Chapter 307: Black Mist and Flame
The dark mist spread from beneath Bella's feet, flowing outward with an almost physical weight, hugging the ground as it crept in every direction.
It rolled over rubble, curled around broken pillars, unhurried but relentless in its reach. Ten meters. Fifteen. Still expanding.
The color was uneven. Near Bella it ran thick and black. At its edges it thinned to a murky grey-brown, clinging to the floor at roughly knee height.
Everything it touched began to change.
Flagstones darkened from pale grey to deep brown. Their grain blurred. Edges crumbled. Loose stone dissolved to powder.
Wood splinters caught in the debris blackened, curled, and disintegrated.
A silver candelabrum half-wedged in a crack of rubble bloomed with a film of dark tarnish that climbed from its base upward. The metal was oxidizing. Rotting.
Regulus raised a Protego.
The silver barrier flashed once inside the mist. The dark fog broke against the curved surface.