"Damn, you didn't need to shout like that." Reign said as he held his head that was in pain thanks to the loud screaming of Aethion. Wolf and the others weren't spared of it either, only the monster that M'azgara had created had no reaction.
"Apologies, I did get a bit too excited there," Aethion said as he calmed himself down, obviously not pleased that he had lost his cool like that.
"Now, to what I was saying, I finally managed to remember what this fog is."
'Alright, so come on, out with it.' Reign said as Aethion nodded at his words.
<anno data-annotation-id="fffba13a-a329-aaf0-a1a2-234a27bcb8db">"It is most probably the Ominous Klinchor Vitality Draining Fog of the Mad God Plosarkon from an era long ago."</anno>
"The fog is special in the way that it works, not to mention the ability it has to shroud everything inside of it."
"Vitality Draining Fog, that doesn't sound very nice." Reign said upon hearing Aethion's words, obviously being a bit concerned about the entire thing.
"It isn't, the fog is able to drain the vitality of anything that is inside of it while at the same time drawing in monsters, demons, humans, and more thanks to what lies in the middle of it."
"Luckily for you guys, I managed to identify it, which makes defending yourselves against it simple."
"Listen, once you get deeper inside the fog, you will be able to see certain plants that grow in the area, they never look the same, so describing them is pointless, but the fruit that they give birth to is always the same, making it a simple job to identify it."
"The fog itself doesn't really pose any danger to you as it will merely suppress your powers the deeper you go inside, while the fruit will allow you to shrug off the suppression and move around the fog normally, but, it comes with one large drawback."
"It will slowly take your vitality until you are left with nothing and turn entirely gray, just like the monsters and the environment you can see here, your consciousness and even your soul will slowly erode and get devoured by the fog until you are merely a puppet of it, nothing more."
"The more fruits one digests, the less effect the fog has on them, not to mention the addictiveness of the fruits that also increase one's power by a bit, making it very hard for a person to stop looking for them and eating them once they had had a taste."
"So, all of these monsters were just puppets of the fog?" Reign asked Aethion who shook his head.
"No, there was still some color left on them, which means that they have not fully been corrupted by the fruits, it is only once they turn entirely gray that you will know that their consciousness has started eroding, their actions will no longer be their own, their reflexes will lessen and their overall power will not be the same, most of the times becoming a weaker version of what they used to be, while in some rare cases, the fog will take special care of them and make them even more powerful."
"But how are the plants gray then, I don't believe they have eaten any fruits, right?" Reign asked Aethion who sighed upon hearing his question.
"Of course not, the fog will drain the vitality of anything that does not have a consciousness, luckily for your new friend, she is connected to her monsters, so even without them having a consciousness, the fog won't do anything to them since it will think they do have it, but that is only true for the strong ones, weak monsters will get devoured by the fog right away, which is why you won't find any monsters below Tier IV here, as that is the highest in the area, and the fog needs some creatures to take over."
Reign and the others nodded to Aethion's words before looking at where they were previously, right before they were about to go there, M'azgara opened her mouth, telling them to wait as she could create another monster from the nutrients that had been left over.
"I didn't use too many since there was no point in doing so, which means I can create another Tier IV creature, I just needed a quick break before doing so."
Reign and the others nodded at her and stood guard while she started creating another monster. Three monsters approached them, but they were swiftly dealt with by the combined efforts of the three before being devoured by M'azgara who had finished creating the second monster.
The second monster was very similar to the flying snake they had come across, the only difference was the fact that it had fur over its body while only some parts like the short legs and head were covered in tough scales.
With two more Tier IV monsters joining them, the party continued walking toward the depth of the mountain range, slowly getting closer to the center.
"Hey Aethion, what is at the center?"
"I don't know, could be a portal that leads to where the fog originates, could be a treasure that had prompted the fog to appear, it could even be a monster that has the ability to summon or even somewhat control the fog, there are other things that could potentially be found there, but those three are the most probable."
"What do you think, how powerful will the monsters deep inside be, peak Tier IV?"
"Probably, I wouldn't be that surprised if there were even a couple of Tier V's, the fog can shroud everything inside of it, in its depths, it can even create illusions on the outside, making it seem as if it covered less of an area than it truly was, it might be enough to even trick the system a bit and produce monsters that are too powerful for the area, but one thing it cannot do is send the monsters that it had completely taken over outside, they can only survive inside the fog and the more time they spend outside, the weaker the control becomes until it lifts completely and nothing more than empty husks of the monsters remain, dying instantly."
"The fruit is the same, once taken outside the fog, it will instantly wilt and turn to ashes, making it impossible for one to take it out and eat in order to not suffer the penalty, even if you were to place it into a spatial ring, your inventory, a pocket space … it will not work and it will instantly die."
"Got it, the fruit is bad, there is no use for it, do not touch it." Reign said before walking ahead, their goal for this trip was to hunt down as many Tier IV monsters as possible in order for M'azgara to create more of them.
The only drawback her ability had was the fact that she had to devour beings by herself in the beginning, later on, as she made more monsters, they could hunt down powerful monsters and devour them themselves, keeping the remains inside of them before coming to her to give them the remains, which would allow her to get more nutrients and create more monsters.
She still had the same function as she did before, she was not a combatant, well, not a really good one at least, and her job was mostly keeping safe in the back and creating more brood that would fight for her.
Even though she had the [ Transmog ] skill that allowed her to change her body and become more powerful, the lack of fighting experience and powerful skills made her weaker than most monsters of her own level.
Of course, that mattered little when you could have an army of monsters at your disposal.
The party wandered around the outskirts of the fog for multiple hours, hunting down monsters and killing them before allowing M'azgara to devour them. Slowly but surely, her army started to grow in number, becoming larger and larger until she finally had 9 Tier IV monsters at her disposal after they had stayed inside for 6 hours.
Out of the 9, only 1 had consciousness, and that was thanks to them coming across a humanoid monster inside the fog.
It was a hybrid, one that was in the mid-grade of Tier IV. Even though Reign and the others were powerful and could fight against those that were higher leveled than them, the monster was a problem.
It had incredible speed, such that even Reign was impressed as he had a tough time following after it. If he was to go all out, he would be stronger, of course, but that would mean that everything in a mile and more around them would sense him, which would lead to more monsters coming to fight them, so he couldn't do it, neither could Wolf and Greenie.
The monster was a hybrid of a human and 3 other monsters. It possessed the legs of one, which were bent back a bit and acted like springs, allowing the monster to have incredible speed, but its maneuverability was low.
The arms were large, comically larger than they were supposed to be, but they allowed the monster to possess incredible strength while suffering when it came to the speed of its attacks.
Finally, its head was not human, but what seemed to be an insect. It had four antennae on its head, which was gray and covered in chitin. It had 5 eyes and a mouth that could open in a similar manner as a snake, allowing it to easily bite a human head and gulp it down.
Thanks to all of that, it took the party about 5 minutes to take it down, whilst suffering some light injuries. M'azgara did not fight, and neither did her monsters as they were unable to go against such a powerful creature and would only be in the way of Reign and the others.
Upon taking it down, M'azgara had the chance to devour it and finally created a powerful monster worthy of bestowing a consciousness to.
<annotations style="display: none;"><ol class="tinymce-annotation-container"><li data-annotation-id="fffba13a-a329-aaf0-a1a2-234a27bcb8db">I just wanted to make a dumb long name for comical effect, I will understand if you guys hate it though, lol</li></ol></annotations>",
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