Chapter 432

Chapter 432: The Call of Fire

In the Harbor district, Lister, who was commanding the garrison to hold off the attack while trying to keep the Harbor running, suddenly looked up and stared blankly toward the city-state.

Inside the city-state, strange twisted buildings were surging up and appearing above ordinary streets. In the distance, the land was warping and flipping over. Faint thorn-shaped phantoms covered the mountains, and chaotic light and shadow were descending out of nothing. Yet in the middle of this terrifying, eerie scene, some fine, pale “dust” suddenly began to drift down.

That pale dust appeared in the sky out of nowhere. It floated down like the first snow at the start of winter. It passed through overlapping phantoms and twisted, alien streets, and little by little fell onto the streets of Frostholm. It seemed weightless, yet endless.

Where the motes of dust fell, the city-state that had turned vague and chaotic because of overlapping phantoms suddenly looked clear-cut again. It lasted only for a moment, and the change was small, but Lister clearly saw a boundary appear again between the illusions and the real streets.

But he had no time to think about what this meant, or even to think about what would happen to him in the next minute.

The roar of Steam Walkers opening fire and the thunder of distant Coastal Guns pulled him back to the Mortal Realm.

“Hold those freaks outside the docks!” Lister ran along the walkways between buildings and through the defensive line built from Steam Walkers and makeshift barricades. He shouted to the soldiers and officers: “Keep the fuel depots and ammunition routes clear! The Harbor must not fall!”

Smoke spread in all directions. The air carried the smell of blood, machine oil, and the sharp stench that rose when foul sludge dried out. One Steam Walker was destroyed, and at once another spider-like machine rushed out from behind cover to hold the fragile line.

Inside that line lay the battered docks and the many teams running between the Harbor’s buildings.

Lister climbed to a higher spot and looked toward the docks.

When the monsters had first poured out of the thick fog, the Harbor had almost fallen. He and his soldiers had paid a heavy price to clear the corruption inside the Harbor’s area and to build a line on the road leading into the city. They had held that line until now.

According to the last external transmission, this was already the only Harbor in Frostholm still operating. The other Harbors were either still fiercely contested, already lost, or unable to function because their key facilities had been badly damaged.

He had to keep it running at any cost. The sea front was already on the brink. If they lost this last coastal support, the City Navy would truly be finished.

But with another terrifying twisted city slowly invading the Mortal Realm… could they really hold this place?

Lister turned back and took one last look at the deformed land swelling up inside the city like a bloated, festering wound. He forced himself to ignore how it was slowly spreading toward the Harbor, then left the line and returned to the defense command post.

It was just as busy here. Officers and staff officers were worn out and frantic. The reports coming in from all sides were bleak, and the calls and beeps from all the radios never stopped.

A radio operator sat in the corner, his voice hoarse as he repeated into the set: “To all ships in coastal waters, this is East Harbor. We are still here. Repeat, we are still here—this is the only safe resupply port. Do not approach any other Harbor…”

Lister walked straight up to a subordinate. “How is the resupply pier?”

“The Laurel is resupplying ammunition and repairing its feed elevators. Her sister ship has lost power and is being towed back by barges. Our ammunition, fuel, and fresh water are still sufficient, but the crane at Pier Four was destroyed, so that side is paralyzed…”

Lister listened with a dark face. Then hurried footsteps came from the side. Another junior officer rushed to his side, looking tense. “Commander, there is a situation…”

“There are situations everywhere,” Lister said loudly. “Report directly!”

“Yes. A ship is requesting to enter port for repairs. It is… from the Sea Mist Fleet,” the junior officer said, his eyes complicated. “The Undying on board say their transmission system has failed, and the equipment on the ship cannot handle it.”

Lister froze for a moment. Three seconds later, he clenched his teeth. “Let them enter the port. Help them repair it as fast as possible.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The subordinate left. Lister walked quickly to the window and looked out toward the sea.

A warship trailing thick smoke was slowly approaching the repair dock. The Queen of Frostholm’s flag flew at its bow. Farther out on the sea, wreckage floated everywhere.

“Half a century… and this flag finally returned to Frostholm like this…”

Lister muttered without thinking.

But the next second, a sudden commotion sounded from the corridor and cut off the Harbor’s defense commander’s sigh.

“What now?” He turned his head and shouted.

A nervous soldier pushed the door open in a hurry, looking very awkward as he spoke to the commander-in-chief. “Commander! There are two… ordinary citizens, two young ladies. I don’t know how they got in, but they insist on talking to you…”

“Ordinary citizens? Send them to the shel—” Lister started to speak on reflex, but before he could finish, the sound of scuffling rushed in from the corridor. Right after that he heard a young girl’s noisy voice outside—

“Get the hell out of the way! Move it! Time is precious! What was that word again… window, oh, window interval, it only lasts this damn little while!”

Lister looked up in shock. The next second, he saw two young ladies force their way past the soldiers and barge into this crucial command room.

One was short and thin, dressed in a black cotton dress, yet she pushed two burly soldiers away from the doorway with one shove. The other was a bit taller, wearing a plain brown coat and cotton skirt, and she looked a little nervous.

They both looked only sixteen or seventeen. The thin one even looked younger.

“Leave at once,” Lister said at once, his irritation making his tone harsh. “This is not a place for you to fool around. If you got separated from the evacuees, then—”

“You’re the boss here? We have something important,” the thin young lady cut him off loudly before he could finish. “Is there somewhere nearby you’re not using for now? We need to start a fire…”

“Start a fire?” Lister froze for a moment, then realized this was a terrible joke. He could not understand why two random commoners would come here to cause trouble at a time like this. His professional instincts snapped him awake. He shouted at once, “soldiers, restrain them!”

Several soldiers rushed in at once to seize the two strangers. The short girl started hopping as she shouted, “We really do have something important! The angle from here is perfect, we just need a patch of open ground! You…”

She suddenly stopped. She stared wide-eyed out the window, as if she had just seen something.

“Hey! Over there works! The whole avenue is empty, and it leads straight to the coastline!” The girl jumped high, and even two or three soldiers could not hold her down. Then she turned her head and called to her companion, “Nina, you go there. With that and the two arson points we found to the south just now, the city side will definitely be enough!”

“Ah… okay!” The young lady called Nina answered at once. Then she turned back, bowed slightly to Lister with an awkward, apologetic look, and said, “S-sorry, mister. My friend is not very good at talking to people. We’ll leave now…”

Lister stared, the absurd scene making his mind go blank, but he still stepped forward on instinct. “Stop, you—”

His words never finished.

Because something even more absurd happened.

Heat suddenly surged around the young girl in front of him. In the blink of an eye she turned into a leaping, blinding arc of fire. The flame rose in the room, and its glare felt as if just looking at it could set a person’s soul on fire. The next second, the flame flew toward the open window, like a shooting star flying backward, and shot straight at a high platform near the Harbor district.

Lister stared in shock, but before he could process it, the flame suddenly rushed back into the room.

The flame bent toward him in a bow, outlining the shape of a girl. A polite voice came from within it, crackling with sparks: “Thank you for protecting the city. I’m leaving! Goodbye!”

The arc of flame shot out of the room again.

“Bye-bye!”

In the room, the short girl also shouted again and again. Then a pitch-black rift suddenly opened beside her. Shadows surged inside it and yanked her away, making her vanish into thin air before everyone’s eyes.

“What… what the hell…”

Lister stared at this scene, stunned and dazed, then ran to the open window on reflex. He only caught a glimpse of an arc of blazing fire shooting straight up into the sky in the distance.

And beneath that flame, the coastline bathed in its harsh light… suddenly burst into fire!

“The Frostholm coast is aflame!”

On the Sea Mist’s lookout platform, an Undying sailor raised a speaking trumpet and shouted.

Waves rose and fell, and the cold wind curled back on itself. Tyrian stood at the edge of the bow deck like a lone reef. In his single eye, the Frostholm coast was reflected, with several great fires now burning there.

A bright flame jumped over the city, constantly igniting the empty areas along its edges: tall cliffs, rocks jutting from the water, fallen watchtowers, and shattered gun emplacements. The burning points slowly linked together, like a row of endless candlesticks.

Around the Sea Mist, the vast sea itself was burning in great patches.

Debris left by the replica fleet burned. Ships of the Sea Mist Fleet and the City Navy burned. Leaked fuel burned.

The whole sea was being set on fire by war.

In that burning sea, the twisted, eerie light and shadow of the mirror world world were reflected: the Ghost fleet rising without end, the strange and terrifying mirror world Frostholm in the distance, and the boundless darkness filling the space around those twisted entities.

“Captain!” First Mate Aiden ran over and shouted beside Tyrian, “The last barrel of fuel has been dumped. The flames around us are about to reach the ship!”

“I know,” Tyrian said calmly, and a faint smile slowly appeared on his face. “How is Frostholm’s navy reacting?”

“They also did what we told them and lit their spare whale oil, but they still have no idea what we’re trying to do. They are just following orders in total confusion. They hope we can give them an explanation.”

“An explanation…”

Tyrian muttered softly, then slowly raised his hand and pointed around the Sea Mist, at the sea that was being covered by thicker and thicker darkness and growing more and more eerie.

“Aiden, what does this sea look like to you?”

Aiden paused, then lifted his head and looked around.

In the next second, his expression slowly froze, even showing a hint of fear.

At some point, the waves and wind on the sea had quickly died down. Endless darkness made the whole stretch of water slowly take on a mirror-like sheen.

Flames burned before that mirror, from the Frostholm coast all the way to the zone where the fleets were locked in battle. The chain of war fires looked like ritual candles set before a mirror.

The wind, waves, and gunfire on the sea seemed to fade all at once. Everything grew distant, as if it came from another world. In that eerie, brief silence, Aiden heard his captain speak softly.

“Father said that if we ever wanted to seek him out, we should find a mirror and light flames in front of it.”

Tyrian slowly spread his arms, facing the sea that was turning into a black mirror.

“The fire is lit. Are you there?”

Thus, the sea around Frostholm opened its eyes.

“I am here.”