The first thing they noticed was the smell.
Bleakroot fen did not welcome travelers with the gentleness of wind or birdsong. It rolled out a damp, heavy mist that clung to skin and seeped into clothes. The air was thick with the scent of moss, wet wood, and something faintly rotten beneath it all—like the breath of an old, slow beast watching from beneath the waters.
Even though this was considered a safe path, none of them felt safe.
The muddy road ahead twisted between gnarled trees that stood like ancient sentinels. Their roots reached across the path like the limbs of something long dead, now reaching for the warmth of the living. Strange blue fungi pulsed faintly along the trunks, casting an eerie glow on the misty ground.
As the wagon wheels churned through muck, Luke finally broke the silence.
"Guard up," he said, his voice low but firm. "Even though this stretch is cleared regularly, I've heard rumors lately."
Kairo, seated nearest the front, tightened his grip on the edge of the wagon. Liora and Vivy looked over from the back, their bodies naturally shifting into a more alert posture.
Kairo turned toward Luke, brow furrowed. "What kind of rumors?"
Luke didn't look back. His gaze was steady on the foggy trail ahead.
"This path is safe on paper. Soldiers from the capital come through every few days to sweep the area. But… lately, monsters have been acting different. That's what my trader friends are saying. Aggressive. No pattern. Not just wandering beasts, either—some of them are coordinated. That's what makes it feel off."
Kairo's eyes narrowed as he reached down, pulling out the strange dagger he bought from Runda's shop. The blackened veins that ran along its curved edge seemed to pulse slightly in the dim light. He tightened his grip, the texture of the handle familiar now, almost natural in his palm.
"I see," Kairo said, voice quiet, but a certain weight hung behind it.
Next to him, Vivy hadn't spoken. Her eyes weren't on the trail but instead were scanning the mist-draped trees. She looked deep in thought—calculating.
Liora leaned forward toward Luke. "If something does happen... what kind of attack should we expect? An ambush?"
Luke nodded slowly. "Usually it's direct. From the front. But there have been stories… sometimes they come from behind too. Especially the smaller ones—fast, agile. Might use the fog."
Liora gave a small nod. "Got it. I'll keep an eye on the rear then."
She shifted in the wagon, placing one knee on the bench as she turned fully to watch the path they had come from. Her fingers hovered near her side, ready to draw her needle-like relic if needed. She cast a glance at Kairo and Vivy.
"You two take front and sides?"
Kairo nodded. Vivy blinked, then nodded as well, her mouth still drawn in a tight line.
Though they had all trained at the academy—learned formation tactics, coordinated movement, enemy patterns—none of it quite matched this. This was real. The ground didn't feel stable. The fog didn't feel like background. And most of all, death felt closer than it had ever been.
It was the kind of silence that didn't just come from people being quiet—but from the world around them waiting for something.
Even Luke could feel it.
I know these kids, he thought, sparing a glance at them from the side of his eyes. They chose to leave the academy and walk the road on their own. I could lighten the mood—joke, chat, give them space to breathe. But if I do, they won't grow into it. They won't learn.
He sighed internally.
Still… this is rough. The first silence is always the heaviest.
He flicked the reins gently and whispered to the wargon, a wide-shouldered beast with thick fur and a jaw full of flat grinding teeth. It grunted but kept moving steadily through the swamp road.
The wagon eventually reached a small stone marker—half-buried in moss—that signified a checkpoint. A crumbled post where, once, soldiers likely stood watch. Now, it was empty. Abandoned. Perhaps another budget cut from the capital, or maybe the soldiers stopped returning.
Luke paused the wagon, glancing toward the overgrown checkpoint.
"We'll rest here a bit," he said. "Stretch. Eat. We've got another few hours through the fen before we're out of it."
They climbed down one by one, feet squelching in the damp mud. Vivy wandered a little to the side, eyes scanning the brush. Liora sat on a fallen log and pulled out her sketchbook, flipping it open with golden fingers as she made a quick check of her gear. Kairo stayed near the wagon, one hand still on his dagger.
He couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched.
And even though Luke didn't say anything, he stayed close to the wargon, one hand on a strange curved blade tucked beneath the seat.
The mist pulsed gently as if the swamp itself breathed.
And somewhere far off in the distance—a single, low echoing cry broke the silence.
Not an animal. Not quite a beast.
But something that wasn't supposed to be there.
Luke didn't look up. He only muttered, "Told you. Rumors have teeth."
He reached for his blade—a curved thing forged from some dark, unrecognizable metal. It wasn't elegant like a knight's saber, nor brutal like a cleaver. It was something in-between. Something that suggested knowledge of a very specific kind of violence. His other hand moved calmly, gently stroking the neck of the wargon beast, which had begun to snort and shuffle uneasily beneath its harness.
"Easy," Luke muttered to it. "We've done worse roads than this."
Then, turning his head just slightly, his tone shifted to command.
"Stay close. Protect the wagon. That's all that matters. If something comes, we hold here. Got it?"
He didn't need to repeat himself. The trio behind him was already moving—no words, just swift action born from anticipation and quiet understanding.
Kairo didn't answer. Neither did Liora or Vivy. They responded instead with motion—silent, decisive.
Kairo turned sharply toward Vivy, his tone quiet but clipped."Vivy, inside. Prepare to use your flower if needed."
Vivy didn't argue. She nodded, dark hair brushing her cheek as she slipped up into the wagon's rear, pulling the curtain back. She crouched low, both hands steady.The mark of her flower—a pitch-black bloom etched into her shoulder—had already begun to pulse softly, like a heartbeat under her skin.
Kairo's voice came again, but more measured."You know the cost."
Vivy's eyes flickered with something unreadable—resolve, fear, acceptance—before she replied."I know. One at a time. Only if I have to."
Kairo turned then to Liora.
"Support me and Luke from the back," he said."Don't overdo it. Use your thorns only when needed."
Liora looked up. Her green eyes were sharp and serious now."You don't have to tell me. I know what happens if I use it too much."
Not long ago, before that sound, when the trail was still quiet, when only the occasional insect chirped and the trees still looked like trees, not gnarled silhouettes in creeping fog—they had sat together near the fire and spoken, each of them unwrapping pieces of themselves in low voices.
Kairo had asked the others to be honest about their limits.
He remembered them well.
The dark blossom —a flower whose gift was dominion over shadows and the dead. Vivy could raise corpses, mold shadow into living forms, but every act drained her. Fatigue curled around her with every command. And if she pushed it… the flower would start to feed on her soul, piece by piece, like a slow bleed.
The crimson thorns bloomed along liora's spine like a braided whip of roses, hidden under her cloak. When she fought, the thorns coiled around her arms, lashing out with venomous elegance. Her attacks would leave wounds that couldn't heal—tears that kept bleeding no matter how they were treated. But with each strike, her own blood paid the price. The more she used it, the thinner her blood would run. Eventually, her heart would beat dry.
The fog in the fen ahead seemed heavier now. Thicker. A warning.
Kairo flexed his fingers. His body already beginning to pulse with the whispers of movement—the rhythm that stirred the Dancing vine within him. The flower that gave him speed, grace, agility—but only if he danced for it. Not literally—but a dance of movement, of unpredictability, of stimulation. If he failed to "entertain" the flower, his joints would begin to stiffen, slowly, painfully, until he was no longer flesh and blood—but bark and root.
Then came the second one.
The nomadic petal. A gift and a curse. It allowed him to move without exhaustion, to fight without fatigue—but it refused to let him rest. If he lingered in one place too long, it would devour him from the inside, turning his blood restless, poisoning his thoughts with the need to wander. A slow, creeping madness that only ended when he moved again.
And the third.
The abyssal root. This one, he rarely used. It allowed him to create clones of himself, perfect copies—only each one cost him a piece of awareness. A split. A fracture. The more he summoned, the more of "himself" slipped away. Until eventually, there'd be nothing left of Kairo… just empty shells, wandering.
Kairo reached for his weapon—a dagger-like artifact twisted with violet veins. The one he found in the shop. He could feel it vibrating faintly in his grip, responding to the tension.
The wagon creaked forward.
Luke's beast growled softly, ears up, legs stiff.
Everyone was silent again. The road was getting darker. The reeds on the side of the trail seemed taller now, brushing the wagon's edges.
The Bleakroot fen was waking up.
Suddenly—
A sound. Not a roar. Not a scream.
But a wet slithering crunch. Like bone cracking inside of mud.
Kairo stopped walking. Luke held up a fist.
Everyone froze.
Then—movement.
In the mist, something crawled. Thin legs. Jointed. Too many.
And then a shriek.
Liora raised her hand immediately. The Crimson Thorns coiled around her wrist, slithering outward like a viper preparing to strike.
Vivy's breath hitched, her eyes glowing faintly in the shadow of the wagon. She clutched a small object—a charm of bone—one of her catalysts to raise a servant if needed.
Kairo stepped forward slightly, adjusting his grip on the veined blade.
Luke hissed low.
"Stay calm. Stay tight."
The mists parted for a heartbeat—and something stepped forward.
It was humanoid… but broken.
Its limbs were long, bent in unnatural ways—like a puppet with too many joints. Its skin was pale gray, stretched tight over muscle and bone, but instead of eyes, it had only smooth skin where its face should be.
And across its chest, blooming like infection, were lilies.
White lilies.
But they weren't real. Not entirely. They were twisted, hybridized things—half-flesh, half-flower, with petals that pulsed like breathing lungs.
The creature opened its mouth—wide. Too wide. Rows of small, needle-like teeth crowded the space where a tongue should be.
Then came a sound—thin, ghostly. Not words. More like a vibration. A whisper that scratched at the edge of their minds.
"Weeee… are flleeeesh…"
It lunged.
humming in his grip. In the next instant, the lunging creature's mouth cracked open unnaturally wide—its teeth detonating like shrapnel, tiny splinters of ivory exploding toward them.
Luke's blade became a blur, sweeping through the air with a practiced arc. The teeth clinked off the metal, sparking and scattering across the mud.
"Stay close to the wargon!" he shouted without turning. "There's more—"
But the others already knew.
From the shadow-soaked treeline, more figures emerged—monstrosities, some bearing resemblance to the one they'd just seen, others wholly alien and nightmarish.
Because they could see them.
The swamp was alive now—crawling with shapes too warped to be called natural. Hulking, many-limbed things moved like predators and dancers both. Slithering torsos with eyes that bloomed like tumors. A headless quadruped, its flowers-for-heads blooming on its back instead—each petal a razor. A tall, walking maw—a creature with no limbs, just a vertical cavern of teeth dragging itself with an undulating spine. And somewhere in the back, deeper in the fog, a silhouette with a crown of twitching arms, dragging a body that looked suspiciously like its own.
Kairo was already moving.
His boots barely touched the earth as he twisted through the chaos, cloak trailing behind him like a second shadow. Each movement flowed into the next, like a wind-blown leaf cutting across the battlefield. His twin blades gleamed like silver fangs.
Dancing vine thrummed—a wild tempo that guided his body like a marionette. Every turn was instinct. Every slash poetry in speed.
A centipede-like horror lunged at him—its skin translucent, revealing a pulsing, organ-like mass inside. Its face was a screaming infant's, warped in terror. Dozens of needle legs slashed for him.
He spun low, dragging a blade upward. The creature's belly split open with a wet, bubbling sound, and black ichor sprayed in long, twitching arcs.
No time to stop.
A new shape surged forward—blind, faceless, with nothing but a mass of wet, squirming tongues for a head. They tasted the air. They tasted him.
Kairo vanished.
One blink—then two blades buried into the base of its spine.
He appeared behind it, breathless but smiling.
The nomadic petal was singing now. In his blood, in his bones. He could feel the third flower beneath it all—abyssal root—stirring like something ancient and hungry. Not yet. Not unless everything fell apart.
But things were falling apart.
Liora braced her feet at the rear of the wagon. Her hands were bloodied, but her grip on the spear was firm. Crimson thorns crawled along her skin like veins of light beneath her flesh. They pulsed with each heartbeat, humming in time with her anger.
A towering quadruped lunged toward her. It looked like a skeletal moose, except its antlers were tongues—slick, twitching things that lashed toward her as it screamed in stereo.
She didn't blink.
A dagger flew—whistling through the air. It sank into the creature's thigh. It faltered.
That was all she needed.
One step forward, and she was already in the air. Her spear drove straight through the beast's chest cavity. It buckled.
Bloodrot Bloom pulsed.
Thick, molasses-like blood poured from the wound, and with it came a scream so high-pitched it shattered into silence.
She pulled back. Another horror charged—smaller, quicker, child-like torsos fused into one long, insectoid body. It crawled over its siblings, shrieking and laughing.
Her dagger met its neck mid-leap.
A clean kill.
But the thorns pulsed harder now. Her legs trembled faintly.
My blood's thinning, she thought. Not now. Not yet.
She ground her heel into the earth and stood her ground. Let them come.
From within the wargon, Vivy stood still. Crossbow steady. Fingers trembling.
The mist swallowed the world outside, but she saw the shapes—movement and motion, unnatural rhythm and wrongness. One body hit the ground.
That was her cue.
She placed a hand on its still chest.
Black vines erupted from her sleeve, curling into the corpse like fingers reaching home.
The thing twitched.
Then rose.
Its eyes were empty, its limbs slack—but it moved. Her will moved it. Another body. Then a third. Her head pounded like a drum. Her vision blurred for a second. Her flower—Dark Blossom—was feeding on her focus.
Three's enough, she told herself.
Outside, the nightmare kept shifting.
A massive spider clambered over a fallen tree—each leg a twisted, humanoid arm with clawed fingers. It shrieked in defiance.
Vivy's crossbow was already aimed.
She knew the weak spot. Beneath the mandibles. Soft chitin. She fired.
The bolt buried itself into the spider's mouth.
It collapsed in a grotesque dance.
Another came. Its skin was leather, crudely stitched. Two heads spun slowly on either side, humming lullabies in different keys.
She nearly gagged.
Don't listen. Don't let it in.
She fired again, just as her undead puppet tackled another monster to the ground, buying her time.
This is what you studied for. This is the real page now. Read it right.
Luke stood in the center of the chaos—his blade a black arc of vengeance. Blood, mist, and rot clung to his coat. His breath was calm, but his pulse roared in his ears.
The creatures kept coming.
A flower-headed beast swayed toward him, petals twitching, teeth inside every blossom. He carved through it in one clean motion.
Then he turned—just in time to see Kairo leap through the air like a specter, cutting a leech-beast in two.
Liora fought like a demon, her spear a whirl of red and rot. And Vivy... gods. He didn't know what her power was—but seeing the dead rise behind her chilled him more than anything else in the swamp.
They were kids.
But they were fighting like monsters.
We survive this, he thought, and they're not students anymore.
Another beast—this one a spinning wheel of flesh with blades for arms—rolled toward him, screaming in five voices at once.
Luke exhaled.
No time for praise. Just survive.
He lunged forward again.
In the middle of the Bleakroot fen, surrounded by rot, mist, and terror, the wargon shuddered. The earth trembled with every scream. But it didn't fall.
Because they didn't break.
They moved. They bled. They killed.
And above all—they fought back.