“Tsk… I feel like the fog here is thick enough that you could wring water out of it.”
On the side where Yao Xueyue’s vision could hardly penetrate, Mo Ling reached out and waved at the thick, gray-white fog in front of her that was as solid as cotton batting.
The sensation… was viscous, damp, and cold, as if she could truly grab a handful of something wet.
“Yao Xueyue doesn’t usually reveal her Nether Breath, so this is just great. How are we supposed to find her…”
Mo Ling’s voice sounded somewhat muffled in the heavy fog, carrying a hint of irritability.
“Actually, there are traces to follow,” Isana spoke from beside her, her voice calm and steady.
She lowered her eyelashes, and her slender fingers plucked a thin, long strand of hair with a silver sheen from her collar.
It was likely a strand Yao Xueyue had left behind when they brushed past each other.
She gently gathered the hair into her palm, brought it to her lips, and pressed a very light kiss upon it.
The next second, a brilliant silver radiance spilled out from her clenched fingers, seemingly uncontrollable.
Isana opened her palm.
Resting in the center of her hand was a butterfly composed of pure silver light.
It gently fluttered its translucent wings, scattering fine dust of light as it did so.
“As long as there is a medium directly associated with the target, it can guide the way.”
“Whoa… you’ve got some tricks, Isana~”
Mo Ling’s eyes lit up.
She lightly patted Isana’s shoulder and gave her an unabashed look of admiration.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s hurry and catch up. Otherwise… with that girl’s prickly personality, there’s no telling how much she’ll be grumbling about us being slow in her head.”
“Achoo!”
In another area almost completely swallowed by dense fog, Yao Xueyue sneezed without warning.
She instinctively wrapped her fur coat tighter around herself as an inexplicable chill crawled up her spine.
“Who’s talking about me behind my back…”
She muttered, shaking her head to pull her attention back to what was in front of her.
On the ground before her, the phone screens still emitted a deathly pale light, though fortunately, the piercing ringing had stopped.
Using the light, she quickly inspected the broken phones scattered across the ground.
Most of the screens were already shattered like spiderwebs, their bodies twisted and deformed, covered in cracks.
By all logic, they shouldn’t have been able to work at all, yet they were kept functional and glowing solely by the power of the Guiyi.
A few relatively “intact” phones remained on social media posting interfaces.
The content being posted… was shockingly related to various Ritual-type Anomalies.
‘Are they using these… to spread information?’
Yao Xueyue’s gaze darkened as a cold fury quietly spread through her.
‘So many phones… just how many people have they framed?’
Her expression unconsciously became somewhat twisted, but in the next second, the intuition she had developed from years of walking on the edge of danger suddenly blared an alarm.
Her gaze sharpened instantly.
One of the Ring Blades floating by her side transformed into a cold silver light, tearing through the thick fog and shooting toward a blurred, humanoid silhouette that had just emerged several meters away.
Pfft—
The dull sound of a sharp blade cutting through something echoed.
The figure split into two and collapsed silently into the depths of the fog.
Yao Xueyue did not relax in the slightest.
Her Ring Blades continued to hover and circle around her, emitting a low hum.
She had seen plenty of regeneration-type Guiyi, which were particularly effective at countering a Nether Body like hers.
She counted ten seconds in her heart.
That area remained deathly silent, with no signs of reassembling or squirming.
Only then did she step forward slowly, each footfall extremely cautious.
After getting closer, the “true form” of the thing became completely clear.
From the outline, it looked no different from a human, but lying on the cold ground now was clearly a crudely made, life-sized cloth doll.
Its skin was sewn from fabric and its hair woven from thread, reflecting a cheap and ominous luster under the only cold light within the fog.
‘A derivative of One-Man Hide and Seek?’
Yao Xueyue knit her brows and crouched down.
She used the side of a Ring Blade to poke at the severed remains of the doll and then leaned in to look into the cut.
This look caused her pupils to shrink.
It was empty.
The interior of the doll had been hollowed out completely.
There was no cotton batting, no support, and certainly no Wart Crystal, which she had expected to find.
There was only darkness, emitting a faint, stale smell of dust from the cut.
‘Why? Why does this Guiyi exist in such a completely “hollowed out” state?’
Clouds of doubt filled Yao Xueyue’s mind, but her intuition warned her that it wasn’t wise to stay there for long.
She stood up decisively and continued forward.
The fog remained thick, but fortunately, Yao Xueyue’s sense of direction was surprisingly reliable.
So far, there were no signs of her doubling back, nor did she sense any obvious spatial distortions or loops.
However, along the path, more and more “human figures” began to appear at the edge of the fog.
Some leaned against ruins, while others stood frozen directly in the middle of the road.
Without exception, their heads were bowed in stiff postures, like puppets that had all their strings cut.
What made her skin crawl the most was that there was a huge, hideous, vertical tear on each of their backs.
The edges were jagged, as if they had been forcibly ripped open by some irresistible force, plundering everything inside.
Yao Xueyue didn’t dare stop, nor did she even dare to look too much.
‘Why… those guys went to such lengths to make people summon these Ritual-type Anomalies, and now they’re killing them…’
‘What does this mean?’
A strong, instinctive sense of crisis rose in her heart.
The longer she delayed here, the more likely it was that “something bad” would happen.
Crackle…
The slight sound of footsteps crushing damp, withered leaves suddenly came from a very close distance behind her…
Her nerves were already stretched to the limit, and Yao Xueyue’s physical reaction was far faster than her thoughts.
As she spun around, a Ring Blade had already flown out, carrying a sharp whistling sound as it slashed mercilessly toward the source of the noise.
However, when she clearly saw the two familiar silhouettes emerging from the fog, it was already too late.
The sharp edge of the Ring Blade accurately grazed the top of one person’s head…
Snip
The front half of the brim of Mo Ling’s iconic Peaked Cap fell, drifting lightly onto the damp ground.
“Whoa…”
Isana blinked and pointed at the top of Mo Ling’s head, stating calmly, “The peaked cap is now just a ‘cap’.”
“Gah—! My hat! YAO! XUE! YUE!!!”
As if a hidden switch had been flipped, Mo Ling exploded instantly.
Her voice was so high-pitched that even Yao Xueyue couldn’t help but frown.
“Tsk, what are you shouting for?”
Yao Xueyue suppressed the momentary lingering fear in her heart and quickly put on her usual expression, rolling her eyes at Mo Ling.
“Be happy I didn’t scalp you along with it.”
Mo Ling’s angry shout stopped abruptly.
She instinctively covered the top of her head, as if she were truly worried that her hair wouldn’t be safe in the next second.
“So,” Yao Xueyue turned to the ever-calm Isana and asked, “how did you find me?”
“With this.”
Isana raised a slender, white finger.
The guiding Silver Butterfly landed gracefully, coming to rest on her fingertip.
Amidst a flow of light, it transformed back into a soft, lustrous strand of silver hair.
“Hmm? My hair? When did I leave that behind?”
Yao Xueyue took the strand and twiddled it between her fingers.
She didn’t dwell on it and tossed it behind her head.
“Forget it. Now that we’ve regrouped, the priority is to find the source of this Inner World. On your way here, you must have seen those dolls with their backs ripped open, right? Did you find anything?”
“I couldn’t make any sense of it.”
Mo Ling curled her lip.
As she spoke, she reached out and made a grasping motion.
As her Nether Breath surged, a brand-new Peaked Cap, identical to the previous one, condensed in her hand, and she pulled it back onto her head.
“But Isana seems to have caught something.”
Isana nodded slightly and raised her hand again.
This time, what slowly seeped from her fingertips was a wisp of Nether Breath that definitely did not belong to her.
“This is a remnant of Nether Breath I captured from inside one of the hollowed-out remains,” Isana’s voice remained steady, as if what was coiled around her finger wasn’t something foul.
“Its owner seemed eager to recover it, but I managed to intercept this wisp.”
She repeated her previous action, lightly kissing the wisp of Nether Breath on her fingertip.
A darkness rose from her finger, churning and finally condensing into a Black Butterfly.
Isana gave her finger a light flick, and the Black Butterfly flapped its wings, flying unhesitatingly toward a specific direction deep within the thick fog.
As its wings beat, it scattered fine black powder that seemed capable of absorbing light.
“Is it over there?”
Yao Xueyue looked in the direction where the Black Butterfly had disappeared and let out a cold laugh.
Then, with a thought, her three Ring Blades emitted a clear chime and flew in front of her.
They joined end to end, instantly forming a strange, sharp-bladed circular structure that looked like…
“An electric fan?”
Mo Ling once again wore an “are you serious” expression.
Since they needed to carve a path through this maze, the most direct way was to blow away this eyesore of a fog.
Yao Xueyue’s gaze sharpened, and pure Nether Breath surged out of her body, pouring into the Blade Fan in front of her.
In an instant, the three Ring Blades began to spin frantically at an unprecedented speed.
A visible, violent current of air lunged forward with the force of an avalanche.
Everywhere it passed, the thick fog was violently torn open as if by an invisible giant hand, rolling back and receding to both sides.
“This…”
Mo Ling watched the shocking scene before her, her mouth hanging open slightly.
“Hmph~”
Yao Xueyue raised her chin proudly, running her fingers through the silver hair over her shoulder.
She crossed her arms, waiting for the expected gasps of admiration.
“Fine, fine, you’re amazing, you’re great.”
Mo Ling snapped out of it and rolled her eyes, her tone flat and dismissive as she gave a perfunctory response, clearly not having fully cooled down yet.
“But don’t waste too much time, or this fog might creep back in.”
Hearing this, Yao Xueyue also set aside her playful demeanor and looked at the path that had been forcibly cleared.
Her gaze turned sharp once more.
“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go. It’s time to meet that ‘fellow’ who’s been hiding all this time.”