'She is finally gone.' Leo sighed as he watched Celia safely retreat. He would have been more than glad if she could assist during this fight. 

Unfortunately, they were up against someone who was a proficient poison user. She may be able to protect herself in any other situation but he doubted that she could deal with the poison of that beast. 

His assumption was most likely right considering that she didn’t even feel that she was getting poisoned. 

Anyway, even he was feeling wary about this fight. Not even talking about protecting her, he could barely protect himself. 

[Ding...You are being poisoned. You have successfully resisted.]

[Ding...You are being poisoned you have successfully resisted.]

[Ding...You have been poisoned. Poison efficiency is reduced by 50%. You are in a state of mild paralysis. Agility reduced by 5% for 2 seconds.]

He wasn’t sure how he would have dealt with this had he not acquired the poison affinity and a certain level of poison resistance beforehand. 

'I should leave this area too. I don’t think his poison could be spread everywhere already.' Leo said as he too started to walk away from the area where he was currently standing. 

Unfortunately, before he could even take a few steps, the area around him gradually turned foggy. In the blink of an eye, the scenery surrounding him vanished and he found himself inside a milky white fog.

'Hum, a fog, what for? Is he trying to keep me here?' Leo, unsettled by the sudden change, immediately raised his guard. 

'Is he trying to ambush me now that he realized that his poison is not working as much as he intended?' Leo wondered as he tried to scan the fog around him.  

As he was completely ignorant about his opponent's abilities, Leo didn't know that the poison he felt previously was not an attack of the snake. It was but a sign of the skill the snake just used being activated.

Had he known, he would have certainly escaped alongside Celia and not stayed behind. 

Unfortunately, he didn't know and let himself be trapped like the clueless newbie he was.

Now, he found himself in the middle of a fog where he could barely see three meters ahead of himself before everything became too blurred.

He also noticed that he could barely hear any sound coming from the forest, even his smell was hindered. It was like there was something inside the fog heavily weakening his senses.

After scanning the fog, Leo knew that he had to get out as soon as possible. 

In the fog, he was at a complete disadvantage while his opponent would be just like a fog demon in a fog. With his senses so restricted he could get ambushed at any time.

However, the worst was to come as no matter what he did or where he ran he was unable to leave the area covered by the fog. 

And the longer he stayed inside the fog the more restless he became as he was getting poisoned more often and the effects of the poison increased too.

'How is that possible?' Leo muttered as he looked at the fog in wonder. He was sure that the monster couldn’t have enough mana to cast and maintain such large-scale skills. There was another trick involved then, that could be the only explanation.

'I can’t believe the fucker can already cause so much trouble without having to show himself. It looks like I underestimated the threat of those guys too much.'

Not only are they more experienced than me, but their power is also no weaker than mine. Leo sighed as the feeling of being checkmated overwhelmed him.

[Sigh, Leo calm down. First, you should take care of the poison. You are having a hard because each time you get poisoned, the poison accumulates inside your body. That makes it harder for your body to avoid getting poisoned once again.] Luxia who was silent since the beginning of the current ordeal finally intervened.

'How can I deal with it?' Leo asked curiously.

[You have a poison affinity too so you can resist the poison more effectively by making your mana move around your body to expel the poison particles inside you.] 

Following Luxia's instruction, Leo started to move his mana around and successfully found the poison inside his body. He then proceeded to clear all of them out without too much trouble.

'I have succeeded. Thank you Luxia. I would have been doomed without you.' Leo said once he confirmed there was no more poison inside his body.

[Good, don't forget you have to keep doing this until you get out of here.]

'Ok.'

[Now, that you are calm and have dealt with the poison we should focus on getting you out of this trap.]

'Sorry, I know I shouldn’t lose my cool that easily but it was seriously annoying me. That feeling of being played around with.' Leo said with a sigh.

 [I understand but losing your calm won’t solve anything. Instead, it’ll only help your opponent and serve to make things worse.]

'You are right. So let’s start with this fog.' Leo said as he took a deep breath.

'Even if the fog covered a big area I shouldn’t have been unable to exit it. I did try to escape as soon as it appeared. However, I couldn’t.'

[That means he is somehow able to keep the fog around you. Either the fog moves alongside you or it is messing with your sense of direction.]

'I don’t think the fog is moving with me. If it was the case the area around me would have changed. However, it looks like I never left the clearing. That fog is like some kind of maze then and I’m running in a circle inside it from the beginning.'

'That would make it more complicated for me to escape this fog.' Leo said calmly. While he now knew how the fog was messing with him, he still had to find a way to escape it. And due to its weird property, Leo knew straight from the beginning that it won't be easy.

[Things may not be as dire as you think. Maybe you would be able to see through the fog if you use some of the points you stocked. Your spirit stats can improve your perception abilities…..]

'Maybe, but how much would it take for that to work. My senses aren't just messed up, they are also heavily weakened.' Leo said with some doubt.

[Well, you may need to use most of your points.]

'We can try that if nothing else works.' Leo said as he was a little unwilling to use all his free attribute points like that.

[Leo..]

'Don't worry, I won't hesitate if I don't have a choice. Also, I remember most of the skills at our level have a limited duration. So the fog may dissipate without me needing to do anything.'

[That is going from the assumption that he can’t maintain it as long as he has mana. 

But I don't think you are completely wrong. Even if he could maintain the fog indefinitely, he wouldn’t do so as its effects on you are pretty limited. A normal opponent would have been pretty weakened once the fog is lifted. 

However, in your case, it is doing nothing else other than making you use some mana to clear the poison from your body and lock you in place. If things continue this way, it will become a battle of endurance and I doubt that is what he wants.]

'So he will have to attack sooner than later if he doesn’t want to lose the advantage that me being in the fog gives him. Still, that would be if I choose to play along with him, right?

Even if we understand what is happening it is not safe to fight someone inside their domain. Maybe I could try to dissipate the fog with the earth-shattering blast and wind manipulation.'

[Well, you could try but I doubt it would work. If he is actively controlling it, you will have to ditch an attack strong enough to completely overwhelm him and break the spell. Otherwise, even if you could clear the fog it would quickly gather around you, again.]

'Maybe you are right. What if I try to fly away?' Leo said as he suddenly remembered that he possessed wings.

Like any normal human, Leo was anything but used to something like having wings. Also, due to the threat looming around him he didn’t have any opportunity to experiment with them after gaining them.

Due to all of that, he unconsciously ignored them while looking for solutions to his current predicament. But what if they were the answers he was looking for all along.

[You are right. Maybe that is the weakness of his spell. You are only going in one direction if you are flying so there is no way for you to mess things up.] Luxia said.

'Ok, let's see if I’m right.' Leo said excitedly and tried to move his wings. 

He was feeling a little excited as he felt his wings start to move a little. However, before he could rejoice he felt something behind him. As if guessing his intentions, the snake who never moved till now chose this exact moment to launch an attack. 

Out of the fog came a snake whose size was no less than earth's biggest anaconda. It was covered with pure white scales making it hard to notice it inside the fog. The top of its head was covered with bone spurs shaped like some kind of crown.

The snake was one of the biggest and most impressive Leo ever saw. However, unlike its earth counterpart, the beast was far from slow or clumsy. 

It came out of the fog like a bolt of lightning and was it not for Leo's readiness he would have been unable to avoid the thunder-like sneak attack.

'Here he comes. And he is already gone.' Leo smiled lightly as he glanced at the part of the fog where the snake vanished.

'Anyway, I am out of here. I am now sure that I found the right answer.' Leo's smile broadened as he let go of all his doubts and fully expanded his wings. 

Although he was not used to them, Leo quickly found out that he could control them quite easily. He may not be able to turn into an acrobatics expert, but it should be enough for his goals. He was sure that he could take off and fly long enough to get out of the damn fog.

'Are you still hesitating at sssssuch a time?' The fog snake said as he glared at the Umbra panther beside him.  

He couldn’t help but once again urge its accomplice to take action as it felt the situation getting more and more out of his control.

His plan was perfect or so he thought. He would trap the anomaly inside his fog maze. 

Due to the special features of that maze, the anomaly would be unable to escape and could only helplessly stay inside the fog and be poisoned to death. 

Also, the more it struggled to escape the maze the easier the poison would affect it. Nothing could go wrong as nothing ever left his fog maze alive.

To tie any loose ends, he even asked for the help of Umbra to make sure his prey could not escape with the help of a shadow skill. 

However, nothing went as he would have liked. From the beginning, the prey showed an abnormal resistance and didn’t show any signs of getting weakened by his poison. A poison he was sure could affect any of the other beast’s kings. 

Unlike any other beast that entered his fog, the best barely panicked when it noticed it couldn’t get out. And then, the beast reminded him of a weakness of his fog maze he  forgot.

That is, one could escape the maze if one could fly. 

'Give up. I will never enter your fog. I don’t have a death wish nor am I a freak like that beast.' The panther snorted, not moving an inch.

The snake cursed as he understood there was no way he could make the umbra change her mind. It was unwilling to let his trap fail so easily as it cost him a good part of his mana to set it up.

He would have preferred to avoid a direct fight with that weird beast but he knew it wouldn’t be possible. 

Making up his mind, it rushed toward the fog determined to fight it out with Leo on his most favorable terrain.