Chapter 358

Chapter 358: The End

replica.

After hearing from Duncan and the others what a replica was, and that no one knew how many replicas had already appeared in the city-state, and that their corruption and cognitive interference might already have spread across large areas, a terror that he could not hide appeared on Nemo Wilkins’s face.

Even Old Ghost, whose mind went clear and muddled by turns, felt the horror behind this bizarre phenomenon. He kept muttering about the Queen and the Queen’s Guard Corps, his face full of anxiety and restlessness. Only after a long time did he finally quiet down.

After that, what Nemo felt was anger.

He could not accept that “Crow”, who had followed him for so many years, had died so inexplicably. Even more than that, he could not accept that someone had made a replica of him, and that this replica was lying right in front of him. This was clearly an insult to the dead.

“There are shadows of Annihilators behind this matter. The Guardians in the city should have already started a large-scale hunt. There should be some progress soon,” Duncan noticed Nemo’s shifting mood and said, “but even if they find those Annihilators, it probably won’t solve the problem at its root. The real source is what hides behind those cultists.”

“What hides behind those cultists?” Nemo snapped out of his anger as if suddenly waking up. He seemed to think of something at once. “Behind them… don’t tell me this involves a God-level being?”

Vanna answered him: “replicas are pouring endlessly out from beneath the Deep Sea, and even the Frostholm Queen fifty years ago could not resolve this crisis. Do you really think something like that is something a bunch of cultists can pull off?”

“There are clues that this already involves the Abyssal Lord,” Morris went on. “His power, and even parts of His body, may have already appeared in the Mortal Realm. But as for the details, you had better not ask.”

For ordinary people, taking in too much information that pointed toward Gods was not a good thing.

Nemo heard the faint warning in the old scholar’s tone. He became clear-headed at once and nodded hard: “I understand… I won’t ask.”

He did not want to get strangled to death in his sleep by one of the Abyssal Lord’s tentacles just because he had heard something he should not have heard.

Vanna bent down and examined the “Crow” lying on the floor.

This replica looked vivid and lifelike. At least on the surface, it still kept almost exactly the same appearance as the real person. Only along its edges did foul black “mud” slowly seep out bit by bit. It looked as if the collapse had only just begun.

This was Duncan’s first time seeing, from an outside angle, the process of a replica going from complete to collapsed. This information was also very valuable to him.

He reached out and turned over the pockets of “Crow’s” coat. Earlier, the sheet of paper with the mysterious Sacred Script text had been in this pocket.

The pocket was empty, and its inside was also slowly disintegrating.

Vanna stretched out her hand. Water vapor in the air quickly condensed into an ice blade, and a dagger appeared in her hand. She used this hastily shaped dagger to lift the clothing near “Crow’s” chest and saw that the inner layer of the clothes had turned into a strange fluffy texture. Fibers and clumps stuck together in a blur, merging with the deeper flesh and skin.

“That sheet wasn’t copied… the inside of the replicant shows a typical chaotic state… there’s no blood…” Duncan muttered to himself. He reached out again, wanting to touch the black sludge slowly wriggling on the floor nearby, but he saw it suddenly shrink back, as if it were alive, retreating to the side. “These things haven’t solidified yet, but their writhing is slowing down.”

He slowly stood up and let out a quiet sigh: “There’s nothing else to check. Purify it and remove any future trouble. Vanna, step back a bit.”

As soon as Vanna heard this, she quickly retreated several steps and dragged the still-confused Alice back with her. Old Mr. Morris also backed away with them.

Seeing this, Nemo and Old Ghost also moved back. They had no idea why Vanna and the others suddenly grew so nervous.

Then they found out.

A tuft of ghost-green flame suddenly appeared at Duncan’s feet. In the next instant, the flame leaped toward the nearby “replica” like a predator that had smelled its prey. The blaze surged up, and the sharp crackle of supernatural firewood burning sounded again and again. The corpse formed from that strange black sludge was burned to ash almost instantly. As the flames burned, the gas lamps on the walls, along with the consecrated lanterns that Old Ghost and Nemo carried, all seemed to take on a ghostly green hue!

The entire process actually lasted less than a few seconds, yet Nemo was already soaked in cold sweat. When the flames had surged up, overwhelming terror flooded his body and mind. He even felt as if his soul was about to resonate with that fire and burn on its own. By the time the flame vanished, he honestly felt as if he had just escaped death.

Duncan turned his head and looked at the people who had almost hidden all the way to the far corner on the other side of the corridor: “It’s burned… why are you hiding so far away? Taking just a couple of steps back would have been fine.”

“I have psychological shadows from that thing,” Vanna said very directly.

Duncan: “…”

He stood there awkwardly for a moment, then touched the bandage near the bridge of his nose and turned to walk deeper down the corridor: “Ahem. Let’s go. Let’s see what’s ahead.”

The others followed after Duncan. Nemo walked a few steps, still shaken, watching the broad back of the man leading the way. Only after a moment did he glance at Old Ghost walking beside him and ask: “Do you think… Captain Tyrian might also be very afraid of his Father?”

Old Ghost seemed not to hear him. He just walked on, a rope hanging from him and a crowbar in his hand, his steps slow, his gaze a little dazed as he looked ahead. Nemo had to call him twice before he suddenly muttered out of nowhere: “That fire… I’ve seen it before…”

Nemo froze: “You’ve seen it? You mean you’ve seen flames like that? Where did you see it?”

But Old Ghost did not answer again. Rope still on his shoulders and crowbar still in hand, he shuffled forward like he was sleepwalking. Then he seemed to suddenly remember something. He hurried to catch up to Duncan and Alice at the front and mumbled as he went: “The Queen is up ahead. Move, move…”

Nemo watched Old Ghost’s back, scratched his hair, and could not help muttering: “Alright, another episode…”

No one knew how much time passed before the group stopped again.

There was no road ahead.

A mass of collapsed boulders and half-melted steel wreckage was piled together, completely blocking the way forward. It looked as if it had been there for half a century.

“This is the end of the corridor,” Nemo said, pointing at the collapsed area. “This was blown up when the Queen’s Guard Corps retreated back then. The whole collapse probably stretches for several hundred meters. There’s no way anyone could pass through.”

“So this is the end… but we didn’t find anything at all along the way…” Vanna frowned and looked back in the direction they had come. “We didn’t even see any marks left by that replica when it moved.”

Duncan said nothing. He walked up to the collapsed ruins and carefully examined the piled stone, concrete, and steel, his brow tightly furrowed and his face silent.

Seeing this, Alice came closer: “What are you looking for?”

“Possible gaps or tunnels,” Duncan said casually. “People can’t get through, but a fluid like mud can seep through very small holes.”

“You suspect… that replica seeped through this collapsed zone first as fluid elements, then condensed into human shape and fell over on the corridor side?” Morris quickly understood what Duncan meant, but the image he formed in his head gave him goosebumps. “That sounds… truly chilling.”

Duncan did not reply. He took two steps back and tilted his head to look up at the completely sealed-off end of the corridor.

There were indeed no signs here.

All along the way, they had seen no trace of any Anomaly.

So how had that replica appeared in the corridor? Where had “Crow” gone before that, and how had he gotten through?

…

On the vast, endless surface of the Boundless Sea, a thin fog had risen.

A steamship with a handsome white hull sailed through the mist. Its bow cut through the fog drifting over the sea, and its stern left layer upon layer of fine ripples behind it.

Captain Lawrence, wrapped in a thick coat, came up onto the deck. He stared into the distance in a daze at the fog-covered sea, the faint line of the horizon, and the silhouettes of icebergs rising and falling in the mist.

It was daytime, and the Sun hung high in the sky. Yet the sunlight neither dispersed the fog over the sea nor drove away the chill in the sea wind. He only felt that cold slowly seeping through his coat, like it was drilling into his bones and soaking into him bit by bit—like his whole body was gradually sinking into icy seawater.

“The northern temperature… really isn’t friendly to an old man like me who was born and raised in the Central Seas.”

Lawrence could not help muttering this to himself.

His First Mate, Gus, walked over from the side. He was a tall, thin middle-aged man with slightly curly brown short hair. Hearing the captain mutter, Gus laughed and said: “Frost Sea is always like this. There’s more fog here than anywhere else, and sometimes it fogs up even in the daytime. The air is full of chill, and there’s sudden snowfall in the city-states… outsiders have a hard time getting used to it.”

“I originally planned to stay in Frostholm for a while longer. But now, once we finish the necessary work, we had better head back quickly. Staying here too long will make a man sick.” Captain Lawrence shook his head. “The fog’s having more and more impact. In an hour, we’ll have to check the heading again.”

The First Mate nodded at once: “Yes, Captain. I’ll make arrangements in a bit.”

Lawrence grunted in agreement, then asked: “Has there been any reply to the signals we sent to Frostholm?”

“Not yet,” the First Mate answered. “But that’s normal enough. The Harbor work efficiency in northern city-states is always like that. Once we get closer, they’ll have to answer our docking request.”