Chapter 198 Queen of Frost

The Queen of Frost remained silent for more than ten seconds. In those gem-like, exquisitely serene, purple eyes, it was impossible to discern the slightest hint of her current mood. Just when the silence had almost solidified into suffocation, she nodded lightly. "Oh."

Then she thought for a moment and asked, "So, what's the situation in Frost now?"

Duncan looked into her eyes and said in a calm tone, "...Tirion is the new Governor. The Sea Mist Fleet is fully taking over the city-state, and the remaining Frost Navy will be reorganized."

A hint of a smile appeared on Lei Nora's face. "Ah, Tirion, one of the possibilities… Fate is truly an incomprehensible thing. This outcome isn't bad, don't you think?"

Duncan did not respond, but continued calmly, "Also, the current authority of the city-state's church is under my command."

Lei 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 as to what exactly happened to make Frost's situation like this," Lei Nora's expression turned serious. "I had arranged many things, but your appearance was beyond all plans. You mentioned a disaster, but in my estimation, even if He appeared to be somewhat out of control, the situation shouldn't have deteriorated to the extent you're describing…"

"The deep-sea replica army invaded Frost, and a mirrored city-state almost surfaced into the real world," Duncan said in a deep voice. "While you were trying to appease this tentacle in the deep sea, a group of cultists noticed the power it was emitting—and the continuous mining of the Boiling Gold Mine by Frost City-State 'helped' those heretics to some extent."

Next, Duncan did not hide anything. He told the former Queen everything that had happened in Frost, including the changes brought about by his intervention.

Lei Nora did not interrupt from beginning to end. She listened quietly. When Duncan finished speaking, she let out a long sigh, a complicated smile appearing on her face. "Compared to the ancient gods in the deep sea, it is indeed the mad humans who are more terrifying."

Then she paused and sighed with relief. "But fortunately, in the worst possible outcome, there was an ending that wasn't too bad—it's good that most people survived."

"Even if the city-state ultimately becomes the property of me, this 'hyperspace shadow'?" Duncan asked deliberately.

Lei Nora only smiled, then looked very seriously into Duncan's eyes. "Then you will surely become the most powerful guardian Frost has ever had."

"Your attitude towards me is different from others," Duncan said with some emotion. "Since regaining my humanity, I have met many people. Most of them seem startled, and few can remain calm when they first meet me, let alone have such an optimistic attitude like you."

Lei Nora shook her head. "This is not optimism, it is a fact. You have regained your humanity and helped Frost, so you are naturally the most powerful guardian of this city-state. I know that 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."

"...Now it's my turn to ask questions," Hearing the Queen of Frost's words, Duncan was silent for only two or three seconds, then organized his thoughts and spoke. "The replica of the Abyssal Saint… when exactly did it invade the real world? Will similar 'invasions' happen again?"

"I'm sorry, I can't give a very clear answer to the first question," Lei Nora said with a hint of apology on her face. "When I noticed His existence, He was already in the deep sea, and in the first few contacts, I only heard one voice… He said He was a faulty replica, and He needed to terminate operation."

"Contact?" Duncan immediately noticed the word. "How did you initially 'contact' Him? And from what you said… this replica took the initiative to tell you the situation, and even asked you for help?"

Lei Nora nodded lightly. "I wonder if you have heard that I am a natural psionic?"

"...I have indeed heard rumors about this, they say you can even know all things past and present."

"Rumors often exaggerate. I can neither predict the future nor understand all things, but at least one thing is correct. Natural psionics… can really 'listen' to 'voices' that ordinary people cannot touch," Lei Nora seemed to be lost in memories, thinking and slowly opening her mouth, "When I was very, very young, I often heard those murmurs of unknown origin, or saw strange and bizarre scenes in my dreams. Like most innate psionics, these terrible 'symptoms' are very dangerous, and even threatened the caregivers around me several times—

"Can you imagine? You are taking care of a two- or three-year-old child, and then this child just has a dream while sleeping, and deadly screams and swelling, wriggling shadows will suddenly appear in the room… After realizing that the frequent horrible anomalies in the house originated from the youngest child, my parents had to send me to the church, like other natural psionics, I was handed over to… 'professionals' to take care of.

"I grew up in the deepest cellar of the cathedral until I was twelve years old. Fully armed silent monks and penitents were my nannies, special shackles and neck braces were my toys, a blessed iron cage was my bed, and the gatekeeper came three times a week to check to confirm that my mind was still on the human side—until the day of my twelfth birthday, my spirit and will tended to be strong, and my cognition became clearer. The Archbishop 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.

"After that, I received strict training to adapt to and control my talents, while learning to live peacefully with my 'nightmares.' In four years, I gradually learned that the essence of my 'dreams' was a kind of resonance with the world, and the murmurs and lights and shadows in the dreams came from those existences wandering outside the border of reality, trying to establish contact with the real world. After confirming that my mind could bear it, the mentors taught me to listen to those voices in a special way, and to maintain myself in this process…

"And it was in this process that my 'perception' began to be frequently directed to the deep sea. I began to realize… His existence.

"Or rather, He began to realize my existence.

"Every natural psionic will have his own resonance tendency. Some tend to hear the voices in history, and they will mostly become outstanding archaeologists and occult scholars. Some tend to hear the voices of the Four 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—99% of these people cannot leave the church cellar alive. A small number of survivors will become extremely rare 'Secret Keepers' or 'Hidden Saints' and be retained by the church.

"And I, established a resonance with an ancient god awakened in the deep sea."

Lei Nora stopped. Her gaze looked towards the end of the room, towards that dark, chaotic, fragmented place. Then, under her gaze, that darkness surged, and the chaotic light and shadow representing the subspace faded away, and the floating islands in the endless deep sea and that silent "pillar" appeared in the depths of the darkness.

That was her resonance, her nightmare, her fear and responsibility, the beginning and the end.

"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 power was insufficient, and my control over psionic resonance was not enough, but as time went by, I found that the reason was actually on this 'ancient god.'

"He is incomplete, He is just a 'fake' wrongly copied from a larger individual, He woke up ignorantly in this dark deep sea, and His chaotic and fragmented thoughts were only filled with one idea—wrong, terminate immediately.

"He repeated this idea in my mind thousands, tens of thousands of times."

Duncan finally spoke softly, "So, you started the Deep Dive Project?"

"No, I first became the Queen of Frost," Lei Nora said lightly. "This took a little effort, but only by controlling the entire city-state can I have more ways to investigate and confirm what I 'heard,' and in this process, I discovered the anomaly in the depths of the Boiling Gold Mine, and the connection between all this and the 'deep sea'—the Deep Dive Project is the final result, and I did a lot of preparatory work for this final result."

Duncan didn't speak for a while, but slowly got up from his chair, came to the end of the room, and looked thoughtfully at the deep-sea "scenery" that emerged in the darkness, and the tentacle that penetrated the Frost "blueprint" like a towering pillar.

After a long time, he turned his head slightly. "So He has no malice?"

"No malice, no kindness," Lei Nora said. "In fact, He doesn't even have anything that can be called 'wisdom'—only a small piece of messy, fragmented thinking, repeating simple judgments. He can't even understand His own existence, so of course there is no 'attitude' towards those tiny, fragile creatures on the sea…

"He just exists, painfully and confusedly exists, exists in this cold darkness, but just such a simple 'existence' is enough to subvert our delicate and fragile so-called 'civilized world.'"

Duncan murmured softly, "Existence itself is a threat…"

Lei Nora's voice came from behind him after a moment, "Now I can answer your second question.

"Will similar 'invasions' happen again—I think… it is possible, even certain."

Duncan turned around instantly. "Why?"

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

"His 'ingredients' naturally exist in the real world, exist in every deep sea, every city-state, even in everyone's body. What happened in the deep sea of Frost was not an 'invasion,' but a… 'awakening.'"

Lei Nora slowly opened her hands, but her face was filled with an unusual calmness. She looked into Duncan's eyes and spoke the greatest truth she had learned in her half-century of nightmarish slumber—

"Captain Duncan, in a sense, all of us, even the city-states beneath our feet, are the children of the ancient gods."

(End of this chapter)