The system pinged again.
[Target Class: Ashform – Variant Crawler]
Threat Level: Moderate
Spell Interference Field: Reactive
Pattern: Delay-Trace
Lucen whispered, "Don't cast yet. It's watching the mana build."
Kell glanced back. "What?"
"Delay your trigger or it'll jump."
Rin didn't hesitate. She dropped low and rolled a stun glyph off a paper tag. The glow took half a second to charge.
The creature lunged.
Lucen cursed and launched Gravitic Snap to intercept.
The spell hit the floor near its leg. The burst cracked the tile and threw the thing sideways before it touched Rin.
It hit the wall with a splatter. Hissed.
Then reformed.
Maika snapped her fingers.
Two light rings expanded around her. Spatial anchor glyphs. One warped behind the creature, the other under it.
Lucen saw the shimmer before it happened.
The fog twisted. Like it had seen the spell. Like it was already reacting.
The creature blinked.
Then teleported through the fog before Maika's anchors closed.
Lucen's jaw tightened.
'It's not smart. It's syncing with the field. It's cheating.'
The system pinged again.
[Drift Entity Utilizing External Behavior Map]
Lucen's Interface – Not Affected
Spell Designer Sync Block: Active
Lucen blinked.
'So the creature's reacting to their spells, not mine. Because mine aren't prebuilt. They don't register. It's basically like I'm not running on the public circuit.'
The thing lunged again.
This time at Kell.
Lucen didn't think.
He cast Unstable Kinetic Point with a hard flick of his fingers.
It struck the creature mid-air, just before impact.
The recoil wasn't strong, but it shifted its balance enough for Kell to punch straight through its chest.
Ash exploded across the floor.
Steam hissed.
Lucen stepped back.
Fog curled toward his feet again.
Only his.
Maika panted. "That… should not have been that fast."
Rin shook blood off her blade. "It warped around her anchor glyphs."
Kell stared at the ground. "They don't do that. Not at this tier."
Lucen said nothing.
But inside his head, the noise was deafening.
'It's not the tier. It's the field. The fog is syncing with their spells. Reading timing. Adjusting movement.'
He looked at his own hand.
The glow from his cast was already gone. No trace.
'And mine don't leave a footprint. Not in the same way.'
Maika turned to him. "What was that push spell? Looked manual."
Lucen shrugged. "Basic knockback. Just timed it."
She nodded. "You saved Rin."
Rin blinked once. Said nothing.
Kell wiped his gloves. "Good reaction."
Lucen stepped back toward the wall.
The fog drifted after him like it didn't want to be forgotten.
'It knows I'm different. It's not aggressive. Yet. But it's interested.'
He opened the system again.
[Suggestion: Continue Spell Development – Fog Behavioral Interaction Detected]
New Path Unlock: Conditional Drift Glyphs
Slot Requirement: 4
Unlocks at Level 3
Lucen stared at the screen.
Then closed it without a word.
And looked out across the chamber.
The fog was still moving.
And now he was sure.
It wasn't random.
It was watching.
—
The chamber stayed quiet after the thing died.
No second wave. No hissing crawl from the walls. No emergency backup monster screaming revenge from the shadows.
Just fog.
Still clinging to the ground.
Still brushing against his boots like a cat trying to decide if he was food or furniture.
Lucen shifted his weight and leaned one shoulder against a tilted piece of metal that used to be a pillar. The edge bit into his jacket.
No one else seemed to notice the fog was thicker near him.
Or maybe they noticed and didn't care.
Kell walked a slow circle around the room, checking for other threats. Rin crouched to examine the remains of the crawler thing, using the edge of her blade to poke at the ash.
Maika sat on a half-ruined bench and pulled out a small protein bar from her coat like that fight had just burned enough calories to deserve a snack.
Lucen didn't move.
He kept his hands in his pockets and tried to breathe normal.
'Alright. Think. The creature responded to anchored spells. It warped before they closed. That shouldn't be possible. Not at this level. Not unless the field here is running interference.'
His system hadn't triggered any emergency notifications.
It hadn't offered a quest.
It hadn't told him to run.
It had just quietly logged the fog's behavior and dropped a tease about a new spell path.
'Cool. So now we're dealing with ambient drift conditions that mimic behavior maps. Like monsters with cheat sheets. Great.'
Maika called out, "Room's still stable. No core activity. I say we push one more hallway and bounce."
Kell grunted. "Fog's thick. But we're clear."
Rin looked at Lucen. "You good?"
He nodded automatically. "Yeah."
'That's a lie, obviously. I'm standing in a puddle of sentient fog that only seems interested in me and pretending that's fine.'
She watched him for a second longer.
Then turned away.
Lucen exhaled slowly.
He felt the pull again. That weird tug at the edges of his mana sense. Not pain. Not drain. Just pressure. Like someone tapping him on the shoulder over and over to see if he'd flinch.
'It's not a curse field. That'd register. It's not a spell. There's no anchor glyphs. So either this is naturally occurring… or someone designed it like this.'
The thought made his stomach feel tight.
He'd seen designed spells.
He was running one.
His system literally let him forge his own.
And this didn't feel natural.
It felt like a build.
Something left here.
Maybe incomplete.
Maybe forgotten.
Or maybe bait.
He didn't say any of that out loud.
No one wanted the teammate who talked about cursed air and haunted architecture ten minutes into a dungeon run.
Maika stood up, brushing crumbs off her coat. "Alright. Formation again. If there's another crawler, we try a box trap. Lucen, hold the rear?"
Lucen nodded.
'Perfect. I get to walk with the fog cuddling my ankles like we're dating. This is just amazing.'
They started toward the next hallway.