The sound of flapping wings mixed in with the roaring cold wind that flowed past the outstretched feathered wings high up in the dark afternoon sky.

The [Ice Falcon] used the cold wind to glide for long distances. Its sharp eyes looked down at the roiling black fog that stretched out as far as it could see in any direction. It was as if the roiling black fog were a large demonic black sea during a stormy night.

The echoing of thunder could be heard everywhere while hundreds of bright flashes lit up random parts of the black foggy sea every few minutes.

The [Ice Falcon] had been slowly flying high above the foggy sea for some time now inspecting, watching, and taking in everything that it could see and hear.

With a sudden motion, it pulled its wings to its chest. The [Ice Falcon] shot down towards the foggy sea and unfurled its wings as it reached a few inches away from the fog. The [Ice Falcon] flapped its wings several times to stabilize itself and continued to glide over the troubling fog, inspecting it and the sounds more closely.

The fog was too thick to see anything inside, but the sounds that reached it, ruffled its feathers the wrong way.

After watching and listening for a few more minutes the [Ice Falcon's] eyes shined with determination and again dived down disappearing into the foggy sea.

The fog was extremely thick with little to no visibility, but the farther it flew down the more it started to clear up just enough to allow the falcon to see moving shadows below.

As it neared the shadows a large boulder-like head exited the foggy haze and appeared right in front of the [Ice Falcon].

'Squawk!' With a cry of shock the [Ice Falcon] rolled to the right dodging the large mouth that had slowly opened to try and eat it.

'ROAR!' a loud grating stony roar echoed out behind, as the [Ice Falcon] successfully evaded death.

The [Ice Falcon] looked behind to see that the boulder head was attached to an equally large body that stood at least 2x taller than the average werewolf.

'Squawk' the [Ice Falcon] let out another cry as it saw the large being turn its torso and reach out with its large arms that were almost as thick as a man's waste.

Flapping its wings even harder the [Ice Falcon] sped forward to get out of the arms range and was able to get a closer look at the large number of shambling figures walking below it.

As the [Ice Falcon] flew above them, the lifeless stony creatures all looked to the sky and stretched out their hands towards speeding [Ice Falcon] trying to grab it.

The [Ice Falcon] was soon past the several hundreds of infected creatures and began following the path that the large group had created. Everywhere the [Ice Falcon] looked it could see nothing but fog and muddy slush on the ground, no animals, or winter plants.

The [Ice Falcon] slightly deviated from the path and soon came upon several trees that look to be carved out of stone.

An irritating itch deep in its skin started to bother the [Ice Falcon]. Without a second thought, the [Ice Falcon] turned around and started to fly back towards the group of infected to see which direction they were going.

The seconds passed by and an annoying buzz started to sound in its head. The longer it stayed in the fog the buzzing noise grew stronger and started to tug at its mind.

With a last glance at the shadowy group in front of it, the [Ice Falcon] determined their destination, before using its powerful wings to flap as hard as it could. It shot up through the thick blag fog trying to escape the foggy sea as the pain in its head started to stab at its conciseness.

***

Akira looked up to the sky and watched as the [Ice Falcon] that was sent out by Bo earlier in the day returned. It dived down from the sky and crashed into a snowbank near the small cluster of trees and ceased moving.

Anyone could tell that something had gone wrong, so Akira looked to Bo who was seated in a meditation pose. His face had lost all color and was now pale as a ghost, with blood dripping from his nose.

His mind had been forcefully withdrawn from the motionless [Ice Falcon] at the last second. It took him several seconds more before he regained his senses. When he did, he clutched both his chest and head in serious pain.

Klyn was quick to react and stood over Bo. The rest of the shaman followed his lead and they started a group Holy chant which shot out and washed over Bo for several seconds.

Captain Pegleg and the other Skeletons cursed at them as they stepped back away from the group. Some of the skeleton pirates even started to throw snowballs at the shaman to show their distaste. They didn't dare do anything more than that for fear that the chants would target them.

A small Fluffball ran towards the skeleton pirates throwing snowballs and started to run towards them. The skeletons remembering Fluffball's love for bones and his actions the day before, all stopped throwing snowballs and ran away from the miniature fur demon.

Akira walked over to the now-dead [Ice Falcon] and inspected it from a somewhat distance. He could see that there were small patches of black stone on its skin. It was still slowly spreading to the rest of the body and feathers. Everything he saw looked just like what had happened to the warriors and soldiers that had been infected before.

Minutes past and Bo finally regained some color to his face. The pain in his head was also lessened to a numb throbbing headache.

“Report,” said Klyn.

It took Bo a few moments to find his words before speaking, “The fog does not reach the heavens but it is spread out as far as one can see. There is no telling how much land it covers. I guess it would take weeks of flying to go from the south all the way to the north and even longer for east to west.”

“The horrors and sights are nearly indescribable... During my flight, I saw many of those infected millings about. But there was one large group of several hundred that was moving this way! They will be here at the slowest within an hour!” said Bo as he wiped the blood dripping from his nose.

“Ha! What's a few hundred compared to our might!” said Captain Pegleg as he flexed his bony arms trying to show off his non-existent muscles.

“They are not all the same infected that we saw before!” said Bo shaking his head. “There were all kinds of weird-looking things in that group, even giants!”

As he said this a loud 'ROAR!' was heard coming from inside the black fog. It was hard to tell the distance as the fog muffled the sound. With the roar reaching them with such volume it showed the power of the voice.

Ding!

Main Quest Branch 1 - stage 1: Find information about the plague.

70% completed!

“Klyn, do you want to take that?” asked Akira, pointing to the dead [Ice Falcon].

“No, we already have enough research material,” said Klyn pointing towards one of the skeleton pirates who was carrying a large thick leather bag. The bag was full of parts from the dead creatures that they had gathered from the fishing over the past few days.

“Everyone back to the ships,” ordered Akira immediately making the decision to leave.

They had gathered a large amount of information and research material. They would be able to get a better understanding of the fog once Bo could fully gain his wits to explain what he saw and felt.

The mismatched group exited the icy snow fort that they had stayed in for a short time and quickly made their way back towards the ragged ships that were still floating out on the unfreezing river.

Akira's face turned grim and... “Awooooo!” ...he let out a howl of warning to everyone around him.

“See! I told you we would find them!” said a voice of a familiar male demigod.

Yu Hu and 20 other demigods were running forward to block off their retreat to the ships!

“Screw off, you %^&*!” shouted Akira using the [Potty Mouth] skill. A second later a Dark misty light covered his body and transformed ready to fight.

The demigods offended at such vile name-calling stopped moving to block the group and turned their full attention to Akira readying their attacks to wipe him out of existence.

'ROAR!' the sounds coming from the fog were growing even louder.

“Yu hu, something's chasing them! We need to get out of here!” shouted one of the demigods.

“Don't worry my specialty is escaping! We can destroy these guys and then leave before whatever it is gets here!”

Before he could say anything more a blue X slammed into his body and cut him into four pieces.

With grim expressions set on their furry faces, Akira and his bodyguards all charged forward riding on top of their Garg mounts. Fluffball, Zundar, and several skeleton pirates followed behind them all heading towards the demigods.

Ding!

Darkness domain has been activated!

A dark cloud spread out covering the entire group boosting all friendly allies while hindering the demigod's vision.

A wave of the demigod's skills sent blindly into the darkness slammed into them as they charged forward, causing several grunts of pain to sound out.

They weathered the attacks and continued forward until they were right in front of the demigods who unleashed several point-blank skills.

Several of the Skeleton pirates that had joined the charge were blown up from the skills, scattering their bones everywhere.

“Yap!” shouted Fluffball, as he shot out several frost breaths towards the demigods slowing their movements.

Fluffball, still in his miniature form launched himself forward and landed on top of a demigod's head.

As the demigod tried to attack him to get him off his head, Akira riding atop of Grarr dealt a decisive blow, causing the demigod to disappear in a scattering of light fragments.

Fluffball continued to hop from one demigod's head to another distracting them enough to allow for those they were fighting to get the upper hand.

Zundar, who had received many wounds on his body, was now plowing through any demigod that was near him. Their bodies were all sent into the air and soon scattered into motes of light.

ROAR! The loud howl was now too close for comfort. Everyone including the few remaining demigods left fighting trembled as they heard the roar and felt the ground shaking.

The shaking ground signaled that a disaster was now running towards the two groups that were still engaged in fighting.

Grarr jumped forward and bit off the head of the last Demigod that was blocking their way.

“Forward! To the ships!!” growled Akira as he pointed his sword toward the ships now visible in the distance.

Behind them, the sound of the roars and thudding of hundreds of footsteps could be heard getting closer and closer.

When they reached the shore Captain Pegleg formed a screen along with Akira, his guards, Zundar, and Fluffball who were now the rear guard.

“Klyn, shamans, and Gargs cross to the ships first!” roared Akira.

Klyn hesitated for a moment but gathered with the shaman and boarded several of the ships spread out along with the large Gargs.

They started to row towards the ships as fast as they could ferrying everyone to the ships. It was a large pain trying to get the Large Gargs onto the ships.

Klyn on his second trip transporting the last of the Gargs continued to look back towards the shore where Akira and the others stood guarding the small patch of river.

Akira's face grew grim as he saw a large group off in the distance. It was full of the black stony infected walking towards them.

Just as Bo had said, there were indeed several different-looking Infected in the front of the group. There were a few different groups rushing towards them far faster than the slow-moving infected behind them. Including a giant boulder-like infected also started its charge towards them with its slow but huge footsteps.

A group of skinny infected managed to separate from the rest running ahead of even the others and were the first to slam into the rearguard.

Their hands reached out to grab onto whatever they could get a hold of trying to tear it apart. Above all of their heads was [??? lvl ??] Akira was unable to see the name and level.

“AWOOO!” Akira let out a howl of aggression as he swung his sword out in an arc to hack the head off of the infected.

Clang!

Akiras attack only managed to create a large gash in the stony neck not even going in farther than an inch deep.

Akira attacked again, this time lunging forward trying to pierce the head of the infected but again the hard stony skin stopped his sword from going any deeper than an inch.

Akira glanced around and found that everyone using an edged weapon was having just as hard a time as he was.

Zundar farther down the line was having a somewhat easier time as he smashed the skinny infected's legs and arms, crippling them as he moved to the next target nearest to him.

Akira decided to use a [Shield Bash] on the nearest skinny infected, his shield glowed blue as it rushed forward.

The shield slammed into the chest of the skinny infected and a loud crack like that of breaking glass was heard.

The skinny infected in mid-attack stopped and fell to the ground no longer showing any signs of 'life'.

Akira was a bit surprised by this but soon received a system message.

Ding!

New Information on Grunners gained!

New Information on Growth Infected gained!

Attack the core gem's on their body!

Main Quest Branch 1 - stage 1: Find information about the plague.

90% completed!

Main Quest Branch 3 - stage 1: 20%

Akira looked at the body on the ground and found that on its chest there was a red core that was now completely cracked. A dim red light was slowly disappearing from it and soon became dark.

Seeing all this Akira let out a howl informing the others of this new discovery. The struggle became more manageable as those fighting were able to find the cores and deal with them however they could.

A short while later the skinny infected were completely dealt with. Akira looked behind him and saw Klyn and the others rowing the several rowboats were now coming back to pick up Akira and the rest of the rear guard.

Unfortunately for them, the second wave of several different new types of infected reached them first. As they fought Akira found that different types of infected did not all have their cores on their chest, some had them on their foreheads as well.

Ding!

A member of your party has killed and gathered new information on [Puffers]!

Main Quest Branch 3 - stage 1: 40%

Boom!

Ding!

A member of your party has killed and gathered new information on [Chubbustibles]!

Main Quest Branch 3 - stage 1: 60%

...80%!

...90%!

Fluffball has reached a choke point in his leveling.

In order to level further he must reach the next stage:

Young adulthood!

You will need to help him find a way to make a breakthrough!

Akira could not keep track or pay attention to the multiple fast appearing messages as he was struggling to fight off several different infected.

Once he finally cleared one group of puffers, over 6 short and fat [Chubbustibles] started running right towards him!

As they neared Akira their bodies started to expand growing more and more round.

Akira attacked as fast as he could smashing 3 of their cores but 6 more [Chubbustibles] came towards him joining the 3 others. In only a few breaths they arrived right next to him trying to completely surround him in the front and to the side.

Their bodies were now extremely inflated that they could no longer run or walk normally.

Akira could do nothing but ready his defensive skills and brace himself for whatever attack they were going to unleash.

Before he could activate one of his skills... Fluffball slammed into his side knocking him away from surrounding [Chubbustibles].

BOOOM!

The 9 [Chubbustibles] all exploded with a far greater force than Akira had thought was possible for such small bodies.

The skeleton pirates that had been fighting near Akira were completely blown to bits.

A loud pained whimpering howl escaped Fluffball's mouth as he was thrown back like a rag doll blood spurting out from his body.S