In the Mist

At the edge of the light, within the fog, the hateful and vicious curses quickly vanished.

With a scream that cut off abruptly, all movement there ceased, and it became deathly silent.

The corpse was still there, but Colin and the others did not move immediately.

After a second of silence, they finally recovered from the distorted scream that had been filled with immense terror.

Colin walked forward a few steps and saw that a large amount of cold sweat had appeared on the corpse; the expression before death was exceptionally hideous, and his jaw had even dislocated while letting out that scream just moments ago.

However, apart from his eyes, no one saw any other obvious wounds on his body.

And those eyes. They had melted.

Along with the eyelids, they had melted into the eye sockets like wax, a truly horrifying sight.

A question popped into everyone's mind: what had he experienced?

From beginning to end, everyone including Colin had not seen anyone or anything else approach him within the Gray Fog.

It wasn't until Colin took the Hurricane Lamp and retreated a distance, leaving him exposed to the Gray Fog for less than three seconds, that everything ended just like that.

[The tragic scene before you makes you feel lingering fear. You discover that he wanted to close his eyes before death, but unfortunately, those thin eyelids could not stop him from seeing that terrifying thing.]

[His eyes, his eyelids, and even the brain beneath them all melted in an instant due to looking directly at the unseeable.]

[You realize that you are not interested in the Gray Fog, nor do you intend to do anything disrespectful toward it.]

"Prompt. You're chickening out."

Colin felt his throat go dry; this was the second time the prompt had backed down so far.

The last time was yesterday during a Willpower check; the moment the thought of taking a peek arose, Colin was warned by a sixth-sense-like intuition and gave up.

This time, Colin instinctively felt that the Gray Fog had some connection to the bizarre, illogical world where he had received "Steadfast Will."

What made it back down was likely something of the same level, or perhaps, in essence, it was the same thing.

However.

Glancing at this miserably dead corpse, he felt the prompt was right; he had no interest in the Gray Fog, nor any intention of making contact with it.

"But the test wasn't entirely without gain. The Parchment and Synthesis Table didn't disappear, which means these things don't vanish upon death. My guess that day was wrong."

Colin checked his backpack; the Parchment and other items he had taken from the other party were still there, unchanged.

Then where did those two items from the female survivor's corpse go?

Had someone searched her body before he arrived?

No, that was unlikely. If she had been searched, there was no reason to leave the other items behind; apart from those two things, nothing else was missing from her.

In an instant, Colin felt there was a huge mystery surrounding that corpse he had only seen in passing.

But now was not the time to think about that. Colin looked in another direction, where constant wailing was coming from.

Those were the servants who had eaten the Flesh Mushroom.

Shana was standing there. She had piled everyone she knocked out together, and after realizing there were no issues on Colin's side, she had been watching those violent and crazed servants lying on the ground without taking action.

Facing the "mage" who was the culprit, she hadn't hesitated at all, but facing these people wailing on the ground, she wavered.

Beneath the cuffs of her white-and-gold-trimmed clerical robe, her fists clenched and relaxed repeatedly.

Killing these people to let them return to peace was clearly the most rational choice, and it could alleviate the pain before their deaths.

But every time she made up her mind, she felt her strikes lacked strength, leaving her feeling utterly powerless.

This sense of powerlessness felt familiar.

In a trance, the scene before her seemed to overlap with a certain extremely blurry image.

In that blurry image, there was no Gray Fog, but beneath a banner emitting holy light, one ordinary person after another fell.

What was lacking back then seemed to be food.

This time, what was lacking was holy light, a more powerful holy light.

Every time, it was this same powerlessness.

"Kill them, alleviate their pain. At least, it can reduce a little of the suffering they endure before death."

Shana took a deep breath and made her final decision.

She was not an indecisive person, and she could be just as sharp when it came to killing, but the feeling of a certain irreparable, massive regret from the past happening again before her eyes made it truly hard for her to let go.

If these people were soldiers, enemies loyal to the other side, there wouldn't be a single living soul left here when she rushed over earlier.

But things simply weren't like that.

Her hand, radiating white light, gripped a crazed, wailing servant, but just as she was about to exert force, a voice rang out from beside her.

"Do you want to save them?"

Colin walked over. Aside from the mage, he had already looted everyone else.

There were five people on the mage's side in total; the mage was dead, and another had died after failing to get into the Hurricane Lamp's light.

There were three left.

The three of them were sleeping (or rather, knocked unconscious) there quietly. The merciful Colin didn't even want to disturb them, so he silently helped them turn off the lights and took away the servants who might snore and wake them up, hiding his merit and fame deep within.

Although they seemed to see something quite miserable in their dreams afterward and cried out rather pitifully, what did that have to do with the kind Mr. Colin?

He just came back to take a look and found that the three of them were very grateful to him for finally getting a good night's sleep, leaving him a reward, but they were unwilling to wake up, signaling for him to take it himself.

Having done a good deed, Colin naturally wouldn't be polite. After looting the bodies, he quickly arrived at Shana's side.

Shana's hand trembled, and only then did she notice that Colin had already arrived with a group of people; clearly, Lord Colin had also finished dealing with the enemies over there.

However, there were only four captive lords in the group, and the others were nowhere to be seen, presumably dead.

Recalling Colin's words, she hesitated for a moment before nodding: "Yes."

She had no intention of lying. After exhaling a pent-up breath of frustration, Shana glanced at the people wailing on the ground again:

"But it looks like they are beyond saving. I'm sorry, did I delay your side?"

"I'm fine here; you made them surrender directly."

Colin replied, then asked: "Do you want to save them?"

Shana was stunned. Hadn't he just asked that? But it seemed she realized something, and she nodded heavily:

"Yes, Lord Colin, I want to save them."

Colin tilted his head, rested his hand on his chin, and squinted at her. After a few seconds, he said:

"That's good, then save them."

There was no need to force it; Shana seemed to realize that this would require paying a certain price and wanted to say something.

But Colin raised his hand to interrupt her.