The music came so suddenly and its source couldn’t be seen. But the melody sounded loud and clear as if the musician were just nearby.
Greya looked around without finding such a musician, and since she didn’t enjoy music or performances, she kept heading away without giving it much thought.
The pleasant melody suddenly turned sharp and creepy, as if a diligent entertainer were replaced by a drunk street performer who missed several fingers.
The tunes kept rising and lowering to unacceptable levels like a ghost was trying to sing soprano in the middle of the night.
While terrifying, the music was so impressive that those who heard it only found it difficult to remove the lingering notes from their minds.
Greya stopped her movement when she got a strange feeling.
“What the heck? Who’s playing ghost in the daytime?”
“Oof... I feel cold already.”
“Is this a thriller show? Sounds good!”
The pedestrians all heard the music, and most of them showed disgust.
Before they could use more words to blame the terrible music, they were stopped by another strange voice:
“Croak! Praise the Queen, praise our Shava, praise the Moon! Croak! God damn, there is no moonlight here! Who rejected the benevolence of the moon? Such a filthy, foolish idea! Foolish, I say! But don’t worry! It will soon get better.”
As soon as the speaker finished talking, the citizens suddenly felt complete darkness blocking their sight.
Greya jerked her head up and saw a black vortex spinning in the middle of the light barrier above Sleepless City like the eye of a storm. The vortex was releasing dark strings into the city, which crawled over the dome-like barrier like an expanding spiderweb.
Within seconds, the entire barrier was completely taken over by the dark.
Similar to how Floating Mech City was divided into two sections, Sleepless City also came with an “inner city” and an “outer city”. While the inner area was home to organizations and officials, the outer city was occupied by all sorts of shops where traders gathered.
The entire outer city, which covered the land of hundreds of square kilometers, instantly fell dark.
Soon after this happened, several light beams appeared from within the inner city and stopped in front of the now black barrier.
The wizards who presented the command system of Sleepless City looked at each other with their own confused looks, not sure what was going on.
“What is this? Can anyone tell me the situation here?” a middle-aged man in a white robe with golden trimmings yelled at the others. His muscular build, square face, and brown stubble gave him a heroic look.
This was one of the three leaders of Sleepless City, “The Radiance” Douglas.
“Mister Douglas, I sensed an abnormal dimensional energy surge, so I came to check. But we only saw this darkness that had covered up the entire outer city.”
The speaker was a masked man in a violet robe. He was the chief security who was responsible for maintaining safety for the outer city, and the first one who discovered the incident.
“Is someone attacking us?”
“But who will? This came so suddenly. No forewarning at all.”
“Edge of Night maybe? They’re always opposing us. Like, they built an entire city on top of a mountain and named it ‘Evernight Mount’ just to annoy us. Maybe they brought this thing to us!”
“But why didn’t the Edge of Night aim straight at the inner city?”
Douglas listened to the unproductive discussion with a frown. “Enough! The outer city cannot fall as our partner organizations all have their operation bases out there. Our number one priority is to figure out how to deal with the darkness and ascertain the condition of citizens!”
Everyone stayed quiet and looked at him.
“Now let me see what exactly happened...” With a flicker of mind, Douglas created a giant sphere that radiated unstoppable light above his head.
He then moved the sphere into the dark area ahead.
This was a simple spell created by multiplexing the potency of a cantrip called Light. It might damage the eyesight of weak mortals, but it had no particular effect on supernaturals.
Douglas planned to get rid of the darkness using this spell, but things didn’t go as he expected.
The dark curtain looming over the outer city was so thick that it was like a swamp that devoured anything that trod within. Douglas’ sphere vanished into it without causing any visible effect as if he threw a pebble into soft mud.
“Something is not right...”
Of course, anyone could see this. While Douglas worried about suffering fame loss should any of the wizard bases were damaged, several wizards decided to step into the darkness-covered area ahead.
No one returned.
Someone then tried sending their familiars or puppets inside to observe the situation.
Nothing worked. As soon as something went inside the darkness, its connection with their owner would get severed completely.
“... I’m going in. You get ready to evacuate the others.” As a leader, Douglas decided to step up.
“Please reconsider this, sir! No one knows the nature of the disaster. It may be too dangerous even for you!”
“No need to worry. Even if there’s a danger, I still need to check it out first.”
Douglas created a shining armor that covered his form and dashed into the darkness like a comet.
A moment later, several more wizards arrived at the scene, including those who were locked inside their seclusions. Among them, an old man with a long, white beard hanging in front of his chest attracted everyone’s attention.
“Mister Qetesh! Mister Douglas just—” The security wizard in violet robe wanted to quickly explain the situation.
However, Qetesh lifted a hand to stop him. “I already know.”
Next, Qetesh gazed at the dark dome with a strange expression that was both shock and joy.
“This is... nightmare aura?” His voice trembled in fear. And at the same time, he failed to hide his greedy intention. “Is there another Nightmare Realm tunnel showing up?”
As someone who once traveled to the Nightmare Realm, Qetesh was sensitive to such clues. Failing to acquire Travel In Dreamland the other day did not prevent him from coveting another chance to hunt for treasures.
He really wished that his dream had come true. But when thinking about what happened the last time he was inside the Nightmare Realm, he couldn’t help but shiver.
To go? Or not to go?
The space beside him suddenly shattered as a small rift appeared out of thin air.
“A plane passageway?”
“It’s Mister Douglas!”
Under everyone’s shocked gaze, Douglas squeezed through the narrow tunnel with several more wizards following behind. None of them looked well. Some of them had multiple nasty injuries all over their bodies.
The others noticed that Douglas brought several survivors back and quickly asked, “Whatever happened, Mister Douglas?”
The survivors were acting in a strange way. Some of them kept glancing behind their backs as if they would like to return to the portal.
Douglas had lost his determined temperament and was faltering about something. “I do not know. What I know is that the entire outer city has been shut off from the outside. We had to use our strength together to open a plane passageway to escape.
“But I sensed something else. It felt so familiar...”
When people kept questioning, Douglas finally revealed a single word to them.
“Mystery.”
...
Greya sensed danger as soon as she saw the darkness expanding and tried to leave the city area. But she moved a little too late.
The whole city was covered by the darkness now. No matter where she went, Greya would always find herself returning to the city as if she was lost in a maze.
Without any other option, she headed back to the teleport station and hoped that the teleportation array still worked.
Geez. I’ll just return to Floating Mech City again and go to Edge of Night instead. It’s not so far from Brute Cavern—
The strange music interrupted her thoughts as it turned more and more painful to the ears. Also, Greya felt an unknown and foreign corruption growing in the depth of her mind.
She frowned and tried to suppress the ominous emotion from affecting her judgment. It took some effort. She barely managed to stop the evilness from growing by using the full strength of her soul of a truth-finder, yet she couldn’t erase it completely.
“Common wizards cannot resist this mental pollution... Is it caused by the followers of Sinister Mischief?”
Sinister Mischief was a Grand Demon from Abyss Plane. It was also known as the “Demon Of Desires”, who enjoyed manipulating the emotions of people.
Greya wasn’t affected by the strange darkness. Yet she no longer felt safe when the eerie music successfully disturbed her mental peace.
While ignoring the passersby who already fell for their inflated desires, Greya quickly returned to the teleportation station she just used.
It wasn’t there—the building had become a pile of debris, and a bipedal fox with bright red fur was standing on top of the ruins.