Chapter 389: The Root Cause

She reached out with a slender finger and gently lifted a corner of the white cloth.

The squad leader’s face was exposed once more beneath the gray-white mist.

That face still bore the terror of his final moments.

Pandora’s fingertip did not touch the skin. It hovered less than half an inch above his mouth and nose, pointing.

“Look here.”

Jack hesitated, then leaned in for a closer look.

There was some blood around the squad leader’s mouth and nose, but on careful inspection, beneath the bloodstains...

There was nothing.

Completely clean.

No. Not completely clean—something was missing.

Jack’s eyes went wide.

“It’s... the barrier from The Bulwark potion... the barrier is gone?”

When they entered the building, to guard against the black mist, every one of them had swallowed a vial of Lesser Bulwark.

That potion formed a semi-transparent membrane over the mouth and nose, capable of filtering most harmful substances from the air.

The membrane was thin—so thin one could barely feel its presence—but it was there.

Jack instinctively pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The membrane was still there, clinging tightly to the inner walls of his nasal and oral passages. Its presence was faint, but it existed.

But the squad leader’s...

Was gone.

Jack murmured under his breath, and in an instant, several images flashed through his mind.

Scenes from his earlier conversations with the squad leader.

And in those images, the squad leader’s mouth and nose had been completely clean.

No semi-transparent membrane.

He hadn’t noticed at the time.

Or rather, he had never even thought to look in that direction.

Who would ever pay attention to whether someone had an almost invisible membrane inside their nostrils?

And the earliest point when it had disappeared—it must have been...

“The battle... it was the battle.”

Jack suddenly realized, his words coming faster.

“The squad leader deliberately removed the barrier before the fight with the Bonebeast—to ensure his perception stayed absolutely sharp during combat!”

“The Bulwark’s membrane is thin, but it still affects sensory acuity. In a life-or-death moment like that, even the slightest sensory dulling could be fatal... so he removed the barrier.”

“But afterward... he forgot to restore it.”

After the battle ended, everyone had been busy regrouping, treating wounds, checking each other’s injuries.

No one would think to check whether that membrane over the mouth and nose was still in place.

It was too insignificant. Too easy to overlook.

In that moment, Jack understood why the squad leader had inexplicably lost his mind.

It was poisoning.

The black mist, with no barrier to protect him, had slowly invaded the squad leader’s psyche...

If only he’d known sooner...

Jack’s expression grew vacant, his regret deepening ever further.

His fingers clenched white, his shoulders trembling faintly, as though he were about to be drowned by the emotion.

But Pandora was unconcerned with his feelings.

She swept her gaze over the three of them, then looked toward the churning mist around them, narrowing her eyes slightly.

A trace of thought finally surfaced in those indifferent eyes.

She continued:

“I don’t know exactly what you people did, but the moment I got close to this area, I sensed the air saturated with some kind of mental toxin.”

“The effect should be... inducing tension and fear. Inhaled in large quantities, it likely has hallucinogenic properties as well.”

As she spoke, Jack’s head snapped up. Forgetting all propriety, he blurted out:

“Wait! My Lady, a mental toxin... wasn’t the poison the squad leader got just that black mist that was already here when we entered the building?”

Pandora shook her head.

“No. That substance affects the body, but its impact on the mind is minimal. The toxin I’m referring to is only noticeable near these upper floors where you’ve been.”

“So you’re saying something mixed a toxin into the Susurrus Mist?”

“...That’s one way to put it.”

Pandora replied flatly, withdrawing her gaze from the gray-white fog.

Though reluctant to admit it, something else in this building had indeed tampered with her wizardry.

That said, it was difficult to avoid.

Had the mist been personally cast and controlled by her own hand, then whether Anomaly or human—even another wizard—trying to tamper with her spell would have been exceedingly difficult.

To accomplish such a thing, one would need to surpass her comprehensively in either mastery of wizardry or in rank.

And in this Fragment World, both scenarios were nearly impossible.

But wizardry released through a Wizardry Crystal was not nearly so difficult to compromise.

If one compared it to electronic programs, the former was dynamic defense—constantly monitored and capable of real-time adjustment. To hack it required genuine skill.

The latter was static, a program lacking correction. Once running, it followed its predefined logic without adapting to any external intrusion.

Find the vulnerability, and it easily became someone else’s toy...

Of course.

The current situation was not yet so dire.

At most, something had used the cover of the mist to quietly introduce poison.

The mist itself had not been altered. Its core function—disrupting Anomaly perception and providing concealment—was still operating normally.

It was just that within the gray-white fog, at some unknown point, things that should not exist had appeared...

With a thought, the spell matrix of Rank-3 Wizardry—Susurrus Mist—took form in Pandora’s mind.

Those complex rune nodes and mana circuits surfaced one after another, as if carved deep into her memory long ago, interlocking with seamless precision.

The instant the model formed, she effortlessly seized the control rights to the mist that had been hanging here, unclaimed and masterless.

Her own wizardry offered her no resistance.

At the same time, she reestablished a stable mana supply loop, replacing the crystal’s original output with her own power.

The gray-white fog trembled faintly, as though injected with new life, its churning rhythm shifting.

As expected, the moment wizardry control was in hand, the spell automatically fed back an alert without Pandora needing to actively probe.

Its substance, roughly: within the space occupied by the mist, the interference of another force was present.

The interference was not intense, but it was everywhere—like a thin film of oil floating atop water, mingling with the mist, yet also repelling it.

However, knowing was one thing. Purging these toxins was something Susurrus Mist alone could not accomplish.

Susurrus Mist simply did not contain any ability to cleanse toxins.

Its design purpose was to confuse perception and conceal movement, not to serve as an air purifier.

Pandora considered how to remove the toxins... or whether to simply leave them be.

After all, this toxin had no effect on her whatsoever.

The resistance of a Rank-3 Witch’s bloodline body was no idle boast.

And the other members all had the protection of their Lesser Bulwark potion barriers. The effects were entirely manageable...