Chapter 305: The Forgotten Town

"Have any of you heard of this name before?"

Vena leaned down from the roof of the wagon, her voice carrying softly through the fog.

"Doesn't ring a bell to me," came one reply.

"I've heard it before, but only as the name of some orcish tribe. I don't know any towns with that name," another said.

The wagon's interior buzzed with confused chatter. Most couldn't place the name Myssos. Even the widely traveled gnome merchant Elliot only recalled it as a minor orcish settlement, nothing at all like the fog-shrouded town before them.

"I... think I remember something," said one of the Church of Nightfall members suddenly, raising a hand.

His expression, however, was troubled. He had one hand pressed to his temple, and his eyes were clouded with uncertainty.

Everyone turned to look at him and noticed his distress at once. A fellow devotee of the Lady of the Night versed in healing reached out and laid a glowing green palm against the man's forehead.

"I'm fine," he said quickly, pushing the hand away. "I've just been confused. I was a fisherman from this region years ago. Our tribe was forced to migrate when a winterwolf clan crossed the St. Anna Snowfields and took over the coast of the Endless Sea. We had no choice but to leave.

"I don't ever recall a village here, and certainly not one called Myssos. But after Vena said the name aloud, and with this fog around us... it's like the memory suddenly surfaced from nowhere. It's real, I can feel it, but it clashes with everything I know. I just need a moment."

He closed his eyes, trying to sort through the sudden dissonance in his thoughts.

The others left him be and peered through the wagon windows, trying to glimpse the obscured town through the unrelenting fog. Yet the fog refused to lift, even though this was a place supposedly revealed through the guidance of the Lady of the Night.

"What is this place...?" someone murmured. The question hung in the air.

"I've pieced it together as best I can," the man said at last, opening his eyes. "I don't recall a village here at all—not since I was eight. And yet, a new memory of mine claims there was a fishing village called Myssos right here.

"It feels completely authentic, but that would mean my old memory must be false—or overwritten.

"It's as if this town was not only erased from my mind, but from reality itself. A place that once existed... but was forgotten."

The man's voice faltered as he stumbled over his words. The conflict within his mind left him uncertain and hesitant.

"A forgotten town..." Elliot echoed, chewing over the words. His expression darkened with dawning comprehension.

"Damn it. If this town did exist and was later erased, then why the hell can we see it now?"

He gripped his head in frustration and let out a sharp, strangled shout. Around him, the others began to pale. For if they could now see this erased town, then perhaps...

Perhaps they too had already begun to fade. Perhaps they too were being erased.

"Hold on, don't panic. The town is dead. We're alive. There has to be a way out. And remember, it was the Lady of the Night who led us here. There must be a reason for all this."

Elliot's panic subsided as quickly as it had flared. He straightened, voice now calm and reassuring. Despair was their greatest danger in a place like this. They couldn't afford to lose themselves to fear.

"Boss, we should take a headcount," Vena said suddenly. "If this place can erase a town from the memory of the world, it may have already caused one of us to vanish—and we'd have no way of knowing. We should check our roster."

Elliot blinked, then nodded, recognizing the necessity. He quickly pulled a parchment ledger from a chest and began calling names aloud.

"Clive?"

"Here!"

"Kubo?"

"Over here!"

"Sui?"

"Alive, boss."

"Vena?"

"Mm."

"Elliot... Well, that's me. Right."

He struck a neat line through each name on the list. Every person was accounted for.

Or so it seemed. Nestled between the names Vena and Sui was a blind spot that Elliot had naturally skipped over. There was another name there, unmarked and unspoken: Emmon.

Elliot had skipped the name entirely. He hadn't read it aloud nor crossed it off—and no one had noticed.

Indeed, away from the carriage, Emmon stood in the fog, blinking in disoriented confusion. "A fishing village? What am I doing in a fishing village...?"

The orc rubbed at his temples. Something was missing—there was a gap in his memory. He had awakened in the midst of the fog, not knowing how he got there. "Where... am I?"

"O great Lady of the Night," he chanted, bringing his hands together in prayer. "I call upon your name..."

As a knight with no spellcasting or detection magic of his own, Emmon was all but blind in the fog. No matter how hard he strained his eyes, he could see no further. His prayers yielded nothing. There was no answer.

He had tried leaving the village again and again, but every time he wandered through the twisting streets and alleyways, he would somehow find himself right back where he had started.

Had he been like other orcs, he might have already succumbed to a berserker's rage and destroyed everything in sight.

Perhaps that would have led him to a solution, but Emmon was not like other orcs. He had restraint and reason. He feared that such violence might trigger something darker—something slumbering within this dead, silent place.

"No good... I can't draw upon the Lady of the Night's power. That's not a good sign at all."

Despite reciting the Lady of the Night's prayers over and over, Emmon received no answer. At last, he had no choice but to give up on channeling the divine power of his patron deity.

He drew in a slow, steadying breath. Fighting spirit surged within his body, forming a precise matrix—a pattern etched not in flesh, but in will. He activated his potential.

In an instant, Emmon's eyes flared crimson—not the red of a berserker's fury, but something more deliberate. His inner potential, Predator, allowed him to sense all nearby beings that possessed even the faintest breath of life, illuminating them in his vision as silhouettes glowing in red.

"!"

The moment Predator activated, Emmon's entire body jolted. He instinctively slid backward and drew the longsword at his side in a flash. In a defensive stance, he sent fighting spirit rushing through every limb, flooding him with heightened awareness. The air around him felt heavier and more hostile.

His crimson eyes trembled, fine red threads veining through the sclera—signs that his berserker state was dangerously close. He was breathing hard, pulse racing.

What he saw through Predator chilled him to the core. All around him--within the buildings flanking the street, in corners and alleys cloaked in fog—countless red points danced and shifted, moving with silent purpose. One of them had just passed within a hair's breadth of his body... yet he hadn't seen a thing with his naked eye.

"What the... Why can't I see them? Are they illusions?" Emmon muttered, shaken. His warrior's instincts screamed that something was terribly wrong. Shutting his eyes, he focused on his mental state.

"Control it... hold it down..."

He whispered the words over and over like a chant, steadying his breath. Then, in a single surge, he activated his racial ability.

A brief pulse of red spread across his green skin, then faded back to its natural hue. This was a controlled, shallow berserker state—not deep enough for him to lose his reason, but enough to shake off illusions, glamours, and even soul-affecting attacks. With it, he could disrupt any mental interference.

Eyes snapping open, Emmon scanned his surroundings once more.

A sudden, resonant chime rang out, like a temple bell echoing across a dead sea. And then he felt a presence behind him.

A hand settled gently on his shoulder. "Are you one of the followers of the new god of the night?"

The voice came from just behind his ear. It was a voice he had once heard before by the shores of the Endless Sea.

Back in the Seed of Eden, Avia pushed open the door and stepped quickly into the room. Her eyes landed on Wang Yu and the Lady of the Night, who were busy manipulating strings of floating glyphs. Shimmering runes of void-based code hung in midair.

"We're back. How is Lady Darkness doing?"

"She's holding up," Wang Yu replied without looking back. "Thankfully, she managed to put together a kind of rudimentary ‘operating system.' I'm helping her isolate the Tree of the Night's core functions from the rest of her power. If we don't, whatever's creeping in might just end up corrupting everything."

He continued to guide the Lady's hands, his own fingers darting through the arcane interface with practiced ease. He wasn't familiar with wizardry—but he did know how to program.

"Hmm?"

Sieg, who had followed Avia into the room, suddenly let out a quiet groan. His hand palmed his temple. Wang Yu, Avia, and Noelle all turned sharply toward him.

"Brother? Are you okay?"

"Professor, what's going on?" asked Wang Yu.

Sieg straightened with a pained grimace. "The marker that Heaven's Gloom left behind in my head just shattered. The spiritual corruption inside burst out and struck my soul, but the Prayer Network helped redirect most of it. I'll be fine."

He shook his head slightly, brow furrowed.

"Heaven's Gloom, now of all times?" Wang Yu muttered. "I thought its influence was starting to fade. Wait—if your mark shattered, what about the other Nightblade agents?"

Realization hit him like a slap. He turned toward the starry projection of the Tree of the Night that the Lady had conjured. Dozens of stars, about a sixth of the entire tree, shimmered in response. Each star blinked erratically, as if it were starting to transmit something.

When it rained, it poured.

"Damn it," Wang Yu cursed. "This isn't a coincidence. Heaven's Gloom must be connected to that thing that's waking up."