"These things are so strange." Cutting the rotten wooden wall in front of her into two pieces with a single sword strike, Melanie's heart was full of doubt.
When the mist began to spread, she had sensed that something was wrong.
But when she looked up, wanting to speak to Leticia about this abnormality, the girl had already been swallowed by the thick fog and was nowhere to be found.
Melanie panicked for a moment, but she quickly calmed down. She believed that Leticia wouldn't have any major issues; a demon that could escape from her former self wouldn't capsize so easily.
Moreover, the opponent's target should be her.
What Leticia could think of, Melanie could certainly think of as well; in fact, she reached her conclusion much faster than Leticia.
After the mist appeared, Melanie lost contact with the outside world. This also indicated that the mist was not the work of the Hero Association or the United Government; otherwise, they wouldn't have excluded her.
"Is it that councilman? But why would he have something like this?" Melanie thought, resting her chin on her hand.
"Miss in black, if you can obediently hand over that briefcase, I might be able to spare your life." Just as Melanie was pondering a countermeasure, an old man's figure appeared abruptly in the thick fog.
Melanie subconsciously hid the briefcase behind her back. This old man gave her a very strange feeling.
It was a sense of weirdness, hovering between life and death, that left one unable to fathom him.
"Who are you?" Melanie narrowed her eyes, endless sword light brewing in them. "The councilman's helper?"
"Helper is a stretch, just a partner," the old man shook his head. "Your strength is not bad, but it is far from enough to leave this city."
"I've heard that many times before." Melanie couldn't be bothered with small talk. The old man's strangeness made her unable to believe a single word coming out of his mouth.
For an enemy with whom there was no need to communicate, Melanie would only ever do one thing.
Slash!
Brilliant starlight tore the old man's body apart, but the old man's voice still echoed in the space. "It seems we can't make money in harmony. Well then, let's do it."
Accompanied by eerie shrieks, one after another, bizarre-looking creatures jumped out of the mist, targeting the case in Melanie's hand.
The monsters were very diligent, but Melanie remained very calm. Those monsters couldn't even get close to her body; as soon as any monster came within about five meters of her, an illusory longsword would suddenly appear and pin them to the ground.
But what Melanie did had very little effect. Those monsters were not living beings at all; instead, they seemed to be solidified mist. They could not be killed.
Melanie considered using her full strength to split this place open directly, but she still had some reservations; she was afraid that this mist wasn't as solid as it seemed.
If things went wrong, her full-power attack might evaporate a city block in an instant.
This was the trouble with Melanie being a human nuclear bomb; unless she was in a sparsely populated wilderness, she wouldn't dare use her full strength.
Otherwise, when the post-disaster statistics came out, more people would have died at her hands than at the enemy's, which would be very awkward.
Thus, Melanie started to run. She ran out of the alley and arrived on an old and unfamiliar street.
Dim yellow streetlights stood on both sides of the road, and the old-fashioned buildings made it seem as if Melanie had crossed a century of time.
She looked around and found a manor not far away.
Then, that led to the scene at the beginning. She cut down the wooden wall and entered the manor.
The courtyard here was very spacious, a suitable place for a battle. That was what Melanie thought, and naturally, the old man hiding behind the mist thought so too.
Countless bizarre creatures growled as they walked out of the mist. Their turbid eyes stared at the indifferent Melanie, waiting for the leader's command to pounce and devour their prey completely.
"Little girl, this is your last chance. Hand over the case, and you might still be left with a whole corpse." The old man's voice carried a sense of triumph. In his view, even if she were the strongest hero of the Hero Association, being surrounded by these monsters would mean she was in grave danger.
"Illusory things, of no consequence."
"Heh, you refuse a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit!" The old man was furious at Melanie's attitude. Both negotiations had ended in failure, and he knew very well that Melanie would absolutely not surrender without a fight. Since that was the case, then let's do it.
"Attack!"
The monsters received the order and charged at Melanie without fear of death. The dense number was absolutely a nightmare for people with trypophobia.
How many monsters were there? Melanie couldn't be bothered to count. Sometimes, quantity could lead to a qualitative change, but no matter how many of these monsters there were, in front of her, they were nothing more than slightly harder lumps of flour.
With just a gentle squeeze, they would be beaten back to their original form without any ability to resist.
"If this is your trump card, then I can only regretfully tell you that it is far from enough." An illusory sword, shimmering with a sky full of stars, appeared in Melanie's right hand. She narrowed her eyes and swung a seemingly light sword strike toward the swarm of monsters pressing down on her like dark clouds.
The stars tore through the dark clouds, creating a galaxy within this world of mist.
The monsters didn't even have time to let out a wail before they were crushed into smithereens by Melanie's terrifying attack.
"I want to see how many times you can unleash an attack like that." The old man hiding in the mist twitched his eyes. Melanie had shattered his attack so easily, which was something he had never expected.
Beside him, several men with similar appearances were sweating profusely while manipulating the mist to form monsters. Hearing the old man's voice, one of them looked up. "Elder Ying, I don't think we can outlast her."
"How can you say we can't outlast her already? Don't you have the ability to exert several times your strength here? Don't you have an inexhaustible supply of energy?"
"We haven't just trapped one person here; there are two others on the other side, and the advance team sent by the Hero Association has also been trapped by us," the person speaking continued. "We need to pay attention to all three places, and we are struggling a bit here."
Elder Ying began to pace on the spot, calculating in his mind how to resolve the current situation.
Just as he was hesitating, an illusory female voice rang in his ears. "Lure that little girl in white to the Clock Tower."
Huh? Why would she take the initiative to contact him? Doubt rose in Elder Ying's heart. His communication with her was limited to him offering tributes and her releasing the mist. Communication like this was the first time in decades.
"That is hope, a perfect body worthy of the gods. I want you to lure her to the Clock Tower, immediately, right now!"