Chapter 1472: Lost in the Mist

Outside the shop window, only thick, swirling fog stretched endlessly. Through the haze, dim yellow street lamps lined the road, their light casting faint, ghostly outlines of buildings that faded into the distance.

The wide street was utterly deserted, as if the entire city had been abandoned. The bustling crowds from just minutes ago were nothing but a lingering illusion in Sparrow’s mind.

“…Something’s seriously wrong,” Sparrow whispered, eyes fixed on the faintly shifting gray-white mist outside. She studied every detail carefully, then lowered her voice to her companion. “Night Owl, check the comms station.”

In the basement of this shop, which served as their contact point, there was a hidden room housing a high-powered magical network communication device. This device linked to a merchant ship that regularly sailed the strait, relaying messages to the Intelligence Bureau’s branch in North Harbor. In this coastal city of Prandel, this secret comms hub was the agents’ lifeline to their homeland.

The young man known as Night Owl nodded silently and slipped away without a sound, disappearing through a concealed door behind the counter. Moments later, he returned, his face grim. “Strong interference. Both the relay and main stations are dead.”

“…The supernatural anomaly is intensifying,” Sparrow analyzed quietly. “This time, it’s no longer hidden beneath contradictions or dissonance—it’s directly affecting the real world.” Though she had once been an unremarkable apprentice mage before joining the Intelligence Bureau, under Director Amber’s guidance and with the support of new technologies and knowledge, she could now grasp the scale of this phenomenon. “I’m afraid we’ve fallen into some kind of ‘gap’ between reality and a twisted dimension. The comms interference is proof.”

Night Owl frowned deeply. He quickly scanned the shop’s interior, relieved to find the strange fog hadn’t seeped inside. Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he said, “Wait—are you saying the City of a Thousand Towers, Palansanto, and Coldsea are experiencing the same thing as here?”

Sparrow whipped her head around. “What do you mean?”

“Over the past while, intel from the ‘inland’ has been disappearing. First, people stopped mentioning the City of a Thousand Towers—the kingdom’s capital—in everyday conversation. Then, products once known as Palansanto specialties started being sold as local goods. Finally, all news from Coldsea stopped completely. This isn’t just a comms blackout—it’s like the very existence of these inland cities, even evidence they ever existed, is being erased,” Night Owl explained. “Think about it… these cities are all spread outward from the center of Violet Isle.”

“You think… this gray-white fog is slowly swallowing the entire Violet Kingdom from the island’s core outward?” Sparrow’s eyes widened as she grasped his implication. “And the areas it consumes… their very existence is being deleted?”

Night Owl shook his head. “It’s just a theory. But it doesn’t explain why outsiders like you and me still remember those cities. If the fog truly erased them, we shouldn’t recall them either. It seems the anomaly only affects the perception of the Violet people themselves.

“But one thing’s certain—the large-scale supernatural event probably started in the City of a Thousand Towers and is spreading, growing stronger toward the kingdom’s borders.”

Sparrow bit her lip instinctively, anxiety tightening in her chest. She had to admit Night Owl’s theory was plausible—and it raised a terrifying question: would this anomaly keep spreading? Would the gray-white fog extend beyond the Violet Kingdom? If it was uncontrollable and limitless… could it consume the entire world?

She forced down her unease, letting Director Amber’s teachings and her duty as an Intelligence Bureau agent fill her mind. “Analyzing won’t help now. The real question is how we get out of this—and how to report what’s happening to HQ. This fog doesn’t look harmless.”

Night Owl’s brow furrowed as he stared out into the misty world beyond the window. His hand rested on the weapon at his waist, but even that failed to bring comfort in this situation. “If my guess is right, we have to leave the city. The southwest gate leads to the docks—there’s a ship there that can take us back to North Harbor…”

“But first, we have to get through that fog outside,” Sparrow said, her voice low and serious.

A dilemma stood before the two seasoned agents: stay inside this small refuge, or risk stepping into the thick mist?

Sparrow glanced around the shop. The doors and windows were still tightly shut. Though not perfectly sealed, the gray-white fog hadn’t seeped through the cracks. The dim, eerie street outside and the warm, bright interior felt like two separate worlds—and the latter held an almost irresistible pull.

But she knew this seemingly safe little shop was far from secure. If the City of a Thousand Towers, Palansanto, and Coldsea had already been swallowed by the fog, this place couldn’t be a sanctuary. Staying meant waiting to die—but was braving the fog any better?

She even suspected the port to the southwest might already be engulfed.

“It’s still early night. The sun won’t rise for hours,” Night Owl said quietly. “But if this is truly a supernatural anomaly, dawn might not even clear this unnatural fog.”

Sparrow said nothing, still hesitating—but she knew she couldn’t wait any longer.

Then her gaze caught something on the shop window.

The fog outside churned and licked at the cold crystal glass. Somehow, tiny scratches had appeared on the surface, slowly spreading as if an invisible hand was carving letters with a sharp tool. The scratches formed a message: “Don’t stay inside!!”

Sparrow’s breath caught. Night Owl’s eyes snapped wide open. They stared fixedly at the glass, then Sparrow suddenly stood and headed for the door. “We have to get out of here—now!”

“Wait—shouldn’t we confirm first?” Night Owl called after her, rising as well. “This could be a trap…”

“Don’t you recognize it?” Sparrow glanced back. “Though the letters are reversed, that’s the shopkeeper’s handwriting.”

Night Owl’s eyebrows jumped, and he quickly followed. The two agents reached the door. Sparrow’s hand rested on the brass handle. Through the small crystal pane inset in the door, the gray-white fog rolled and flowed outside like a cold, silent pale flame.

She took a deep breath and slowly cracked the door open. The mist swirled just beyond the threshold, but none drifted inside.

She pushed the door wide and stepped into the foggy street. Night Owl followed closely, matching her pace to cover each other as they moved onto the avenue.

The moment she stepped outside, Sparrow activated her gentle breeze shield, hoping it might block harmful gases. But the gray-white mist flowed right through the barrier as if it were an illusion, unaffected and intangible.

They had no choice but to deactivate the useless shield and proceed cautiously.

Throughout, Night Owl held his breath instinctively. The omnipresent fog unnerved him deeply. He dared not inhale freely until they’d moved far enough to confirm no harm came to his body, and his protective charms remained silent. Only then did he slowly resume breathing, carefully regulating his heartbeat and breath.

“Breathing’s normal… no moisture on my skin,” Sparrow said, looking down at her hands as the mist slipped through her fingers. Her nose and mouth sensed nothing unusual—just ordinary air. Even deep breaths brought no trace of the fog. “This mist… it has no ‘presence’ at all.”

Such thick fog should have some sensation—water vapor or particles that irritate the nose. But none of that was there. It felt profoundly wrong.

It was as if the fog existed only in their vision, a mere illusion.

But they dared not treat it as a harmless visual trick. In supernatural anomalies, the more illogical something is, the greater the danger it poses—even if it seems harmless now.

Besides the fog, there were vanished pedestrians, empty streets, and a whole silent, lifeless city.

“That really was the shopkeeper’s handwriting,” Night Owl murmured, scanning the street. “But how did it suddenly appear on the window?”

Sparrow didn’t answer immediately. She glanced back toward the shop—and saw the glass surface had returned to smoothness. The letters had vanished without a trace.

“…I don’t know. But he must have wanted to warn us of some deadly danger,” Sparrow said, unease rising inexplicably in her chest. She forced it down and spoke softly, “We need to find a way out of the city—the docks lie that way.”

She stepped toward the remembered direction of the southwest gate. But after only a few steps, an invisible current suddenly blew against her face. It was weak but abrupt, as if blocking her path.

Night Owl’s footsteps halted too—he seemed to feel it as well.

“Store Manager?” Night Owl frowned slightly, his voice low as he called out down the empty street for the squad leader who had gone to gather intel but hadn’t returned. In the year—almost two—that he and Wasp had been operating here, they had both gotten used to referring to their superior simply as “Store Manager.” “Are you here? Did you run into trouble?”

As a seasoned agent who had dealt with countless difficult situations—and inadvertently crossed paths with other supernatural phenomena—he had already begun piecing things together from these subtle clues.

He suspected the “Store Manager” might be trapped by some kind of supernatural anomaly.

“What can we do to help?” Wasp asked from beside him.

The street was silent, empty. The swirling fog offered no sign of anyone else but the two of them. Then, suddenly, Wasp noticed faint, pale carvings appearing on the nearest lamppost.

The scratches connected and stretched out, gradually forming a line of letters: “I am safe for now, but cannot meet you. Prioritize completing the mission.”

Below that, new carvings emerged: “Do not go to the harbor. The harbor has disappeared. Exit the city southeast; reaching the coast is safe.”

Wasp stared at the letters on the lamppost, stunned. “The harbor has disappeared? What does that mean?”

The letters gave no answer. Instead, several deep, sharp scratches suddenly appeared—almost like a warning to brace themselves. Then, in hurried handwriting, another message: “No time. Leave immediately. Watch the lampposts along the way!”

A chill ran through Wasp. Instinctively, she scanned their surroundings.

No enemies. No abnormalities.

Still, she was the first to break into a run, heading toward the southeastern district. Night Owl followed closely behind.

Something dangerous was closing in on them. The lamppost messages made that clear. But they couldn’t see it, hear it, or sense what it was. Even so, they chose to trust and obey their superior’s orders in this situation.

This was exactly what Director Amber had drilled into them during their initial training.

Through the silent, empty city, Wasp and Night Owl dashed across streets and intersections. Places once bustling with traffic and noise were now deserted, transformed into eerie, meticulously crafted hollow sets. The somber buildings, the dark walls—they gave Wasp the unsettling impression that they were nothing but empty shells, their realistic facades mere painted cardboard that would collapse with the slightest breeze, revealing the barren truth beneath.

“Store Manager,” Night Owl’s voice came from beside her, “what exactly is happening here? What are we running from?”

The nearest lamppost quickly etched out a reply: “The city is vanishing into the thick fog. The northern district disappeared hours ago…”

Wasp and Night Owl hurried past that lamppost. On the next one, they saw the rest of the message:

“…Avoid the couriers.”

(End of chapter)