Chapter 1 Room

Silence fell in the room for a time.

The silence lasted for a good ten seconds before Agatha heard Bishop Ivan's low, raspy voice coming from beneath the bandages: "Uh oh—"

"…Your reaction is a little unexpected."

"Because your information is too unexpected," Bishop Ivan seemed to finally regain his composure. He adjusted his sitting posture, and his tone became particularly serious. "You said that the Flowing Gold veins of Frost City-State dried up decades ago? Is that the truth you discovered down there?"

"Yes, there's a door at the deepest part of the Second Waterway, possibly sealed off by the First City Hall. Behind the door is a mine tunnel that has long been exhausted—judging from its location, it should be in the enriched area at the bottom of the mine, which is theoretically the last area to be mined…"

Agatha didn't hide anything, telling everything she had found underground. In the process, Bishop Ivan's expression visibly grew more solemn.

After a while, Agatha finished describing her discoveries below, but then added with some hesitation, "...It's just a mine tunnel. There are countless mine tunnels in the mountain. Even if it's the deepest part of the enriched area, it can't be used to judge that the entire mine has been exhausted, so a large part of my conclusion is based on speculation... I know, this speculation is too crazy."

"...Yes, a speculation that is too crazy," Bishop Ivan said slowly, "After all, if what you say is true, the Flowing Gold mine has long been exhausted—then what have we been continuously transporting out of the mine for the past half-century? What is the Flowing Gold catalyst that Frost City-State has been sending to other cities all these years?"

Agatha didn't speak. She knew that the problem Bishop Ivan pointed out was impossible to avoid and impossible to answer.

Frost City-State has always produced the highest quality Flowing Gold ore and finished catalyst rods. In the past fifty years, the Flowing Gold production of Frost City alone has been almost equal to the total of all the other city-states in the Frigid Sea—the Flowing Gold in the mines is endless, the excavating machinery is spewing out wealth day and night, and the catalysts produced by the smelting factories are being transported to the entire world. Ships using those catalysts are all over the Boundless Sea.

And in the entire half-century, there hasn't been a single problem with any Flowing Gold order.

If the veins really had dried up decades ago, then not to mention the problems of the Frost mines—what are the ships on the Boundless Sea burning in their steam cores? Illusions?

After a long time, the doorkeeper could only sigh softly, "...If that is also a creation of pollution, then our world has truly become absurd to a terrifying degree."

"Our world has always been absurd, but perhaps... you really found a crucial clue," Bishop Ivan shook his head. "Let's not worry about whether that speculation is crazy. From a rational point of view, the contradiction between the veins that dried up decades ago and the mine that is still producing steadily now is likely related to the current anomalies in the city-state."

"...But according to the clues we've gathered before, the current anomalies should have been caused by those Annihilation Cultists," Agatha reminded him. "What do they have to do with the mine?"

"They don't necessarily have anything to do with the mine—they may just be taking advantage of and detonating this crisis," Bishop Ivan thought quickly. The experience he had accumulated over decades, especially the experience of dealing with cultists, was now helping him complete this puzzle. "Those heretics couldn't have been setting up their plans in the city-state for decades without being discovered, especially since the exhaustion of the veins can be traced back to the Queen's era. In that era, Frost's crackdown on heretics was far more severe than it is today. No cultist could escape the eyes of the Frost Queen…"

At this point, the old bishop paused, then suddenly asked, "You just said that Magistrate Winston knows nothing about the door at the deepest part of the Second Waterway?"

Agatha nodded, "That's what he said."

"...I don't quite believe his statement," Bishop Ivan shook his head hesitantly. "The situation in the First City Hall was indeed a bit chaotic at that time, but there shouldn't have been such a big gap in the handover between the first few magistrates and the government teams, especially such a crucial and sensitive secret…"

"You mean Magistrate Winston is hiding something from me?" Agatha frowned. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's to maintain the authority of the City Hall, maybe there's something bigger involved behind this secret, or maybe it's even because he's been controlled by something. It's hard to say," Bishop Ivan said, his eyes suddenly falling on Agatha. "I'm more surprised that you didn't have any doubts in this regard—you usually wouldn't be so careless."

Agatha was stunned.

In this moment of daze, she recalled the scene she had experienced when returning from the Second Waterway—the reflection in the pool, the "other self" walking in the opposite direction in that reflection.

"Agatha, what's wrong?" Bishop Ivan's voice awakened her from her reverie.

Agatha blinked and shook her head lightly.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Bishop Ivan's tone was clearly doubtful. "You've been distracted more than once in the past two days, and…"

"I'm fine, always fine," Agatha interrupted the old bishop. For some reason, after a brief moment of trance, her tone became relaxed. She breathed a sigh of relief and got up from her chair. "I just suddenly figured out some things—I should leave."

Bishop Ivan stood up: "...You're going to the mine?"

"The Navy is blocking the enemy, and the constables and guardians are controlling the situation. They've bought time, and I still have a chance to figure out the source behind all this. It's time to leave."

Agatha paused here, as if to emphasize, and said again, "Time is limited. I can't rest here for too long."

"Okay, then let's go," Bishop Ivan nodded lightly. "I hope you can find out the truth and return safely."

"I will find out the truth."

In the thick fog, distant gunfire rang out from time to time, occasionally interspersed with warning broadcasts from the constable or guardian forces, as well as the sound of automatic sirens from certain facilities.

The city-state was blurred in the fog, and the fog was filled with an invisible terror.

"In comparison, I'd rather deal with hundreds or thousands of fully armed cultists, or charge back and forth in a burning city a few more times."

Vanna casually dispelled the giant sword condensed from ice and frowned as she looked at the ground in front of her.

In the limited visibility, the ground within sight was covered with crisscrossing, horrifying cracks, and a large amount of turbid black sludge was slowly flowing and wriggling between those cracks, and quickly solidified. Some of the sludge even barely retained the outline of a human figure, but had chillingly distorted shapes in key limbs.

"Too disgusting," Vanna muttered again.

"Seriously, are you really willing to fight another battle in a burning city?"

Maurice's voice came from the side. The old scholar, carrying a cane, glanced at the fragmented "battlefield" in front of him and said casually to Vanna.

"...Okay, I don't want to," Vanna shrugged. "Neither the fog-filled counterfeit city-state nor the burning city where the Black Sun descends is a good place."

As she spoke, the thick fog flowed, and a tall figure suddenly emerged from the mist behind Vanna. The figure's head was swollen and deformed, and a huge single eye trembled violently in the fog. The next moment, the monster pounced on Vanna.

But Vanna didn't turn her head, just stomped on the ground with force—an invisible shockwave spread out in an instant. The deformed, twisted thing only took one step forward before its lower body was directly shattered, and after falling to the ground, it quickly turned into sludge.

Under her conscious control, Maurice, who was close at hand, was not affected by the shockwave at all—the old scholar simply adjusted his monocle and calmly surveyed the foggy streets around him.

The next moment, he suddenly looked at a certain position, and a glimmer of silver appeared in his eyes: "Micaffini's Conjecture and Proof."

The next moment, continuous, muffled explosions like watermelons being stepped on came from the fog. Several figures could be vaguely seen emerging from the fog, their heads exploding like fireworks.

"The good news is that these inferior counterfeits have imitated a certain degree of thinking ability, and the controllers behind them need to be even more intelligent," Maurice withdrew his gaze, the silver light in his eyes gradually dimming. "I was worried at first that they were all chaotic shells, in which case the power of knowledge wouldn't be very effective against them."

Vanna looked strangely at the monsters whose heads had exploded in the distance gradually turning into sludge, and glanced back at Maurice: "When you taught me back then, you didn't say that 'the power of knowledge' was so useful."

"I judged at that time that you weren't suitable for this path," Maurice said casually.

Vanna: "…"

The inquisitor suddenly felt as if she had been ridiculed, but after recalling her exam scores back then, she decided to maintain a humble attitude.

"Are there any more around?"

She maintained her vigilance and asked in a low voice.

"Not for the moment," Maurice shook his head.

He was constantly sensing the surrounding situation—when those monsters emerged from the fog, their chaotic thoughts would first appear in his perception. The mist could block people's vision, but the brilliance of their thoughts was as conspicuous as a bright light in the dark night in his eyes.

Very few people can actively control their own thoughts, so in the field of "detecting intelligent creatures," no one can compare to the saints of the God of Wisdom.

"It's good that there aren't any for the moment, although new ones will pop up soon," Vanna breathed a sigh of relief, stretching her hands and feet slightly. "Don't you think... there are a lot of counterfeit monsters in this direction, and their aggressiveness is obviously stronger than in other places?"

"You felt it too?" Maurice raised his eyebrows. "Then it seems my judgment was correct."

"You mean…"

"Those 'counterfeits' that appear from the fog aren't all acting blindly. Some of them are controlled by someone."