Chapter 250

Chapter 250: Beneath the Surface

Tyrian took a few seconds to realize that Duncan had just mentioned a “brief encounter” with the Frostholm Queen. His shock showed plainly on his face.

Duncan was not surprised by this reaction. He only shook his head lightly and said: “My ‘meeting’ with her was very unusual. It did not happen on the normal timeline. You can think of it as me stepping into a crack in history and seeing Ray Nora once, as a bystander. In normal history, I never had any contact with the Frostholm Queen.”

Tyrian frowned, as if trying to understand what those difficult words meant. Then his eyes flickered. He drew back all his emotions, looked up at Duncan, and asked: “Why are you interested in the Frostholm Queen? Is it because of that ‘one meeting’? Or because of this Doll who calls herself ‘Alice’? Did she tell you something?”

“Alice doesn’t know anything about the Frostholm Queen. Her memory is as pure as blank paper,” Duncan said calmly. “I’m interested in the Frostholm Queen because everyone says the Frostholm rebellion back then happened because Ray Nora’s conspiracy with the Vanished was exposed. Don’t you think it’s quite normal for me to become curious after hearing that rumor?”

“…Colluding with the Vanished.” Tyrian’s voice was low, his eyelids lowered so no one could read his feelings. “Yes. That was the charge they pinned on Her Majesty Ray Nora.”

“Judging by your reaction, that charge really was a frame-up,” Duncan’s voice came from the mirror. “So the Frostholm rebellion back then was a complete conspiracy, and the crimes they gave Ray Nora were entirely made up?”

As he spoke, he watched Tyrian’s reaction.

But Tyrian did not answer at once. He frowned slightly and asked back: “Does this truth matter to you?”

“It does,” Duncan said, his face serious. “From a certain point of view, I am half an involved party.”

Tyrian clearly froze for a moment, as if unable to argue with Father’s answer. Then he sighed with a helpless smile and shook his head: “There really was a conspiracy behind that rebellion, but if I have to be strict about it, the name the Rebels used was not completely fake…”

“Oh?”

“The Frostholm Queen never colluded with the Vanished. But she did… carry out some research in forbidden fields. Once those research projects were made public, even without the rebellion, she probably would have had a hard time keeping her position as City Lord.”

Duncan’s eyes grew deep. After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly spoke: “It was called the ‘Abyssal Trench Project’, right?”

Tyrian jerked his head up in shock.

“I know much more than you think,” Duncan said quietly.

“But all data related to the Abyssal Trench Project has already been destroyed. Even the traitors who exposed it back then were purged and executed by the Rebels themselves…” Tyrian said in disbelief. “Everyone was convinced that even the name of the project itself had already been tainted by the curse’s corruption, and the last people who knew the truth all passed away long ago…”

“Oh? All the records were destroyed?” This time Duncan was the one who felt surprised. He had thought the matter might be highly classified, but he hadn’t expected it to be buried this extremely. “Even every eyewitness is dead?”

Tyrian hesitated. He knew that time better than anyone, and of course he knew why the project was buried. After a brief silence, he still began to speak, slowly:

“This forbidden project was stained with too many things tied to the curse, Subspace, and mental corruption. Even the Rebels back then didn’t dare speak lightly about the information they had found.

“But in fact, the name of this project was made public once, and only once. That was at the final execution ground, when the Rebels announced the Frostholm Queen’s crimes and spoke those words aloud. On that very day, Seawatch Cliff of the Frostholm city-state suffered an unprecedented, terrifying collapse. The entire cliff, along with a quarter of the city, fell into the Boundless Sea. Everyone who heard the words ‘Abyssal Trench Project’ without exception turned into Restless Souls in the Deep Sea.

“Back then, the Rebels had actually prepared a whole series of follow-up propaganda around the Abyssal Trench Project. They planned to make it widely known, without exposing its forbidden parts, to completely erase the Frostholm Queen’s influence in the Northern Seas and to stress the righteousness of the rebellion. But after the great collapse of the cliff, all those plans were scrapped at once. As I just said, they were sure that even the name ‘Abyssal Trench Project’ had already been corrupted by the curse. So they destroyed every piece of material related to it, including the name itself.

“That’s why I am especially curious… through what channel did you learn the name ‘Abyssal Trench Project’?”

Tyrian finally stopped dodging and met Duncan’s eyes. Ever since he had heard that half-century-old project’s name from Duncan’s mouth, the turmoil in his heart had not settled. For a moment, he even truly began to suspect that there really had been some “collusion” between the Frostholm Queen and the Vanished.

“I told you, I have ‘watched’ some things from the cracks in history,” Duncan said openly, and asked again: “So what exactly was the Abyssal Trench Project? Why was this project so secret and forbidden that even you… still sound a little afraid when you mention it?”

Tyrian’s face grew solemn. After a long silence, he finally spoke in a low, slow voice: “Simply put, it was an exploration project. But unlike those explorers who chart new routes on the edge of civilization, the Abyssal Trench Project explored the Deep Sea.”

“Exploring the Deep Sea?” Duncan frowned. “You mean the Spirit Realm, the Abyssal Deep, and Subspace? If it was only research in those fields, that hardly deserves the word ‘forbidden’, does it? It is dangerous, yes, but research like that has always been legal in every city-state. The Truth Academy even has a dedicated research group…”

“I’m not talking about the Deep Sea as a concept in occult studies,” Tyrian said, gently shaking his head. “I mean the Deep Sea in the true, natural sense. The Deep Sea that lies right in front of all of us, that everyone pretends not to see, does not touch, and does not dare to touch.”

As Tyrian spoke, he suddenly asked: “Father, have you ever wondered about this: beneath our city-states, beneath these sea islands that now carry all of civilization… what does it look like?”

Duncan did not speak.

But under his calm surface, a wave had already risen in his heart.

He really had never thought about that question. Or rather… he had not even realized it was a question that needed asking.

In this world, people were used to using names like “Spirit Realm”, “Abyssal Deep seas”, and “Subspace” to talk about the “depth” of the world. That model of the world’s structure did explain how things worked to some extent. But in truth, it was only an interpretation built on the concepts of occult studies. Strictly speaking, it only described the world’s “dimensional” structure, not the physical structure of the Mortal Realm.

What Tyrian was talking about now clearly was not that conceptual, occult studies-based model of dimensions. He meant the water itself, physically, from the sea surface downward.

In the classic “Mortal Realm–Spirit Realm–Abyssal Deep–Subspace” model, the Deep Sea that Tyrian spoke of lay on the very first layer: the Mortal Realm. Yet this Deep Sea, which belonged only to that first layer, seemed to be a complete blank in human understanding.

Duncan had never considered this question because he carried a set of “common sense” in his mind. He took it for granted that beneath the city-states there must be raised geological structures in the sea, like undersea mountains or uplifted volcanic craters. Deeper down, there would of course be a seabed. But when he carefully recalled everything he had learned since coming to this world, he realized… humans had never done any real research into the underwater world beyond two hundred meters in depth.

“Clearly, you never thought about it either,” Tyrian’s voice suddenly came, cutting off Duncan’s thoughts. “And before I met the Frostholm Queen, I had never thought about it either. The Boundless Sea covers the whole world. Our city-states are isolated islands floating on the surface. The protection of the Gods laid a solid foundation for the Mortal Realm, and the light of Vision 001 gives us safe, stable daylight. As for what lies under the surface… why should we care? The Deep Sea zones in the Spirit Realm, the Abyssal Deep, and Subspace already give us enough of a headache.”

As Tyrian spoke, he gently shook his head.

“But Her Majesty Ray Nora told me this question was important, as important as the secrets of the Spirit Realm, the Abyssal Deep, and Subspace. Right under our feet, beneath the city-states and the sea surface, in our Mortal Realm itself, there is such a vast unknown area. She was full of the spirit of exploration. She could not accept that such a huge region within her rule remained shrouded in ignorance.”