After the mist cyclone collapsed, the fog banks started to wither at a speed visible to the naked eye. They didn’t die, exactly, but I could feel the conceptual nature of their existence dimming. It wasn’t quite the sa as their life force decreasing - although that also happened - but the very existence of the fog banks was starting to beco weaker. re monts after Felix finished tearing apart the cyclone, the eerie organization underlying all of their actions dropped several notches. Instead of being capable of organizing intelligent patrols and assigning duties to specific fog banks, they stopped operating off of any chain of command at all. They just chased after whatever was nearest to them and looked like ‘food.’ Their movents grew slightly more sluggish, and a few of the fog banks seed to outright forget what they were doing mid-chase, before they spun in circles a few tis. It was as if they were robots in the midst of malfunctioning - which made wonder if the strange ‘intelligence’ demonstrated by these creatures was actually sohow organized by the cyclone we had just destroyed. I didn’t have a good other explanation for why the fog banks seed to get noticeably dumber every ti we ssed with the cyclone.
The fog banks that were chasing still continued to fly after , but their movents also started to beco a lot more twitchy. Their overall actions were a lot less coordinated than before, and they were doing a much worse job trying to surround and box in - which made it much easier to remain ahead of them and avoid getting trapped and killed.
A few monts later, just like the first ti Felix had ripped into the cyclone, the fog pillar’s domain started to expand. It took several seconds for it to spread - but in less than a minute, It started to approach even the valley itself. For a few monts, I thought that it might literally absorb the valley, and instantly pull us out of the battle as the fog pillar intervened - but the fog domain stopped well short of the valley’s edge, even if it was far closer than before. Even if the fog pillar couldn’t directly intervene, it was still a relief to see that it was so close to us now. We didn’t have a very long journey to get back into friendly territory, and the fog pillar would be expecting us.
One of the fog banks chasing made a montary mistake, creating a large gap in their encirclent. I leapt through it, and a mont later, Sallia leapt to my side and gave both of them several stabs with her wooden sword. The fog banks recoiled in pain as her blade ripped into their bodies, and even though she didn’t have enough charge left in the enchantnt to go for a killing blow, it bought a few more seconds of ti to finish pulling away. To my surprise, the fog banks didn’t chase after at all anymore. Instead, they leapt after the nearest of Felix’s bells.
I took one final look at the fog banks in the valley. The valley had completely collapsed into a disorganized ss. The fog banks were just chasing anything that caught their attention. Now that their organization had completely collapsed, that ant that most of them were chasing after Felix’s bells - apparently, the organization of the group had been the only thing that stopped them from swarming the bells en-mass. The bells must have been far more disrupting and annoying than we had thought they were.
Of course, fog banks swarming the bells also ant that the bells were starting to break at a much faster rate, as the fog banks surrounded them and ripped them to pieces - but they would buy us enough ti to get out of here.
I saw the fog sprites start to pull out of the situation a few monts later. Just like us, they seed to have realized that the fog banks no longer had any aningful form of organization or intelligence. I counted them, and confird that while a few of them had lost a bit of life force, none of them had died.
I smiled.
Then, I started fleeing back towards the fog pillar’s domain. The rest of the group followed suit, as we ran for our lives, and the fog sprites followed behind us monts later.
None of the fog banks pursued us into the mist, since they were still too busy chasing after Felix’s bells.
Within a few minutes of running, we returned to the mists, and I felt the weight of stress and fear lt off my shoulders. We were safe again.
Now that we weren’t in danger of getting attacked by the fog banks anymore, I finally had a mont to look over my System notifications.
This ti, I hadn’t gotten any levels at all for killing the fog banks, which was a huge sha. I knew that every ti soone got a new Spark, the cost of further levels got exponentially higher - but the cost of the next round of levels was truly hefty, if the fog banks I had killed at the start of the fighting hadn’t even gotten one extra level. Earlier, one fog bank had been worth a few levels, and now a few fog banks weren’t even worth one level.
Fortunately, I had at least gotten one satisfying System notification.
Slaughter: you have Killed the tenth Hungry Fog
Influence: You have contributed to the future of (unnad Settlent) by a major amount
Achievent 5,000, Achievent 25,000
These two rewards brought my total from 332,174 to 362,174 Achievent. It was a tidy sum, and I was more than happy to see my Achievent number grow. However, I was hoping for sothing more than just boosting my Achievent total.
I checked for any more notifications. What I really wanted was a new ability evolution, or perhaps so kind of new keyword ability. That could provide with another dramatic amplifier as I worked to enhance my power. After all, I had plenty of glut penalty to use up before the fight for more lives, and while my keyword abilities would eventually use up all of my glut penalty, right now we were short on ti to grow and prepare. Any short term boosts I could pick up had to be prioritized - even if they would cost more essence to remove later.
Sadly, the Market didn’t offer a new evolution option or new keyword ability, even though we had finally secured the future of the settlent - at least, assuming the fog pillar followed through on its side of the deal. I still only had one option for evolving my abilities, and it was the one I had unlocked earlier.
I sighed, and then shook my head. At the very least, my Achievent total had gone up. While ability evolutions were one way to fill up my glut penalty, they weren’t the only way. When we returned to the Market, I could always buy so generic non-keyword abilities from the shops in the area in order to give myself a boost. There was also a good chance that we would find new and useful ways to spend our Achievent in the higher-end regions of the Market. We had barely gotten a glimpse at all of the services offered there the last ti we were in the area, due to all of the chaos that had occurred both tis we explored the inner districts of the Market. We knew that lives and ways to add new transmigrators to the Market were offered in the inner districts, but had yet to actually see either service. Who knew what else we were missing?
We would obviously need to search several buildings when we returned to the market’s inner districts. The odds of us finding a building selling lives right off the bat seed rather slim. We would run into all sorts of weird and useful ways to spend our Achievent - or at least, so I hoped.
I ruminated over potential wonders and miracles that we might run into when we returned to the Market as we jogged through the foggy forest. When we finally reached the village, we took a few hours to rest, while the villagers celebrated our return. After that, our team got ready for what was hopefully the finale to this whole ss - the final eting with the fog pillar. It was ti to see if it would keep its word.
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