CHAPTER 322: SIMULATION (3)

The forest held its breath.

The fog that moments ago drifted lazily now coiled like serpents around the students’ ankles, rising and falling in eerie, unnatural pulses. Branches overhead twisted slowly, not blown by wind but bent, as if something unseen brushed past them.

The voice—thin, rasping, malicious—echoed again.

"Everhart..."

Merlin’s blood chilled.

Nathan immediately placed himself half a step in front of Merlin, cynical bravado gone, replaced by something closer to protective instinct.

"Okay," Nathan said, voice low. "I’d really like an explanation about why evil fog is whispering your name like a horror villain."

Merlin didn’t answer.

Because the fog moved.

Not drifted.

Moved—with intention.

Elara planted herself at Merlin’s other side, spear angled downward, ready to snap upward the moment anything breached their perimeter.

"Talk. Now."

Merlin exhaled quietly.

He didn’t want to say it, but the group needed to know.

"The voice belongs to someone from the Umbershade Cabal."

Adrian swore. "The hell are they doing in a school simulation?!"

"They’re illusion manipulators," Sera murmured, eyes wide with dawning horror. "Specialists in corrupting existing magic arrays."

"Exactly," Merlin said.

"And you knew," Dorian added softly, emerging from shadow like a whisper. "Your reaction wasn’t surprise. It was recognition."

Merlin didn’t deny it.

Because something else was wrong—deeply wrong.

The fog wasn’t just reacting to the Cabal’s influence.

It was reacting to him.

A whisper curled around his ear, a breath colder than winter air.

"Everhart... lost one... cursed one..."

Elara’s spear flashed as she struck at the fog itself, trying to disrupt whatever had gotten that close. The mist recoiled from her attack—but not entirely. It seemed to slither back, reforming into a shape.

A silhouette with no features.

Only the outline of a humanoid form.

Sera recoiled. "That is not an illusion Hale would ever create."

"It’s not one anyone sane would create," Ethan muttered, backing up until he bumped into Adrian.

Nathan raised his sword. "Form up! Tight circle around Merlin!"

"I don’t need—"

"Yes you do," Elara snapped. "If something is calling your name, you’re the target. So shut up and let us do this."

Merlin blinked in surprise but said nothing.

The silhouette stood still at first.

Silent.

Watching.

Then it... tilted its head.

An unnatural, boneless tilt.

Liliana whimpered. "It’s—looking at us. It has no eyes but it’s looking."

Nathan stepped forward, sword raised. "Alright, buddy. State your business or get disintegrated—preferably option two."

The shadow figure didn’t speak in words.

Instead, it phased. Flickered. Broke apart into strands of dark mana that swirled and then reformed several meters away—closer to Merlin.

Dorian hissed, "It’s testing your boundaries."

Merlin felt a tightening in his chest.

This wasn’t just a threat.

It was a message.

The Cabal knew something about him.

Something they shouldn’t.

Something even the novel never hinted at.

He stepped forward slightly.

"Who sent you?"

The shadow jerked. Glitched. Twisted like a corrupted file in reality. When it answered, the voice was not one voice but a collage—layered, discordant, like multiple whispers shoved into a single throat.

"Everhart... anomaly... deviant path..."

Merlin’s breath caught.

Elara’s spear snapped upward, point aimed straight at the creature’s core. "Say one more thing and I’ll shatter you like glass."

The creature ignored her completely.

Its head turned—too sharply—to focus entirely on Merlin.

"Your thread... is not correct."

Nathan’s grip on his sword tightened. "Merlin? What the hell does that mean?"

Merlin didn’t answer.

Couldn’t answer.

Because the Cabal shouldn’t know anything about divergence of fate, or alternate timelines, or the fact that Merlin was not supposed to exist in this world at all.

The shadow lifted an arm.

The fog condensed, forming claws.

Nathan lunged. "Don’t you—!"

Too slow.

The creature struck—

But not Merlin.

Elara intercepted it.

Her spear slammed down into the misty claws, stone-hard earth armor erupting along her arms. The impact dispelled the creature’s attack but sent her sliding backward several feet.

"Elara!" Liliana cried.

"I’m fine," she snapped, though her breath trembled and her boots scraped furrows in the dirt.

The shadow recoiled, its form flickering violently, destabilizing.

It whispered again, voice thinning like dying static:

"Your presence... breaks the pattern.

The Cabal will... correct... the deviation..."

Merlin stepped forward without thinking.

Dorian moved to stop him but Merlin shook his head once.

His voice was calm.

Too calm.

"...You think you can correct something you don’t understand?"

The shadow hissed, tendrils shivering.

"Everhart... must not... exist..."

Nathan immediately raised his sword. "See, that’s where I draw the line."

Ethan: "Same. Absolutely not."

Adrian: "Guess we’re killing fog today."

Liliana: "I am so done being terrorized by smoke!"

The creature extended its claws again—

But this time it wasn’t an attack.

It was a signal.

The forest reacted instantly.

Fog surged upward like a tidal wave.

Trees warped.

Ground ruptured.

And dozens of identical shadow-forms blinked into existence, surrounding the group in a tightening ring.

Sera’s voice trembled. "They’re... multiplying."

Dorian whispered, "This isn’t an ambush scenario anymore."

"No," Merlin said quietly.

"This is an assassination attempt."

Elara stepped in front of him again.

Nathan stepped beside her.

Adrian took the left flank.

Dorian the right.

Sera and Ethan moved behind.

Liliana at the center.

Together, they formed a protective circle around Merlin without needing to be told.

He felt something warm spark in his chest—something like guilt mixed with fierce, unexpected gratitude.

Elara lowered her spear, voice steady:

"If they want you—"

Nathan finished for her, blade raised:

"—they go through us."

All around them, the shadows screeched and lunged—

And the real battle began.

The shadows struck all at once.

They moved like liquid night, dissolving and reforming mid-lunge, claws slicing through the fog itself as if carving windows into a darker world beneath. Their screeching rose into a chorus, a jagged, dissonant sound that vibrated in the ribs.

But the group didn’t break.

They moved.

Together.

Liliana’s hands snapped upward and a sphere of swirling water expanded around them like a blooming flower.

"Bubble Shield!"

Sera immediately reinforced it, thin lines of frost threading along the water’s surface to harden it.

The first wave of shadow creatures slammed into the barrier—

Hiss—KRAK—BOOM—

Water exploded upward like shattered glass.

But it slowed the creatures.

That was enough.