Ten minutes later, Roel pressed his back against a wall and massaged his forehead as he tried to analyze the current situation. Beside him, Selina and Juliana were leaning stiffly against his left and right shoulder respectively.

  Despite their intimate posture, their actionwas devoid of any romantic intention. This was the solution they had come up with in this emergency so as to ensure they could feel each other’s existence.

  It couldn’t be helped since their search for Stuart yielded no results.

  They retraced their footsteps for around a hundred meters, but there was only white fog and the screeching of the night gale. There was no sign of Stuart at all. There were no traces of battle or spatial magic, but Stuart and Paul were nowhere to be seen. It was as if they had been spirited away.

  “H-how could this be possible? Stuart didn’t even make the slightest noise. No matter how powerful the opponent is, it shouldn’t be possible for him to be taken away without any warning…”


  “A faint trace of Paul’s blood is still lingering in the vicinity, which goes to say that they were still safely standing there just a moment ago. How could they have disappeared just like that? Sh*t! What the hell happened?”


  “Calm down!”


  Both Selina and Juliana had fallen into a state of terror after failing to find any hints of where Stuart and Paul had disappeared to. Neither of them was a coward afraid of confronting a powerful enemy. On the contrary, they had been brainwashed by the knight’s code of chivalry from a young age and saw it an honor to die in battle.

  However, the current situation was very different from that.

  What they saw in this foggy night town was not a powerful adversary but incomprehensible horror. From Paul’s rapid aging to Stuart’s disappearance, these were unexplainable phenomena that would have only otherwise happened in a nightmare. Till now, they hadn’t even spotted the shadow of their enemy.

  Roel could feel the two ladies trembling on his shoulders. Their breathing had become ragged, and their faces were frighteningly pale. He knew that they were in a grave situation.

  No matter how powerful Selina and Juliana were, they were still youths. It was only normal for them to be frightened given the sinister events they had encountered thus far, but the problem was that it had started to affect their cognitive ability. They had shut down their minds and were leaving it all to their instincts, but giving up on thinking was the last thing they should do in this eerie town.

  Roel forced himself to calm downby massaging his temples. He quickly analyzed the situation before issuing a new order—Continue searching for the main team and join forces with them as soon as possiblebefore discussing a counterattack.

  He thought that it was unwise for them to do nothing in a place of danger, especially when they had no idea what had happened here. Staying put would just make it easier for their enemy to locate and make a move on them.

  Selina and Juliana decided to heed his order, and the three of them ventured deeper into Marlin Town. Thanks to Juliana’s superior senses in the night, they were able to quickly locate the main team’s campsite.

  It was an abandoned building that appeared to previously belong to the town’s mayor, judging from its size. Constructed out of stones, it was in a much better condition compared to the other dilapidated buildings around.

  The result of Roel and the others’ investigation of this building was disappointing.

  There was no one at all.

  From how all sorts of things are scattered on the ground, the main team was probably caught off guard by the enemy and had to flee in a fluster. The situation was probably so tight that they didn’t even have time to inform us about the situation.

  As for their outcome… they probably vanished into the fog just like Paul and Stuart.

  “Looks like there isn’t any reason for me to hold back anymore,” muttered Roel.

  Knowing that the ones he was supposed to save were unlikely to be around anymore, Roel made up his mind and began releasing a huge surge of frost aura. The surrounding temperature immediately plummeted, and the ceiling and walls were soon coated with a layer of frost. However, the frost aura didn’t stop there and continued spreading outward.

  It was almost impossible to discern between the spreading frost aura and the white fog.

  Everything that had happened in Marlin Town so far could easily make a person’s blood run cold, but a huge contributing reason behind that was the thick white fog obscuring the truth.

  Roel had no idea whether this fog was natural or man-made, but he believed that his omnidirectional attack via his frost aura would force his enemy to reveal themselves. Just as he had thought, there was an immediate response from the silent town.

  Powerful pulsations of mana suddenly rippled from the town center and swiftly engulfed the entire area. It drew Selina and Juliana’s attention right away. It was an unfamiliar aura, but its overflowing malevolence was more than enough to make anyone put up their guard right away. Tight frowns appeared on their faces.

  It’s the aura of a Fallen!

  That was the judgment Roel made right away. The aura felt disgusting and repulsive as if it was some sort of decomposing carcass, but he was able to sense something else in it that the other two ladies couldn’t.

  This is anger? No, it would be more apt to call it hatred. It doesn’t seem to be solely directed toward my provocation. It’s more like a response toward Glacier’s Touch and the power of the Crown’s Stones…


  “Is this hatred directed toward the Mother Goddess?” murmured Roel.

  All of a sudden, a lanky but hunched old man appeared at the other end of the fog. He glared at Roel with intense animosity. Held in his hand was a fog lamp that cast a hazy light in front of him.

  “You’ve finally appeared!”


  “Get him!”


  Having finally found an enemy after wandering so long in this suffocating environment, both Selina and Juliana made their move on the old man right away.

  The lurking shadows morphed into countless sharp blades that darted toward the old man. Similarly, Selina channeled her Chaos Origin Attribute into her glowing sword, imbuing it with the power to slice through any armor.

  The two women executed their strongest moves right away, and Roel was prepared to coordinate with their attack. That very moment, however, his ancient gods suddenly shouted through their windows of connection.

  “That fog lamp!!”


  “No! Run away!”


  Grandar and Artasia’s voices sounded at the same time, but it was already too late. The fog lamp held in the lanky old man’s hand suddenly shimmered, and a blinding burst of light reminiscent of the sun bombarded the surroundings.

  Everything before Roel’s eyes was drowned out by the light, and his consciousness started to blur. He felt as if his soul had been blasted from his body into the sky.

  Under the guidance of the blinding light, his soul streaked across mountains and rivers at an unbelievable speed. He spotted the fortresses of the eastern border and the warring humans and deviants at Tark Prarie, but those, too, vanished in the blink of an eye.

  Eventually, he arrived at an obscure cavern.

  It was an endless cavern cloaked in darkness. Waves of ominous and malevolent auras rippled out from its depth as if all evil in the world was hidden within it. The moment Roel appeared, the cavern came to life and began contracting on him like he was some sort of delicious prey.

  Roel’s consciousness began to fuzz out.

  He could vaguely hear Grandar, Peytra, and Artasia’s shoutings, and he tried his best to pull himself together too, but it was all in vain. His thoughts were slowly freezing up, and all he could see was darkness.

  Just as Roel was about to fall into the abyss, a pair of luminescent golden eyes lit up amidst the darkness. His mind immediately cleared up and his eyes shot open.

  “!”


  As if his soul had reached the limit of its travel, he began to ricochet backward. The scenery seemed to retreat behind him, the pitch-black cavern, Tark Prairie, the fortresses, mountains, and rivers, all the way until he returned to the mountainous town. Then, a voice echoed in his ears.

  “Roel!”


  Amidst the foggy Marlin Town, under the seemingly all-consuming fog lamp, a black-haired woman with amethyst eyes suddenly appeared. She carried the young man collapsed on the floor up, and under the chorale of her spatial magicians, her figure flickered and vanished into thin air.