Chapter 30: The Game of Fog
The Grand Arena of Ascension was a marvel of spatial engineering. Located in a dimensional pocket between the Stellaris Academy and the void, it was a stadium capable of seating two hundred thousand spectators.
Today, every seat was filled.
The air buzzed with a chaotic mixture of Qi signatures. Nobles from the Azure Empire, Sect Leaders from the mountains, and even hidden hermits had gathered to witness the fate of their world.
High above, in the VIP Skybox, the Envoys from the Divine Sky Academy sat on golden thrones. They looked down at the arena with the detached amusement of gods watching ants fight over a crumb.
"The brackets are set," Elder Sirius announced, his voice booming across the stadium.
[Match 1: World of Aerthos vs. World of Mystic-Fog]
[Mode: Capture the Flag]
[Biome: The Cursed Swamp]
The crowd roared, but there was an undercurrent of fear. The Mystic-Fog World was notorious. They didn't win by overpowering their enemies; they won by driving them insane.
Down in the preparation tunnel, the Aerthos Team stood ready.
Prince Valerian adjusted his golden armor. His hands were steady. His eyes, usually filled with arrogance, now held a strange, haunted vacancy—the look of a man who had seen the abyss and decided that reality wasn't so bad after all.
Lyra wiped her glasses, checking her array disks.
Kael leaned on his massive greatsword, staring at the wall.
"Are you nervous?" I asked, sitting on a crate eating an apple.
"Nervous?" Valerian looked at me. He laughed—a dry, humorless sound. "Rudra, yesterday I was strangled by a Demon Queen in a dungeon filled with blood and screaming shadows. Today, I am fighting guys in bathrobes who use smoke machines. I am not nervous. I am relieved."
"Good mindset," I nodded.
Seraphina (who was forced to sit in the spectator stands because having a 'Demon' on the field would disqualify us) blew a kiss to me from the VIP box. She was currently terrifying the Envoys by critiquing their fashion sense.
Anya stood beside me, wearing a tiny helmet. "Big Brother, do I get to blow things up?"
"Only if they touch our flag," I said. "Defense duty. You too, Ria."
"Understood," Ria nodded, holding the team flag—a banner depicting a Golden Dragon eating a sun (my new design).
The gates opened. Light flooded the tunnel.
"Walk out," I ordered. "And don't blink."
The Cursed Swamp.
The arena floor had been transformed. The stone tiles were gone, replaced by a festering, humid swamp. Twisted trees with black leaves rose from the murky water. A thick, unnatural fog blanketed the entire area, reducing visibility to zero.
On the far side, the Mystic-Fog Team materialized.
They wore grey, flowing robes that blended perfectly with the mist. Their faces were covered by veils.
Their leader, Mist, floated forward. He was a tall, slender man whose body seemed to waver like smoke.
"Aerthos," Mist's voice echoed from everywhere at once. "You are unlucky. To face us in the first round... your minds will be shattered before you even draw your swords."
Valerian stepped forward, his boots squelching in the mud.
"Are you going to talk all day?" Valerian asked, sounding bored. "Or are you going to start the magic trick?"
Mist's eyes narrowed behind his veil. "Arrogance. Typical of a Low World bumpkin. Prepare for the Eternal Nightmare."
"BEGIN!" the referee shouted.
WHOOSH.
The Mystic-Fog team vanished.
Instantly, the fog thickened. It turned from white to a sickly purple.
This wasn't normal fog. It was a Hallucinogenic Neurotoxin mixed with a high-grade Illusion Array.
"Formation!" Lyra shouted calmly.
Valerian, Lyra, and Kael formed a triangle. I sat down on a dry rock near our flag base, pulled out a picnic basket, and handed Anya a juice box.
"Aren't you going to help them?" Mist's voice mocked from the fog. "Your teammates are about to die."
I didn't answer. I just watched.
Inside the fog, the illusion activated.
To the audience watching on the crystal screens, everything looked normal. But to Valerian, Lyra, and Kael, the world dissolved.
The swamp water turned into grasping hands. The trees morphed into screaming corpses. A massive, shadowy behemoth rose from the mud, roaring with the voice of their dead ancestors.
"You failed!" the behemoth roared at Valerian. "You are a disgrace to the Royal Family! Die!"
It was a powerful illusion. It targeted the victim's deepest insecurities. Usually, a cultivator would crumble, paralyzed by the trauma.
Mist smirked, hidden in the trees. 'They will scream in 3... 2...'
Valerian looked at the screaming corpse-monster.
He blinked.
He tilted his head.
"Is that it?" Valerian asked loud enough for the microphone to pick up.
Mist paused. "What?"
"The monster," Valerian pointed his sword at the illusion. "It's... kind of small. And the screaming is repetitive. It lacks texture."
"Texture?" Mist was confused. "It is your worst nightmare!"
"Buddy," Valerian sighed, shaking his head. "My worst nightmare wears a silk dress and calls me 'Little Lamb.' This?"
He stepped forward, right into the jaws of the illusionary monster.
"This is cute."
SLASH.
Valerian swung his golden sword. He didn't slash the monster; he slashed the empty air to his left.
'Seal 2: Divine Blacksmith Training - Detection of Flaws.' (I had taught him the basics of seeing Qi flow).
CLANG.
His sword hit something solid.
Sparks flew. The illusion flickered and glitched.
Mist stumbled out of the fog, holding a parrying dagger, looking shocked. Valerian had found his real body instantly.
"How?!" Mist gasped. "You should be paralyzed with fear!"
"I am paralyzed with boredom," Valerian sneered. "Kael! Smash him!"
Kael moved. The silent swordsman had been ignoring the illusions of his dead parents screaming at him.
"You are not real," Kael muttered. "Seraphina hits harder."
He swung his greatsword.
Earth Splitter!
BOOM.
The swamp exploded. The force of the strike blew the fog away for fifty meters.
Mist tried to retreat, turning into smoke.
"Lyra! Lock him down!" Valerian commanded.
Lyra pushed her glasses up her nose. She threw five array disks into the air.
"Light Cage: Prism Lock!"
Beams of holy light shot down, forming a pentagram cage. The light burned away the shadows. Mist shrieked as he was forcibly solidified, trapped in the cage.
The rest of the Mystic-Fog team panicked. Their captain was captured in thirty seconds. Their illusions were being ignored.
"Attack!" the Vice-Captain shouted. "Forget the mind games! Swarm them!"
Four assassins rushed out of the fog, aiming for Valerian's back.
Valerian didn't turn around. He just grinned.
"We trained for this," he whispered.
He remembered the Dungeon. He remembered Seraphina appearing from the shadows, faster than light. These assassins? They moved in slow motion compared to her.
Valerian sidestepped a dagger. He grabbed the assassin's wrist and broke it.
"Too slow!"
Kael shoulder-checked another assassin, sending him flying into a tree.
"Too weak!"
Lyra cast a gravity spell, pinning the other two to the mud.
"Too predictable!"
It was a massacre.
The Aerthos Team—the team everyone expected to be the weakest—was dismantling the masters of illusion like they were disciplining unruly children.
Up in the VIP box, Seraphina clapped politely.
"They learned," she nodded. "See? Trauma builds character."
The Envoys were stunned. Elder Sirius leaned forward, his mouth slightly open.
"How... how are they immune to the Mind-Fog? That toxin affects the amygdala directly. They should be shivering wrecks!"
Headmaster Altair sipped his tea, hiding a smile. "Perhaps our students have simply faced scarier things than fog."
The Flag Base.
While the battle raged in the midfield, I sat on my rock.
Anya had finished her juice box and was now building a mud castle.
"Big Brother," Anya asked. "Are they going to come here?"
"One of them is," I said, looking at the ripples in the water. "The sneaky one."
While his team was getting beaten up, the Mystic-Fog Scout—a specialist in invisibility—had bypassed the chaotic melee. He was swimming through the mud, completely undetectable to normal senses.
He surfaced ten feet away from our flag.
He saw me (Rank 999) sitting on a rock. He saw a little girl playing in the mud. He saw a maid standing still.
'Idiots,' the Scout thought, suppressing his glee. 'While they fight in the middle, I will steal the flag and win the game!'
He lunged.
He moved like a phantom, grabbing the flag pole.
"Victory is—"
Click.
He felt something cold against the back of his neck.
It wasn't a sword.
It was a Spatula.
"Did you wipe your feet?" I asked from behind him.
The Scout froze. "What? When did you—"
"You dragged mud onto my carpet," I sighed. "Figuratively speaking."
I tapped him on the shoulder.
Gravity Seal: 10x Transfer.
I briefly transferred a fraction of my personal gravity burden onto him.
CRUNCH.
The Scout didn't scream. He was instantly flattened into the mud, pinned by an invisible mountain. He couldn't move a finger.
"Ria," I said. "Take out the trash."
"Affirmative."
Ria walked over, picked up the paralyzed Scout by his ankle, and threw him toward the midfield.
He flew through the air like a javelin.
He crashed directly into the cage where Mist (the leader) was trapped.
CRASH.
The impact knocked Mist unconscious.
"And that," Valerian shouted, raising his sword in triumph, "is how we do it in Aerthos!"
GAME OVER.
WINNER: AERTHOS WORLD.
The Aftermath.
The illusion of the swamp faded. The stadium returned to normal.
The Mystic-Fog team was lying in a heap, groaning. Their minds were intact, but their pride was shattered. Their ultimate technique—the Eternal Nightmare—had been laughed at.
The crowd erupted.
"AERTHOS! AERTHOS!"
"Did you see the Prince? He didn't even flinch!"
"We aren't the weakest! We have a chance!"
Valerian stood in the center of the arena, soaking in the cheers. For the first time, his smile wasn't one of arrogance, but of genuine pride. He had faced his fear and won.
He looked up at the VIP box. He bowed deeply to Seraphina.
Seraphina rolled her eyes, but gave him a small nod.
I walked up to Valerian.
"Not bad," I said. "Your form on the last parry was sloppy, but you didn't wet your pants. Progress."
Valerian laughed, breathless. "Rudra... that fog... it was nothing. After seeing her eyes... that fog was like a warm bath."
"See?" I clapped his shoulder. "I told you. Perspective is everything."
We walked out of the arena as victors.
However, in the waiting tunnel of the Iron-Blood World team, a giant of a man watched us on the screen.
He was seven feet tall, with skin like grey stone and muscles that looked carved from granite.
Grom. The Half-Giant.
"Illusions are for cowards," Grom rumbled, crushing a stone in his hand. "Aerthos relies on tricks and mind games. In the next round... I will simply break their bones."
Beside him, a man with wolf ears sniffed the air. Fenrir of the Beast-Soul World.
"That Rudra..." Fenrir growled. "He smells dangerous. He smells like... a predator."
"He is small," Grom scoffed. "Small things break easily."
Back in the Aerthos locker room, I felt the gazes.
I smiled.
"Round one complete," I announced to my team. "Go shower. You smell like swamp."
"What's next?" Lyra asked, wiping mud from her glasses.
"Next," I looked at the bracket. "Beast-Soul World. The wolf boys."
I looked at Anya.
"Anya, do you like dogs?"
"I like puppies!" Anya cheered.
"Good," I grinned. "Because we're going to the pound."