The marsh darkened.
Bioluminescent spores flickered weakly in the fog, dimmer than before, like stars drowning behind cloud cover. Each step dragged—mud clinging to boots with a wet resistance that refused to let go. The air tasted metallic, sharp enough to make Alex clench his teeth.
Sera moved at the front, staff rimed with frost. Milo followed just behind her, bow humming softly as Path traced invisible corridors through the mist.
Something was wrong.
The shadows didn't drift randomly anymore. They converged. Pulled back. Repeated patterns no terrain should sustain.
Then the fog split.
Three shapes emerged.
Two stag-chimeras—tall, translucent, veins glowing dull red beneath hollow flesh. Their hooves never touched the ground. The third was lower, broader: a frog-thing fused with jagged insect limbs, eyes molten and unblinking.
Threat signatures flared at the edge of Alex's perception.
2–1–2
1–0–1
1–2–1
Multiple void presences.
They struck together.
One stag lunged for the flank, claws tearing through fog with impossible speed. The second phased mid-motion, its limbs slipping in and out of solidity. The frog chimera expelled a fine mist that burned on contact, each droplet carrying weak corruption.
Milo fired.
Path bent the air, lightning arcing across altered trajectories—but the lead stag phased late, avoiding the worst of it. The second arrow struck the frog, dispersing the mist, but it didn't stop.
Sera froze the ground in sharp bursts, walls of ice rising just long enough to matter—then not long enough to hold. The chimeras adjusted, stepping around frozen terrain, slipping through openings in the formation.
Alex lunged.
The stag phased.
Chaos whispered. Adjust.
Tempus flared.
The world slowed just enough for Alex to clip the creature's flank. Lux anchored him as the second stag struck back, the impact staggering his footing.
Someone behind him fell.
Bodies collided. Mud surged. The line broke.
The frog leapt toward Milo.
Milo pivoted once and loosed.
Sun Devouring Spark consumed the creature from the inside out. For a fraction of a second, a scorched outline hung in the fog—then nothing.
The stags closed in.
They weren't attacking blindly. They were peeling the group apart.
"Focus!" Alex shouted.
He moved before he thought.
Tempus again—just enough.
Orionis Sagitta curved along the edge of a phase transition, slicing through the nearest stag's side. It staggered but stayed upright.
Sera froze its footing. The second stag recoiled, phasing backward as Tenebris flared faintly around Alex, shadows bending his outline as he disengaged.
The fight ended unevenly.
When the last chimera fell, the marsh looked worked over—mud churned, ice cracking, scorched residue sinking back into the wet earth. Several students dropped to their knees. No one spoke.
Alex's spear shook in his grip.
"That was closer than it should've been," Milo said quietly.
Sera scanned the fog. "They weren't hunting. They were probing."
Alex didn't answer.
The marsh had learned something.
— — —