Knowing the longer they stayed in that mist the more damage Ignis and Adotinus would suffer, Edward accelerated his pace. He was strong enough to ignore the mist passive damage but that wasn’t the case for them.

The further he progressed, the deeper the crater became. Nothing was left of what had once been the capital of the empire. He also started to see signs of battle, deep scars and holes were left in the ground.

His aura was the first to pick something. Two forms lay sprawled on the ground, very low in energy but still alive. Thank goodness they are still alive. Edward felt a mix of relief and worry not knowing about their exact condition, he had hoped they would still be standing but it appeared he had been presumptuous. He teleported next to them his teleportation limited to the same hundred meters as his aura. Ignis was on his left, still breathing but unconscious. His head was in a relatively good condition, but his arms and legs had already been partially eaten by the mist. He must have saved the last bit of his aura to protect his head from the eating mist. On his right was Adotinus, his arms and legs were in a better state but the damage was equally spread on his body and the mist was already eating his hair and the skin of his face. The other thing Edward noticed was a figure standing a dozen meters away from him.

Just like Nephelin before it had a single eye in the middle of its head with multiple pupils flashing inside it. However, the resemblance stopped there. The figure was a bit smaller than Nephelin, standing at two meters tall, and its form was slender. Contrary to Nephelin's rough skin that seemed made of rock, the monster in front of him appeared to be made of mist. The outlines of its form were fusing with the ambient mist and it was hard to determine when one began and the other ended.

Edward stood in front of his defeated friends and summoned two clones to bring them out of there. “You must be Thana, right?” he asked remembering the name Nephelin had uttered after his defeat. Is this her real body or just a clone? It’s hard to tell, she looks just like those mist monsters.

A toothy grin formed on her face. “And here I was wasting my time thinking those two must have had a kind of trump card to be able to defeat Nephelin when you were obviously the one that did it. This trip may be worth it after all,” she giggled ignoring Edward’s question.

I don’t know if this body is real or not. I can’t go all out, I have already revealed my teleportation and my clone ability while I know nothing about her apart from her ability to produce devouring mist.

Edward took a step forward. “Let’s have some fun,” she laughed while disappearing within the mist, her body fusing at one with it.

Edward kept out all of his senses on alert not knowing from where the next attack would come. Meanwhile, he was also monitoring his clones' progress, they had already crossed half the way to escape from the mist. Thana did nothing to stop it, luckily it seemed she wasn’t that interested in them.

His aura didn’t detect anything but he felt a swipe coming at him from behind due to the air movement. He ducked under it while twirling on himself and swiping his dagger. His opponent was carried by its momentum and took the brunt of the blow, its aura armor shaking from the hit but not breaking. The familiar monster stopped in front of Edward, it was a six-legged panther. From the corner of his eyes, he could see more of them still hiding within the mist.

She can summon monsters. Were those mist monsters from before something she lent Nephelin? Six-legged panthers even fighting together are not enough to take me down at my current level. Is she probing me? Or is she waiting for an opening?

Edward decided to stay low-key for the moment, aiming to kill those monsters faster would only reveal more of his strength and even provide opportunities for Thana to ambush him. They were mere minions and weren’t worth the risk.

He was currently surrounded by four panthers, but Thana could probably summon more of them any time she wished or join the fight herself. Edward slowly backed away in the opposite direction from where his clones were carrying Ignis and Adotinus. I need to distract her long enough for my clones to bring them to safety. Also, leaving this mist would be nice, it’s still inflicting slow damage on my aura. I could repeal it with my own devouring darkness but this would escalate the fight. Let’s wait until after Ignis and Adotinus are far away.

Edward didn’t use any flashy power, restraining his blades to a meter long and backing away while avoiding and parrying the panthers’ leaps and swipes. He only teleported occasionally as he had already shown this power, but he only used teleportations at intervals long enough so that Thana couldn’t guess the exact time out he needed between two of them.

In a way, Edward’s current display was more impressive than he intended. The fact he was able to keep at bay several monsters of this caliber while still being at ease and without relying on his powers was already a show of strength and something a patriarch wouldn’t have been able to achieve.

Edward felt the slope going up as he was leaving Pescara but the mist showed no sign of dissipating. Is she moving the mist with me or producing more of it? His clone left the mist area at that time. Guess she is moving the mist then.

A giggle resounded through the fog, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. “Did you think you could escape me, puny little thing?”

Alright, since there is no going out and my friends are already far enough there is no need for me to endure this mist anymore.

A cloud of darkness sprouted from Edward encompassing him and eating at the mist. The panthers backed away while growling in front of this unexpected phenomenon.

The mist shrieked and shook. “YOU!!”

Not so happy now, are you? Edward was absorbing energy from the mist he was eating just like the darkness he had defeated before. Realizing that Thana had grown unnaturally angry from something so small he wondered. Wait is the mist her real body?

The mist swirled angrily, powerful currents and vortexes forming within. It retaliated with added aggressiveness, instead of a passive damaging environment the mist surged with activity, waves assaulting Edward from all sides.

Starting to show your true colors, heh? But this sure isn’t easy to manage.

Edward felt the difference compared to the darkness he had fought before which mostly behaved passively. He had to endure an offensive from the mist that had real intent behind it, and if he was not paying attention and controlling the darkness around him it ended up blown away or crushed by massive waves of mist. He was surrounded and had less darkness than Thana had mist. He relied on what he had learned when he navigated within the sandstorm, he made the darkness swirled on itself, accompanying the mist movements to better deflect it.

He was like an immovable rock in an angry sea, the mist surged from all around him but was unable to tear the darkness apart. In addition to the waves of mist trying to tear the darkness apart, each time the mist and darkness entered in contact they attempted to devour each other. The struggle held two dimensions as Edward had to micromanage the devouring aspect while also taking into account the larger movement, lest the darkness became separated into smaller pieces and annihilated by the mist.

However, as Edward kept enduring without faltering this only increased Thana’s ire. She had unveiled part of her true power and it proved ineffective at eliminating her enemy, something she hadn’t experienced for ages.

Suddenly the four panthers that had stayed on the side watching the mist and darkness go at each other entered the fray. They leaped directly inside the darkness.

Fuck! As if countering the mist wasn’t hard enough. Given how cautious they are there is no way they would jump into an unknown environment like that, Thana must have ordered them to attack me. He chuckled dryly. She is not able to squash me directly so she is sending her minions to do the work. I certainly don’t need the distraction.

Even while Edward was thinking about the invading monsters his lack of focus cost him and a small part of his darkness was torn apart and eaten by the mist.

All right, I can’t afford to be distracted. She can’t see me while in the darkness, let’s go all out and end this quickly. “Rèng khwāmrĕw”, Edward used his acceleration. The panthers appeared frozen in his vision. Within the darkness, they weren’t able to see him but Edward was perfectly aware of their position. They may be invisible to his aura, but they couldn’t hide while being inside his domain that was literally trying to eat them.

With his large increase in speed, his teleportation, and the environmental advantage, taking care of those monsters was a breeze. While inside his domain his teleportation had no cooldown, he teleported four times in a row, and two slashes of his daggers were enough to kill each panther. To think only one such panther was enough to give me trouble before. The skirmish ended within a single second.

Edward deactivated his acceleration as he focused back on controlling the darkness to prevent it from being blown to the four winds. He hadn’t had the time to absorb the panthers’ blood essence, but he realized they were turning back into mist. They were not real monsters only summoned ones, and just like the mist monsters Edward should have only been able to absorb a small part of their energy.

The panthers turned to mist and shifted to join back with the rest of the fog. Do you think I will let you go? Edward had to control the darkness to resist the mist, but in reality, it was mostly the outer layer doing all the work while the inside of the sphere lay uselessly around. Being separated from the rest of the haze, the situation was reversed and Edward had the numerical advantage over the mist from the defeated monsters. With one order the four bundles of mists inside his domain were consumed to the last drop. The energy they provided him was more than enough to compensate for the small part of his darkness that had been lost to the mist.

“Hehe,” Edward laughed. “Keep sending your minions, I will gladly welcome them in my stomach.”