This time, it wasn't coming from one spot; it came from five, six, seven points all along the perimeter line.
"It's under the barricade!!!" Someone shouted.
Almost simultaneously, two guards guarding the eastern generator were also pulled through the air like puppets caught on invisible wires.
"Damn it!" Maren's eyes flashed with anger.
Instinct took over, unleashing a surging aura of water-attuned mana that shattered the frost beneath her boots.
"Aqua Binding Spheres!" Maren thrust both hands forward.
Thick torrents of high-pressure, swirling blue water erupted from her surroundings, splitting into spherical cages that shot across the yard.
Two of the water spheres slammed into the retreating guards, wrapping them in dense, buoyant water bubbles.
Maren pulled her arms backward, using the water's surface tension to physically rip the two men out of the invisible grip dragging them into the abyss.
They crashed hard onto the road, coughing up water and gasping for air, their armor scraped and slightly dented in multiple places.
However, Maren was only one person.
Even as she saved the two, five other guards around the perimeter were violently dragged deep into the fog.
Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the mist went completely still.
The crazy laughing sounds vanished. The fog stopped creeping forward, settling back into a quiet, sluggish swirl just beyond the barricades.
Several Night Guards dropped to their knees, trembling uncontrollably, while others pressed their backs against the armored transport trucks, clutching their weapons to their chests in stunned disbelief.
Maren stood at the very edge of the barricade, her chest rising and falling as her water aura slowly settled.
Her jaw was clenched so tightly that her teeth ached.
Every fiber of her body urged her to charge straight into the mist to drag her people back, but her rational mind held her firmly in place.
Charging in without high-tier psychic help in situations like this was simply suicide, and she also needed to stay here to transmit information back to headquarters.
Taking a deep breath, she reached for the encrypted communicator strapped to her collar and connected to the Command Center, requesting Alpha team.
Far away from Sector Four, on the forty-second floor of the Night Guard central command building, the world was completely quiet.
The soundproofed luxurious commander's room was encased in reinforced, blast-resistant glass.
Through the expansive floor-to-ceiling panoramic window, the glowing grid of the inner district of the Iron Creek City stretched out into the night.
Two figures stood shoulder to shoulder in front of a large desk, facing the back side of a large luxurious chair that was facing it front towards the large glass window.
The first was a towering female Orc whose tall, sexy-looking, athletic body practically radiated raw, overwhelming physical force, blended with a striking, mature attractiveness.
Standing nearly six feet tall, her thick shoulders and breasts filled out a custom-tailored Vanguard officer's coat made of dark alloy plating and heavy ballistic leather.
Her rough, emerald-green skin was crossed with dozens of faded, jagged combat scars, marks of countless brutal encounters with otherworldly horrors.
From her powerful lower jaw protruded two ivory tusks that gave her grim, contemplative expression a terrifying yet captivating edge.
Slung diagonally across her large back hung a huge, double-edged heavy broadsword.
Its heavy, dark steel blade was etched with complex exorcism runes that glowed with a steady, deep-golden glow, humming faintly in rhythm with the ambient mana in the room.
This was Captain Bella: a Senior Investigator, a Top-tier Expert Exorcist, and one of the powerful Vanguard Sword Knights of the Night Guards.
Standing right beside her was another woman who looked a striking contrast in both stature and presence, yet carried an equal measure of calm authority.
She appeared to be in her late thirties, possessed of a mature, poised elegance that remained completely unshaken by the red alerts flashing across the room's displays.
She wore a cropped, light-grey tactical jacket crafted from a modern leather-like composite, designed with a high, structured collar and functional metallic zippers running along her forearms and shoulders.
Underneath the jacket, a form-fitting, two-toned bodysuit hugged her athletic, well-proportioned body.
A light-grey vertical panel ran down the center of her chest and tapered into her fitted combat trousers, flanked along her ribs and waist by heavily ribbed, black tactical material that accentuated her curves while providing flexibility.
Her face was soft and remarkably symmetrical, with fair, porcelain skin, a neat, decisive jawline, and a pair of striking hazel eyes that observed the city with sharp, analytical precision.
Her thick, wavy silver-grey hair was swept dramatically across to the right side of her head, cascading past her shoulder in loose waves.
This was Specialist Ariel Aquaria: a high-born Noble of the Aquaria family, a Senior Investigator, and a Peak Expert Mechanic whose mastery of spirit-tech, magical armaments, and etheric arrays was second to none among the members of the Night Guards.
On the wide glass console behind them, Maren's digitized distress report blinked insistently in pale amber and flashing red.
A high-resolution holographic projection flickered to life in the center of the desk, casting a cool blue glow across its polished surface.
Maren's translucent figure stood tall amidst static interference, her asymmetrical haircut slightly disheveled and her tactical leather jacket bearing fresh scrapes.
"Command, this is Lieutenant Maren, Forward Outpost, Sector Four," her recorded voice crackled with tight, disciplined urgency, underscored by the distant, muffled sound of energy rifle fire.
"Perimeter integrity has collapsed along Grid Seven. The anomaly is no longer passive."
"Five minutes ago, multiple invisible enemies breached our reinforced barricades simultaneously, seizing seven frontline operatives; five were dragged beyond the boundary threshold."
"And there were multiple missing reports of several Night Guards who went inside the fog area to investigate the situation."
The holographic display cycled, bringing up telemetry graphs, frequency readouts, and a topographical scan of the entire district with thirty percent swallowed by an impenetrable black-green fog.
"Our sensory team's spatial resonance meters are registering off-the-scale localized Yin density and spatial folding consistent with independent dimensional domains," Maren's projection continued, her eyes grim.
"The frost accumulating along the fog-affected areas consists of high-density necrotic energy, accompanied by localized psychic soundwaves causing acute mental distress among non-commissioned personnel."
"Standard mana barrier pylons are failing to halt the perimeter expansion. Requesting immediate emergency deployment of an Alpha strike team with high-tier spiritual severance capabilities. I repeat, request Alpha…"
The recording looped and minimized into a pulsing warning icon.
Neither Captain Bella nor Specialist Ariel moved, as their gazes remained locked on the high-backed leather chair facing the panoramic window.
From their angle, the person sitting on it was entirely obscured by the sweeping curve of dark, diamond-tufted upholstery.
Only the faint, thin wisp of aromatic pipe smoke curling lazily over the crest of the headrest hinted at a living presence.
Yet, despite the casual silence, the atmosphere inside the office was suffocating.
Both officers kept their postures immaculate and their aura tightly reined.
The man sitting in that chair was the Chief of the Department of Special Anomalies, a living relic whose tenure predated the modern municipal council, and whose word held absolute authority over everything inside Iron Creek City.
A dry, raspy chuckle broke the silence.
It was a rogue old man's voice, weathered like rough sandstone, yet possessing an unmistakable, heavy resonance that seemed to vibrate the reinforced glass window.
"Alpha Squad..." The chair did not turn, but the voice sounded with a lazy, gravelly drawl. "They were currently stationed at the far end of the city, on a different mission … It might take some time for them to return to the city."
"You two were the only reserve members left behind, because you were on the mission to investigate the recent spatial anomaly that caused the Colosseum Incident!"
The tip of a polished wooden pipe tapped twice against an unseen ashtray, sending a shower of dying orange sparks tumbling into the dark.
"Well, we found that there was someone else at the incident that sealed the spatial crack even before it was opened, Chief," Bella rumbled, her deep, husky voice carrying the natural, booming power of her orcish bloodline. "However, we couldn't find the person who sealed the Space cracks."
"All we could find is that she is a Noble woman from the north who visited the Colosseum to bet… Hmmm, what's her name??" Her broad shoulders shifted beneath her heavy Vanguard officer's coat.
"Yes, if the reports from the people at the Colosseum are accurate, her name should be Lady Veronica Sterling!"
"That's not of immediate concern right now; listen closely, both of you…" The old man's raspy voice cut through the room, rough and unhurried, as a fresh ring of aromatic pipe smoke drifted lazily over the headrest of his luxurious chair, his tone losing its casual edge and settling into a cold, uncompromising gravity. "Lady Sterling can wait. Whether she's an eccentric aristocrat throwing money or not..."
"Sector Four has been placed under an immediate Class-A quarantine by the Council's emergency decree."
"If that green sludge creeps another half-mile north, it breaches the commercial rail lines and cuts straight into the inner district. Thousands of civilians, billions in infrastructure, and the city's primary supply arteries are built right on the other side of that line. We cannot let that happen."