Chapter 1475: The End of the Thick Fog

In the border city shrouded by dense fog, devastating magic shattered the silence of the night—flames, frost, thunder, arcane missiles—all unleashed like a small army saturating the slope behind them with relentless firepower. Amid the continuous explosions, the tall, slender “messengers” and the “shadow dwellers” filled with swirling black smoke were torn apart again and again, only to reappear just as quickly.

Modir Wilde’s formidable magic could demolish houses and burn down streets, but against these bizarre enemies… it seemed only capable of temporarily dispersing them.

“Are we just going to keep running like this?” Wasp finally shouted, unable to hold back any longer. “Why doesn’t the number of enemies chasing us ever seem to decrease!?”

“That’s how shadow dwellers work! Their ‘bodies’ aren’t really physical—they’re just projections formed within the shadow environment. Most attacks only cause ‘interference’ at best,” Modir called back without looking behind as he ran, his stamina astonishing the two operatives. “It takes a complicated method to truly eliminate them, and I didn’t bring the materials for that kind of spell—so for now, all we can do is run!”

“Run until when?!” Night Owl shouted, staring into the fog where the road stretched endlessly ahead. After the slope came streets, then more slopes—this border city seemed to have no end. The boundless fog and these unkillable enemies made him feel a creeping despair. “Is there no end to this?”

“We should be out of their hunting range soon—the shadow dwellers don’t chase their targets indefinitely. They each have fixed activity zones and roaming ‘targets’ they won’t stray far from, no matter what,” Modir shouted back. “Trust me on this—I have experience! Though I’m not exactly sure where that experience came from!”

Wasp and Night Owl exchanged a glance.

This legendary and powerful mage was definitely going to leave a lifelong impression on them tonight. The two seasoned operatives never imagined their first encounter with such a big name would be under these circumstances—being chased through half a city by monsters born from shadows, led by a legendary adventurer wearing floral pajamas and a nightcap…

Wasp couldn’t help but think: even if this was some absurd dream, it had already far exceeded anything she could have imagined.

They ran on for who knew how long before Wasp suddenly noticed the terrifying figures behind them were thinning out.

For the first time since the encounter began, the eerie “shadow creatures” were decreasing.

As if to confirm Modir Wilde’s “experience,” when the three finally reached the edge of the southeastern district and caught a faint glimpse of the street’s end through the mist, the relentless, unkillable enemies seemed to give up. Their numbers gradually dwindled, their strange forms dissolving into the fog’s depths. The cold dread and sense of danger that had clung to the trio’s hearts finally began to fade.

Though the winter streets of Prandel still bit with cold, this external chill was nothing compared to the bone-deep cold brought on by those shadow hunters.

After sprinting nearly half the city, the three finally slowed their pace and, once certain no enemies remained, came to a stop. Wasp gasped for breath, hands on her knees, barely able to straighten up. The cold air burned her throat like knives. Night Owl was no better, clearly near his limit.

But when she looked up, the old mage who had led the way was simply standing there, taking deep breaths. His face quickly regained color and vitality. Then, as if nothing had happened, he began casting several protective spells on himself, patting them into place. Turning toward them, he asked, “Want some Stone Skin? Back in the day, I practiced a special super-magic technique—one person can stack up to twelve layers of Stone Skin…”

Wasp was speechless.

“Your stamina is… astonishing,” Night Owl finally caught his breath and looked at Modir with a strange expression. “I never thought a mage could be so good at running.”

“Supernaturals have enhanced physiques, and my main profession is adventurer—I’ve trained seriously for this,” Modir said cheerfully, casually adding several protective layers to the two young operatives. “In the wild, anything can happen. When you’re adventuring alone, you can’t rely on others, so you have to prepare for everything yourself…”

Wasp’s tone turned a bit odd. “Does ‘anything can happen’ include encountering a huge group of shadow dwellers and those weird ‘messengers’ in a fog-covered city?”

Modir thought for a moment and nodded. “Actually, this kind of situation is pretty normal in my adventuring career…”

Wasp blinked.

“Let’s not talk about that,” the old mage waved his hand, clearly uninterested in recounting his past adventures—especially since he didn’t remember half of them anyway. “We should focus on figuring out what’s going on in this strange place. You need to find a way out of this eerie fog, and I need to find a way home. Have you made any progress on that?”

Wasp frowned, looking around at the foggy surroundings. Under the dim streetlights, the houses on either side of the road stood silently in the night, faint lights glowing from windows. It looked much like the inner city she had seen before, but perhaps because they were near the city’s edge, the fog seemed thinner—though that might have been a trick of the eyes.

“We shouldn’t stop. Let’s keep moving toward the city walls,” Wasp said, worry creeping back in. After catching her breath, she started walking again. “We can talk as we go.”

The three headed toward the city walls. Along the way, Night Owl began sharing the intelligence he had gathered. Though he had briefly mentioned the city’s strange situation to the old mage during their frantic escape, it had been too rushed and exhausting to go into detail. Now, with a bit more breathing room, he could explain fully.

“We suspect this supernatural phenomenon is centered on the City of a Thousand Towers and is spreading outward, growing stronger. Judging by the order in which cities lost contact and the degree of distortion, besides the City of a Thousand Towers, places like Palansanto and Cold Sea City—between the inland and the border—have probably already experienced similar events…

“Violet remains isolated internally, making it hard for outsiders to get news. So it’s only now, with the phenomenon reaching this stage, that we’ve pieced together some understanding…

“We don’t yet know if the fog will continue spreading beyond the Violet Kingdom. If it does, it could become a disaster…”

Modir listened quietly, then suddenly said, “You two aren’t just ordinary merchants doing business here, are you? Are you under Amber’s command?”

“…Yes,” Wasp pressed her lips together but didn’t try to hide it anymore. Though at first she and Night Owl had kept their identities secret due to regulations, now that Modir Wilde was with them and had already seen enough clues during their escape, there was no point in hiding. “We’re from the External Affairs Division.”

“Oh, I thought so,” Modir nodded, then his gaze involuntarily shifted behind the two operatives, scanning them up and down as if searching for something.

Night Owl felt awkward under that look. “What are you looking for?”

“Your greatswords,” Modir said with curiosity. “The ones you use for whirlwind slashes.”

Night Owl: “…Different missions call for different gear. Carrying greatswords all the time makes movement difficult.”

“Reasonable,” Modir nodded, then refocused on the matter at hand. “I’ve been wondering since earlier… why are these shadow dwellers appearing here?”

Wasp asked, intrigued, “What do you mean?”

“This isn’t the Shadow Realm. At least, not the Shadow Realm as I know it,” Modir said, pointing toward the foggy street and the houses lining it. “Shadow dwellers only appear in the Shadow Realm. Even if some accidentally slip into the real world through ‘rifts,’ they never appear in such numbers or stay this long. Our world is uncomfortable for them—unless…”

He paused, shaking his head slightly. “…This entire city is enveloped in a strange environment. Maybe it’s no longer quite the reality we know. Maybe it’s a ‘liminal space,’ or some kind of overlapping dimension… This is beyond my knowledge—I’ve never seen anything so bizarre.”

Wasp pondered this, then suddenly spoke into the air, “Store Manager, is it safe as long as we leave the city limits?”

Silence hung for a few seconds, then pale letters appeared on a nearby wall: “Head to the southeastern beach. That’s the exit of the phenomenon—I’m already near the beach, ready to assist you.”

Modir stared at the strange writing that had appeared out of nowhere.

He had seen similar ghostly letters appear when they first started running, and now again—always in this eerie way.

The old mage looked thoughtful.

“That’s our ‘Store Manager,’ the squad commander coordinating us here,” Wasp explained, noticing Modir’s gaze. “He can’t meet us directly, so he communicates like this. He went to scout the northern district and knows more about this phenomenon than we do.”

“Store Manager, are you safe over there?” Night Owl asked.

“I’m safe,” another line of pale letters appeared on a wall not far ahead. “‘Messengers’ and the shadow dwellers they summon seem to be active only near the inner city for now. They have specific missions or targets and won’t move outward for the time being.”

Seeing the words on the wall, Wasp and Night Owl finally felt a bit relieved. They both looked toward the end of the road, where a faint orange-red glow had appeared unnoticed in the night, slowly spreading through the fog.

It wasn’t a streetlamp or building light—that was the rising dawn.

“The sun’s about to rise!” Night Owl suddenly realized, his voice involuntarily tinged with excitement. Though there was no proof that sunlight could dispel this eerie phenomenon, at this very moment—here, near the city’s edge—catching sight of a sliver of dawn piercing through the endless fog filled his heart with a surge of hope.

Bee also smiled the instant that faint sunlight appeared. “Great, the sun’s almost up… Let’s pick up the pace!”

With that, she quickened her steps toward the end of the road, moving in the direction where the faint light was gradually spreading.

As if walking toward the exit of a strange nightmare.

The fog swirling around the streets began to stir, as if disturbed and provoked by the sunlight spilling from the horizon. The gray-white mist flowed like liquid between street lamps, eaves, and walls, as if trying to weave itself into a vast net. Yet this invisible, intangible web could no longer hold back Bee and her group, who had already reached the city’s outskirts.

Their footsteps quickened. Though they had been running through the night, their bodies now felt lighter than ever. The dim yellow street lamps lining the road somehow seemed brighter than before. The outlines of buildings gradually sharpened, and the growing daylight slowly bathed the entire border city.

But the fog remained, as if so long as they stayed within this strange phenomenon, it would forever chase and shroud everything.

Bee and Night Owl pressed on through the mist, leaving the foggy streets behind as they headed toward the sunlit world ahead.

They reached the city’s edge, where the fog rose like a towering wall—a stark, almost violent boundary.

At this final barrier, Bee suddenly stopped.

She looked ahead in surprise. The cobblestone road seemed to be abruptly severed by some unseen force, ending suddenly. Nearby houses also appeared sliced off at an invisible line, as if cut by a sharp blade. Beyond that, the dense fog gave way to an empty, pitch-black void. The city walls that should have stood there… had vanished without a trace.

Peering through a thinner gap in the fog, all she could see was an oppressive darkness, so strange and forbidding it made her hesitate.

“Where are the walls and gates?” Night Owl asked, puzzled. “And what about the road here…”

“Keep moving forward,” a pale message suddenly appeared on the nearest lamppost. “Don’t be fooled by this last illusion. The road lies just ahead—step forward and you will see it.”

Night Owl and Bee exchanged a quick glance, then turned to look back at the old mage trailing behind them.

Modir merely nodded slightly. “You decide. I trust your ‘boss’ has this under control. Besides, I don’t sense any danger.”

Bee withdrew her gaze and looked once more at the endless darkness where the road abruptly ended. Then, almost simultaneously with Night Owl, she took a step forward.

In the next instant, their figures vanished into the boundless blackness.

(End of chapter)