Odin's planted agent within Vincent's team stumbled back onto the empty deck.
The cold night wind, laden with the salty, fishy scent of seawater, rushed into his face, yet it could not disperse the near-frozen terror and panic in his heart.
With his back against the icy railing, his fingers whitened from the force of his grip as he tremblingly pulled out the heavy satellite phone again.
By protocol, he should have reported only to the superior who had directly assigned him the mission. But That Lord had also said that if the situation became especially urgent and he could not be reached, he could contact another number on the encrypted channel.
That number was not to be used unless absolutely necessary—but it seemed that moment had already come.
The blond middle-aged man first tried dialing the original contact number once more. Met with another busy signal, he finally abandoned his luck and prepared to call the second number.
He had never contacted this second person before. I hope whoever's on the other end is more reliable, he thought.
But he soon no longer needed to worry about that.
At the very instant he pressed the button, a soft chuckle sounded beside his ear without warning.
No—not beside his ear. The sound seemed to come from the depths of his own soul.
The next moment, it was as if thick ink had been splashed across his vision. It rapidly blurred, twisted, and collapsed. All light,
sound, and the sensation of the cold wind swiftly receded from him, and the world sank into pure, absolute darkness.
In the final instant before his consciousness completely submerged, his retina barely retained an incomparably vague silhouette:
A figure wearing a Pointed Soft Hat and classical black robes stood silently somewhere both extremely near and