MAROONING MIST

As most of the contestants tussled near the center of the ice dumpster, the sudden reckless move of Brown Hill threw them into disorder, also hindering Burton and Sariyu's plan of facing the four brothers together with other contestants.

As if that wasn't enough, the moisture of the air above the ice dumpster boosted in a matter of seconds as sheets of fog took shape in midair followed by jets of mist that spurted out of the water and hastily covered all the ice dumpster before spreading to the audience stands, seemingly swallowing everyone in sight. The mist's momentum alone played with people's hair, twisting and turning their strands in weird manners. The lighting of the area all around the ice dumpster paled apace, despoiling all the clime. Men turned mad with the whelming thrill and tumult. Most hearts missed a beat or two.

All the contestants, who were visible just a few seconds ago, now got secreted from the audience's eyes, especially the ones present near the center of the ice dumpster.

This unsought for occurrence perplexed the audience. Blinded by the burgeoning mist, their hands no longer clapped, and mouths no longer cheered.

"W-What's going on?" Hundred freaked out from being unable to locate Lirzod or even Sariyu and Burton much more than he did by the enveloping mist. "How did this much mist form?"

"Kah-haha, so they've decided to use the mist this time," Tarkan chortled, fingers gently sliding past the hair even though not a strand had swayed. "Everyone's hidden. It's about time the alphas exposed themselves through hunting and surviving in this mist."

"Where the heck did this mist come from?" some other audiences were in utter confusion, but those who have been on the eleventh deck long enough weren't taken out of the blue by the sudden appearance of the mist.

777 frowned a bit as he loosened his folded arms. "Che... If I had caught even a glimpse of Hardy Brothers before Sariyu entered the launching grounds, I wouldn't have let her in. Now, she's bound to lose." His shoulders slumped. "I hope that's the worst that happens."

The entire hall fell silent. The referee watched with full attention, trying to see at least something in the mist. Even the men doing their things in the other parts of the hall had their attention shifted toward the ice dumpster, for they were now able to see a cloud of mist taking shape in its overlying air. Some had their feet move in while some had the opposite done to them.

Meanwhile, somewhere hidden in the mist, Lirzod kept looking around, verbalizing thoughts without hesitation. "Wow, this fog is so cool. I like it!" the mist's concentration around him was much higher, and the water of the ice dumpster, which was cool before, was now hot. The fog was so thick that Lirzod was only able to see a little over a meter in every direction. As he was admiring the fog, a man came flying out of nowhere and settled in the waters before him. He took a step away from the man but stopped after realizing that the fog whirled and flowed in different directions. His brows furrowed a bit. After a second thought, he changed his mind, "This fog isn't that cool. I don't like it!" Even though he spoke aloud, his voice didn't reach the audience, for it lessened into nothing as it traversed through the fog. At the same time, Lirzod couldn't hear any clear voices in the neighborhood, so he imagined that the entire hall was being silent. "Mm?" he looked down at the man lying by his feet, and a thought dawned upon him. He grabbed the man's collar and commanded, "Listen, Bushy Brows, if you want to go back to your grandma in one piece, howl out my name, as loud as you can!"

The bushy-browed man, however, seemed too beaten to respond. Realizing that, Lirzod let go of him, but he wasn't demotivated by it at all. He discreetly took a few steps in one direction, making sure to memorize the path he moved in, including the number of steps, and to his treat, he came across another beaten man who wasn't as heavily hammered as the last one. Seeing Lirzod, that man tried getting back to his feet, but Lirzod kicked his chest, forcing his whole body back into the water. Lirzod then pulled the man's head out by the hair.

"Take it easy, I'm not here to hurt you," Lirzod said in a low voice.

"Stop pulling my hair, you little shit!" the man rebuked.

"Oh, my bad," Lirzod let go of the hair and grabbed the shirt collar instead and spoke in a careful tone. "If you don't want me to bother you anymore, howl out my name, as clear and as loud as you can!"

The man uttered not a word but just bore his teeth.

Lirzod gave him a blank look before dipping his head back into the water for a few seconds.

After pulling the head out, Lirzod asked again, his voice containing a source of urgency this time around, "Howl my name, and I will leave right away."

"Bwuh," the man spilled out more than a mouthful of water. "Stop!"

"Howl my name, and I will."

"Your name?" the man made a crying face. "I would if I could." He wanted to punch Lirzod in the face but was too weak at the moment to do that; he also was in a disadvantageous position.

Lirzod's eyes broadened from hearing that. Only now, he realized that he never revealed his name to neither the contestants nor the audience, yet he expected the contestants to howl his name and the audience to recognize it. It almost made Lirzod want to pull his hair out. "Ugh... I'm an idiot!"

"You are right," the man responded.

"Shut up," Lirzod ripped out a few tens of strands from that man's head, making him shriek sharply in pain. As the man shrieked, Lirzod's ear flickered. He noticed that the moving fog warped the shriek and made it sound a bit different as every instant passed. It felt quite abnormal from before. He couldn't tell the difference when speaking normal words, but a shriek lasted much longer, so his ears caught the gradual difference the voice went through. He let go of the man and inspected his surroundings with a bit more attention than before. "The water of the entire pool seems to have warmed up, making it comfortable to stay in, but this fog… Something's strange about it. It's heavy. I feel like I'm in a bush." He could feel the fog all over his skin. "What should I do now? I think I know the direction I should run in, but with this fog trying to push me around... I'm not sure if it'll be a good idea."

Boksa, meanwhile, rose out of the water and ground his teeth, with nobody around in his vicinity. "Those shitty brothers... They had to use this ugly-ass technique now of all times." He clenched his fists, trying to control his rage, for he had to stop his attack 'Mountain Roll' in the middle, all thanks to the marooning mist. "They seem to think they can do whatever they want when I'm around. Then I should show them how wrong they are." His mouth began to suck all the mist around him strongly. "Mountain Drain!"

All the fog within the distance of almost thirty meters to Boksa got sucked into his mouth—a seemingly bottomless, unplumbed pit, thereby revealing a few faces to him. Many audiences, who sat at higher positions in the audience stands, also were ultimately able to see the contestants in that spot.

"Oh, there he is!" the referee, who jumped up to be able to see, articulated excitedly through the mic as the audience was still able to hear it. "'Brown Hill' Boksa is talking in all the mist as if it's booze. Is mist perhaps like booze to a mountain?"

Hundred was also able to see Boksa. "That guy... he's capable of sucking that much of the mist into his stomach. Does he have an exrex?"

"Probably," Tarkan said, narrowing his eyes to be able to see even the faintest silhouettes forming in the fog, "but what he's taking in isn't mist but fog, and it's turning more and more silvery by the second."

"Mm?" Hundred was puzzled for a moment before his eyes enlarged. "Yes, it's much denser in the ice dumpster than it's here. Still, we can see that not just the mist around us but even that fog in the ice dumpster is moving around at a good speed. I can't tell, but it's probably moving faster there than here." His shoulders tightened a bit. "To think that Hardy Brothers were capable of doing this, they surely must be itching to prove a point." His heart pumped blood at an increased pace. (I hope the brothers won't catch him in that mist, or they'll feast on him.)

After sucking in so much of fog in one breath, Boksa eventually stopped and seemed disappointed with what he achieved. "Just this much?" He expected to suck in all the fog present in the ice dumpster, but he only managed to clear out the mist for about forty meters from him in every direction. Probably, the abnormally high density of the fog gave him the impression that he absorbed a lot more than he rightfully did, at least volume-wise.

However, what surprised Boksa more was that the water level of the ice dumpster which should have lowered by at least a foot had in truth increased a bit, which in turn made him knit his brows.

At that moment, Boksa noticed Betts who carried fog along with him as he locomoted like an emancipated shadow and took care of many men with a merciless bludgeoning his cupped fists delivered atop the contestants' heads, making them all bleed through their noses and ears as they crumbled to their knees. Shades of red branded all the water around Boksa, albeit for the nonce.

All the partly clear space that Boksa had created, now got filled by fog again, and it pissed him off. He attacked the shadowy figure as it was going past him; however, he hit nothing but fog. Before he could launch another attack, he downright lost sight of Betts. "Che, you sneaky little... Shrouding yourself with the fog and all, did you think I'd shit in my pants by mistaking you for a ghost? Show your face if you have working balls, you weasel." Boksa looked around, fully ready to launch his fists in any direction if Betts were to attack. (With fog swirling all around him, finding the correct range to land an attack isn't going to be easy. I should let him close in and grab him the moment his attack makes contact with me.)

As the fog around him got thicker and thicker again and restricted his sight, he sensed something on his back, making him turn around, and he saw the silhouette whose size slowly but surely increased by the second.

"I'm sure I took the right direction, but it feels like I'm just wandering around," Lirzod mused as he walked onward, frequently tapping the index finger on his chin. "Where did all the contestants go? It feels like I'm the only one left in here." His shoulders jerked a bit. "Don't tell me... someone already finished the test?" at that time, he saw a silhouette. "Mm?" as the silhouette before him grew in clarity, he stated, "Are you also wandering around like me?" as he said, the silhouette gradually appropriated into the shape of a familiar individual, Brown Hill.

Both their eyes met. A brutish grin manifested on Boksa's visage. "How nice of you to come back to me... like a rat that left home for a trip outside at night. No. More like a pet wanting to be petted by its owner!"

"I can't say I missed your bull face," Lirzod hastily raised his hand and pointed to the rear side of Boksa. "Look! Someone's behind you!"

"This is me caring," Boksa lunged at Lirzod. "Hill Drill!"

Before Boksa's fist reached Lirzod, a dash of water splashed into his face, affecting his fist into hitting nothing but punch through the fog beside Lirzod. He glanced pointedly at Lirzod, who was running away to his right. "You think I'll let you disappear into the fog?" he chased after Lirzod.

"Stop following me," Lirzod's forehead puckered. "I'm not your pet or even playmate!"

"If you come to me, I wouldn't have to follow you. Come to me and let things be done quick."

Lirzod kept splashing water to his back without even looking, thinking that it would keep Boksa from getting too close; however, he didn't know that it helped Boksa in following Lirzod's silhouette without much of a problem.

Every time Boksa attempted a punch, he missed. Calculating the precise range in the fog proved to be harder than he expected. And to irk him further, the splashes of water unceasingly gifted him with wetness.

"Your fighting style is cowardlier than that of a chicken!" Boksa yelled, his fists clenched into a heavy hunk as they briefly perforated through the mist like the blows of an overgrown gorilla. "Just come and face me. Show me your guts."

"Everyone has their own style," Lirzod's eyes coruscated with zing, "but trust me, you are much better off without witnessing Lirzod's Rage."

"Hmph, you must have meant 'Nerd's Rage,'" Boksa's tone sharpened, probably due to the impatience trying to take over his heart.

"No," Lirzod replied in a positive outlook, "a nerd's rage suits you better as it teaches nobody nothing, but Lirzod's rage teaches men 'manners in a nutshell.'"

Boksa's face reddened by the second. Though he had controlled his anger and tried exchanging words with Lirzod to make sure he was nearby, Lirzod's words truly tested his patience. When Lirzod had said that his rage was like a nerd's rage, all the blood in his veins heated up so much that his body subtly began to burn off the mist that touched his skin. After leaking out a remorseless grin, he said, "Stop running around. It's useless. We are probably swanning in circles at different spots. As long as the Hardy brothers are all standing, thinking of escaping this ice dumpster would be a fool's dream. No one is safe from the fog, not even the innocent, and for sure, not you."

Lirzod was surprised to hear that. (Hardy Brothers created this fog?) He couldn't help but believe that Boksa's words had some truth. After all, he didn't meet any other man—either beaten or not—in the past minute or so. It was as if the other contestants had all suddenly disappeared like ghosts. The only positive thing was that he no longer had to worry about stepping foot on ice shards as they appeared to have vanished, too, without a trace.

Just as Lirzod was thinking on how to tackle Hardy Brothers after silently making himself scarce from Boksa's proximities, Boksa grabbed him by the pant. "Got you!" With a pull, he effortlessly lifted Lirzod with one arm. "Quench my thirst by drinking a gallon of this dirty water for me!" He sadistically grinned as he shoved Lirzod's whole body—the head in particular—into the water on and off as if he were a rat.

Unable to fitly hold his breath during such an unnerving proceeding, Lirzod ended up swallowing much more than a mouthful of sweltry, stained water. From the blood and sweat shed by other men to some of the anger and fear, the heat and cold, the comfort and chill they had transferred through the waters now invaded his mouth, triumphed over his throat and supremely stirred his stomach. In a matter of a dozen trips in and out of the water, his common sense was on the verge of cracking.

"How wonderful this is!" Boksa's muscles trembled in thrill as contentment charged his laughter through and through.

"Stop helping our prey!" Blurred by fog, Fimbry came out of nowhere and gifted a fistful of his spleen to Boksa's jaw. The resounding punch also coincidentally made Boksa's tongue squash between the teeth. Boksa winced, his hands involuntarily let go of Lirzod's pants, after which Lirzod tried to fade out from that spot, but another man appeared before him and blocked his way.

"It should be 'stop hunting our prey,' Fimbry." Divas stared down straight into Lirzod's eyes and spoke sarcastically, "I assume you were waiting for us."

"Bwah," Lirzod couldn't reply because he was busy vomiting most of what he had recently taken in.

"Right, right, brother," Fimbry stepped back a little and stood beside his brother. The fog in the vicinity moved in mysterious ways, making just enough room in the neighborhood to stage a fight without a fuss.

"That hurt a bit..." Boksa coldly glanced at Fimbry as he worked his jaw. "But, I suggest that you both vanish from my sight in five seconds if you don't want to get buried under my butt." He pumped his fists, eyes resolutely staring at the two brothers.

"We give you the same offer," Divas replied a bit too casually, piquing Boksa further.

At the moment, Lirzod, who was standing between the brothers and Boksa, looked like a baby crocodile stuck between two hippos and an elephant in shallow waters. He didn't know what to do. If he were to move, all three would react, and he didn't want that to happen. Without a shred of doubt, escaping seemed much more difficult now than when Boksa alone was after him; however, Lirzod cleared his throat and bellowed, "I give five seconds for the three of you as well. If you are still before my eyes by that time, then..."

"Hoh, what are you going to do?" the three of them asked at the same time.

Lirzod fleetingly squinted his eyes before relaxing them again. "Trust me, you mannerless wolves, none of you want to get your nuts nurtured by me." Humor-filled words carried by an unhumorous voice came across their ears like a discordant ditty. For a second, he gave off the impression of being bound and determined as his gaze undeviatingly drilled into the depths of the eyes of the two brothers.