Chapter 311

Chapter 311: Intelligence Exchange

An old father, worried about his children’s daily life, came by to see what his son was doing at home.

His son, at half past midnight, on a frozen island base in the middle of the sea, had set up a stage so he could watch a dozen young ladies dance belly dances.

The old father suffered a mental shock.

For a moment, Tyrian was completely stunned. To be honest, his feeling of horror right now, and the waves crashing through his mind, even surpassed what he had felt a few days ago when he heard that another “No. 3 Submersible” had appeared near Frostholm.

The pirate captain, famous all across the Frost Sea, stiffly shuffled a step to the side, even trying to use this clumsy method to block Duncan’s line of sight. But then another nearby ice-covered wall lit up at once, and Father simply stepped over into that mirror surface, still looking toward the stage.

“Aren’t they cold?”

Tyrian answered without thinking: “…They are, but they can endure it with a special alchemical draught…”

“Tyrian.” Duncan turned his eyes back, looking at Tyrian, who was now frozen in place like an ice sculpture. “Do not be so tense. You have long been an adult. You are free to have any daily hobby you like. It is just that… this hobby is a bit beyond what I expected. Does your younger sister know?”

“It is not what you think!” Tyrian could not help shouting again—this time his voice held more helplessness, even a touch of despair. “And please do not mention this to her! If you ever get a chance to contact her in the future…”

“Oh, so she does not know.” Duncan nodded. “Indeed, it is better not to let Lucretia know about this sort of thing.”

Tyrian: “What do I have to say for you to…”

Duncan laughed.

Of course he could see the expression on Tyrian’s face and had heard what Tyrian had just cried out. He simply found it amusing—being able to see this kind of reaction on the Frost Sea’s number one pirate lord was not easy. It would be a real shame to miss such a fine scene.

The moment he saw Duncan smiling, Tyrian understood.

First, he was startled.

Father was teasing him. It was a slightly mean, yet long-lost kind of joke.

Next, he forced his shocked expression away and made his face serious again—just as if his previous loss of composure had never happened.

“If you have watched enough, then let us talk business,” the pirate lord sighed, sounding rather helpless. “I do not believe you came to see me in the middle of the night only to play this kind of joke.”

“I ran into a ship.” Duncan dropped the smile as well and spoke directly. “The Obsidian. Do you remember that name?”

“The Obsidian?” Tyrian frowned, first thinking over the well-known ships on the various routes and finding nothing, but then his expression changed. “You mean the Obsidian? I only know of one Obsidian, and it should have sunk already…”

Just as Duncan had expected.

No one knew the ships in this cold sea better than a pirate lord who had ruled the northern region for half a century. And if it was a vessel that had sunk in a sea disaster, it would leave an even deeper mark in Tyrian’s mind.

Because a ship lost to a sea disaster was seen as the worst of omens on the Boundless Sea. Captains could ignore other ships if they wished, but they would still go and find out the names of the ships that had sunk, what cargo they had carried, what they had done, and where they had gone.

“That is the one—the wreck that sank six years ago,” Duncan said with a nod. “It has appeared on the surface again, completely turned into an uncanny thing. Its cabins are twisted and jumbled together. There is living mud spread all over it, and… a ‘captain’ who is human and yet not human.”

When Duncan finished, Tyrian’s eyes had already opened wide. After a short moment of thought, the pirate lord’s face grew full of shock and solemnity.

He did not question it, because he knew his Father would not lie to him at a time like this or about a matter like this—Duncan would not do something so pointless.

Even so, it was still hard to believe. What he was hearing had gone far beyond what he had imagined.

“Does it sound familiar?” Duncan’s voice came from the ice, wrapped in the cold of the Frost Sea itself. “It is a bit like the situation with the ‘No. 3 Submersible’, only worse. That is a replica that returned from the Deep Sea. Not only the people inside, but the ship itself has been twisted.

“You took part in the Abyssal Trench Project. I want to hear your judgment.”

“My judgment…” Tyrian opened his mouth, then suddenly realized something else. “Wait. Where did you encounter that ship?!”

He suddenly remembered that the Obsidian had sunk near Frostholm. In theory, its replica should also surface in the waters around Frostholm. How did Father end up running into that ship?!

Duncan smiled faintly in the ice.

“Are you standing somewhere high enough?”

“High enough?” Tyrian looked around, confused. “The ground is fairly high here. The harbor district as a whole is on high ground…”

“Do you have any buildings blocking your view to the southwest?”

“No.”

“Good. Look in that direction and wait a bit.”

Tyrian instinctively turned to look southwest.

There was a gentle slope there, tilting slightly toward the sea. Most of the main housing in the harbor district stood along that slope. At the far end lay the shoreline. A few kilometers beyond, dense mist and chaotic currents circled the secret home port.

Something flickered inside the fog.

Pale green flames rose and shone like a ghost within the mist.

Tyrian blinked.

After a while, he heard a muffled boom—distant and hazy, yet clearly not an illusion.

That was the sound of old muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons firing.

“You are in the Frost Sea…” Tyrian felt his muscles tightening. A strange cold, subtle yet all-pervasive, seemed to be slowly wrapping around him. He hesitated, then turned back to the ice where Duncan’s figure stood. “You… found this place?”

“It was not easy. Your island is surrounded by heavy fog and drifting ice, and there are wild currents crashing everywhere,” Duncan said with a light smile. “But the Spirit Realm is calm and has safe routes.

“Do not worry, I will not sail the Vanished right up to your island. That would make your subordinates nervous. The Vanished will hide in the mist around you.”

Tyrian thought it over and suddenly felt that this last sentence was even more chilling—that was worse than just bringing the Vanished straight into the Harbor!

But in the end he did not dare say that out loud.

He was afraid that if he did, the next day when he opened his eyes he would really see the Vanished’s flagpole planted above the harbor district.

“Your expression is tense and gloomy,” Duncan’s voice came again. “Have I brought you trouble?”

“Ah, no, that is not what I meant!” Tyrian said in a rush, forcing his face to relax. “It is just that everything is so sudden, and I am still not used to… dealing with you.”

He paused, then hurried to speak again before Duncan could answer: “Why did you suddenly come to the Frost Sea? It cannot be just to give me a ‘surprise’, can it?”

“Something happened,” Duncan nodded. “A person who should have been dead for many years suddenly wrote to me from Frostholm. That caught my attention. After I arrived here, I soon saw the Obsidian again, which confirmed my guess.

“Now I suspect that the shadows left behind by the Abyssal Trench Project are starting to stir under Frostholm.”

Abyssal Trench Project…

The muscles in Tyrian’s face twitched, and many memories rose in his heart—some from half a century ago, some from much more recent days.

The news Father had suddenly brought was like a sharp blade, cutting open a Veil that had only been lifted a little before. Tyrian suddenly realized that what was happening now was far from as simple as he had thought.

It was not just a single “No. 3 Submersible”. Not just a single Dagger Island. Beneath Frostholm and the Deep Sea… it was not only the Abyssal Trench Project that was waking up.

“Your suspicion is probably correct,” he said in a low voice, his expression complicated. “Something is really going wrong under Frostholm. The Obsidian you met is not an isolated case. Do you know? Not long ago, The authority of Frostholm salvaged something in the nearshore waters.”

There was silence from the ice for a few seconds. Then Duncan spoke: “Looking at your face, I think I can guess what it was.”

“Yes. The No. 3 Submersible. The eighth replicant.” Tyrian nodded. “It has already been taken to a barren island near Frostholm called Dagger Island. The authority has turned the whole place into a military restricted zone. They want to figure out the secrets of the replicant.

“And that is not the only news. Recently, there have been rumors all over the city-state that the dead are rising. They say the dead are tearing free from their graves, and people who died or went missing many years ago have suddenly appeared on the city streets.

“But there are opposite rumors saying those people are only ordinary residents of the city-state, and that over-strained Church Guardians are just grabbing random passersby outside of curfew hours.”

Tyrian shrugged.

“Because of the tight information blockade, it is now very hard to find out what is going on at Dagger Island. As for Frostholm itself, I do have some eyes there. According to their reports, strange things really have been happening in the city lately. There are many unfamiliar faces going in and out.

“But as for the dead truly returning to life… I do not think that is very likely.”