Nothing stronger came for a while after that.
Only the distant sounds of the lower grounds breathing and killing in the dark-red haze.
Kenji remained near the center of the trench, half because he wanted to hold it, half because he liked the idea of something walking in and finding him already there.
Waiting.
Several smaller things appeared during that time.
None mattered.
One fled as soon as it sensed him.
Another tried to steal from the edge of the corpse pile and lost its head for the effort.
By the time the sky had deepened further into that murky crimson-black, Kenji's body had mostly settled again.
The heat from eating had spread out and sunk in.
He felt stronger.
Not wildly so.
But enough.
Enough that the centipede and the hound already seemed a little smaller in memory than they had during the fight.
Kenji was crouched over a cracked stone, picking bits of shell from under one claw, when he heard a familiar voice from above.
"Still alive."
He looked up.
Reth stood on the ridge, outlined by the dull red glow behind him.
Kenji snorted.
"Barely. I was seconds from dropping dead dramatically."
Reth stared down at the trench floor, at the torn bodies, at the fresh blood.
Then back at Kenji.
"You kept it."
"For now."
Reth dropped lightly down onto a lower stone ledge, still outside immediate reach.
Smart.
Kenji noticed.
Everything that could talk around here seemed to understand distance pretty well.
"You came back," Kenji said.
"To see."
"Curious type, huh?"
Reth ignored that and looked toward the darker end of the trench where mist pooled thickest.
Then he asked, "Did anything use the mist?"
Kenji leaned back a little.
"Not tonight."
Reth's ears twitched once.
"Then tonight was easy."
Kenji's eye twitched.
"Easy?"
He pointed at one of the corpses with a bloody claw.
"I got jumped by that armored mouth thing and some disgusting hound with its insides hanging out."
Reth glanced once at the corpse.
Then back at him.
"Easy."
Kenji clicked his tongue.
Annoying little bastard.
Still, Reth was useful.
So he let it slide.
For now.
He stood and stretched his shoulders.
"Since you're here, explain something."
Reth waited.
"Hesh used the mist. You know about that. Vargan also said there are things stronger than me all over the place. So tell me this—"
Kenji pointed at the red haze drifting through the trench.
"What is this stuff?"
Reth looked at the mist for a moment.
Then said, "Breath."
Kenji stared.
"...What?"
"The world's breath."
That answer was so vague it actually made him angry.
He took a step forward.
"Can any of you explain anything normally?"
Reth did not move.
"Words are simple. The thing is not."
Kenji exhaled through his nose and forced himself not to slash something out of irritation.
"Alright then. Try anyway."
Reth's gaze shifted back to the mist.
"It gathers where the lower grounds split. In cracks. Trenches. Hollows. It thickens where blood spills often. It moves easier where death repeats."
Kenji frowned.
So that was why the trenches felt denser.
Why Hesh had hunted here.
Why the air itself had seemed different when that thing used it.
Reth continued.
"Some creatures sense it. Some breathe it without knowing. Some shape it."
Kenji's eyes narrowed.
"Shape it how?"
"Pull. Bind. Hide. Disturb."
That fit what he had seen.
Hesh had wrapped his legs with it.
Could probably have done more if Kenji had not caved its skull in first.
Kenji crouched and dragged his claws lightly through the red haze near the trench floor.
It drifted around his hand.
Cold.
Thin.
Almost insubstantial.
Yet he had felt it physically before.
He looked up at Reth.
"Can I use it?"
Reth's answer did not come immediately.
Instead, those yellow eyes studied him in silence.
Then: "Maybe."
Kenji smirked.
"That's a better answer than I expected."
"You are wrong enough."
That smile faded a little.
There it was again.
Wrong.
Mixed.
Unstable.
Whatever he was, both Vargan and Reth had noticed it instantly.
And apparently it mattered.
Kenji rose slowly.
"What does that even mean, exactly?"
Reth's gaze lingered on him.
"You change too fast. Your flesh listens too easily. Your scent does not settle."
Kenji stared at his own hand for a second.
Then curled it shut.
"You're making me sound disgusting."
Reth's ears twitched again.
"You are a demon."
"Fair point."
Silence stretched briefly.
Then Reth stepped down another ledge.
Still cautious.
Still outside his reach.
With one claw, he pointed toward the trench floor near Kenji's feet.
"Sit."
Kenji blinked.
"...What?"
"If you want to touch the mist properly, sit."
Kenji narrowed his eyes.
"And you're just gonna teach me?"
"No."
"Then why am I sitting?"
"Because watching you fail may be useful."
Kenji barked a laugh.
"Yeah, alright. That's believable."
Still, he sat.
Cross-legged on the cold stone, surrounded by the slow red drift.
Reth crouched on the ledge above him like some irritating little instructor.
"Forcing it is difficult," Reth said. "Sensing it comes first."
Kenji looked up.
"How?"
"Stop thinking with your eyes."
That sounded stupid.
Which meant it was probably one of those things that made sense only after doing it.
Kenji let out a breath and looked down at the mist again.
It drifted.
Curled.
Pooled in cracks and thin hollows.
Nothing more.
"I don't get it."
"Then be still."
Kenji clicked his tongue again but said nothing.
He stayed put.
Minutes passed.
At first all he could hear was the usual.
Distant cries.
Slow dripping.
The faint movement of Reth shifting above him.
His own breathing.
Then, little by little, other sensations started pressing in.
The cold around his ankles.
The way the mist was denser in some places than others.
The faint flow of it through the trench, almost like water too thin to see properly.
His eyes narrowed.
There.
Something.
Not sight.
Not exactly.
More like the sense he used when feeling stronger prey nearby.
Except weaker.
Closer.
Spread out.
The mist was not still.
It was moving in paths.
Through cracks.
Around stones.
Over blood.
Kenji's hand twitched.
Without fully thinking, he lowered it toward the stone beside him.
The red haze curled around his fingers.
For a brief second, it clung.
Then it slipped away.
Kenji's eyes sharpened.
"...I felt that."
Reth's voice remained flat.
"Again."
Kenji slowly exhaled.
Then tried once more.
This time he focused less on grabbing and more on noticing.
The flow.
The pressure.
The cold.
The strange resistance when it brushed against cuts in the stone.
He moved his fingers through it.
And again, for a short moment, the mist gathered slightly around them.
Thinner than what Hesh had used.
Pathetic, really.
But real.
Kenji grinned.
"Oh, that's interesting."
He tried to close his hand around it.
The effect broke instantly.
The mist scattered.
Reth's voice came from above.
"Too greedy."
Kenji looked up with an annoyed expression.
"Shape follows sense. Sense follows stillness. If you grasp first, it breaks."
Kenji looked back down at the trench floor.
So it was not about force.
Not yet.
That was annoying.
But useful to know.
He spent longer with it after that.
Not enough to do anything impressive.
Not even enough to lift a strand properly.
But enough to begin noticing when the mist thickened.
Enough to tell that fresh blood really did make it gather more closely.
Enough to make the whole trench feel slightly different than before.
When he finally stood up again, his legs ached and his patience was gone.
"That was boring," he said.
Reth stood too.
"But you learned."
Kenji smirked.
"A little."
Reth nodded once.
Then looked deeper into the trench.
"Holding this place while learning may suit you."
Kenji followed his gaze.
Maybe.
A claimed trench full of blood and challengers did sound like a decent place to get stronger.
At least for now.
Still, one thought bothered him.
He glanced at Reth.
"Hey."
Reth waited.
"Things that use the mist. Things that claim trenches. Things that talk. Things that remember."
Kenji's grin thinned slightly.
"How much worse do the levels above get?"
For the first time in a while, Reth was quiet for longer than usual.
Then he said, "Enough that you asking means you are not ready."
Kenji stared at him.
Then laughed.
"Yeah. Fair."
Reth stepped back toward the ridge.
"I will return."
Kenji raised a brow.
"To help?"
Reth gave him a flat look.
"To see if you die."
Then he leaped up and vanished into the mist again.
Kenji watched the spot where he had disappeared for a second.
Then looked down at his own hand.
The faint memory of that red haze clinging to his fingers was still there.
Small.
Weak.
But real.
He slowly smiled.
"Alright."
The trench.
The mist.
The path upward.
There was still a lot he did not know.
But now he had something more than hunger.
A place to grow.
And something new to take.
Kenji sat back down near the center of the trench, red haze drifting around him once more.
This time, when he lowered his hand into it—
he listened first.