42. Mysteries Abound (Part 4)

Jaune walked through the dead streets of Ansel like a ghost retracing his own life.

The air felt heavy, like a storm was coming—or a funeral. The cracked stones on the sidewalk groaned beneath his shoes, and somewhere in the distance, the wind slithered through broken gutters and shattered glass like it was trying to whisper dreadful secrets to him.

He shivered. Jaune could never get over the environment of this realm and for the umpteenth time wondered why it looked the way it did. Macabre and dead. Like the aftermath of an Apocalypse of sorts that wiped out all life and left only remnants behind.

He sighed and stared at his home. Or what was left of it.

His neighborhood in Ansel had once been a small, cozy and forgettable place. A place where neighbors gossiped over fences, and everyone had a "growing up here" story. But this version of it—this nightmare copy—had none of that warmth. The familiar became alien and even his childhood playground was now a graveyard of splintered rotting wood and rusted chains. Front lawns were reduced to patches of cracked earth and every house wore decay like it was their second skin.

Still, he knew the streets and his feet carried him around by instinct.

"Left here, past the Walkers' place... Mrs. Halberd's house should be around that bend..." Jaune murmured to himself.

It was surreal experience. Not just the silence, or the ruin, or the thin dusting of ash over everything—but how clearly he still remembered the layout of it all, even with all the changes.

Each house was locked but many-few had a variety of broken windows and splintered doors. Jaune didn't hesitate to enter, anymore. Whatever guilt he'd felt about trespassing had long since crumbled. He doubted the dreamscape came with much moral consequences. Especially if it was only him in this world. Besides, the owners were long gone. Or never existed at all. At least, not here.

His body stat made kicking open doors, very little effort. Old wood and rusted hinges were made short work by him, easily. Each home he entered, he cleared carefully—sword drawn and shoes steady. No sound but the creak of rotten floorboards beneath him and the occasional distant whispers carried on a wind that didn't move.

Still no Dream Creatures.

No Beowolves or even a hint of a Boarbatusks. Not even a single skittering limb in the shadows.

Just empty living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens full of half-rusted silverware and furniture draped in moldy sheets. Everything that was familiar yet wrong.

"You know, I always wondered what the Parkers' house looked like inside. Kinda disappointing. I thought they had a hot tub or something."

He sighed and continued, keeping care to always leaving obstacles at the front doors as traps—couches turned sideways, chairs stacked, anything that might trip up a creature lunging inside. Yesterday, it was enough to save his life. No reason for him not to keep using it.

Still, no enemies came. It was eerie in a sense that the silence had weight until eventually, he reached the edge of the neighborhood—where the gas station stood. Or should have stood.

Jaune paused.

The building was still there in shape, in outline, but something was wrong.

The entire parking lot—and the convenience store beside it—was blanketed in a dense, black-gray mist that had odd specs of... something shining within. It clung to the pavement in a way that seemed as if it had claws.

Ordinarily, Jaune would have thought it was just some weird haze that was drifting around. There were many things weird about this realm, after all. But the mist moved with a slow, deliberate motion of something that was alive.

It undulated and writhed like a living creature.

Which meant that it was probably dangerous.

He ducked behind a broken-down sedan, eyes locked on the swirling cloud.

"…Okay. That's new."

Fortunately, the mist didn't charge him, nor did it reach out with claws or eyes. It just pulsed like a breathing, living wound, oozing from beneath the doors, creeping out over the pavement in sluggish tendrils, but stayed over the area of the gas station like it was anchored there. Occasionally, it twitched—like it was reacting to something—but it never surged in his direction.

Jaune wiped his palms on his pants and crept forward a few steps, sword held low. His breath came quiet. Controlled.

"Not a dream creature, I think. Doesn't feel the same. Doesn't even look like it wants to kill me. But if it is... how would I even fight that thing?"

Jaune moved another step forward. Still no reaction from the thing.

"You know... if this was a horror movie, this is probably the part where the movie audience screams at the idiot for getting closer to the creepy fog. But hey, maybe it's friendly. Maybe it's just misunderstood black demon mist. That's a thing, right?" Jaune murmured unconvincingly. 

Silence.

He crouched beside a parking barrier and watched it for a moment longer.

The longer he stared, the worse it felt. Not because it did anything, but because it didn't. It just existed in a weird state. Wrongly. Like it was not meant to be seen or known.

Every instinct in his upgraded, stat-boosted body screamed caution.

"Okay. So… not approaching the cloud of death. Cool Jaune. Smart Jaune. Survival Jaune." Jaune muttered with conviction in his breath.

So obviously, Jaune did the exact opposite instead. He moved forwards to the mist, more deliberately, this time.

Whatever that mist was, it didn't seem like it was part of the same ecosystem as the Beowolves. It didn't patrol nor did it stalk. It just… waited.

And he was... morbidly curious to find out what it was waiting for.

He moved like a shadow but every step he took toward the mist felt like walking deeper into a potential death scenario before it could happen—except this was no ordinary death scene, and the thing ahead of him… it wasn't simply a funeral in mist form.

Twenty meters out, he stopped.

Something tightened in his chest, not quite fear—but a pressing feeling. A weight, like recognition in his bones. A thought rose, slow and uninvited.

'The Beowolves I fought were Rank 0.'

That fact had never seemed important before. He hadn't thought too hard about it, chalking it up to game logic. But now, with that haze writhing just meters away, the memory hit him like a warning.

'What rank is this thing? Hell, what does a Rank 1 look like? Or Rank 2? Is this mist thing... a higher ranked creature?'

His fingers gripped the sword harder, and for the first time since he'd upgraded his body, it felt heavy. The thrill of speed and strength—of being in control—ebbed into the background. He wasn't breathing hard, but his lungs felt shallow and dry. Tight with anxiety.

He didn't like that. He didn't like this whole situation.

The fog ahead of him still wasn't moving toward him nor was it reacting to his presence. It didn't feel alive in the same way the Beowolves had. Instead, it felt older and stranger. A presence instead of a predator. Perhaps this was truly a boundary line that was drawn across reality, daring him to cross it.

And still… he took another step forward. He told himself it was curiosity. Perhaps it really, was. More likely, it was necessity.

He had no dream authority exit, this time. That meant he'd have to kill something before he could leave. So unless he wanted to spend hours searching for a familiar monster—another Beowolf, another boar demon—this was it. This was the challenge.

But it didn't feel like a fight. It felt like he was being invited.

By what, he didn't know.

Ten meters.

The fog continued to roll along the ground like spilled ink, dragging its tendrils across the broken concrete, but still tied to that location. It pulsed with a rhythm that wasn't synced to anything natural. It looked as if it was breathing, not like lungs, but like it had a tide of its own. In and out. A slow, deliberate undulation, as if it were watching him without eyes.

Jaune's anxiety twisted itself into curiosity once again. It didn't attack or retreat. It didn't do anything. It was just weird.

At this distance, if it was a dream creature, it would have already lunged at him with the intent to kill. That's what they all did, anyhow. In fact, it would have sensed him with that weird sense that the dream creatures seemed to have as soon as he laid eyes on it.

He began to circle around it, careful, but less afraid now. Not quite bold—but more so, intrigued. He looked for a center or a source. What was it hiding? Was there something inside it?

Jaune didn't know and he was beginning to think that perhaps he should even try to find out.

As he stepped around it, he noticed again the flecks within—tiny motes of light, almost like dust, but almost metallic-like. Silver, maybe, or were they some type of Spheres? Particles? Whatever they were, they shimmered and shifted within the folds of darkness like stars drowning in tar.

Then—

The fog twitched, reacting like a nerve spasm, like something within it was waking up.

Jaune's instincts went rigid. His spine grew taut and his nerves burned with fire, ready to react. He stepped back, his sword raised defensively. The curiosity immediately drained from his system.

"Okay. Nope. Nope, this is the part where I leave," he whispered.

But being the curious idiot that he was, he didn't. 

The mist surged—not outwards or towards him, but up. Its tendrils coiled like vines, twisting upward into spirals. Then, without warning, it convulsed.

Like a heave or... a retch.

A sick, wet splatter rang out as something fell from the mist. A heavy glob of black liquid slapped onto the sidewalk. The glob undulated and wiggled like it was alive. It twitched like it was trying to become something.

And then it did.

All the while Jaune stared, rooted to the ground, in horrific fascination.

The black goop bubbled and churned, rising as it pushed upward into a malformed shape. Bone tore through the outer surface like a an animal that was breaking through mud. Massive, thick bear-like limbs formed out of the black puddle. Sinew and muscle. A twisted body, black-furred and hunched, with armor-like plates growing like tumors across its shoulders and back. Jagged spurs jutted from its joints. Its paws were like warped claws dipped in obsidian. Red lines traced across its limbs, as if they were pulsing red veins, and at last—

Two eyes opened.

Red, glowing and empty. No... hungry.

The creature breathed once. Loudly. A shuddering, raw bestial breath that carried with it the weight of a presence that Jaune had no words for.

Then it roared. At him.

The sound shattered the silence like a hammer to glass. Jaune staggered a step back, the vibration of the roar carried strongly through his ribcage.

This wasn't like the Beowolves, or even like the Boarbatusk that came to hunt him. This was some sort of demented bear-creature.

But that wasn't what Jaune was focused on. No, he just stood there, sword in hand, and understood—truly understood—something awful:

He had just witnessed the birth of a Dream Creature.