The doctor was gone.
Ling Yi gripped the loose end of the safety rope. The U-shaped carabiner sat intact, as if Yekase had calmly unclipped it herself.
She flicked on her headlamp and pulled a flashlight. Two spears of light crossed, yet the mist held like a painted veil; sight stopped a meter out, houses only smudged silhouettes.
Yekase wouldn’t bail without a word. Someone else unhooked it—or, as she feared, a power this unknown and unruly was that strong, like a small Cosmic Bubble.
She replayed Yekase’s roadside primer on superpowers.
“Think of a card game. A monster can attack once per turn. That’s a base rule.”
“But if a monster’s effect lets it attack twice, it does. Card effects break and override base rules.”
“Superpowers, like Infinite Power, are card effects in the game of reality.”
So, superpowers don’t have to make sense. Like the Super branch of Infinite Power—if it says it works, it works. One-ability rule limits breadth but brings punch and stability. At awakening, your power moves like a native limb.
Imagine it: a hidden figure who drapes Soville City in fog, then splits anyone who steps into it apart.
How strong would they be?
“Flashblade Activation.”
“Sky Striker ACE!”
“ZEROS!”
Then Ling Yi would test him.
She held tight to Yekase’s hard-won lesson—if you can flip the table, don’t play their chess.
Scarlet energy pulsed through seams of her pure-white knight armor. In boundless mist, she was a lighthouse. She touched down light, and four thrusters bloomed fire.
She flew toward a nowhere sky.
At first, rooftops slid below, shrinking to matchboxes. Then her climb hit a wall without a wall—no air barrier, yet every turn showed the same height. The fog erased direction.
No good. He’d planned for this.
Still, the sky run paid off. A lone lantern pricked her vision, wandering the ground not far away.
Ling Yi arrowed for it.
The shape in the fog resolved—
“…It’s you.”
The mountaineering uncle who’d entered before them. She still didn’t know his name.
He turned at her voice and saw a white armored knight drop in. He nearly flung his lantern. “A Church knight?!”
“It’s me—the girl you saw outside the city.” Ling Yi tapped his shoulder. “This fog’s brutal. I got split from my friend. How’s your side?”
“Oh, those two girls? That armor looks… fantastic!”
He exhaled and managed a smile.
“I’m Harrison, a pro adventurer. Since the fog hit a week ago, I’ve been roaming streets, no clues. Knocked doors, no answer. I’m thinking camp at a clear landmark. Want in?”
No one answered the doors. People still alive, yet silent indoors, shunning outsiders. They were afraid—of something lurking, something hunting.
“…All right. A camp’s better than none.”
Even two people tied by rope got parted. Make your camp as obvious as you like; in two meters of visibility, it’s a candle in a cave.
Better than none.
They drifted through the maze and found the town square where Yekase had fired her magic cannon. Harrison liked the view—better than blind—and tossed down a tent, hands already moving.
Ling Yi heard the rustle, turned to help, and found a bright yellow A-frame already pitched.
“That fast?!”
Harrison poked his head out, grinning. “Ha! I’m a pro, remember? Pro! Come in, I’ll pour you some hot tea.”
No spatial magic in this tent, yet five or six square meters felt roomy. Harrison unpacked gear onto a plastic table.
A gas stove, a kettle, a compass, a thermos, paper cups, walkie-talkies, a watch—
The compass lay flat, its needle spinning in slow circles on its own. It felt wrong, like a trapped fly.
Harrison filled a cup with black tea for Ling Yi.
She thanked him and took the paper cup. Heat seeped through her gauntlets; even the rising steam felt tender. Compared to the cold white fog, it was heaven and hell.
“Messy situation. Let’s trade intel.” Harrison poured himself tea.
“Mm.”
“My Adventurers’ Association is small. When the fog hit, our strongest, Brother Brian, came alone. Then silence. So I came.”
“A friend of our Doctor went missing. The Doctor checked her last room, then fixated on a pet-finding notice tied to Soville City. We came to check it out.”
They both came to find someone. Both got swallowed by white.
They hadn’t found Jiang Bailu—and somehow lost the Doctor too.
The thought of Yekase worrying for her lit a restless spark in Ling Yi.
She popped her visor and sipped. Warm fragrance slid down her throat and smoothed her pulse.
“…Do you feel like it’s getting darker outside?”
“Hm? Darker?”
She looked up through tent cloth. A minute ago it was overcast-bright. Now it was night-stained.
“…I’ll check.”
She hadn’t dropped her armor earlier, wary of Harrison being hostile. Now caution was a neat excuse. She apologized to the uncle in her heart and stepped out.
Night had fallen, sudden and total.
If the vast mist was a canvas, its tone had shifted from beige to indigo.
What was happening?
Did the fog have its own day and night?
She turned to report—and her visor pinged a living signal. A single beep, a red dot appeared in empty vapor.
“…?”
The Doctor? Maybe she felt the Blade Armor’s signature—
Beep!
The dot split into two.
Had she found Bailu? Or Harrison’s partner—
Bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee!
Five dots, ten, twenty—
…
Huh?!
Ling Yi drew Sky Striker by reflex and caught the incoming blow. She looked up—a hooded, robed silhouette, shape and size unreadable, faintly glowing in the dark.
Ghosts?!
“Uncle! Stay in the tent!”
“What’s—whoa—?!”
Harrison peeked, yelped, and vanished inside.
Hiding was smart, sure, but for an adventurer, wasn’t that a bit too timid? Europe never lived through Huaxia’s ancient Heaven-and-Earth Severed age; their lands still nurse demons and old rites. Can he really adventure?
Ling Yi tangled with twenty ghosts across the square.
They attacked simply, relentlessly, without fear. Any living thing flinches from pain. These didn’t.
Ten-plus minutes later, she cut them to mist. Her armor wore crosshatched scars. She ducked back inside and patched what she could.
So monsters roamed the fog.
That explained the residents. Even with a tent as thin as paper, none tried to slip past her to hit Harrison. They targeted only what stood exposed in the fog—maybe a built-in mechanism of this haze.
“You okay? I’ve got band-aids.”
“I’m fine. But we shouldn’t go out when it’s dark. A few more waves could break us.”
Harrison nodded and handed her two compressed biscuits and a walkie-talkie.
One scallion, one beef.
Ling Yi tore open scallion, chewed with tea. It tasted like a dare, brittle enough to chip teeth. She suddenly missed Yekase’s endless snacks stashed in her teleport box and pocket dimension.
Within minutes, the fog brightened again. They seized the window and set out.
They fixed the tent door as twelve o’clock. Harrison would sweep left, Ling Yi right. Return before the next dusk and monster surge, results or none.
Ling Yi clicked down her visor and gripped the walkie.
She stepped back into the mist.
“Doctor… where did you go?”
