Chapter 1531: An Unexpected Encounter

Modir could no longer recall most of the adventures he had been through. Those journeys—some glorious, some perilous, some amusing—had all but faded into fragmented memories, scattered like shards in his mind. Occasionally, they would surface as jumbled fragments in his midnight dreams, but most of the time, all that remained was a vague sense of familiarity—a feeling that he had been somewhere before, experienced something before.

This sense of familiarity wasn’t enough to count as solid experience, but sometimes it helped him make judgments about extraordinary phenomena. Take the City of a Thousand Towers, for example—supposedly right before their eyes, yet no matter how hard they searched, it remained nowhere to be found.

Listening to the old wizard’s reasoning, Maggie couldn’t help but shake her head. The mechanical grinding of gears echoed from the sides of her fierce black dragon head. “So you’re saying the City of a Thousand Towers is currently in a state where it can’t be seen or touched? That even if we walked right through it, we’d just pass straight through the walls?”

“It’s just a guess,” Modir admitted uncertainly. “I don’t know why I think this way, but I have a feeling I’ve experienced something similar before. Some things exist parallel to our reality, caught in the cracks between our world and another realm. They vanish from all dimensions, only appearing when observed by special means or at certain moments.”

“So what do we do now?” Maggie glanced back at the temporary camp they’d set up when the exploration team first arrived in this wilderness. Several Steel Cavalry soldiers were busy inspecting equipment and reinforcing tents, while others patrolled the forest’s edge, alert to any lurking dangers among the shifting shadows. “We’ve been stuck here for four days, searching everywhere with no luck. Lady Victoria even sent an inquiry this afternoon.”

“…We’ll camp here one more night,” Modir said after some thought. “I’ll test a few different perception and phase-shifting spells, and try to organize my memories and thoughts. If there’s no progress by tomorrow night, we’ll circle around the dense forest to the north. Even if we can’t find the city itself, at least we can document all the ‘monuments’ around it.”

“Alright, I’ll make the arrangements,” Maggie nodded. Then she seemed to remember something. “But… since leaving the first stone pile monument, we haven’t seen that magical AI called ‘Benadetto’ near any of the other stone piles. It makes her initial invitation seem a bit suspicious. She was the one who invited us to the City of a Thousand Towers, and now that we might be at the entrance, she still hasn’t shown up…”

“If the city really is in some kind of ‘in-between’ state, as I suspect, then Benadetto’s main body inside the city probably can’t communicate with the outside world easily,” Modir said with a shrug. “Maybe she can only contact us at certain times or specific ‘nodes’… Hmm, that’s a lead. I’ll look for clues along those lines during tonight’s magical tests.”

Maggie quietly regarded the old adventurer, offering no further objections. Despite his forgetfulness, Modir was a legendary mage whose insights and abilities in the supernatural were unquestionable. Plus, he had experience dealing with strange phenomena—albeit often chaotic. In this situation, it was best to trust his judgment.

“I’ll arrange the night watch then.” The black dragon lady bent her neck slightly and turned toward the camp.

But after just a few steps, a strange aura from the forest made her stop. Then faint noises stirred from that direction. Maggie immediately turned her head toward the source of the sound. Modir calmly cast ten layers of Mage Armor on both of them and grabbed his battle staff with his other hand. “Something’s happening over there.”

“We have scouts out there, but it doesn’t sound like they’ve found enemies,” Maggie replied in a low voice. The camp’s soldiers had also noticed the disturbance near the forest edge. Several formed squads and quickly moved toward Maggie and Modir. But before they could fully prepare, a group of figures emerged from the forest—among them, two rangers who had been posted as scouts.

Seeing their uniforms, Maggie relaxed. She didn’t shift out of her black dragon form but signaled the nearby soldiers to lower their weapons. “No need to be tense. It’s a Typhon exploration team.”

As the group stepped out from the shifting shadows beneath the trees, their faces became clearer. They were elite soldiers clad in black light armor or short mage robes, their gear marking them as Typhon troops who had landed on Violet Island’s east coast. Modir and his cavalry were familiar with this team’s presence.

Allied nations already knew about the sudden disappearance of the Violet Kingdom. Several northern countries with direct contact had sent their own exploration teams. Among them, only the empires of Cecil and Typhon had pushed this far, landing on the island’s south and east coasts respectively, advancing along different routes toward the City of a Thousand Towers. Their command centers maintained communication, occasionally sharing intelligence. But this was the first time the two teams had met face to face.

It seemed the Typhon scouts had been spotted by Cecil’s forest sentries. The earlier commotion was likely the startled reaction of both sides upon unexpectedly encountering each other. Fortunately, both were well-trained professionals, so despite the eerie, shifting shadows of the forest, no accidental skirmishes or casualties occurred.

“Looks like we finally have neighbors here,” Maggie stepped forward slightly, lowering her head to the somewhat embarrassed Typhon soldiers. “I heard you were near here, but I didn’t expect to meet under these circumstances… Lady Diana? You’re leading the team personally?”

Standing among the Typhon soldiers was none other than Lady Diana, one of Emperor Augustus’s most trusted lieutenants and the revered “Head Maid” of the Obsidian Palace.

Maggie was surprised to see such a high-ranking figure leading the expedition herself. Diana, however, appeared calm, tilting her head to look at the fierce black dragon before her. Her tone was as steady as a well-oiled machine maid’s: “Apologies for the misunderstanding caused to your sentries. We intended to contact you after leaving the forest, but unexpectedly ran into your scouts here.”

Though Diana spoke plainly, the Typhon soldiers beside her looked even more embarrassed. It was understandable—only the elite Wanderer units, specialists in covert operations and special warfare, would follow the “Head Maid” this deep into Violet Island. Even though Cecil and Typhon were allies, these field teams often had a competitive streak. And now, before they even figured out where the Cecil camp was, they’d been spotted by two scouts… They’d surely be mocked as cautionary tales back home.

Still, the unlucky Wanderers found some comfort in knowing they weren’t the only ones caught off guard. Even Lady Diana herself hadn’t realized when she triggered the Cecil’s forest warding spells. If the sky fell, at least their machine maid commander was there to bear the brunt.

“Rangers are always cautious, and we have an even more cautious and experienced adventurer advising us,” Maggie said, stepping back and shifting back into her human form—a black-haired maid. She noticed the embarrassed looks on the Typhon soldiers’ faces. “We arrived here four days ago. The surrounding forest is filled with detection runes and watchful eyes set up over the past few days. Even legendary experts can be caught off guard under these conditions.”

Hearing this, the Typhon soldiers visibly relaxed. Diana, however, caught the key phrase in Maggie’s words. “You’ve been here for four days? Then the City of a Thousand Towers…”

“As you can see, we’re still wandering this wilderness,” Maggie said with a wry smile, spreading her hands. “To be honest, we’ve turned over nearly every stone here in the past four days, but found no trace of the city. We now suspect it’s hidden in a parallel crack outside our perception. Beyond that, we have no progress.”

Diana frowned. Although Cecil and Typhon shared some intelligence, it was limited and delayed. She hadn’t known the troubles Cecil’s team had faced since arriving. Now it seemed they were confronting the worst scenario in exploring an anomalous zone.

Monsters in the wild could be fought with force. Traps and ancient magic could be overcome with caution and skill. But a city right in front of them that couldn’t be seen or detected? How do you deal with that?

Diana thought of some rumors about Cecil’s forces—some trained personally by Princess Rebecca, known for their expertise in solving problems with explosives. If things got bad enough, they’d just blow everything up. Thankfully, the princess wasn’t leading this mission; otherwise, they might be stuck camping beside the ruins of the Thousand Towers pit tonight.

“We plan to camp here one more night,” Maggie continued. “Master Modir will try some detection spells we haven’t used yet to find the city’s ‘opening’ in the real world. You’re welcome to camp nearby so we can watch out for each other. If you have any ideas about finding the city, feel free to test them.”

Diana glanced at her soldiers, then at the Cecil camp. She didn’t refuse Maggie’s offer. “Very well, we appreciate your hospitality.”

Modir, seeing the discussion was over, waved his hand. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll go set up warding runes in the forest south of the camp. The scouts triggered some earlier, so the wards probably need refreshing…”

As he spoke, the seasoned adventurer strode toward the nearby forest. Behind him, a group of Typhon Wanderer soldiers stood at attention, their eyes fixed on him. Leading them was Diana, who watched him go for quite some time. The Iron Lady maintained her usual calm, inscrutable expression, but once the old mage had disappeared from sight, she couldn’t help but whisper, “I know this might be awkward to ask… but just how many warding runes did you set up around the camp? I’ve always been confident in my stealth skills, yet…”

Maggie glanced at Diana with a hint of amusement. She had thought this Iron Lady was as cold and precise as a machine, but it seemed that even she couldn’t shake off the fact that her team had been caught by two hidden scouts. That serene expression was probably just the result of an iron will and a stubborn mind.

Suppressing her inner chuckle, Maggie kept her warm, friendly smile and pointed toward the forest the Typhon had just emerged from. “Do you see those trees? Every single one you passed by…”

“You set warding runes on every tree around the camp?!” Before Maggie could finish, one of the Wanderer soldiers behind Diana’s back widened his eyes in shock. “No wonder…”

“No, I mean every single leaf on every tree,” Maggie corrected seriously. “Master Modir marked each leaf with magic. And that was just the first three days. By the fourth day, he’d even tagged the grass around the trees. So really, there’s no need to feel embarrassed. Even if a different legendary expert came through, they’d still get caught. No one can get past it.”

“Actually, it’s not just the forest. There are over sixteen hundred magical traps piled up around the camp in the Shadow Realm, too. The old man’s convinced someone there is out to get him…”

Diana listened, stunned into silence. When Maggie finished, the Iron Lady seemed to freeze completely.

Her sudden shutdown startled the nearby Typhon soldiers, but luckily, the maintenance and upgrades she’d received from the Ophelia Matrix held up well. Within seconds, she rebooted, accompanied by a series of beeps and mechanical whirs, before muttering, “Why…?”

Maggie opened her mouth to answer. She knew exactly why, but wasn’t sure how to put it delicately—after all, this was the revered ancestor of a dear friend, and she had to be mindful of the old man’s reputation in front of outsiders.

Legendary heroes don’t usually have much experience being relentlessly hunted and beaten down. But if a legendary hero keeps getting thrashed by all sorts of demons and fiends every few days, well… this is what happens.

(End of chapter)