The sudden return of the surrounding clamor signaled the complete end of the card game. Mr. Snake, clad in a black robe, stood in the tavern without drawing anyone's attention. After releasing his hand, he took a step and vanished from the tavern. The rather obvious spatial trace he left behind was clearly an invitation for Shade to follow.
"Lady White, are you all right?"
Shade did not immediately give chase, instead asking her. The Crimson Eyes Watcher rose to her feet and shook her head.
"You should have accepted its proposal just now. Even in its current incomplete state, with the candidates and the other holders of the Ring of Fate not yet here, this is not a good time to fight it."
Shade had his own reasons.
"If everything proceeds according to its plan, in the end we can only step into the script it has written for itself. Since it has already interfered with the card game of the Seventh Act, we cannot let everything continue according to its wishes."
Lady White nodded lightly.
"All right, then. Let's go."
Their figures vanished from the tavern at the same time, then appeared at the docks of the City of Time Wheels at night.
Only then did Shade notice something unusual. What caught his attention was not that the starry sky had been torn apart by several black rifts, but that a translucent spherical barrier had enveloped the dock area centered on the Drowned Ghost Tavern.
Outside the barrier, Great Fog drifted through the falling snow. Flashes from artillery fire could occasionally be seen in the direction of the ocean, while continuous Elemental Reactions could be sensed from the Snow Mountain direction and the eastern part of the City of Time Wheels.
The unstable elemental environment had already reached,