In the week since the sudden thick mist fell, the people of Soville City didn’t just sit and shiver; they tucked themselves into their homes like shells, nibbling on stored food like mice in walls, and watched the intruders through shadowed slits of light.

Windows whispered to windows; neighbors passed notes like lanterns from hand to hand; scraps of intel crossed the street like drifting leaves, all seeking a way to cut the knot.

Slowly, a pattern surfaced like ink in water.

Every outsider lost in the mist was seeking something, a hook in the heart tugging them forward.

That target didn’t have to be in Soville City, or even be real, because the mist showed—and only showed—the trespasser’s desire, like a mirror catching breath.

Then it offered an answer, like a pond throwing back a moon.

Based on desire, it raised a phantom in the fog, a bait bright as frost, and with it bewildered the outsider, drove them off like wind, or folded them into itself like silt.

Harrison knew the man he came for—master-class explorer Brian—was hunting secrets, treasure, and ruins, so the mist answered; the streets took on the idea of a labyrinth, alleys knotting like vines.

Two days later, time itself bent like a crooked clock and became these ten-odd-minute days and nights; someone’s desire tilted the sun, but whose? no one could tell.

The patrolling ghosts only appeared three nights ago, like pale birds, just about when they came.

Ling Yi’s mind spun like a gear and finally locked; she felt the sting first, then the logic like cold rain.

She and Yekase were “split” because of her, most likely.

Because she was carrying a desire—for independence, a blade sheathed in the rib.

“What’s your wish?” she asked Harrison, voice calm as night water.

“Me? I want to save Brother Brian,” he said, eyes like gravel. “If I can, I’ll explore the secrets buried here with him.”

Really? Suspicion, rare for her, pricked like thorns.

In that moment, Yekase and Lu Yao’s ghosts stood beside her like twin shadows; a thought streaked like lightning down the spine, and she asked:

“If your brother’s stronger than you, why are you already sure you’ll ‘rescue’ him?” Her words dropped like stones.

“—Uh?”

“Did you see him in the ghosts’ ranks? Or was it you who…” She let the blade hang in the air like a crescent.

“...” Harrison fell silent, the quiet thick as ash.

Did she hit the mark?

Ling Yi’s hand pressed the Flashblade Key in her pocket, a secret ember.

“I…”

Inside the cramped tent, the air tensed like a drawn bow; one spark would set it aflame.

She watched Harrison’s sunburnt, ocher face, the sweat sliding down his nose like river beads.

If they fought here—

“I did see Brother Brian,” he said at last, voice low as damp earth. “He… was taken by those ghosts, right in front of me.”

…

“Ah?”

He’d seen ghosts already?

So that’s why he was so afraid earlier. Ling Yi nodded, a small lantern of belief flickering on.

Harrison hid half his face behind his teacup and let out a breath like steam.

“But back to it,” he muttered, eyes shifting like clouds.

“Hm?!”

“If that inverted city really is the vanished Arcadia, could those ghosts be the residents buried with it, a funeral of stone and bone?”

“Oh… that’s very possible. The old tales say the same,” she said, memory rustling like reeds. “No one saw a single Arcadia citizen after that. Dying with the city and turning into earthbound spirits fits… And with numbers like that, if it were outside forces, the news would’ve roared. Let me check…”

He pulled out his phone; his face froze like ice.

“What’s wrong?”

“No signal? When Brother was grabbed, I called the Association just fine!” His voice cracked like dry wood.

Of course it would be. Ling Yi’s gaze slid away like a fish; guilt flared and died.

Even if you can’t meet, modern comms bridge miles like wires of light. The mist, ever considerate, clipped that bridge for her, too.

“…Cough. Anyway, we keep investigating,” she said, steadied as a blade. “Please tell the residents about Arcadia and the ghosts. Let’s chalk it up as our small offering.”

“Of course,” he said, voice a wrapped package.

Two people with knives in their sleeves parted at the tent, each walking their own shadowed road.

With the mist’s mechanics clearer, Ling Yi almost gave up on finding Yekase; under the triple debuffs of “mist,” “labyrinth,” and “separation,” just remembering him felt like holding a candle in wind.

She climbed a broad street that smelled like a town center; signs—milk tea, diner, translator shop—hung like mute faces, doors shut, lights drowned.

She sat on a bench like a little boat beached on stone.

And began to wait, patient as moss.

Wait for the next night to drop after a dozen minutes, wait for the ghosts to drift in, wait for Jiang Bailu to step through the gauze.

After she ground through what she could do now, a simple truth surfaced like a carp.

First off, the “mastermind” they’d feared hadn’t shown any teeth at all; no blade, no trap, just rumor smoke.

The ghost arrays were recent; the labyrinth was Brian’s wish; the mist itself could be someone’s wish, a cloak over tracks; counting down, the mastermind had done nothing, a still idol.

It stood like a wish engine in the fog; someone passed seeking, and it flipped a switch—grant—and kept humming; and they hadn’t even seen a corpse. The residents were breathing fine.

If so, what’s there to fear? What’s worth fretting? Why creep at the edge of the pool?

That wasn’t Ling Yi’s style, not under moon or sun.

She’d had enough of riddles without a prompt; she would cut her own bright road across this dark wild like a saber through bamboo.

Night folded down while she sat; her visor bloomed a red dot, punctual as a chime.

“You came,” she said, voice soft as silk over steel.

No answer rose from the fog.

Jiang Bailu stepped out like a ghost from a white painting; her gray, withered hair tangled like dead grass; her scarlet eyes shone with a filthy glamour, tainted rubies staring past Ling Yi like through glass.

Those void eyes didn’t fall on Ling Yi; they fixed on some distant star.

What did she see there, under the frost?

What did she wish for? What did she seek, bone-deep?

…

Ling Yi mostly knew, like a name on the tip of the tongue.

“You probably can’t hear me now,” she said, breath steady, “but the Doc wouldn’t like you like this.”

Her right hand flashed the Flashblade Key; the tiny blade pointed straight at Jiang Bailu’s brow like a silver needle.

Then—quick kill, quick dawn.

“Code-01!”

“Code-04!”

Flash Energy pierced the mist like sunshafts; two numbers floated behind Ling Yi, painting her half red, half blue, like day and dusk split.

“Flashblade Activation—”

“KAGARI-SHIZUKU!”

“R U Ready?”

“—Dual Flash!”

A helmet, a pair of shoulders, a breastplate, a skirt-guard, leg armor, iron boots—each piece formed like petals of light, drifting around her like fireflies.

Ghosts lunged from the mist; they hit the floating armor and burned, ash spiraling like snow.

She stepped forward; the breastplate flew in and sealed to her torso like a hug of steel.

Second step—shoulders and arm guards folded on like wings clamping.

Third—skirt and leg plates set with a clack like rain on bronze.

Fourth—the iron boots bit the stone; the click rang like a bell.

“Jiang. Bai. Lu! I’m here to drag you out of bed!” Her shout cracked the fog like thunder.

Red and blue armor streamed afterimages like comet tails; the Sky Striker in her hand cut straight for Jiang Bailu’s chest like a falling star.

If you’ve shed skin into vampire, this level won’t kill you; the thought was a firm anchor.

From the start, she meant to smash Jiang Bailu down and haul her home like a net-full catch, so she kicked into Dual Flash form.

It used to hold only five minutes in that three-round match trial, a candle guttering fast; she’d trained until that flaw thinned.

Her inspiration was that Beast King isle—a wild four-form berserk chimera mode; the thread tied back to Jiang; using it on her felt fitting, like debt and blade meeting.

Jiang Bailu watched Ling Yi close in; no armor, no shield, she didn’t dodge, a statue under storm.

She lifted her right hand, the motion a spell’s first stitch, steady as a sighting line.

Her mouth opened; her voice scraped like rust over stone, hoarse beyond belief, and she whispered:

“—Bat.”

A dim rune flared between them like a moth.

Ling Yi’s heart pinched like a fist; Jiang had learned new tricks in Labyrinth City, inked on bone.

If Yekase were here, he’d catch it at once: a basic “bat” rune grants night-sight, a touch of blood-suck, a clumsy lift of flight—vampire-lite, a shadow of the thing.

Why would a true vampire buff herself with this thin rune, a paper coat?

“Steam, blood.”

“Mist Match!”

Before the Sky Striker bit her shoulder, Jiang’s body loosened like smoke and became a dark vapor wrapped in crackling lightning, storm in a bottle.

Ling Yi’s slash cut air; she didn’t stall; her shoulder cannon spat a chain of suppressive fire like hail, shots slicing the haze, doing nothing, as planned.

Uneven recoil tugged her back like a tide; she kicked her leg thrusters; she flipped in place, a clean arc of metal and flame.

Her right foot, packed with high-density Flash Energy, snapped up like a hammer.

She struck true; impact rang like iron.

Jiang’s change forced to end, the dark fog shredded like burnt paper; her white lab coat twisted into something wilder, truer to “vampire”; collar flared; ragged hem sparked like fireflies; wind worried it into banners.

Ling Yi’s kick launched her; Jiang vanished into the mist, swallowed like a pebble by a pond.

“What is this…” Ling Yi muttered, the thought a ripple.

She’d never heard of vampires with second-stage forms; absurd as a stage play.

Had Jiang unlocked a movie-exclusive mode, bright and impossible?

Her visor couldn’t catch a heartbeat; the target blinked out like a star behind cloud.

“Mark of Crimson.” The words dropped from above like embers.

Above!

“—Blazing Rekindle!”

Ling Yi flung a ribbon of flame skyward; it met Jiang’s blood arrow midair and boiled it to steam, the hiss sharp as tea.

But the second strike didn’t fall; sky held its breath.

Ling Yi kept the blade up, stance rooted like pine.

Five seconds slid past like sand.

Ten seconds.

A full minute, quiet as snowfall.

Only silence coiled around her like mist.

Jiang Bailu was gone, a fish under still water, no ripple, no trace.