Chapter 282: Persistent Chase

A

full

day

We ran for a

full

day.

And by

’ran,’

I mean we stumbled through that hellish jungle while being chased by a creature of mist that refused to die, dissipate, or even take a break like any civilized monster.

The forest blurred into an endless smear of greens and grays.

Our boots tore through mud and roots, our breaths were reduced to exhausted gasps, and our lungs burned with the fury of the damned.

By now, we had managed to outrun the avalanche of white mist several times. But every few hours, it would rise and swallow us whole once again.

Once trapped inside its fog, the monster would materialize around us randomly and attack us repeatedly until we somehow managed to escape again.

Then, the process would repeat.

We’d run, the monster would give chase and catch up to us as soon as we slowed down even a little, it would attack, we’d defend, we’d escape, and repeat.

Everyone was beyond tired at this point.

Ray’s back wound had reopened twice. Lily had patched him up both times on the run with trembling hands.

Vince wheezed like an asthmatic accordion every five minutes.

And Juliana was still limping but somehow keeping pace, her injured leg wrapped tightly in torn gauze.

I don’t even know what hour it was when I realized something was off.

Because every time we slowed down and dared to look back, the mist was still there — crawling and creeping, always at the edge of sight but never far enough to give us hope.

At first, I thought we were just unlucky. But then, when the pattern repeated again and again, realization dawned on me like a sick joke.

"The bastard isn’t chasing us," I said after a long silence, huffing slightly. "It’s

persistence hunting

us."

Michael, jogging beside me, groaned as if I had just given voice to his suspicions. "Yeah, I noticed that too. It’s wearing us down until we either make a mistake or use up all our Essence... so it can feast without us putting up a fight."

After hours of fighting and running, our Essence had indeed dwindled

significantly

. So if that was really the Mist Monster’s goal, then its plan was surely working.

•••

It was only after a little over thirty-six hours of continuous running that we came across a clearing and found what seemed to be an... ancient village?

Or at least what used to be one.

The place looked like it had been carved straight out of the earth itself — full of mud huts crafted

into

the land, half-swallowed by moss and vines, with metallic fences long rusted and collapsed, and hollow windows that stared out like the sockets of dead eyes.

The air here smelled exactly the same as it did everywhere else in the forest — faintly of damp soil and rotting leaves.

If it were any other time, I’d probably be curious about the architectural style of a long-extinct alien civilization. I’d probably want to explore a bit and come up with theories.

But right now?

Right now, the only theory I cared about was whether those huts had doors that locked.

We stumbled through the village like a pack of half-dead refugees.

The mist still lingered on the horizon, distant yet constant.

Michael used his X-Ray Vision Card, and Alexia used her Aura Sense to make sure there weren’t any other eldritch monsters dwelling in this

lovely

place.

We wanted to avoid any

’stuck between a rock and a hard place’

situation, after all.

"Inside," Michael said finally, pointing toward the largest hut — one with half its roof missing but walls sturdy enough to at least provide shelter. "Move."

No one argued or hesitated. Not even me.

That’s

how dire things were.

We crowded inside, and even in the midst of our ordeal, I had to take a moment to appreciate the interior.

Not only was this place still standing after thousands of years of abandonment, it really looked like everything had naturally sculpted into existence from the ground up.

There were no joints, hinges, or visible seams anywhere at all — just a smooth, flowing structure, as if the whole hut had been molded from living clay rather than built by hand.

The walls curved gently into the floor, which sloped into what might have once been furniture — benches, low tables, alcoves.

Everything connected seamlessly.

I could mimic the style with my innate power, but to create something like this without any supernatural help would’ve been so difficult.

Moreover, the entire hut — its crumbling furniture, floor-to-roof height, even the width of the entrance itself — seemed to be made for creatures much larger and taller than us.

And we, as Awakened, were already at nearly peak human heights even as teens.

There were many more things to admire. If I hadn’t been on the verge of dying from exhaustion, I might have appreciated them all.

But instead, I just slumped against the walls and floor like everyone else.

Lily dropped her satchel immediately, her hands shaking from fatigue.

Ray lay flat on his stomach, groaning incoherently. "If this is heaven, it’s severely underfunded."

Vince simply collapsed on his side, muttering prayers to deities he probably didn’t believe in.

Juliana slid down next to me, clutching her injured leg.

The makeshift bandage around her thigh was soaked through with red.

"If we survive this," she muttered, her voice raspy, "you’re buying me a new leg."

"I’ll buy you two if you promise to keep what you heard during our boys’ talk to yourself," I replied.

"...Tempting," she murmured like she was holding confidential secrets — in a way, she

was

, since chaos would ensue if others knew what we were discussing. "But what you’re asking for is worth much more."

"Damn, she drives a hard bargain," I whispered to myself.

What a master negotiator!

...Or maybe my negotiation skills were terrible.

Meanwhile, Michael stood near a window, peering outside with that annoyingly serene expression that always made me want to throw a chair at him.

As the mist crept closer to the edge of the village, I immediately used my innate power to seal every crack and window with mud and stone.

"Alright," I exhaled, standing up and dusting my hands. "We should be safe for now. Let’s just not make any loud noises."

Because I was pretty sure the Mist Monster could bulldoze through if it wanted to.

After all, we had tried going underground once while running from it, but that didn’t do any good.

The damned beast just cracked the earth wide open and flooded its mist into the underground tunnel, forcing us back into the open once again.

So there really was no way to escape that thing. We could only hope to hide until it perhaps lost interest... or found us, and we’d have to run again.

Michael took a deep breath and turned to us with that same maddening calm and saintly look of his.

"I don’t think it’s after us to eat us," he said.

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "So what would you call a thirty-six-hour game of tag with death, then?"

Michael didn’t blink. "I think it’s just... lost."

Every eye in the room collectively turned to him.

Juliana rubbed her temples. "Lost? Michael, it’s been following us like a bloodhound since yesterday. I assure you, it knows exactly where it’s going."

"No," he said, kneeling. "Listen, I just remember a story my mother used to read to me. A traveler once met a lost Spirit Beast — a beast of fog and sorrow. Instead of fleeing, he helped it find the home it had lost, and in return, it spared his life."

Ray, still lying flat on the floor, cried out, "Can we please not psychoanalyze the killer fog based on children’s storybooks?"

Michael ignored him, which was now likely his favorite hobby after heroics and unsolicited sermons. "My point is — we have tried fighting it, we have tried running from it. Now let’s try talking with it! Just like in that story!"

I was unamused. "Lily, your boyfriend has lost what little mind he had before. Bandage his head next."

Juliana shared my lack of enthusiasm. "Does your story end with everyone dying horribly?"

Michael gave her a look of patient pity. "No. It ends with

mercy

."

She snorted. "Then it’s fiction."

Michael’s smile was straining, as if

he

were the sane one here. "Compassion rarely fails, you know."

Juliana tilted her head. "Neither does stabbing."

"Okay, enough!" Alexia interrupted with a sigh, sounding irritated probably because she didn’t get her beauty sleep. "His idiotic suggestion aside, Mikey might be right about one thing. The beast’s aura doesn’t feel as malicious as it feels... almost sad. It has also shown a lot of patience in hunting us until now. Most Spirit Beasts just charge in, but this one is using rudimentary tactics. My point is, it’s displaying abnormal behavior. We should be careful."

"I think it’s just studying which one of us will die first," Vince wheezed. "And my money’s on me."

"Stop betting on yourself," I said flatly. "You’re making it sadder."

Vince coughed. "Too late."