A guttural thud shook the reinforced transport. Then another. Metal shrieked, tearing through the perpetual haze that clung to the vehicle’s plating. “Ah!” “Cough!” Kaelen slammed against the ceiling, then the floor. Gnarled, rust-caked handrails offered no purchase. Travelers screamed, tossed like broken dolls inside the cramped cabin. No restraints existed here, only grim resignation. He hit the grimy floor with a gasp. A slick warmth bloomed on his forehead. Blood. Ignoring it, Kaelen scrambled up, gaze fixed on the reinforced viewport. Outside, a roiling, opaque sea of grey mist churned. The very air had turned liquid, pressing in. The transport groaned, sinking, swallowed whole by an unnatural surge of the Perpetual Haze. “Damn it! The Haze-Serpent’s dragging us under!” “We’re dead. All of us.” “Where’s a Mist-Wielder? Anyone?” Fear curdled in the cabin, thick as the outside mist. Groaning metal echoed. The transport’s armored hull peeled back like foil, devoured by the unseen force. Soon, the passengers would become fodder. Suffocation might be a mercy. “You foul thing…” a voice rasped. One of the Mist-Scourers, a man with a miner’s pickaxe clutched tight, lunged toward the viewport. He thrust a hand forward. A sickly green Haze-shard, a paltry sliver of concentrated mist, shot from his palm. Kaelen’s eyes widened. A Mist-Wielder, then. A rare sight among these desperate travelers bound for the Mist-Shrouded Excavation Site. The mist-shard struck the dense haze outside. It didn’t pierce. It barely ruffled the surface before dissolving, a dying spark. The Haze-Serpent, if it was indeed a creature of the mist, remained untouched. Hope, a fleeting ghost, withered on every face. “An F-rank.” “Figures. No real Mist-Wielder goes to the Excavation Site.” Even among Mist-Wielders, power was a vast chasm. An F-rank stood at the precipice, barely more than an ordinary person in the face of true threats. His ability, the Haze-shard, was useless against a leviathan born of the Perpetual Haze itself. The Mist-Scourer, eyes wide with a manic desperation, launched more Haze-shards. They evaporated, impotent. His breath hitched, mana visibly draining from his strained form. Suddenly, the remaining armor around his section tore open. A colossal, tendril-like extension of condensed mist, thick and grey as a petrified tree limb, lashed out. It snatched the Mist-Scourer. He vanished, pulled into the swirling abyss of the haze. A choked scream followed, swiftly silenced. “We’re all going to die. We’re going to die!” “What do we do?” “Sob…” The Perpetual Haze poured in, cold and suffocating. Another traveler was pulled under, swallowed by the living fog. Kaelen bit down hard on his lip. The coppery taste of his own blood barely registered. The mist already swirled to his waist. It sought to drown him, to unravel him, to claim him. Death by suffocation? Or dissolution into the leviathan? Neither option settled well within his pragmatic mind. His thoughts, usually a relentless, mournful churn, had seized. Petrification of the mind. He felt numb, strangely detached. --- A seismic jolt. The transport ripped apart, split lengthwise. More screams, quickly stifled. “Damn it!” Kaelen cursed, scanning the oppressive grey. The mist now reached his shoulders. He could barely discern the forms of those nearest him, their despair a palpable weight in the deepening gloom. A decision formed, stark and cold. *This continues, I die.* He tore strips from his travel cloak, working with grim haste. Wrapped them tightly around his eyes, nose, ears, mouth. A futile, desperate attempt to hold the Haze at bay. Then, Kaelen lunged, plunging himself headfirst into the swirling, hungry mist. An invisible hand pressed down on him, crushing. Every breath became a battle, every movement a monumental effort. The Perpetual Haze, once a familiar companion, now sought to break him. He felt its oppressive weight, the infinite grains of moisture seeking to pry apart bone, muscle, and will. He did not resist. He surrendered, letting the currents of the deepening gloom pull him down. A faint shriek of tortured metal resonated through the dense medium. The final gasp of the transport. Kaelen didn’t need to see its fate, or the fate of those still within. The mist pulsed. Something vast moved beneath, swimming with silent, terrible purpose. It approached, a phantom predator in a phantom sea. *It’s coming.* Kaelen thrashed, trying to move. But the pressure, the crushing weight of the Haze, held him captive. He was a fly in amber, immobilized. The Haze-Serpent closed in. *I won’t die. Not yet.* His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the impending dissolution. Blood thrummed in his ears, a runaway engine roaring towards a cliff. The weight on his chest became unbearable. He felt consciousness fraying at the edges. Then, an explosion. Not of sound, but of sensation. Deep within him, a barrier shattered. A silent, blinding burst of understanding. --- Seven faint lines materialized on Kaelen’s wrist, appearing like mystic brands beneath his skin. The innermost points, at the bottom of the ancient symbols, flared with a soft, ethereal orange hue. He couldn’t see the insignia clearly through the mist, through the wrapped cloth, but Kaelen knew. An instinct, ancient and undeniable, settled within him. *Awakening.* The blessing, the curse, the truth of Aethelgard. He had become one of the Mist-Wielders. Breathing eased. The crushing pressure vanished, replaced by a strange, comforting embrace. The Perpetual Haze, which had sought to consume him, now felt like amniotic fluid, a primordial womb. He was not being held *by* it, but *within* it, an intimate connection forged in desperation. No one had taught him. Yet, Kaelen knew. His ability was inextricably bound to the mist. It was his. He extended a hand. His body, which had been immovable moments before, surged forward. The mist parted, thousands upon thousands of vapor particles shifting, guiding him with uncanny grace. He moved, a swift, dark current through the grey. Just as he cleared his previous position, a colossal maw appeared. Teeth, like jagged, obsidian pillars, spun in a ghastly vortex. Traces of crimson clung to their points, the remnants of recent meals. A guttural roar ripped through the haze. The Haze-Serpent’s mouth, a void of hunger, snapped shut on the empty space Kaelen had occupied. A whisper of death, narrowly avoided. *Insane.* Chills ran down his spine, a cold sensation even through the pervasive mist. His nascent Awakening had saved him. But survival was not victory. The Haze-Serpent, a tyrant of the Perpetual Haze, was beyond the capabilities of a newly awakened F-rank Mist-Wielder. The fate of the Mist-Scourer was a stark reminder. *Escape. That’s the priority. Get out of the Haze.* Kaelen pushed his hands forward. His body, now a part of the mist, sliced through its depths, aiming for the surface. He felt it calling him, the distant, thinned layers of the Perpetual Haze above. Then, a powerful tremor. The Haze-Serpent pursued, its immense bulk creating ripples in the ethereal sea. Kaelen was fast, but the leviathan was faster. It gained on him, an inevitable doom. *Is this all? Just… swimming?* A shiver, not of cold, but of primal dread, ran through him. The Haze-Serpent was almost upon him. He sensed its gaping maw, a vortex of dissolution, directly behind him. A thought flashed, vivid and sudden: *Fill its throat with its own domain. Choke the beast on the Haze itself.* Instantly, the mist around Kaelen shifted. It gathered, condensing into a dense, grey mass before him. “Haze-Lance,” Kaelen whispered, the name forming on his lips, an ancient utterance. No mentor had taught him, no scroll revealed it. It was simply *known*, a forgotten truth surfacing from the depths of his being. A blinding flash. The condensed mist erupted, a high-pressure jet, piercing the Haze-Serpent’s cavernous gullet. The impact was silent in the mist, but felt in the leviathan’s sudden, violent shudder. The Haze-Lance, though visually unassuming, tore through the Haze-Serpent’s interior like a phantom blade. Its ethereal flesh, a concretion of living mist, ruptured. The leviathan shrieked, a soundless scream that shook the very foundations of the Perpetual Haze. *Kwaaagh!* The massive creature thrashed, convulsing in agony. The mist roiled, a furious ocean. Kaelen seized the moment, pushing upward with renewed urgency. He broke free. “Puh-ha!” The cool, thinned haze above, though still pervasive, tasted like freedom. It filled his lungs, a stark relief after the suffocating depths. --- “Survivor! Look, a survivor.” “A Haze-Serpent. Everyone, ready yourselves.” Voices. Kaelen lifted his head. A compact, armored vehicle, its wheels oversized for navigating the treacherous terrain of Aethelgard’s perpetual gloom, sat nearby. Figures emerged, utterly unafraid of the thrashing leviathan now half-surfaced. Mist-Wielders. Kaelen recognized them instantly. Their calm demeanor, their confident stride across the unsettled haze-scape, spoke volumes of their power. *Whoosh!* The Haze-Serpent, enraged, rose higher, revealing more of its colossal form. A middle-aged man, with the bearing of a leader, shouted. “Hold it! Don’t let it dive back into the Haze.” “Understood, Captain.” A woman, her hair the pale blue of a winter sky, responded. She extended a hand towards the leviathan. A freezing chill spread, congealing the mist around the Haze-Serpent’s writhing mass. The creature’s movements seized, momentarily petrified in frozen haze. “Too big,” Elara called, her voice clear. “Only for a few seconds.” “Enough.” The Captain’s smile was thin, edged with cold steel. He drew a claymore, its blade glinting even in the dim light. With a roar, he charged. His subordinates followed. The claymore fell, a swift guillotine, against the Haze-Serpent’s exposed form. *Crush!* Its hardened mist-hide tore open, revealing the roiling, crimson-tinged haze within. The creature writhed, a silent scream of pain echoing in the mist. Rhys, one of the Captain’s group, pressed his palm against the leviathan’s flank. “A Haze-Serpent surfacing… a rare treat.” A low hum vibrated from Rhys’s hand, a frequency too high for the eye to perceive. His ability: Ultra-Vibration. *Boom!* The Haze-Serpent’s body, where Rhys had touched, exploded. Not with gore, but with a sudden, violent dissipation of mist, as if its very structure had unraveled. Gorok, the last to engage, a giant of a man, sprang into the air. He slammed down, a living meteor, onto the leviathan’s head. *Bang!* A thunderous concussion. The Haze-Serpent’s head exploded, a silent, violent burst of condensed mist and internal pressure. “Haha!” Gorok laughed, spattered with the dissipating mist that served as the creature’s blood. Kaelen’s jaw dropped. *Crazy bastards!* In moments, the beast that had swallowed so many had been reduced to a collapsing mass of haze. The Captain sheathed his claymore, turning his gaze on Kaelen. A shiver coursed through Kaelen then, deeper than the lingering chill of the mist. The Captain’s eyes, cold and sunken, held a quality that was far more unnerving than the leviathan itself.

Abyssal Maw