The Ghost Ship retreated even faster than it had appeared.
Thick fog on the sea surface churned as if stirred by an invisible giant hand, surging toward the black cruise ship from all directions and wrapping its silhouette layer by layer.
Harding’s final bolt of lightning struck into the fog, producing only a brief ripple with no feedback of a hit.
The Storm Eye circled a few tis at low altitude. Only after confirming the target had completely left his perception range did it slowly retract, lowering him and Dirk back onto the dock.
The harbor was now unrecognizable.
The ground at Pier 3 was covered in drag marks. Containers lay scattered like toys.
Several cranes leaned crookedly against nearby buildings, broken steel fras still dangling with snapped cables that swayed gently in the wind. There were quite a few bloodstains on the ground, but not many corpses.
Those who had been sucked onto the ship left no bodies behind.
Harding stood at the edge of the dock, chest heaving, with fine beads of sweat on his forehead.
Unleashing the Storm Eye at full power placed considerable strain on his body, but it was still within tolerable limits.
Dirk crouched beside him, one hand pressed to the ground. Shadow snake threads moved rapidly through the gravel, checking for any residual Strange presence or survivors.
“This thing really ran,” Dirk stood up and brushed the dust from his hands. “Energy fluctuations have completely vanished, and no life signs detected.”
Harding fell silent for a mont before nodding without saying anything more.
He took out his communicator and pressed the call button.
“Pier 3 at the harbor. The Ghost Ship has retreated. Casualties pending statistics. Requesting follow-up support to clear the scene.”
The other end was silent for two seconds before a voice he was not very familiar with replied.
It was not the usual operator. The voice was steadier and deeper.
“Harding, return to headquarters imdiately. All elite personnel, return to headquarters imdiately. Now.”
Harding’s finger paused.
He glanced at Dirk, who had also heard the voice and furrowed his brows slightly.
Both imdiately recognized the speaker: the President of the Mist Capital Spirit dium Association!
“Everyone?” Harding asked.
“Everyone,” the other side repeated, then cut the communication.
Inside the Mist Capital Spirit dium Association building, the conference room door stood open.
When Harding and Dirk entered, more than a dozen people were already seated inside.
All familiar faces.
The elite teams that had participated in the abandoned factory encirclent operation were all present, along with several senior mbers normally responsible for other districts. Even those who had been away on business were now in the conference room.
The large screen in the conference room was lit, displaying a personnel file photo.
It was a middle-aged to elderly man with a refined appearance, wearing silver-frad glasses and a dark gray suit, smiling at the cara.
Harding had seen that face before—familiar, even.
It had appeared in lecture halls, internal association briefings, and group photos from formal occasions.
Victor Raine.
Dirk’s footsteps halted briefly at the doorway.
His pupils contracted slightly. His lips moved, but no sound ca out.
Harding’s expression remained unchanged, but his right hand unconsciously clenched.
Everyone present basically understood what kind of news was about to be announced in such a situation.
To be honest, they had not been without suspicions about this professor.
Ever since the abandoned factory incident, they had been investigating—constantly investigating.
But sotis the distance between “suspecting” and “confirming” was farther than the distance from Mist Capital to the other end of the continent.
At the front of the conference room, the Association President stood there.
He was an elderly man with graying hair but a straight back.
His face was lean, his eyes sharp. He wore a dark gray uniform, the badge on his left chest larger than everyone else’s.
Two people stood beside him—one man and one woman, both around forty years old. They wore dark blue coats that differed slightly from the standard association uniforms. Their collars had gold trim instead of silver.
Disaster Grade Spirit diums. It seed they had been sent directly from headquarters.
The President’s gaze swept over everyone present, confirming all elites had arrived, before speaking:
“The Prophet from headquarters actually arrived three days ago.”
The conference room fell silent for an instant.
Then a suppressed, tightly controlled disturbance rippled through the room.
So exchanged glances, so clenched their fists, and so unconsciously touched the location where their Stranges were sealed.
The information they had received was that the Prophet would arrive in two days. All preparations, internal investigations, and temporary deploynts had been arranged according to that schedule.
Yet the Prophet had already arrived three days ago.
This ant the President’s “two days later” had been false, and that the elderly man before them had not trusted any of them. But no one complained.
Everyone present was a veteran. They understood why this had been done.
There was a traitor inside the association, and their rank was not low.
If the Prophet’s true arrival ti had been leaked, the entire plan would have been ruined.
Only by making everyone believe in a false tiline would the traitor arrange their actions according to that false schedule.
“The Prophet has been analyzing these past few days,” the President continued, his tone calm as if delivering a routine work report. “Today, through the connection between the Ghost Ship Strange and the black-robed organization, he has locked onto the enemy’s main base.”
The image on the large screen changed.
It was a blurry photo that appeared to have been taken underwater.
The photo showed a massive underground space. The walls were covered in glowing runes, and a circular array sat at the center, surrounded by various experintal equipnt.
This photo had not been taken with a cara, but “seen” by the Prophet through his Strange.
Fate-type Strange abilities could directly capture a target’s physical location and spatial structure through the entanglent of causal lines, bypassing distance limitations and ignoring physical obstructions.
“It differs sowhat from our initial predictions. The enemy’s main base is not in the wilderness or in another city,” the President paused. “They are in a semi-independent sub-space. The entrance to this space is located underground beneath the Mist Capital Psychiatric Hospital.”
The air in the conference room froze.
Mist Capital Psychiatric Hospital.
The official dical institution that treated large numbers of patients with Strange-related ntal illnesses and maintained a long-term cooperative agreent with the association. Most troubling of all, many association mbers’ family mbers and civilians were inside!
If the enemy’s main base truly existed in that area, it ant all the patients in the psychiatric hospital had beco hostages!
No!
If they had rely beco hostages, that would still be the “better” outco. Given the involvent of cultists, far more troubleso things had likely already happened there!
Scenes flashed through Harding’s mind—images of cultist headquarters he had once helped destroy.
Those madn who had long lost their humanity were capable of anything. Nothing would be surprising.
It was no exaggeration to say that every ti a cultist nest was wiped out, many field operatives required psychological counseling afterward.
“The Prophet has confird that the core mbers of the black-robed organization, including their leader—Victor Raine—are currently inside that sub-space. They do not yet know the Prophet has arrived, nor that we have locked onto their position.”
The President’s voice rose slightly, carrying the resolve that only appeared on the eve of a decisive battle. “Our next mission is simple: break in at the fastest speed, suppress them with the strongest force, and leave no room for rcy!”
He looked at everyone present.
Though the elites were surprised, they were not shocked by the President’s decision.
The President glanced at the two headquarters reinforcents standing beside him. Both nodded simultaneously.
“Good! Move out now!”
More than a dozen people poured out of the main entrance of the headquarters building. So ran, so boarded the association’s specialized vehicles, and so released the Stranges within their bodies, streaking across the low sky faster than vehicles.
Such large-scale movent by the Spirit dium Association naturally caused exclamations from nearby personnel.
What these elites did not notice was that the mont they left the headquarters building, an extrely faint, nearly imperceptible spiritual force tendril gently brushed across their shoulders.
Like an invisible flying insect, it attached itself to their uniform collars.
Harding, Dirk, the President, the two headquarters reinforcents, and several other elites… Jie Ming left an extrely faint mark on each of them.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to leave the All-Purpose Eye, but with a Prophet present, Jie Ming felt he should still exercise caution.
After observing these past few days, he had basically confird that although this Prophet controlled a fate-type Strange, whether due to the Strange’s own weakness or his own limited ability, he could only indirectly touch fate lines through physical objects.
In that case, Jie Ming would avoid leaving physical items on these people as much as possible.
This was a pure spiritual force marker with no physical form. It would only react when Jie Ming actively activated his spiritual perception.
At the entrance of the old bookstore, Jie Ming leaned against the doorfra, hands in his pockets, gazing in the direction of the headquarters building.
A faint light flickered deep in his pupils as he tracked the position and movent trajectories of each team in real ti through those spiritual markers.
“It’s finally ti to close the net. I’ll go join in the fun and see if I can find traces of that wizard,” Jie Ming thought to himself. He turned and walked back into the bookstore.
He hung up the “Closed” sign. The wooden door closed behind him, the hinges letting out a long, sighing creak.
His body faded the instant the door shut. Using the Great Void Step, he rged into the surrounding environnt.
His spiritual perception followed the speeding vehicles and low-flying figures, passing through the high-rises of the central city district, and finally arrived at the entrance of a gray-white building.
Mist Capital Psychiatric Hospital.
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