Blood and Fog

The fog grew thicker and thicker, and the people running through it began to resemble a group of shadows lost without direction.

The ground beneath their feet was slick mud, while their ears were filled with panting and heavy footsteps. Everything around them blurred together; they could not see ahead or to either side.

The running had not ended. Satotz's figure still swayed in the distance, his pace neither hurried nor slow, as if he were deliberately stringing everyone along.

But the rhythm of the group had already fallen completely apart.

"Let me through... I... I saw someone. It's my little brother... he's over there..."

A candidate suddenly veered away from the group and charged toward a patch of vine-covered brush. The next second, he sank into it completely, and no sound came from him again.

"The water is talking... it's laughing at me..." Another person clutched their head and collapsed onto the ground, muttering words no one could understand.

More and more people began to panic. Some tried to turn back and run the way they came, while others began blaming their companions—some even shouted, "This is a trap! There is no finish line at all!"

The hallucinations were no longer just images. They had entered people's minds, tugging at their emotions and dragging them out of their normal state.

Ryan ran slightly to the right of the middle of the group, maintaining a steady pace. He did not speak to anyone, nor did he slow his steps.

He had long since shut off his Nen aura, using Zetsu to conceal his presence. Sight, hearing, and smell were what he relied on most right now. He was not holding on through Nen, but through reason and experience.

He could tell that some people were already close to breaking.

Their panting became intermittent, their steps began to drag, and some kept slapping at their own bodies as if they felt something clinging to them.

Not far away, a familiar figure appeared ahead and to his right.

Ponzu.

She was pale, drenched in sweat, her lips trembling. She looked as though she had just been pulled from icy water. Her steps were visibly unsteady, her body constantly swaying, her breathing growing heavier, and her gaze beginning to drift.

If this continued, she would collapse even if she ran another five hundred meters.

Ryan's judgment was clear: she was not trapped by the terrain, but being dragged down by her own mind.

The hallucinations had already pushed her to the limit of what she could endure.

If this state was not broken now, she would very likely fall, burst into tears, or break down where she stood.

Ryan did not move too close.

As he passed beside Ponzu, he merely spoke in a low voice:

"Do you remember the black metal floor at the starting point?"

Ponzu did not answer, but her breathing seemed to pause.

Ryan added:

"Right now, there's mud and grass under your feet. This isn't the finish line yet. Don't let everything you've run through be for nothing."

After saying that, he immediately moved away from Ponzu and returned to the group's original rhythm, as though nothing had happened.

A few seconds later, Ryan heard Ponzu let out a low, gritted growl.

"I don't want to die here..."

Her voice was faint, yet it sounded as if she had pulled herself up from beneath the water.

Then her footsteps rang out again—she was continuing to run.

Ryan did not look back.

He merely let out a soft breath, his speed unchanged and his expression unmoved.

He was not saving anyone. He simply—did not want to waste someone who had not yet fallen.

The wind began to change.

Instead of blowing in from all directions as it had at first, it now came softly from one direction.

He knew the environment was guiding them forward.

The exam ground was about to enter a new stage, and the rhythm of collapse had only just begun.

The fog still had not dispersed. Instead, it became stickier and heavier.

The air was like a crumpled map. The terrain around them repeated itself over and over, as though someone had folded up the entire swamp and spread it flat again, making it impossible to tell where they had already passed or how much farther they had to go.

More and more people began running in circles.

"This isn't right. We just ran down this path!"

"Are you sure? I don't remember that patch of bark!"

"I remember a tear in those vines... we came back!"

The group descended into complete chaos.

Some simply stopped and tried to "wait for the fog to clear," while others began running around after different "judges." Small groups of two and three wandered in every direction under the interference of the hallucinations, like headless flies.

Some wanted to charge ahead, some wanted to hide, and some even sat on the ground and began crying loudly.

"Am I already dead?"

"Why can't we get out...?"

One boy even started clawing his way through the wet mud with his bare hands, but after only two steps, he stepped into empty space and fell into a muddy hollow with a splash, landing face-first in it. He lay there, suddenly laughing, then suddenly crying.

This was no longer an ordinary running trial. It was more like a test of mental endurance.

Ryan was still running. He had not strayed from the path, but he had already realized that this area had been set up as a Hallucination Maze.

Through different layers of reflected light, guided airflow, displaced sound waves, and other factors, the swamp's structure had turned an entire stretch of the route into an "illusion zone." Once inside, it felt as if one were walking the same road repeatedly, when in truth they were merely circling in place.

He did not speak, but he acted.

He observed the varying moisture levels in the ground, determining which grass roots had been "stepped on by people" and which had bent naturally. He sensed the direction of the wind, confirming which stretches were "dead wind" in enclosed areas and which were "through wind" along the edge of a passage.

He adjusted his steps, concentrating his formerly evenly distributed stride frequency over certain patches of terrain to create a "guiding rhythm." He altered his running posture so that his footprints appeared at the most noticeable angle for those behind him to see.

All of it was silent, yet it left traces in the visual field.

First, he carved a slanted forward trail into the wet mud. Then he lightly crossed a patch of shallow water and finally stepped onto a pile of dead grass at the edge of a stone slab. The ground sank slightly, proving that no one had passed through here. This was the correct route.

A group of three not far away heard the footsteps.

"Listen! Someone just went through there!"

"Really? We've already circled that direction twice!"

"I think those footsteps sounded different from before..."

The three paused for two seconds. Then one of them took the lead and ran forward two steps, stepping onto the path Ryan had just taken.

"The grass isn't slippery anymore... the direction of the blades has changed! Did we find the right way?"

"Footprints! There are fresh footprints here!"

They followed the path for a dozen or so steps when one of them suddenly cried out softly, "I can see the fog thinning!"

An emotion exploded among the three of them—as though they had found a way out, or perhaps seized hold of hope.

But they still did not dare be certain, so the person in the middle shouted, "This way seems to be right!"

Several nearby candidates heard him and followed over, hesitating as they did.

Ryan did not look back.

After breaking free from that stretch of path, he repeated similar actions on the other side: creating the sound of footsteps, leaving obvious depressions, and guiding people around turns.

He knew very well that as long as two or three directions were cracked, the Hallucination Lock over the entire area would begin to loosen.

In less than a minute, the first group to follow him had confirmed that they were out of the hallucination trap. They began telling those around them how to identify the wind direction and read the ground, watermarks, and the direction of the grass blades.

More people began copying their route. The formerly chaotic footprints across the grass gradually began to converge in one direction.

This was not a rescue. It was a return of order.

Ryan silently passed along the edge of the last group of affected people, checking who was still stalled. He saw several people sitting on the ground with hollow eyes and knew that this was a typical sign of losing judgment after the hallucinations were triggered.

He lightly stirred up the wind, deliberately running past them and making the grass blades sway.

The people crouching in place froze for a moment. One of them instinctively stood up and staggered after Ryan in the direction he had gone.

He did not realize he had been "pulled out of the hallucination." He merely felt that the "air seemed fresher," so he followed.

Seeing this, the rest seemed to have their nerves tugged by invisible strings as well. One after another, they rose and followed.

The chaos had not ended completely, but it had slowly changed from an unsolvable mire of hallucinations into a patch of shallow water where one could still struggle.

Ryan knew this run was nearing its end.

The finish line might lie just beyond a turn not far ahead.

But the people who could truly make it there had already been almost completely weeded out by this stretch of hallucinations.

He took another step. The fog rushed toward him, yet it had grown lighter.

The running was still not over. But the direction was back in their hands.