Ashes of the mirror faded, darkness began to recede, the Queen's Guard phantoms vanished, and the blasphemous creations that had invaded the city-state crumbled into rapidly drying black sludge. The sounds of gunfire that had echoed throughout the city-state subsided, replaced by an indescribable fear and silence that enveloped the entire metropolis.

Everyone could see the massive presence, the one standing in the boundless sea, overlooking the city-state from the clouds.

Just minutes before, the mirrored frost had turned to ashes in the hands of that "giant," and no one could guess what would happen next.

Only the eerie green flames spreading across the city and covering the sea continued to burn fiercely—but these flames did not harm anyone; they merely brushed across the real world like phantoms, offering only a harmless warmth upon contact.

Agatha lowered her head, casually helping up the pale-faced High Deacon. The flames burning on her arm made the latter a little nervous, but compared to the atmosphere enveloping the entire city, this slight tension seemed insignificant.

"What next…" The High Deacon's face was pale. He looked at Agatha, at the eerie green spirit fire burning on her that was the same as the flames permeating the city, his voice still trembling slightly. "What will happen next?"

Agatha thought for a moment and shook her head. "I don't know."

The High Deacon's eyes widened. "You don't know?!"

"...Didn't ask," Agatha said frankly. "The situation was urgent, I didn't have much choice."

The High Deacon was dumbfounded. He had many questions he wanted to ask—the origin of the "giant" on the sea, the nature of these flames in the city, the reason for Agatha's current appearance—but he couldn't ask any of them for a moment.

Agatha ignored the High Deacon's reaction, and simply turned her face slightly, watching the last bits of delicate pale ashes slowly fall onto her shoulder.

The ashes floating in the city-state had stopped at some point, and what fell on her shoulder seemed to be the last piece—in a daze, she felt as if someone had patted her on the shoulder.

"I must leave," she heard someone say in her ear. "The journey in the mortal world is over, and there are farther roads waiting for me."

"Farewell, Bishop Ivan."

Wind blew from afar, blowing through the gates of the silent Grand Cathedral, blowing across the square in front of the gates, and rolled up that light ash, letting it quietly dissipate in the wind.

...

On the top of the bell tower behind the church, Shirley, in a black dress, looked down at the street. She sat on a section of wall extending from the edge of the roof, her legs dangling outside, swinging them with some boredom, muttering to herself, "It's quieted down…"

"Everyone seems to be scared…" Nina stood on the small platform behind Shirley, looking up at the sky as she spoke. "I was startled too…"

"Who wouldn't be scared when they saw it," Shirley shrank her neck and cautiously looked at the distant, huge, and hazy figure on the sea. "I really didn't expect Mr. Duncan to solve this trouble in this way in the end—it's even bigger than the last time in Prand."

"Uncle Duncan said that the root of the Frost Crisis was that mirror, so to solve the problem, you must completely solve the mirror—sealing or stopping the cultists' ritual would only be safe for a while. The one-stop solution is to pull the mirror out by the roots and burn it in the real world," Nina said earnestly. "But the scale of the mirror is too large, so he needs a big enough 'fire ground'…"

"Alright, alright, I got it, I got it. You're really good at arson, right? I'll be sure to mention this to Mr. Duncan later," Shirley waved her hand repeatedly, then raised her head with some doubt. "But then again… what is Mr. Duncan doing now? Isn't the matter already resolved? When will he be back?"

Hearing this, Nina raised her head and looked at the huge figure on the sea outside the city. She thought for a moment and said, "Then I'll go up and ask?"

"Go, go," Shirley waved quickly. "When you go up, don't forget to tell Mr. Duncan that our homework was eaten by the Abyssal Hounds…"

Before she finished speaking, Nina had already turned into a bright arc of flame in mid-air, and then rushed straight towards the shadow that covered the sky outside the city.

...

At an altitude overlooking the entire Frost Sea, Duncan's gaze penetrated the gaps between the clouds, quietly observing the sea and the city below.

The sea was boundless, extending to the far distance, and the city-state was like a disc floating on the sea, lonely basking in the sunlight. At the end of the sea and the sky, you could vaguely see a magnificent mist, the mist was like a wall, showing a vaguely visible arc, surrounding the entire border of civilization.

This was an unprecedented perspective—he had never observed this world from this position, and it was likely that no one in this world had ever done anything similar.

He could feel that the "flames" supporting his current posture were gradually extinguishing in the sea and the city-state. This state of standing in the sky could not be maintained for long, but before the accumulated energy was exhausted, he still wanted to take another look.

At this moment, a small flame that darted out of the clouds suddenly entered Duncan's field of vision.

The small flame jumped between the clouds, like a light swallow, and when the flame approached him, he heard Nina's voice reaching his ears: "Uncle Duncan! What are you doing?"

"I'm observing this world," Duncan smiled and said softly to the "flame," then raised his finger, letting the latter jump on his fingertip. "How did you get up here?"

"Shirley told me to come up, she's curious about what you're doing," Nina said happily, the flame swaying on Duncan's fingertip—even though her current posture had swelled into a flame larger than the bell tower, she was still very small in Duncan's eyes. "You said you're observing the world? What's interesting?"

Duncan smiled and raised his chin. "Look, below."

The flame swayed to the side.

"...Wow."

"It's amazing, isn't it," Duncan said softly. "No one has ever overlooked the Boundless Sea and the city-state on the sea from this height—and the distant mist, so huge that even with my current perspective, I would feel suffocated when I see it."

Nina thought about it very seriously. "...But if it's really a normal-sized human, they wouldn't feel it at the border of the Eternal Veil, because they can't see the whole thing."

Duncan was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly laughed.

"Yes, you're right. Ordinary people really come to that fog wall and they won't realize this sense of oppression and suffocation, because they can't see the whole thing… We are at a high place, we see too much."

"Uncle Duncan, I feel like… your words seem to have another meaning?"

Duncan didn't respond to Nina's question. He just quietly looked at the distance, and after a while, he suddenly said, "Are you curious about what's on the other side of that mist…?"

"...The book says that the mist is endless, there is no other side, there is only mist outside."

Duncan looked at his fingertip. "This is what the book says, what are your own thoughts?"

"...I think the books are just the scholars' guesses. Mr. Morris said that everything related to the outside of the civilized world is the scholars' guesses—the so-called research is the process of verifying along the conjecture," Nina said happily about her own ideas. "Maybe there's another world on the other side of that mist!"

Then she paused, as if suddenly realizing. "Ah! Uncle Duncan, are you planning to walk through that fog? Are you really going to try? This place is very close to the northern border, and you're so high now, maybe you really…"

"Unfortunately, it's not feasible," Duncan shook his head gently, interrupting the excited Nina. "I can't maintain this state for long, let alone leave this sea area in this state—ritual methods have their limits. All we can do now is watch here."

Nina seemed a little frustrated for a moment. After a while, she tentatively said, "Then… can I go over and take a look? I can fly in the sky now~"

"But you can only fly for a little while, you know your limits very well," Duncan shook his head again. "And I don't recommend you do this, we know too little about that fog. A spirit of adventure is different from recklessness."

Nina was silent for a while, and lengthened her voice: "Oh—then we really can only look here."

"The first step of the journey is to look into the distance," the corners of Duncan's mouth turned up. He felt that the flames supporting him were rapidly receding. This energy-consuming posture had reached its limit, but before dissipating his own projection, he still smiled. "And we have to look not only at the distance, Nina, have you noticed the appearance of the city-state? Such a regular disc, so neat that it doesn't look like a natural product, and the sea below, deep and vast, we still don't know what's at the bottom of the sea…

"The cultists firmly believe that this world will eventually be destroyed, and that they can create a new world. The Holy See firmly believes that following the guidance of the Four Gods is the only way to maintain the eternity of the world, but there are too many unknown things in this world… Whether it's the cultists, the churches of the gods, or the scholars of various city-states, everyone's views on the Boundless Sea are one-sided."

Between the sea and the sky, the giant's huge body was quietly dissipating, and the sea, like a mirror, gradually returned to its undulating state.

A stream of fire fell from the clouds towards the city-state.

Duncan and Nina's conversation continued:

"Okay, Nina, go back, we have a lot more to do."

"Oh… ah, that's right! Uncle Duncan! I forgot to tell you, my and Shirley's homework was eaten by the Abyssal Hounds!"

"...It's okay, Morris and I will prepare new ones for you."

(End of this chapter)