From all directions, responses that made their scalps tingle rose from the depths of the fog-shrouded swamp.
They came from other predators lurking in the mud, puddles, and dead trees, drawn by the blood and the roars of the monsters.
Countless faint yet dense crawling noises, splashing sounds, and wingbeats came from every direction, converging madly on the spot where the monsters had appeared like a tide of death.
Gray Rat and Freya were scared out of their wits. They could even feel the swamp trembling beneath their feet and smell the overwhelming,
terrifying stench mixed with blood and the auras of countless monsters.
Freya had also lost her usual composure. Her pretty face was deathly pale, and her fiery red whip was tightly coiled around her arm, ready to deal with attacks that might come from any direction.
Duke was also running at full speed—or rather, flying low through the air. Two patches of yellow sand beneath his feet carried him swiftly forward.
The three of them were like a lone boat struggling in a boiling sea of monsters, fleeing madly beneath the pursuit of fog and death.
Gray Rat's route became somewhat chaotic as fear overwhelmed his experience.
Freya nearly stepped into soft mud pits several times, barely avoiding them only through an Awakened's agile movements.
No one knew how long passed. It felt as long as a century before the muddy sensation beneath their feet finally began to lessen, and the fog thinned considerably.
Ahead, they could vaguely make out the outline of a relatively dry slope rising upward. The stench remained, but the suffocating smell of blood and the monsters' howls had been left behind.
"Quick! Up the slope!" Gray Rat rasped, his voice trembling with the wild joy of surviving a disaster as he scrambled