Mist wrapped around Inanna on every side, so thick she couldn't see her own outstretched hand.
"No. 4? No. 4, can you hear me?" Inanna called out through the mycelial network several times, but no answer came.
The sudden turn of events left her uneasy.
Lin Jun had warned her a moment in advance, yet she and No. 4 still hadn't outrun the mist.
And this was the first time Inanna had ever stepped inside the Mist. She kept wondering what she would find here.
After a while, a clamor of noise drifted in from somewhere far off.
Inanna felt her way toward it. The white fog thinned, revealing stone walls on either side and a flagstone road underfoot, puddled with filthy water.
She seemed to be standing in an alley. What unsettled her was the smell hanging in the air: scorched ash and blood.
"Out of my way, woman!"
A man came barreling from the far end of the alley, his robes in disarray, collar hanging open, a bulging bundle clamped under one arm.
His face was flushed red and his eyes bulged. Seeing Inanna blocking the middle of the road, he threw out a hand and swung it hard at her shoulder.
The frost gown materialized before his fingers ever reached her. The instant he made contact, cold frost spread from his fingers to his wrist, then climbed from wrist to forearm.
His feet were still carrying him forward, but the sudden weight on his upper body dragged him off balance. He sprawled face-first at the mouth of the alley. The bundle flew from his arm and skidded far away, spilling gold, silver, and jewels that clinked and rolled across the ground.
His arm, frozen into a solid lump of ice, snapped clean off at the elbow as he fell. The block of ice struck the flagstones and shattered into several pieces.
"My hand... my hand!" Sprawled on the ground, the man clutched the stump of his forearm, his voice shrill with terror.
His screaming drew something he never should have drawn.
Two demons rounded the corner from the other end of the alley.
In front was a lizardman, his scales a grayish green, a short spear gripped in one hand. Behind him came a horned demon with a cleaver tucked at his waist.
Both demons' weapons were spotted with blood that hadn't even fully congealed yet.
Neither so much as glanced at the gold and silver on the ground. Grinning, they walked straight up to the man, who by now was too frightened to make a sound.
"Look at these clothes. A fine lord, isn't he?" The lizardman lifted the hem of the man's robe with the tip of his spear. The fabric was embroidered with gold thread, finer than anything Inanna herself wore.
"Then this couldn't be better." The horned demon circled around from behind and stamped down, snapping the man's leg.
The man let out an agonized scream and thrashed across the ground, scattering the jewels even further.
The two demons raised their weapons and set to work on him, blow after blow, each one carefully short of fatal, savoring the pleasure of his torment.
Inanna's hand had already lifted, magic gathering at her fingertips for an instant.
But she caught herself quickly. None of this was real. It was only an illusion within the Mist, some fragment of a memory. Nothing she did here meant anything, except protecting herself.
She turned her head away from the man still screaming and slipped deeper into the alley, all the while calling out to No. 4 in her mind. Still there was no reply.
The whole way, there were humans everywhere, fleeing and wailing, and demons burning and killing without restraint.
Inanna could not begin to guess where this place was supposed to be.
She pushed open a half-shut wooden door and darted inside.
The room was sparsely furnished, the stove cold. A wooden bucket lay overturned beneath the table, as if knocked aside by an owner fleeing in a hurry.
She crouched in the corner and pressed her breathing down as light as it would go.
Before long, though, footsteps approached outside. Among the demon-tongue chatter came the sound of a sniffing nose.
The door was kicked open. The panel slammed against the wall and bounced back.
A werewolf stood on the threshold, the tip of his nose twitching, his gaze settling on Inanna.
"What did I tell you. A scent this clean could never belong to some commoner." He turned his head and cocked an eyebrow smugly at the companions behind him. "Take a look. Another noble lady."
The rest of the demons squeezed in through the doorframe, packing the entrance tight.
Their faces wore an expression Inanna couldn't quite read. It wasn't greed, and it wasn't lust. It looked more like the satisfaction of a great grudge finally repaid.
"Grab her. Take her to the Marshal!" one demon said, and was about to step forward when a horned demon threw out an arm to stop him.
As the horned demon raised his arm, his sleeve slid down, exposing a slave brand seared into the inside of his forearm.
He looked at Inanna and grinned savagely. "I have a better idea. Her screams are bound to be especially sweet."
Snow suddenly began to fall over the burning city.
The southeastern district was buried outright in ice and snow, everything within it frozen solid in frost.
Naturally, this drew the attention of Madwolf, the commander of this demon army.
He leapt alone into that frozen wasteland. There, among several demons frozen into terror-stricken ice sculptures, he found Inanna, and the Frost Element Lord drifting behind her.
"Now this is interesting. To think there's a human like you, a powerhouse I've never even heard of!"
The words had barely left him before Madwolf lunged.
The Frost Element Lord raised an arm with elegant ease, and a wall of ice rose to bar Madwolf's path.
"That won't hold me!"
Madwolf's claws tore through the ice wall with little effort. He pressed in over the shattered crystals, his claws gouging deep gashes across the Element Lord's torso.
Yet when he turned back, the gashes on the Frost Element Lord had already knitted shut, and it came at him again as if nothing had happened.
"An elemental creature, is it. What a nuisance." Madwolf clenched his fist, crushing the frost off his claws, and closed in once more.
The Frost Element Lord's breath froze his left arm. Without even a glance at it, he ripped the frozen flesh away with his right claw, and the blood-soaked limb went on swinging as freely as before.
Under his relentless assault, the Frost Element Lord slowly began to falter, its recovery growing slower and slower.
Seeing this, Inanna knew she couldn't let him keep going. She raised an arm. "Little Fire!"
"How many times do I have to say it. Call me Master Fire!"
A blazing body of molten lava wormed its way out of the Ring of Forbiddance and threw itself into the fight at once. Flame and frost braided together into a savage vortex, one cold and one hot, the two figures striking in turns, and at last they forced Madwolf's momentum back.
Tongues of fire licked at Madwolf's pelt, shards of ice whistled past his ears. Caught in the pincer, he dodged, rolled, and struck back, the wounds piling up one after another across his body. Yet the ferocity in his eyes only blazed brighter.
Then, all at once, his eyes swiveled toward Inanna.
Madwolf wrenched his body aside, took a searing blast of fire from the Flame Element Lord head-on, and burst out of the flames as a streaking afterimage, charging straight for Inanna's slender form.
Too fast.
The Element Lords' attacks chased after him, but couldn't catch up.
The black shape loomed larger and larger, mirrored in Inanna's eyes. She had only just raised her staff, the magic at her fingertips not yet gathered.
"No... this is bad!" Panic flashed through Inanna's eyes.
At that very moment, the whole city began to tremble.
Then stone heaved upward and earth split apart, the ground wrenched open by force from below.
First came several tentacles erupting skyward, then slamming down to claw at the ground and crush countless buildings beneath them. An instant later, a mushroom cap of preposterous size shoved up out of the earth, splitting Inanna and the savage Madwolf apart.
"Pink Puchi! I'm coming!"
(End of Chapter)
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