Chapter 277: Assault

Yu Sheng hung up the phone, took a deep breath, turned his head to look at Erin: "I feel Baili Qing's mindset is still quite good."

"That's because, after all, the person who is the Bureau Chief," the small doll also wore a heartless expression; seeing Yu Sheng had finished his call, she immediately jumped down from the coffee table, walking toward the door while speaking, "so shall we go out now?"

Yu Sheng didn't waste words, reached out to open a door nearby, took out his broken tetanus staff, and slung it over his shoulder: "Let's go!"

The three stepped out of No. 66 Wutong Road, looked at the thick fog slowly surging just a few meters outside this building, and then stepped into it.

The instant they crossed that invisible boundary, a cold and oppressive atmosphere enveloped them from all sides; the indifferent, alienated "Otherworld" atmosphere within the fog made Yu Sheng shiver slightly. After walking a bit further, he turned back to look, seeing No. 66 Wutong Road had already become a hazy shadow in the fog, the mansion's silhouette standing silently at the edge of his vision, like a wordless, lurking giant beast.

He frowned, speaking in a deep voice: "... Did we lock the door when we left?"

"Locked it," Hu Li nodded, "I watched you, Benefactor, lock the door."

Erin, sitting on Yu Sheng's shoulder, hearing the two converse, couldn't help but poke the latter's head: "You've been serious for so long just to ask this? Are you worried someone in this fog could 'enter' our house to steal things?!"

"I was just asking casually," Yu Sheng slapped the small doll's paw away, then focused on the rustling wind and grass around them, "... Stay alert, something might pop out of this fog."

In the real world, Jie City was already deep into night, while on the "foggy side," the entire Otherworld was similarly shrouded in night; tall streetlamp poles were blurred and indistinguishable in the fog, the bright light clusters atop the poles floating unsupported in mid-air, like rows of eerie, glowing eyes under the night, and in the distance, among the slightly more bustling buildings, neon lights could be seen, vaguely floating in the night.

The surroundings were very quiet; Yu Sheng occasionally felt he heard extremely faint car horns or music, as if a sliver of illusion leaking over from the real world, but when he listened carefully, the sound vanished again, as if it were just empty wind.

A wisp of ghostly blue light appeared beside them; Hu Li's tail behind her slowly unfurled, one fox fire after another rising and falling around her back.

"A bit nervous?" Yu Sheng asked in a low voice with a smile.

The fox girl frowned and shook her head, then accidentally another dozen or so fox fires drifted out beside her.

Erin was seriously observing the buildings around them.

"This place really is in the same 'Otherworld' as the district that trapped my big nephew before, right?" the small doll suddenly muttered in a low voice.

"It should be," Yu Sheng nodded, "the blood connection is linked... why ask this suddenly?"

"Just making a comment; if it really is the same space, then this 'Thick Fog Otherworld' is truly huge; from Wutong Road to that 'Wanxiang Ji' mall isn't close," Erin said casually, "this also proves Little Red Riding Hood's judgment earlier was correct; back then, going out from the fog surrounding Wanxiang Ji revealed even more vast space, and passing through the fog-blocked area could even lead to the Old District... just don't know exactly how big this place is in total."

Yu Sheng frowned, unable to help but make a connection because of the doll's words—yes, exactly how big is this place?

This thick fog had already spanned the Old District and the bustling commercial district near the city center, and its range was obviously not limited to this... what about further out? What about where the fog is even denser?

"Could it be as big as the entire Jie City, or even the entire Borderland?" Erin muttered in a low voice.

"Then wouldn't that be equivalent to 'another Borderland'?" Hu Li's ears perked up, "an Otherworld version of the Borderland?"

Hearing this, Yu Sheng felt a stir in his heart and unconsciously frowned: "I remember Baili Qing said there is no second Borderland in this world—even if the universe is infinite, it won't produce a second place identical or similar to the Borderland; this seems to be a 'limiting rule' like cosmic order; something similar is a planet called 'Terra'..."

Erin: "Did she mention the situation of the 'Otherworld' when she told you this? The Otherworld doesn't follow reason."

"That she didn't," Yu Sheng frowned and thought for a moment, "at that time, we didn't even know there was such a 'Fog City'."

While speaking, he took out his phone and glanced at it.

No signal.

Seeing this, Erin pouted: "Looks like there's only signal within the scope of No. 66 Wutong Road... this really is a 'characteristic' of that house of yours."

And just then, Hu Li, walking beside Yu Sheng, suddenly stopped.

The fox girl seemed to have discovered something; she frowned, then sniffed hard in the air several times.

Erin instantly lowered her voice: "Stupid fox, what did you find?"

"Human scent," Hu Li's ears twitched sensitively in the wind, carefully adjusting direction, "scent of a stranger, passed through here not long ago." Someone in the fog?!

Yu Sheng's eyes instantly became serious.

Erin on his shoulder, for some reason, looked a bit excited: "Another one trapped in here?! Is this a 'Didi Rescue' order slapped right in our faces?"

"Hard to say," Hu Li, however, rarely showed a somewhat grave expression, "doesn't look like someone trapped... there are still some very strange auras lingering nearby; I don't recognize them, but they're definitely not ordinary people, a strange smell."

"Strange smell?" Yu Sheng couldn't understand what the world inside the fox immortal's senses was like; plus, there was a cognitive gap brought by two worlds separating them, so he could only roughly interpret it as an "anthropomorphic" thing that had passed through here before, so his attitude immediately became cautious, "then let's be extra careful first—Hu Li, put out your fires first, too conspicuous."

"Mm." The fox girl nodded lightly, patches of fox fire slowly dissolving in the air; then she raised her hand and pointed in a certain direction, silently leading Yu Sheng deeper into the thick fog.

She was still tracking the trail left by that "strange smell," stopping from time to time along the way, crouching low to sniff carefully at the nearby road surfaces and wall corners, then correcting direction and continuing forward, looking serious and professional.

Erin secretly poked Yu Sheng's head, whispering very quietly: "Hey, hey, our inn has its own police dog..."

Yu Sheng: "I won't stop her if she slaps you later."

"Tsk."

Erin disdainfully made a "tsk" sound, but she wasn't quiet for even two or three seconds before she frowned and muttered with slight tension again: "The fog around here is thicker than before... did the stupid fox really not lead us the wrong way? What good person would specifically choose to drill into the thickest fog..."

!

"Then that means whoever drilled here isn't a good person," Yu Sheng muttered casually, but he also noticed the change in the surrounding environment, silently took the broken tetanus staff off his shoulder, holding it in his hand, while moving closer to Hu Li who was finding the way, "Are we close?"

"The scent is getting chaotic," Hu Li stopped, and after raising her head, her expression was somewhat gloomy, "that person seemed to have made many circles here; don't know if it was specifically to erase their tracks or doing something here; now it's hard to judge which direction they finally went."

Yu Sheng hummed, said nothing more, just slowly scanned his gaze over the surroundings.

The fog had already become dense to an unsettling degree; a few meters away was a blurry expanse, and between the barely discernible building silhouettes and dim streetlamps, he noticed everything appeared even more... strange than in other areas.

Many houses appeared tall and crooked; the lights stretched and trembled like living creatures with the flow of the fog; the ground seemed to undulate and curl up far away; and those floating neon lights in the stairwells, at some point, had turned into vast patches of malevolent dark red.

It seemed that as the fog thickened, the environment of this "Otherworld" was changing accordingly; this area... was "deeper."

And as if to confirm this feeling, suddenly, a suspicious shadow flashed across the edge of Yu Sheng's vision!

It was a tall, thin, and strange human figure.

And before Yu Sheng could even make out what that thing was, the next instant, he felt malice surge sharply behind him!

The strong warning sign made him charge forward without hesitation; after taking two steps, he swung his broken tetanus staff sideways with a twist, then, regardless of whether he hit or not, immediately dodged to the side.

A sharp metallic clash rang out in the night fog; "Clang!" sparks flew everywhere; Yu Sheng saw he had struck a strange, slender blade; the instant that blade was deflected, several other flashes of cold light slashed down where he had originally been standing.

A burst of fox fire suddenly exploded between Yu Sheng and that blade; the shockwave dispersed the surrounding fog; at this moment, Yu Sheng finally steadied his footing and saw the attacker's appearance.

A figure almost a head taller than Yu Sheng walked out of the fog, moving with elegant yet strange steps—

That figure had a slender female silhouette, but that was all it had; "her" entire body was covered in a layer of black shell with a metallic texture; that shell was both skin and armor; "her" joints displayed obvious doll-lock structures; between the joints and in the seams of the shell, dim red light could be seen flowing; "her" face resembled a noble lady, yet was an iron mask cast from white metal, upon which was frozen a perfect, chilling smile, utterly devoid of warmth.

And even stranger, this "iron doll" wore a black veil on its head that seemed to carry a clerical color—the veil appeared to have no protective function, yet added an eerie and terrifying atmosphere to this thing that was neither human nor non-human.

"She" walked out of the fog, iron heels clicking on the ground, slowly raising one hand toward Yu Sheng—

Every single finger was a sharp blade over half a meter long, gleaming with cold light in the night.

(End of this chapter)