The sound of foot-steps echoed throughout the mist-covered harrowing valley. The bones of thousands-if not millions, of foes which had dared to breach the limit of foolishness or loyalty or both, and had decided to run in opposition to her on her turf, were now rattling excitedly.

It was almost as if the dead were chanting, trying to join the great fight against that almighty evil which ruled lavishly at the seat of its own mansion.

And it lay there, beyond the edge of the valley into an even deeper shadow - big as a whole town, yet with engineering more brilliant than that decrepit dying Empire to the South and a design a hundred times more beautiful than the wealthiest Eastern temple.

Yet, to those foolish outsiders who dared to lay eyes on it, it probably looked ugly…no, wait, that wasn't really accurate. Perhaps, 'disturbed' would be a better word for it.

Yes…the crawling feeling of unease…the encroaching desperation…and then finally…cold despair. Ah, it was all too familiar.

The brave fools who had just ventured here, probably sent by some vermin's promises of false glory or a vain opportunity to avenge an associate slain there.

Mayhaps, one's sibling had come here, picking a fight. Or maybe a friend. Or a lover. Or simply a really cool person, who's unknown fate begged to be uncovered.

A lot of them came for 'noble reasons'...justifiable reasons, at the least. Their struggle was admirable for that. And they were of course scum among them, but then again, in this world - for every 10 decent people, you'd find at least one scum among them, at best. It was just how things were.

But...noble reasons? Vile reasons? It did not matter what they came for. Simply that they came was an act of unforgivable sin in her Dark Majesty's eyes. She, who had adopted the teachings of her absent master, had twisted them to something even darker…

It didn't matter why they came here.

The mysterious person who has been observing the 40 adventurers, who were making steady progress through the long valley, teleported to the throne room, bending one knee and lowering his head in proper respect to his mistress.

"Another group of rats, I presume?" she boredly asked.

"Yes. Most of them seem to be associates of the previous group." he answered diligently.

"The usual, then." she says, tone somehow even more bored than before. With an unmotivated sigh, she waved her hand at him, giving him the green-light to initiate his duty as Front Guardian of her domain.

They would all die that night.

The group of adventurers of around 40 people made their way across the valley.

Tensions were rising as they passed by the many scattered remains. The ground was practically littered with bones.

Some members got cold feet and almost deserted, but the leader, a strong lizardman, slapped sense into them.

Their journey had been long, tiring and costly. They had already lost 10 of their original 50 manpower. They had been taken by the elements and hostile creatures. The least the remaining 40 could do was honor their short-lived voyage by finishing this.

The youngest member of the party, a blonde half-elf dressed in rugged acolyte clothing. A scroll of archaic design dangled from his hip-straps. Throughout the journey he kept to himself, communicating scarcely with the other members. A constant solemn expression was on his face.

Yet, when they entered a footpath veiled in thick mist, his mood seemed to have lifted somewhat.

"Hm, so…Cilix, why are you here?"

And there was also this strange boy who had suddenly began pestering him. Cilix glanced briefly at his odd companion.

This boy - he did not know who he was, where he was from, what his skills were or frankly why he was even there. He seemed so out of place with his casual smirks and whistling. Cilix wasn't even sure if he had seen him amongst the other adventurers. But then again, he barely kept track of the others, so he did not rule out the possibility of the other boy escaping his notice.

To Cilix, this boy had just suddenly appeared next to him shortly after they entered the thick wall of fog and had started engaging in all sorts of conversations.

Whereas before, Cilix avoided chats with others, with the boy he felt compelled to always reply.

"Huh?" he dumbly let out, while his thoughts wandered about in an abstract plane.

"I'm asking why you came on this suicidal trip, dipshit." he heard the boy say.

"Oh…well, my brother Souren joined an expedition to this area and I haven't heard of him in months. I want to know what happened to him."

"A relative, eh?" the other boy's furrowed a little. "Not to sound heartless, but he's probably dead. See all these bones? That's all the other people who expeditioned to this place. That'll probably be our fate, too, in all honesty."

Cilix cringed at his companion's cold words. "How can you say such things so casually?"

The other boy shrugged.

"It is what it is."

Cilix went silent for a few seconds. The boy's words echoed in his head, again.

"...I need definitive proof that he's dead."

"You already have it. This valley right here."

Cilix glared at him.

"Don't say that! Maybe he survived! Maybe whichever monster lives here spared him and is holding him hostage!"

"Sshh! Keep it down, young man!" an elderly female demi-human warrior who was one of the group's leaders shushed them.

Cilix and the other boy apologized and reduced their voices to hushed whispers.

"Look, I'm not trying to dishearten you, but the facts are this: we're venturing in uncharted territory where 99% of anyone who comes here ends up missing for years. And the 1% who do return are mostly found irreparably damaged."

Cilix thought about it before answering. The other boy's words carried a tone of certainty and even with such horrid claims, there was a dreadful sense of truthfulness that Cilix could not so simply refute.

"...E-even if he's being tortured as we speak, it would…at the very least, I would be relieved to know that he still breathes."

"Depending on the torture, he might not want to be breathing at this point." the other boy casually threw in that dreadful possibility, but Cilix did not relent.

"If…if that is the case, then I will personally put him out of his misery."

"Woah, that's dark. What happened to the bright-eyed optimist earlier?"

Cilix shook his head.

"It doesn't matter what state I find my brother in. Right now, I just want to find him and find out the reason behind his absence."

"Sounds like a fool's errand…" the other boy said, but paused and looked around himself. He chuckled. "but then again, we're all on a fool's errand here, so what the hell."

Silence then proceeded to engulf the group. Nobody was chatty for quite a while.

"This place is giving me the creeps." one bald man with lightly tan skin muttered as his eyes darted from tree to tree.

"I know, right? You'd think the ground here was made out of bones." someone next to him said.

"Screw the bones, something's just not right with this forest." the man replied with a nervous grumble.

"Mate, there's like fifty wrong with this forest. What exactly is putting you off?" a third person chimed in.

"The mist. It's the mist."

Cilix, who had fallen back near to where the talking men were, turned his head in open curiosity.

"The mist?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's like…Whenever I look at it for more than a minute, I get this feeling that it is unnatural. Like it's entrapping us and forcing us to go in one direction."

Cilix was a caster acolyte and was considered quite skilled in his hometown, only overshadowed by his brother Souren who had a genuine talent for spellcasting. He was a Fifth-tier magic user, while Cilix's skills extended only to the 3rd tier.

Nevertheless, he decided to try his luck by casting the third tier [Lesser Detection] spell. Nothing came up.

Cilix was aware higher tiers of magic existed and he did not refute the possibility of the surroundings being tampered with magic.

However, from the rumours, no mighty spell casters lived here, so that was unlikely to be the case.

Cilix tried reassuring the men that there was nothing much out of the ordinary with the mist, but the men simply mocked his low rank as a magic user and told him to open his eyes.

Cilix paid them no heed. A part of him understood that they were technically correct. But like the boy before, he wanted to focus on the positive aspects.

They were 40 skilled adventurers after all. Whatever this place threw at them, they could handle it if they stood as one.

If the mist was forcing them all to go together in one direction, all the better.

With a slight face of optimism, Cilix marched forward. He caught up to the boy whom he talked to earlier.

"Hey." he quietly called out to him.

"Huh?"

Cilix blinked in honest confusion. What greeted him was not the face of his young companion', but the wrinkled face of a middle-aged countryside man.

"Wait you…" Cilix's voice trailed off.

"Whatchu' want, punk? I don't got food for two, ya know." the man grumbled.

"No, I…" Cilix felt his breath hitch. He desperately searched for that other boy. He had just made a mistake that's all. He'd find the other boy and then apologize to the guy. Simple as that.

But then, there was no sign of another young man that matched that boy's physical profile. Absolutely none. It was as if he had vanished.

Cilix froze in place. Something was not right here. He had read about this from his brother's notes.

"Powerful, volatile magic can cause weak spell-casters to hallucinate sometimes…"

If the boy from earlier was just a pigment of his mind, then that meant…

"The mist. It's the mist"

That bald man was right, yet also clueless. Whatever magic was cast here was not only affecting the space, but also their minds and only the most perceptive individuals could even sense that.

But if Cilix, who had easily fallen prey to it's effects, could see through the illusion, then that meant…an interference! An outside force has just disturbed the flow of magic.

Snapping back to reality, Cilix saw that he was far away from his group now, as they trotted onwards almost mindlessly, while he stood in place.

Shook to his core from his internal revelation, Cilix turned to run in the opposite direction.

When he turned, however, through the thick veil of the mist, his eyes made out the shape of a dark humanoid figure.

Before he could even register its appearance, it vanished. A low sound rang in his ears, followed by a gust of wind and a strange wet sound. Suddenly, instead of running, he was falling.

"Oof!"

Cilix landed flat on his face. He tried to get up, but for some reason, his body seemed unable to do that simple thing.

And then…his nervous system caught up. Pain. Excruciating pain. He had never felt something like this. It was so horrible that he could not hold back the squeakish scream that tore through his throat.

Sweat and tears began running down his face as he looked at the origin of the pain. It was his legs. They were so cleanly severed it was almost as amazing as it was horrifying.

Cilix, using everything he had, curled up so his hands could touch his severed legs and quickly casted a [Minor Body Healing] spell. Thanks to the cut being so clean, the spell re-attached his legs with no issue.

He inhaled and exhaled a few times. After a few seconds, his senses calmed down.

"Aaaaah!"

He could hear them now, with his hearing not ringing from the pain. He looked up, towards the far end of the foggy wall, where his companions probably were.

He could vaguely make out the sounds of fighting, but in a matter of seconds it was all screams of terror as whatever had attacked them seemed to be tearing them apart.

"F-fu-!"

"Nooo-!"

Cilix was gulped and slowly moved away with unsteady steps, his legs almost feeling foreign.

Suddenly, from the mist, one of the adventurers came running towards him. As he came closer, Cilix recognized him as the man whom he had mistaken for the imaginary boy.

"Oh Lord, oh dear Lord, please-!"

Before he could finish, a familiar sound and gust of wind tore through the air at speeds that neither adventurer could even comprehend.

The same dark figure now stood in front of the man. Cilix gasped as he saw a glimpse of an otherworldly blade in it's hand, before it sheathed it stylishly. Its aura was so malicious that it almost sent him retching.

When the sword was sheathed to the hilt, the man behind the figure exploded in bloody chunks, atomized by precise cuts.

Cilix's heart almost leapt out of his ribcage at the sight of that. He struggled to breathe and regaining his composure now seemed impossible.

Then…the dark creature stared at him. Its glowing crimson eyes peeked into his soul. Held by both the beauty and terror of those eyes, Cilix stood there…once again, frozen to the bone with fear.

His knees soon gave out and he fell down. His mind was torn between the instinct to flee and the instinct to curl up in a ball and cry like a baby.

In the end, he did neither, seated on the ground in an awkward position like a broken man.

He felt the dark figure approaching and realized that was when his life would end. Meekly he looked up. He wanted to at least see his killer before dying. Maybe that would solve the mystery surrounding his brother's fate.

The horrifying human-shaped beast now stood in front of him. It's sword was not drawn. It seemed to be observing him just like Cilix was observing it.

Cilix saw that it was a man who looked fairly human at first glance. But then the pale silver hair, glowing crimson eyes, fangs, sharp fingers and ghostly pale skin told him this was a vampire.

His garments were all black in colour: a long coat, a shirt and tight pants. The belt strapped to his pants held a mysteriously powerful shimmer. His boots were also unnatural, almost as if infused with high-tier magic.

He was a handsome man, but any humanity that face once had must've withered away by now. However, currently, there was no malice on his face.

"Why…are you not killing me…?" Cilix weakly croaked out. It was a pathetic question. The hunter would decide when to kill his prey.

Nonetheless, the vampire did not take offense and even answered politely.

"You look like someone I killed a while ago…though weaker and younger."

Cilix's heart skipped a beat. He instantly knew the implications of such words. An immeasurable sorrow washed over him for but a second before relief and acceptance quickly took over.

"Ah…I see." he simply said. He sensed the vampire warrior unsheathing his sword.

"This is where you die, unfortunately." he told him in a solemn voice as he pressed the blade near his neck. Despite the blade's evil aura causing him immense nausea, he did not flinch at all.

It was over. The puzzle was solved now. His journey was fulfilled. With tears still running down his face, he looked up once more at the vampire and smiled appreciatively.

"Thank you." Cilix said, right as he swung his blade. His head fell down on the ground with a thud.

The vampire warrior sheathed his sword again, all of his movements with the sword perfectly precise.

He stood there in silence for a full minute, looking quietly at the corpse of his latest victim.

The sound of a distant draconic roar brought him out of his stupor. He grabbed both the body and the head of Cilix and vanished out of the scene.

A few minutes after he disappeared, creatures spawned from the dark mistress swarmed in, devouring the remains of the adventurers.

A/N: Cilix - a Phoenician prince as the son of King Agenor and Telephassa or Argiope, according to Greek mythology. The part where he breaks out of the illusion is kind of in reference to Cilix's quote in the Tanglewood Tales: "methinks we are like people in a dream".