Chapter 431

Chapter 431: .

The fog was thinning.

Since the battle began, this was the first time the heavy fog over the Frostholm waters had shown signs of fading. Around the Sea Mist, in the direction of Frostholm, from the sea surface to the sky, all the thick mist was shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye. The dim gloom that covered everything retreated, and the whole sea area slowly became clear.

And on the sea where the fog faded, one could see burning ships everywhere, the replica fleet with its twisted and frightening shapes, and countless floating wreckage and patches of burning oil.

Thick smoke rolled and spread over the sea where the mist retreated.

First Mate Aiden was the first to run to the window. He stared, eyes wide, at the sea outside where the fog was fading. After a long moment he shouted, “The fog is retreating! Captain! The fog is retreating!”

“I can see it,” Tyrian also walked quickly to the window. Yet the grave look in his one eye did not fade at all just because the fog did. “It is retreating… really retreating?”

“Captain, is this not a good thing?” Aiden at once noticed the wrong note in Tyrian’s tone and turned his head in confusion. “The fog is gone. That means the Anomaly power crouching over Frostholm also…”

“No. Something is wrong.” Tyrian cut the first mate off with a serious look. He stared hard at the distant sea, his gaze growing even sharper. “The fog is gone, but those ghost ships are still there, and the look of the sea…”

“The sea?” Aiden frowned in confusion and turned to look into the distance. A second later, he finally drew in a sharp breath.

Just as the captain said, something was wrong. The replica fleet on all sides did not show any sign of fading. There were even new ghost ships rising from the sea. And in this process, the whole sea area was slowly growing darker!

Large patches of pitch-black were spreading through the water. In the darkness, something was growing. Countless vague shapes were drawing closer to the surface. This scene… was as if something very huge, or some enormous group, was surfacing from the Deep Sea!

“What the…”

Aiden muttered without thinking, but before he could finish, a string of huge booms suddenly shattered the very short calm that had followed the fading of the mist.

The sea nearby split open and countless huge ships floated up. Some looked like wrecks, some twisted like monsters, and some carried a strange, half-familiar look. In the suddenly black sea, it was as if the entire replica fleet had surged out all at once!

“Attention! Enemy ships appearing! Enemy ships… they are everywhere!”

A seaman shouted in terror. The close-in guns along the edge of the deck roared at the same time. The thunder of gunfire rang over the sea almost at once. Shells howled through the air, and huge water columns and balls of fire from the explosions once again covered the sea.

But in this sudden chaos, Tyrian still used his gaze on the sea, watching those enemies that rose one after another from the water.

He recognized some of them – and so did his soldiers.

“It is the Knight! The Knight we sank at the very start!”

“The Black Flag soldier! The Black Flag soldier that sank fifteen minutes ago! It has appeared again!”

“The Courage! And the Prince Jotun!”

“Captain!” First Mate Aiden’s voice reached Tyrian’s ears, carrying a panic he had never shown before. “The whole replica fleet… the ones we destroyed… they have all appeared again!”

Tyrian opened his mouth, about to speak, when a voice suddenly rose in his mind: “… This is normal, because the root of mirror world is still there.”

“Father?!” Tyrian jerked in shock and instinctively looked around for something that could form a mirror. “You are now…?”

“Do not rush, Tyrian. The timing is just right.”

Tyrian quickly calmed down. He motioned for Aiden to take command of the fight and answered fast in his mind: “What do you need me to do?”

…

At the same time that the fog over the sea was fading, the heavy mist covering the city-state of Frostholm also retreated. But just like at sea, the fading of the fog did not mean the end of the crisis.

mirror world was still rising. Another, far more terrifying Frostholm city-state was slowly overlapping with the Mortal Realm.

The city-state’s Guard Corps, still holding out, had built street barricades to block countless monsters that seemed to appear from nowhere. The roar of guns shook the city. The peace and safety of the past had long been torn apart. Smoke and dust filled every street. Filthy mud and slowly cooling blood soaked the city, and more twisted sights kept covering everything.

“Commander, they are everywhere!”

At the crossroads of Fireplace Street, a Guard Corps squad that had once been trapped in the mist was now using the firepower of a Steam Walker to sweep the freaks that appeared on the street. The soldiers had not even had time to cheer when the thick fog faded before more monsters and horror phenomena dragged them into a new fierce fight.

“Then fire everywhere!” the squad commander roared. He shot into the distance as he rushed to the feet of the Steam Walker and to the side of the signaler. “Can you reach the other squads?”

“Squads Seven, Six, and Four are still missing!” the signaler shouted. “Almost a quarter of the squads vanished in the earlier fog, Commander!”

“Keep calling until someone answers, or until reinforcements come,” the commander said, slapping the signaler’s helmet and turning to look into the distance. “The fog is gone. Hold on. The situation is changing – this may be the last attack!”

The machine gun turret of the Steam Walker roared in a long burst and tore another distant Steam Walker into pieces. As that huge machine crashed to the ground, a vast amount of filthy sludge also burst from its machinery bay, splashing onto the street like horrible innards.

The warriors once again forced up their courage – or maybe they just let numbness keep driving their exhausted limbs. The commander spoke words of encouragement he did not even believe himself, then raised his head to look into the distance again.

He saw the two Silent Cathedrals standing high on the mountaintop. On one side of the city-state, the ground seemed to curl and rise in a strange way. Huge, unfamiliar building clusters were slowly rising out of the city. Layer upon layer of buildings piled over the streets he knew. Twisted, slanted high towers spread out of far-off structures, like hateful bone growths sprouting from giants, stretching and growing in the sky.

Countless streams of sludge were flowing out of those high, lifted buildings, pouring down as if to swallow the whole city.

“O Lord of Death…” At the top of the Silent Cathedral, Bishop Ivan looked down at the city-state that was slowly twisting and being devoured by huge Visions. At last he could not help but speak in a low voice. “Is today the day it all ends…”

He looked into the distance, but could only see vast darkness surging up from all sides. The original City Hall on the opposite hilltop had, at some unknown time, become wrapped in strange thorns. In that thicket of thorns stood another Silent Cathedral in a hazy way. At the foot of the hill, row after row of buildings rocked and piled up, rising in a heap. The houses took on a shape that made one’s skin crawl, like the limbs of soft-bodied creatures.

Outside the city-state, the whole sea was slowly being covered by an ominous black. That darkness was like a huge mirror, and in the mirror another Frostholm slowly appeared. It was like looking at another world through a bent mirror. That “Frostholm” looked twisted and wrong everywhere, full of errors that felt almost right and full of crawling, pitch-black malice.

The huge city of mirror world was rising from the Deep Sea, corrupting everything in the Mortal Realm and in the unreal at the same time.

“Archbishop!” A High Deacon ran out from the terrace door and came to stand behind Bishop Ivan. “The last reserve forces have gathered. The Silent monks and the Guardians will protect the Great Cathedral until the final moment!”

“Agatha still has not come back?”

“We still cannot contact Lady Gatekeeper,” the High Deacon said quickly. “The exploration team that went down the shaft with her reported that the Gatekeeper vanished after entering a strange stone wall. There has been no word since. Now the mine has been swallowed by darkness. I fear…”

“The Gatekeeper will not fall so easily. Agatha will finish her mission… she will finish it for sure,” Bishop Ivan said calmly.

The High Deacon hesitated. “Archbishop, you should take shelter…”

“Take shelter? Hide in some safe prayer room in a chapel? Or take a ship and flee this city?” Bishop Ivan turned around and slowly shook his head. “I do not need to take shelter. I will stay here. You go and command the Guardian units at the foot of the hill. Move every commoner you can up the mountain. Hold on as long as you can.”

The High Deacon hesitated a few more seconds, then finally nodded hard. “Yes, Archbishop!”

The High Deacon withdrew, and the old bishop was alone again on the terrace.

He raised his head and gazed at the other great Cathedral that was wrapped in thorns, the one that looked like a shadow of the Silent Cathedral.

That great Cathedral was dead and still. No clerics could be seen inside.

It was only a mirror world, but its appearance meant that the “Inversion” of that mirror world Frostholm had reached the final step.

“Agatha… you should still be somewhere, carrying out your duty…”

Bishop Ivan spoke softly, as if talking to himself, yet also as if gently reminding a junior with whom he had already lost contact.

He slowly raised his hand and undid the rich robes that stood for the archbishop’s authority. Then he took off his crown and set it on the rail beside him.

“Then you should still remember that the Saints of Bartok never stop before death…”

With the fine robes and the crown of Your Eminence taken off, layers of bandages were revealed. Ivan reached up, felt around, and slowly loosened a knot near his neck.

“We face filth with flesh and blood. When life ends, we guard our faith with bodies that do not rest. And when even the body ends…”

The bandages came loose. It was as if a container that had been sealed and pressed down for decades finally broke free. Under the bandages there was not some broken body – there had long been no body at all.

Under them there was only pale ash and smoke.

“We still have burning ash.”

The bandages fell away. Fluttering bone ash flew out from the edge of the terrace, turning into fine white smoke that slowly spread and covered the sky over Frostholm.