vast, shifting sky around them thickened — condensed.
Became walls.
Became a chamber.
A vast, towering hall that defied sense, its edges constantly warping, impossible to measure.
Columns of smoke rose endlessly into blackness.
And ahead — a dais.
Chairs.
Five of them.
Simple, unmarked.
Smoke-made, yet almost solid in their shape.
Waiting.
And then, without warning — a shape.
A figure coalescing at the far end.
Slowly, tendrils of vapor pulling together, layer by layer, forming a body.
Humanoid.
Tall.
Graceful.
Shifting and rippling like wind seen through silk.
A figure made entirely of smoke, seated now in the central chair.
No face — just smooth mist, with hollow glowing points where eyes should be.
It spoke.
A voice like a thousand winds layered atop one another — soft, calm, immense.
"Please… take a seat.
I have no intent to harm you."