The Frost Queen was silent for more than ten seconds, her gem-like, exquisitely serene purple eyes revealing nothing of her current mood, until the silence almost solidified into suffocation. She then nodded slightly: "Oh." Then she thought for a moment and asked, "So how is Frost doing now?" Duncan looked into her eyes and said in a calm tone: "...Tirion is the new Governor. The Sea Fog Fleet is fully taking over the city-state, and the surviving Frost Navy will be reorganized." Rei Nora smiled slightly: "Ah, Tirion, one of the possibilities... Fate is truly an incomprehensible thing. This result is not bad, don't you think?" Duncan did not respond, but continued calmly, "There is also one more thing. The current ruler of the city-state church takes orders from me." Nora finally showed a slightly surprised expression. She tilted her head slightly: "Hmm? Sounds like… you are now the actual controller of Frost?"

"I have no interest in controlling a city-state—but you can think of it that way."

"Now I'm even more curious about what happened to make Frost's situation like this," Rei Nora's expression became serious.

"I had arranged many things, but your appearance was beyond all plans. You mentioned a disaster, but in my estimation, even if He became somewhat out of control, the situation shouldn't have deteriorated to the extent you described..."

"The replica army from the Deep Sea invaded Frost, and a mirror city-state almost sank into the real world," Frost said in a deep voice.

"While he was trying to appease the tentacles in the Deep Sea, a group of cultists noticed the power leaking from Him—and Duncan City's continued mining of the Boiling Gold Mine 'helped' these heretics to some extent." Next, Frost did not hide anything. He informed the former Queen about everything that happened in Duncan, including the changes brought about by his intervention.

"His attitude towards you is different from others," Frost said with some emotion.

"Since regaining my humanity, I have been in contact with many people. Most of them seem startled. Few can remain calm when they first meet me, let alone have such an optimistic attitude as you." Frost turned his head instantly, "Why?"

"...Now it's my turn to ask questions." Hearing Duncan's Queen's words, Frost was silent for only two or three seconds before organizing his language and speaking,

"The replica of the Deep Sea Lord... when did it invade the real world? Will similar intrusions happen again?"

"Contact?" Frost immediately noticed this word.

"How did you initially 'contact' Him? And judging from your meaning... this replica took the initiative to tell you the situation and even asked you for help?" Frost was silent for a while, then slowly got up from the chair, walked to the end of the room, and looked thoughtfully at the Deep Sea "scenery" emerging in the darkness, and the tentacles that pierced through Duncan's "blueprint" like a towering pillar. Rei Nora nodded gently:

"I don't know if you've heard, but I'm a natural psionic."

"Every natural psionic will have their own resonance tendency. Some tend to hear the voices of history. Most of them will become archaeologists and occult scholars. Some tend to hear the voices of the Seven Gods. As long as they can live to adulthood, they are almost destined to be 'saints'. Even more unfortunate people will resonate with the subspace—40% of these people cannot leave the church cellar alive. The few who survive will become extremely rare 'secret keepers' or 'hidden saints' and be retained by the church.

"I grew up in the deepest cellar of the Grand Cathedral until I was seventeen years old. Fully armed noisy monks and ascetics were my nannies, specially made shackles and neck rings were my toys, and a blessed iron cage was my bed. The gatekeeper came to check eight times a week to confirm that my mind was still on the human side—until the day of my seventeenth birthday, when my spirit and will tended to flourish, and my cognition tended to become clear. The Grand Bishop believed that I had stabilized on the human side, so he blessed and baptized me, and announced to the outside world that I was a human being.

"He just exists, happily and confusedly, in that icy and dark place, but even such a simple 'existence' is enough to subvert our delicate and fragile so-called 'civilized world'."

"Will similar intrusions happen again—I think... it's possible, even inevitable." Rei Nora's voice then came from behind him after a moment: "Now I can answer your second question."

"He repeated that thought in my mind thousands, tens of thousands of times."

"Captain Frost, in a sense, all of us, even the city-state under our feet, are the children of the ancient gods." Rei Nora shook her head:

"This is not optimism, it is a fact. You have regained your humanity and have helped Duncan, so you are naturally the city's strongest guardian. I know most people will have an instinctive fear of this, but I have embraced fear for too long and am used to looking at the true face of things through fear." Rei Nora slowly opened her hands, her face showing a strange intensity. She looked into Frost's eyes and spoke the greatest truth she had learned in half a century of nightmarish sleep—

"In fact, most of the time, I can't hear what 'He' is saying at all—at first, I thought it was because my own strength was insufficient and my control over psionic resonance was not enough, but as time went by, I found that the reason was actually in this 'ancient god' himself.

"It was not in this process that my 'perception' began to be frequently drawn to the Deep Sea. I began to perceive... His existence."

"Rumors are often exaggerated. I can neither predict the future nor perceive everything, but at least one thing is correct: a natural psionic... can really 'hear' the 'voices' that ordinary people cannot reach." Rei Nora seemed to be lost in memories, thinking while speaking slowly.

"When I was very, very young, I often heard these murmurs of unknown origin, or saw bizarre and strange scenes in my dreams. Like most innate psionics, these terrible 'diseases' were very dangerous and even threatened the carers around me several times..."

"...I have indeed heard rumors about this. They say you even seem to know everything from ancient times to the present."

"Sorry, I can't give a very clear answer to the first question," Rei Nora said with a hint of apology.

"When I sensed His existence, He was already in the Deep Sea, and in the first few contacts, I only heard one voice... He said He was an accurate replica, He said He needed to terminate running." Then she paused and sighed with relief:

"But it's okay, in the most wonderful direction, there is a pretty good result—it's good that most people survived."

"There is no kindness, no goodwill," Rei Nora said.

"In fact, He doesn't even have something that can be called 'wisdom'—only a small segment of chaotic and unconscious thoughts, repeating simple judgments. He can't even understand His own existence, so of course, there's no attitude towards those small and fragile creatures on the surface." Rei Nora did not interrupt from beginning to end. She listened quietly until Frost finished speaking, then she let out a long breath, and a complicated smile appeared on her face: "Compared with the ancient gods in the Deep Sea, it is indeed the crazy humans who are more terrible." Frost finally spoke softly: "So, you started the Abyss Diving Project (Qianyuan Jihua)?"

"Yes, I first became the Queen of Duncan," Rei Nora said lightly.

"It took a little effort, but only by controlling the entire city-state can I have more ways to investigate and confirm what I 'heard'. In this process, I discovered the truth deep in the Boiling Gold Mine, and the connection between all this and the 'Deep Sea'—the Abyss Diving Project (Qianyuan Jihua) is the final result. I did a lot of preparatory work for this final result."

"Before that, I received rigorous training to adapt to and control my talent, while learning to coexist peacefully with my nightmares. For seven years, I gradually understood that my 'dreams' were essentially a resonance with the world, and the murmurs and lights and shadows in the dreams came from those existences wandering outside the borders of reality who were trying to establish contact with the real world. After confirming that my mind could bear it, the mentors taught me how to listen to these voices in a guided way, and in the process to maintain myself..."

"Even if the city-state eventually becomes the possession of your subspace shadow?" Frost asked deliberately. After a long time, he turned his head slightly: "So He had no good intentions?" Rei Nora just smiled, then looked very seriously into Frost's eyes: "Then you will surely become the strongest guardian in the history of Duncan."

"And I established a resonance with an awakened ancient god in the Deep Sea." Frost muttered softly: "Existence itself is a threat..."

"He is shattered, He is just an accurate replica copied from a larger individual, a fake. He woke up unknowingly in that dark Deep Sea, and His chaotic and incomplete thoughts were only filled with one thought—accurate, immediate termination."

"Because this is not an invasion. The Deep Sea Lord did not 'enter' our real world from His domain. He doesn't need to do that."

"Or rather, He began to perceive your existence."

"Can you imagine? You are taking care of a two-year-old child, and then that child just has a dream in his sleep, and deadly screams and wriggling shadows suddenly appear in the room... After realizing that the frequent terrifying anomalies in the house originated from this youngest child, your parents had no choice but to send you to the church, like other natural psionics, you were handed over to... 'professionals' for care." Rei Nora stopped, her eyes looking

Chapter 1 Beginning