Chapter 249: Seraphine’s Revenge
The dissolving corpse left nothing behind – no mana core, no skill stones, not even bones or flesh that could be harvested. The white substance evaporated into the mist as if it had never existed at all.
Leon stared at the empty ground where the creature had fallen, disappointment settling heavily in his chest. He’d been excited about the prospect of hunting in the Forbidden Mist specifically for the rewards. Mana cores were essential for leveling up, skill stones could grant new abilities – these were the treasures that made dangerous hunts worthwhile. But if the creatures here left nothing behind...
"Nothing," he said flatly, his voice carrying apparent frustration. "Absolutely nothing."
Seraphine knelt where the creature had dissolved, running her hand over the spongy forest floor as if hoping to find something Leon’s eyes had missed. This was her first time actually seeing one of these creatures die properly – her previous encounter had ended in desperate flight, not victory. The disappointment on her face matched his own.
"I’d hoped..." she began, then shook her head. "I thought maybe they’d have something unique, something that only existed in the mist. But they just... disappear."
The mood between them soured noticeably. They’d risked entering one of the most dangerous places in their world, and for what? Creatures that offered no reward beyond survival?
But Leon wasn’t one to give up easily. This was just the beginning – perhaps different creatures would yield different results. Or maybe there was something they were missing, some trick to harvesting from these mist-born entities.
"We continue," he decided, then raised his hand above them. Mana gathered at his palm, igniting into a ball of fire that hovered overhead like a miniature sun. The mist immediately attacked it, trying to smother the flames, but Leon fed it a steady stream of power that kept it burning bright.
The effect was immediate and dramatic. Their visibility expanded from that claustrophobic one-meter bubble to nearly five meters. It wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but compared to near-blindness, it felt like freedom.
Seraphine looked up at the floating fireball with a mixture of admiration and envy. She knew this technique – it wasn’t particularly complex. While she may not have a fire affinity, she could create something similar with her lighting. However, for someone with her limited mana reserves, maintaining such a construct while traveling would be suicide.
She’d burn through her entire reserve in minutes and be left helpless when the next attack came.
Leon, however, barely noticed the drain. He carefully modulated the mana output, using just enough to maintain the flame. At the same time, his natural recovery pulled energy from the atmosphere. The mist’s environment actually helped – the mana concentration here was noticeably higher than in the Lower Domain, accelerating his recovery rate. It still couldn’t match the density in his dimensional space, but it was sufficient to maintain the fireball indefinitely.
They pressed forward through the twisted forest, and the attacks came with depressing regularity.
Another white creature burst from the mist. Leon’s lightning-wrapped blade bisected it before it could even complete its lunge. It unraveled into vapor before the blade’s sparks had even faded.
Pathetic. Even level 1 monsters outside left bones behind—this was like fighting shadows with no reward.
Two more attackers attacked simultaneously from different angles. Leon’s sword moved in a figure-eight pattern, charged with Lightning Aura, reducing both to fragments that melted into haze, leaving only empty air.
Three creatures tried to ambush them from above, dropping from the twisted branches of the trees. Leon didn’t even move his feet – just three precise upward strikes, each one fatal. Their broken forms bled into the fog until not even outlines remained.
Only faint hiss lingered in the air, like steam escaping from a dying forge, leaving behind only the sharp tang of ozone.
With each empty victory, Leon’s strikes became more vicious. His frustration manifested in increasingly brutal dismemberment. Where before he had killed with clean, efficient cuts, now he was chopping the creatures apart like vegetables, his blade moving in angry arcs that left them in pieces before they could even attempt regeneration.
Each swing sent wet slaps of dissolving flesh spattering across the spongy ground, releasing a faint acrid stench that clung to the mist.
"Worthless," he muttered after dispatching the seventh creature, watching it dissolve into nothing. "What’s the point of monsters that give no rewards?"
The only thing that kept him going was the fact that this was the path that would lead him to a greater world, or else he wouldn’t have wasted a single second in this worthwhile hunting ground with no reward.
He was in the middle of eviscerating the eighth creature – this one hadn’t even managed to attack before he’d reduced it to ribbons – when movement in his spatial awareness made him pause.
Another creature was approaching, but this one moved in a different way. Cautiously, almost hesitantly, rather than with the aggressive charge of its predecessors.
When it emerged into their expanded visibility, Leon immediately noticed the difference. While all the previous creatures had been identical – perfect copies down to the placement of their many eyes – this one bore a distinctive scar across its chest. The mark was old, healed but still visible, creating a twisted line through its white flesh.
"Seraphine," Leon said quietly, not taking his eyes off the creature. "Look at this one. There’s a scar on its chest."
The change in Seraphine was instant and dramatic.
Her entire body went rigid, muscles coiling with sudden tension. Her purple eyes, usually controlled and professional, blazed with a fury Leon had never seen before. Her hand gripped her sword hilt so tightly her knuckles went white, and when she spoke, her voice was barely controlled rage.
"That’s the one," she hissed through clenched teeth. "That’s the bastard that nearly killed me."
Leon understood immediately. This was the creature that had driven her from the mist before, that had turned her from hunter to hunted, that had forced the proud warrior to flee in desperate terror. The scar must have been from their previous encounter – a wound she’d managed to inflict before her escape.
The creature seemed to recognize her, too.
The creature froze mid-step, its claws flexing in a slow, deliberate rhythm. Dozens of eyes blinked unevenly, then fixed on Seraphine with a predator’s shiver of recognition—as if savoring the memory of her fear.
Those dozens of eyes focused entirely on her, with an intensity that suggested memory, perhaps even anticipation. It had survived their last encounter just as she had, and now fate had brought them together again.
Its claws scraped slowly against the bark of a twisted tree, the screech echoing like a taunt, as though it remembered the taste of her terror.
"Is that the one from before?" Leon asked, though the answer was obvious.
"Yes," Seraphine confirmed, her voice tight with controlled emotion. "That scar – I gave it that scar with my last desperate strike before I ran. I thought I was going to die, but I wanted to at least mark it, to leave some proof that I’d fought back."
Leon watched the creature for a moment, noting how it held back, seemingly aware that the situation had changed. It recognized Seraphine, but it also recognized that she was no longer alone, no longer the desperate, half-blind warrior stumbling through the mist.
"Then it’s yours," Leon said, stepping slightly to the side. "End it yourself. I’ll make sure nothing interferes."
Seraphine looked at him, surprise flickering through her anger. "You’re sure?"
"Completely. This is your fight, your demon to conquer. I’ll keep watch, but the kill is yours."
As if understanding their conversation, two more creatures emerged from the mist, flanking the scarred one. They moved to attack, but Leon was already there, his blade flickering twice. Both creatures fell apart midair, their remains thinning into wisps before the ground could claim them. His message was clear – the scarred one was Seraphine’s, but any others would face him.
Seraphine stepped forward, her sword sliding from its sheath with a singing note. The rage was still there, burning in her amethyst eyes, but it was now controlled, focused into a deadly purpose.
"Last time, you hunted me through this mist for hours," she said to the creature, her voice steady despite the emotion behind it. "I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t fight back properly. I was prey, and you were the predator."
She raised her blade, and purple energy began to crackle along its length – her own elemental affinity made manifest.
"But now? Now I can see you clearly. And this time, only one of us leaves alive."
The scarred creature tensed, recognizing the challenge, but its excitement was still visible, though, as if it knew what would happen next.