After searching for half an hour, Angor landed on the balcony of a two-story wooden house.
According to the message they received, the darkness invaded Sleepless City without forewarning, which meant that most citizens in the outer city did not have time to escape.
However, Angor found it strange that he barely saw people around the city, either supernaturals or mortals.
Even if the possessed tended to avoid “Shava”, they couldn’t stay away from Angor at all times when he flew around by using the sequence of gravity.
While searching for Nausica’s trace, Angor kept an eye out for colorful clowns and registered less than a hundred of them, who all escaped as soon as they saw him coming.
Less than a hundred people in the city? That couldn’t be.
The last time when he visited the city with Sunders, he knew the city was relatively lively even though they did not take the time to look around. The streets might not be crowded, but they were far from desolate either.
Are they all staying indoors then?
He turned around and looked at the common residential house that he was standing on.
Whoever lived here had placed several flower pots with adorable purple buds growing in them on the balcony. The flowers appeared extremely bright in the dark ambient like stars.
He then opened the door on the balcony and entered a room. The clothes that were placed around as well as the faint smell of perfume suggested that they belonged to a lady. But just like everywhere else, random objects and clothes were discarded onto the floor. Perhaps after getting possessed by one of the parasites, the owner of the room changed into a colorful clownish suit or anything that looked similar.
Next, he headed downstairs to check. He came to this house because he heard something just now, which sounded like a thief rummaging for valuables.
As soon as he left the stairs, a shadow assaulted his face.
Angor didn’t need to do anything at all. The shadow was knocked away by a simple wing-flap from Toby and crashed into the ceiling.
The shadow landed on a sofa beneath and steadied itself, before turning to Angor furiously.
“Woof! Warf!”
Using the light from the oil lamp, Angor saw a spotted dog standing on the orange sofa barking at them. The dog was not any bigger than Toby. While it tried its best to look threatening, it only managed to make puppy sounds.
Angor did not react against the “ambush” because he already noticed that the dog was only a mortal pet.
“Interesting. The owners of the family are affected but their pet dog was spared?”
Angor held his chin and suddenly got an idea.
Surely a dog’s nose is better than Toby’s?
With that in mind, he slowly approached the puppy, which was still trying to intimidate him by baring its undeveloped teeth, with a bright smile.
Toby waved a wing and created a small gravity field that restrained the puppy and lifted it in front of Angor’s face.
Confused, the puppy began to dog-paddle in the air.
“Hey, little guy, how about a little teamwork? You help me find someone, and I’ll take you to your owner,” Angor said as he stroked the puppy’s head.
When the animal saw Angor’s gentle approach, it instantly removed its hostile posture and nudged against Angor’s hand while whining happily.
“Ugh, dogs, so easily convinced.”
Angor carried the creature back to Brute Cavern’s building where he found the bloodstains. He couldn’t tell who left the blood yet. But it would be fine as long as he found someone, be it Hookdick or Nausica’s teammates.
Angor tried placing the puppy near the blood, and he told it to go after the smell. But the communication didn’t work out very well as the animal kept licking at his hand while wagging its tail rapidly.
“Ugh! Toby? Can you talk to it?” Angor looked at his partner.
Toby rolled his eyes.
Angor somewhat understood why the parasites spared the puppy. Maybe they all preferred possessing something with proper intelligence.
When he almost gave up, the puppy suddenly ran off to a random direction and yelped at Angor as if it wanted him to follow behind.
Angor perked up and complied.
As a man and a dog traveled through many streets, Angor felt his delight slowly turning into suspicion.
“Are you perhaps ‘walking’ me???” He lifted the puppy by the scruff and questioned, only to receive more licks.
Angor was pretty sure that he was fooled for good. The dog was simply going for a walk, and he actually ran after it.
As he decided to leave the accursed animal to its own fate, something suddenly exploded behind a building nearby.
Angor turned around and saw the puppy staring at the direction of the noise with a “serious” look.
“So you meant to lead me here?”
More tail wagging.
“Forget it.” Angor shook his head and floated toward the ruckus.
While flying, Toby whispered something and pointed a wing toward the street below.
Angor looked down and saw the puppy still following them.
When they stopped moving, the puppy sat still as well while gazing at them with an eager look.
“Are those parasites not interested in it for real?” Angor glanced around and saw a good many flying spots wandering around the puppy but without attacking the animal.
Without giving it much thought, he kept heading to the source of the explosion and reached a relatively large building that appeared to be another teleportation station of the city. There were still noises coming from the building, which sounded like crumbling walls.
Is someone fighting in there?
Instead of going inside, Angor approached a window on top of the building and looked down. But he couldn’t see anything because the window was too far from the floor and the inside of the building was completely dark.
He heard someone panting heavily. And it sounded pretty familiar.
He only heard one individual though. He wondered why someone would start all that ruckus all by themselves.
A hand suddenly landed on his shoulder and startled him for good.
Out of instinct, he readied his gravity power to defend himself.
“It’s me.”
It was Sunders’ raspy voice.
Angor looked closely and saw his professor somehow standing right behind his back. The gentleman was also looking through the window while his eyes glowed with the effect of a spell.
“Did you come here for something, professor?” whispered Angor.
Sunders quickly created a Spirit Bond between them. “I heard the noise and decided to check. What about you?”
“Me? I... was led here by a dog before I heard the explosion.”
“A dog?” Sunders narrowed his eyes. “Where is it?”
Angor moved to the edge of the ceiling and looked down. However, he could not find the puppy who had been following them.
“Did it get lost? But I didn’t fly very fast...
“Maybe the noise scared it away?”
Since the puppy seemed safe from the parasites, Angor decided to leave it be and looked at the teleportation hall below again.
“Someone is there. Someone we both know,” said Sunders, “Greya, no doubt.”
Upon hearing Greya’s name, Angor felt Toby getting restless on his shoulder as if the bird would rush into the building immediately.
“Lady Greya is down there? Did she cause the commotion?” Angor frowned.
“I’m not sure what exactly happened to her, but it seems like Greya is trapped.”