—RUA!!!!

It wasn’t a berserker howl. It was Edmund forcing courage into his chest, like stoking a hearth before a storm.

Because… what he faced now… was that eerie black smoke. The smoke that cut him in an instant, like cold knives hidden in fog.

I’ve got mana on my skin. I’ll be fine.

He fed himself that thought first. Then he drove forward without a flicker of doubt, ramming the black-smoke Skeleton through the curtain of shadow.

No surprise there. The Skeleton crossed first, its bones pale as winter branches. It took no harm at all, just flinched like prey hit by Edmund’s “loving ram,” and didn’t even fight back.

Then Edmund’s horns kissed the smoke. He’d figured horns had no nerves, no pain, and mana was scarce, so he’d left them bare, like stone left to weather.

He regretted it. He regretted it hard.

He was fast, a falling star. His horns touched the smoke for a blink. Even so, the pain knifed up from the horn, a red-hot brand he couldn’t ignore.

Only then did he grasp it. This smoke didn’t only chew flesh. It likely seared mana, maybe even licked the soul, like frostbite that bites deeper than skin.

Miscalculated.

But a mistake made is a stone already thrown. He wouldn’t stand and let the smoke gnaw his horns. That would be the dumbest death, like waiting for tide to drown you.

His hind legs hit earth again. His body surged, a bull charging through reeds.

The Skeleton wouldn’t play dumb forever. Two gray-white hands clamped his head. Shadow-hidden feet planted, trying to stop their forced retreat.

Futile.

Edmund’s strength wasn’t a joke. Before, the Skeleton only stumbled back and stayed whole. Now it was head-on, iron on iron.

His horn wedged into its rib cage. Two opposing forces pried the bones apart like a door under a crowbar.

He didn’t stop. The horn drove deeper, a spike through driftwood. Ribs snapped. The frame split in two. The Skeleton fell apart and lost all fight.

In the breath it took to wreck it, Edmund’s body had already crossed most of the smoke. The black rose up to his waist, a river around a boulder.

He’d guarded head and chest as if cupping a flame in both hands. Mana Nullification wrapped them clean. Because of that, his lower half, thinly coated, became a problem big as a cliff.

He clenched his teeth. He felt the ragged dregs of mana, just enough for escape, slosh like water in a cracked gourd. He chose to endure.

He prayed in silence, like a leaf praying for wind. Let the thin veil of mana there blunt the edge. Shave even a hair off the pain.

—RUA!!!!

Another roar, a man’s drumbeat. His rushing body slid into the place where mana grew thin, like a runner hitting bare stone.

It began.

He cut through the smoke so fast he left only a smear of light, an afterimage with no face.

His mana burned off so fast it vanished before even a shadow could form.

His nerves screamed so fast the pain hit his brain in a flash of white.

It hurts!

He cleared the smoke, but pain is a tax no one skips.

Black fire bloomed on his lower half, visible as nightflowers. It sizzled—szzzt—like rain on hot iron, yet there was no charred smell. Maybe the thick black flame smothered the scent like a blanket over coals.

Worst of all were the horns crowning his head. Unprotected, they were swallowed by black-violet fire, torches of night from a distance, a beacon no one would mistake.

And Edmund’s face—snarled and twisted by pain—was a mask carved by lightning.

Must get back.

He forced his posture straight, like a spear finding its line. His gaze locked on dozens of black-smoke Skeletons ahead, no different from the last, and his eyes held a hard thread of resolve.

Must run.

If they used that same trick to block the path, he’d die here, a stone in a culvert.

So run before they can think. Run before the wave can rise.

He bit down on the ache in his hind legs, slid his back foot for leverage, and gathered force like a bow being drawn. His heel brushed the Skeleton he’d split. Its bones had knit close again, hairline cracks fading like frost under sun. In under a minute it would stand.

No time to hesitate. He kicked off hard. Blood sprayed from wounds wreathed in black fire, little banners torn by wind. Escape was the only road.

He became a violet streak, a comet tail of flame dragging behind, and he threaded the Skeletons like a fish through reeds. Would it really be that smooth?

Yes. It was that smooth.

Weaving through them, he noticed something strange. At first, their empty stares fixed on his head, and most raised a hand to strike, like scythes about to fall. Then they saw the flame trailing his afterimage, and those lifted hands lowered like crops spared from harvest.

What’s going on? Because flames were crawling over me, did they take me for kin?

He didn’t know why they mixed black smoke with black fire, why shadow and blaze became the same in their heads.

It didn’t matter. If it helped him run, that was enough.