Chapter 496 Stand Firm

In that instant, Frost became, in the truest sense, a city floating on a mirror.

The sea was that mirror.

Reflected in the mirror was not only the distorted and terrifying Mirror City—but also a pair of eyes burning with flames, and an existence larger than any city-state, as vast as the entire Frost Sea.

The authority of fire transferred in an instant, and all the flames burning inside and outside this mirror surface transformed into a medium for extending and amplifying power.

"Commander! Commander! Fire...fire!"

The terrified shouts of a junior officer awakened Lister from his daze. He snapped awake and looked out the window—he saw the entire coastline ablaze, even the sea itself ignited, with surging flames rising and a ghostly green hue emerging from the fire like flowing water, rapidly filling his entire field of vision.

The spiritual flames rising from all directions seemed to possess a soul-shaking power, causing Lister to instinctively recoil. However, the next moment, he saw even the gas lamps embedded in the nearby walls were quietly tinged with a layer of ghostly green.

A low rumble came from afar, as if shaking the entire city, accompanied by the creaking and groaning of something massive being torn apart and fractured. Everyone in the command center heard these deafening sounds.

Someone looked towards the city-state in the direction of the sound and saw that the deformed and twisted buildings that had almost completely covered the city were cracking apart piece by piece, with even larger tongues of fire spewing from the fissures, and countless black substances were being gradually incinerated in the midst of the grand spiritual flames.

Near the port defense zone, an exhausted city-state guard unit hid behind a crumbling barricade, watching as the twisted buildings in the distance collapsed, and hundreds upon thousands of deformed, wriggling creatures fled from the cracks, only to be hunted down by the flames behind them and burned into black ash.

At the foot of the mountain in the center of the city-state, the guardian forces were fighting desperately against the invading counterfeit monstrosities, when a phantom-like army suddenly emerged from the chaotic light and shadow. This force wore the uniforms of the Queen's Guard from half a century ago. They charged onto the streets, shouting the name of the Frost Queen, and fought to the death with the deformed monsters pouring into reality.

At the last line of defense before the Silent Cathedral, the high-ranking deacon was organizing the priests to resist the monsters swarming into the square. The flames spewed by the steam walkers intertwined with the pale flames released by the Silent Monks, forming a net that struggled to hold back the monsters and the encroaching sludge.

"Hold them back!" the high-ranking deacon shouted hoarsely. At the edge of his vision, pale, delicate ash was falling from above the Silent Cathedral, like fluttering snowflakes, "Block the cathedral doors! Block..."

A deafening roar and a vibration that seemed to shake the mountains suddenly erupted. The high-ranking deacon almost fell to the ground in the earth-shattering commotion. A thorn formed from mud, imbued with malice, pierced towards him from a gap in the line of defense.

However, just as the high-ranking deacon was about to be pierced by this thorn, a ghostly green flame suddenly appeared in the air, turning the vicious attack into ashes.

The high-ranking deacon looked up in astonishment and saw a figure floating before him.

She wore a tattered black robe like that of an ascetic, her body covered with cracks of all sizes, and flames surged and flowed from within her, like eternally burning blood.

"Agatha...the Gatekeeper?"

The high-ranking deacon stared in astonishment at the figure before him, feeling both familiar and unfamiliar. He called out the other party's name, but then saw one strange figure after another appearing beside the Gatekeeper, all wrapped in ghostly green spiritual flames.

"I'm back," Agatha turned her head, two points of fire flickering in her empty eye sockets, her voice mixed with crackling explosions, "Retreat with the remaining people, or find a safe place to stand firm."

"Stand firm?" the high-ranking deacon repeated in astonishment, unable to understand the other party's words for a moment, "And...why have you become like this..."

Agatha ignored him. Amidst the increasingly dense low rumbling sounds, she had already turned in another direction, gazing at the sea outside the city-state.

Thick smoke rose from the sea, the clouds hung low and dark, the sea was as black as a mirror, and an indescribable, colossal existence...was rising from the mirror.

Two enormous clusters of green light, almost reminiscent of the sun, rose little by little in the smoke and clouds, and a silhouette that humans could hardly imagine gradually took shape in the smoke and clouds, as if the ocean and atmosphere themselves were rising and converging. This scene...even made Agatha, who had already stopped breathing, feel suffocated once again.

It was a suffocation on the soul level.

"God of Death..." the high-ranking deacon could not bear the immense pressure, and his body, which had finally stood up, swayed and fell again, "That is...what is that?!"

Agatha only turned her head slightly, her tone filled with helplessness: "I warned you, find a safe place to stand firm."

The high-ranking deacon could no longer hear what the Gatekeeper was saying to him—as the silhouette in the clouds rapidly condensed, he finally realized what it was.

It was a figure rising from the endless sea, an existence projected into the real world through the medium of the entire Frost Sea.

The two clusters of green flame that resembled the sun, burning brightly in the clouds, were actually His eyes, the swirling and surging clouds were His breath, and the vast shadow slowly rising in the smoke...was His arm.

Now, that hand stretched towards Frost.

"Lord!!!"

Someone exclaimed in the square. However, the speed at which that hand reached out seemed slow, yet it was faster than anyone's exclamation or prayer—it had crossed the sea, crossed the sea area where the Sea Mist Fleet, the Frost Navy, and the Counterfeit Fleet were fighting, crossed the coast of the city-state, and plunged into the depths of Frost as if probing into smoke.

The next second, that arm began to slowly rise, as if carrying billions of tons of weight, lifting upwards little by little.

And as that arm rose, so did a Mirror City that was gradually being peeled away from the real Frost—

All the twisted buildings, those warped and swollen lands, the thorns covering the high mountains, all those blasphemous things that were similar to the real world, yet overwrote reality in a terrifying manner, were being torn away from the Frost City-State by that hand, bit by bit.

The Mirror Frost floated above the real world—now, it "floated" higher than its creators had planned, and it was still rising.

Agatha smiled, a smile more joyful than ever before.

The Mirror Frost had detached from the city-state, and was still rising at this moment. This scene was like expelling an evil spirit from a body possessed by it, and that "evil spirit" was finally being slowly lifted to the vicinity of the clouds by a giant arm.

Deep within the dense clouds, two clusters of green fire, burning like the sun, flickered slightly, and the vaguely visible, majestic, and awe-inspiring face seemed to be looking down.

Many small sounds came from the palm of the hand.

Some of those small sounds were real noises, but more of them seemed like vibrations echoing on the mental level, echoing in the howls of a pile of twisted wreckage, and the stubborn, fanatical fantasies and delusions entrenched in the Mirror City.

Duncan looked through the clouds at his palm, and saw that the Mirror City was like a swollen and deformed mass of flesh. The streets, clumsily imitating the real world, were rapidly degenerating into the primitive form of filthy mud. Between those swollen and deformed streets, mountains, and towers, small thorns were still expanding and contracting erratically, and a spark of fire, too faint to be discerned, was jumping at the center of this mass of matter. The obsessions of hundreds upon thousands of fanatical believers were entangled there, buzzing like mosquitoes.

Mixed in were fear, anger, unwillingness, and utter malice.

Were those fanatics still trying to preach their doomsday theories? Or were they trying to find a rational explanation for the disaster they had created?

Duncan listened for a while, then lowered his gaze.

"You know jack about grand sacrifices."

His gaze focused on the mass of the Mirror City, and the entire city began to burn in his gaze, in the palm of his hand.

Countless ashes and green fire fell from the sky, like a rainstorm falling from the clouds.

That city-state-sized hand slowly clenched into a fist, and the Mirror Frost, which had been burned to ashes in its palm, turned into dust with a terrifying grinding sound. Countless remnants were splashed down towards the Frost Sea, falling into the sea, falling onto the shore, falling everywhere Trian could see.

But almost all the falling objects avoided Frost Island itself, as well as the Sea Mist Fleet and the Frost Navy still active on the sea.

Trian looked around.

All the counterfeit ships were rapidly disintegrating.

It was finally over.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

First Mate Aiden stood beside him, the bald strongman looking up at the sky, but only able to see a small portion of the silhouette of that enormous figure.

Aiden's body was still trembling slightly.

"Any thoughts?" Trian turned his head, looking at his first mate with a smile that was not quite a smile.

Aiden fumbled to take out his pipe from his pocket, but his hands trembled so much that he couldn't light it for a long time. After a good while, he put down the pipe, his voice trembling slightly: "Old Captain...shouldn't mind us having fought him before, right?"

Trian just smiled and took out a cigarette from his pocket.

"Father won't care about such trivial matters."

However, the Cold Sea Great Pirate trembled for a long time, but couldn't light the cigarette.
Yuan Tong