Chapter 29 The Source

The morning light was just beginning to break, and Abnormality 001, locked in place by double rune rings, was slowly rising from the distant horizon. Amidst the gradually spreading rays of dawn, the massive ghost ship with its billowing sails floated on the boundless, calm sea, gradually being gilded with a layer of light in the morning.

At the distant edge of the sea, in the depths of the faint morning mist, the silhouette of Frost City could be vaguely seen—the city's wounds and the joys and sorrows of countless people were reduced to a blur in the mist at this distance, as if dissolving in the sunlight.

Duncan sat quietly on the edge of the deck at the bow of the ship, propping up his fishing rod beside him, watching the fishing line reflect the sunlight in the morning glow. Occasionally, he would raise his head to look at the distant direction of Frost City.

At this hour, most parts of the city were still quiet. He didn't have to spare too much attention to the avatars in the city, and he could enjoy the tranquility on the ship for a rare moment.

The pigeon Ai Yi was walking back and forth on the large wooden barrel beside him. A pile of French fries was placed on the lid of the barrel, brought from Frost City—unlike those in Pland, the people of Frost City would add some special spices when frying French fries, giving them a salty fragrance. Ai Yi was clearly very satisfied with this. It would occasionally look up at its fishing master or at the distant sea, but spent the rest of its time devouring its food.

On the other side of Duncan, on another shorter wooden barrel, Shelley was趴there, writing furiously, her expression as distressed as if facing a life-or-death enemy.

A Gou was趴quietly beside Shelley, its two paws holding a copy of "Modern Geometry," while the deck next to it was piled with drafts covered in marks and diagrams.

Feeling this moment of tranquility, Duncan couldn't help but curl the corners of his mouth, and the gloom that had accumulated in his heart for many days gradually dissipated.

But obviously, not everyone present was enjoying this "tranquility."

"Why can Nina sleep in the cabin… and I have to get up early and rush to finish my homework…" Shelley couldn't help but mutter, her expression so miserable that water could be squeezed out of it. "If I had known that I could only do homework when I got back to the ship, I would have stayed in the city. At least I could occasionally go out for a stroll…"

"There's nothing to stroll around in Frost City right now, and for the foreseeable future, life in that city won't be comfortable," Duncan said lightly when he heard this. "Besides, don't complain about homework. Who told you your homework was eaten by a wild dog? You said it yourself."

Shelley raised her head aggrievedly: "Then why doesn't Nina have to make it up?"

"Everyone knows she must have already finished it. Later, Morris can give her a comprehensive test to check her self-study progress during this period," Duncan glanced at Shelley. "Nina is different from you. She doesn't need to be urged."

Shelley shrank her neck: "Then… is there a possibility that I've actually already written…"

Duncan said expressionlessly: "How do you spell the plural form of 'pebble'?"

"I haven't memorized that yet…"

"This is the content of the second page of your previous homework. You haven't even finished two pages."

Shelley's expression froze, and she immediately fell silent. Then the girl let out a long sigh and lowered her head to continue fighting to the death with her spelling homework.

Duncan smiled and shook his head, then his gaze couldn't help but fall on the dog beside him—the latter was temporarily putting the book aside at this time, using its paws to hold a pencil and draw auxiliary lines on the draft paper on the deck.

Duncan's gaze made A Gou's soul suddenly tremble. Its dog head shivered subconsciously, and the auxiliary line went crooked.

"C… Captain?" A Gou raised its head nervously, wanting to avoid Duncan's gaze but not daring to really turn its head away, its dog head shaking non-stop.

Duncan reached out and touched A Gou's ugly skeleton head, his expression a little subtle. After several seconds, he couldn't help but say: "Is your learning progress a little too fast? How do I feel like you can directly keep up with Morris's teaching progress in a while?"

"Huh? I don't feel that way," A Gou was stunned when he heard this, the red light in its empty eye sockets flickering on and off, as if it was a little dazed. "I just feel that these things are quite interesting… Is there a problem with learning progress being fast?"

Duncan thought for a while and shook his head with a smile: "Forget it, there's no problem. It's always good to learn more things, so that you and Shelley can average it out and at least not be illiterate."

A Gou vaguely said "Oh." Duncan took a slight breath and looked back at the fishing rod, which was still motionless.

He hadn't caught a fish all morning.

"After such a big battle, I'm afraid I won't be able to catch any fish in the surrounding waters for a short time," he sighed regretfully, slowly packing up his fishing gear. "The commotion was too great, and even the Deep Sea Spawn don't want to get close to this place anymore…"

Shelley couldn't help but raise her head again when she heard this: "Then are we going to leave here? When are you going to pick up Mr. Morris and Sister Vanna from the city?"

Duncan stopped packing up the fishing rod, turned his head and glanced at Shelley: "Did I say that the Frost City matter is completely over?"

"Huh?" Shelley was a little confused. "Wasn't it all settled? And you even recommended Mr. Tirian to the city hall. I thought you were going to hand over the subsequent matters to him to wrap up."

"Indeed, I plan to hand over the troublesome matters in this city to him to deal with—but there are things that the Sea Fog Fleet can't solve," Duncan continued to pack up, saying casually, "Those things, I have to deal with myself. Before they are resolved, the Vanishing Sail is best not to leave here."

Shelley still didn't react: "Things that the Sea Fog Fleet can't solve? That's…"

Duncan lowered his eyelids and glanced at her lightly: "Where did Mirror Frost come from?"

Shelley thought for a while and said uncertainly: "Was it… summoned from the deep sea by those cultists?"

"Something like that, summoned from the deep sea—Mirror Frost is a 'product', something that has been transformed. And everything we destroyed in this process, including the sacrificial ground in the depths of Mirror Frost, is essentially just a 'summoning'而已. Since there are summons, there is a summoning source."

Shelley finally reacted, and a look of astonishment gradually appeared in her eyes.

"You mean… the thing at the bottom of the sea is still there?!"

"If my judgment is correct, everything close to the sea surface, whether it's those fakes or the mirror city itself, is essentially just the spread and projection of power, like a huge plant constantly growing from bottom to top. In the fierce battle that just ended in Frost City, we only destroyed the overgrown canopy of that out-of-control plant, but its roots are still there," Duncan said calmly. "Don't forget, the Frost Queen threw several deep-sea probes into the sea back then before barely touching the本体of that thing—that power has a 'physical form' in the deep sea."

Shelley finally couldn't sit still. She almost jumped up: "Ah? Doesn't that mean we have to dive into the deep sea to fight that thing? Otherwise, won't it create another mirror soon?!"

"Soon? Not necessarily," Duncan shook his head with a smile. "Things aren't as serious as you think. Even if the本体is still there, it must have been severely damaged by now. I have almost completely burned away its spreading parts. The rest… after losing the ritual support of those cultists, it is probably in a state of slumber or hibernation. Even if we really leave it alone, it may take another half a century before it causes problems again."

Speaking of this, he suddenly stopped and reached out to the air beside him.

"You're right, Agatha?"

A cluster of ghostly green flames burned on Duncan's fingertips and quickly jumped and expanded in the air, forming a vortex-like curtain. In that raging curtain, the blind goddess官in a black dress and wearing an eye patch was standing there in a prayer-like posture, her hands clasped in front of her chest.

Shelley and A Gou stared blankly at this scene.

"Yes, this is exactly what we are worried about," Agatha raised her head, her slightly magnetic voice sounding ethereal. "Everyone who knows the truth about the Submerged Abyss Project will worry about this—we only destroyed the 'products' that appeared on the sea surface, but we have no remaining power to destroy the '本体' that may still be lurking in the deep sea."

"We can't let it go for another fifty years and then repeat the Frost City Defense War when the next crisis appears," Duncan said. "I don't mind helping out every time, but there will always be many unnecessary victims in the war."

"...The current Frost City probably doesn't have the spare capacity to manufacture such deep-sea probes anymore," Agatha said after a moment of silence. "It's not just a matter of the deep-sea probes themselves, but also the other equipment, data, personnel, and resources required for the dive… All of these are not something a Frost City that is waiting to be rebuilt can produce."

"Then prepare as soon as possible, and let your city hall think of a way," Duncan said lightly. "If it really doesn't work, prepare an iron coffin that can explode in the deep sea, put a corpse inside, and I can use this medium to go to the seabed to see the situation—although the power that a temporary avatar can carry is limited, as long as a stable channel is established, I should be able to spread the flames to the seabed."

(It's time to recommend a book～"Luminous Bulwark," by the author Hui Shuai Jiao De Xiong Mao. The following is the author's own book recommendation:

Extraordinary awakening, the mansion is about to fall.

Flesh and blood are weak, how can you ascend?

The story begins with receiving a ruler that carries the truth.)

(End of this chapter)