Chapter 433

Chapter 433: Burning Away

In that instant, Frostholm truly became a city floating on a mirror.

The sea itself was that mirror.

Reflected in it was not only the twisted, terrifying mirror world city, but also a pair of eyes burning with fire, and a presence larger than the city-state itself—so large it seemed to match the whole Frostholm sea region.

The divine authority of fire shifted in an instant. Every flame burning on and around that mirror became a medium that spread and magnified that power.

“Commander! Commander! The fire… the fire!”

The horrified shout of a junior officer snapped Lister out of his daze. He jolted fully awake and followed the sound to the window. He saw the whole coastline burning, and even the entire sea set alight. Rolling flames rose up, and then a ghostly green glow flowed out of the fire like water and quickly dyed his whole field of view.

The spirit form flames rising from all directions seemed to carry a power that shook the soul, making Lister step back on reflex. But in the next second he saw that even the flames inside the gas lamps set into the nearby wall were quietly tinged with a layer of ghostly green.

A deep rumble came from far away, as if it shook the whole city. It was mixed with loud creaks like some enormous thing being torn and broken apart. Everyone in the command post heard the booming noise.

Someone turned toward the city in the direction of the sound and saw that the grotesque twisted structures that had almost covered the whole city were cracking open piece by piece. Even greater tongues of fire burst from the cracks. In the midst of that vast spirit form blaze, countless black substances were slowly being burned away.

Near the Harbor defense zone, an exhausted city Guard Corps hid behind a crumbling barricade and watched as the twisted buildings in the distance split apart. Hundreds and thousands of deformed, writhing things fled from the cracks, but flames chased after them and burned them into black ash.

At the foot of the central mountain, the Guardian troops were locked in a life-and-death struggle with invading replica freaks. Suddenly, a phantom army charged out of the chaotic light and shadow. This force wore Guard Corps uniforms from half a century ago, the uniforms of the Queen’s Guard. They rushed into the streets, shouting the Queen of Frostholm’s name, and fought to the death against the twisted monsters pouring into the Mortal Realm.

At the last line of defense in front of the Silent Cathedral, the High Deacon was organizing the priests to fight the monsters flooding into the square. The tongues of fire spewing from the Steam Walkers and the pale flame released by the Silent monks wove together into a net that barely held back the monsters and the invading sludge.

“Hold them back!” the High Deacon shouted hoarsely. At the edge of his vision, fine pale ash was drifting down from above the Silent Cathedral like falling first snow. “Block the Cathedral doors! Block—”

A thunderous boom and a tremor that felt like it shook the mountains suddenly hit. The High Deacon almost fell in the earth-shattering impact. A thorn of congealed sludge, full of malice, shot at him through a gap in the line.

But just as it was about to pierce him, a streak of ghostly green flame appeared in midair and turned the wicked attack into ash.

The High Deacon looked up in shock and saw a figure floating in front of him.

She wore tattered black robes like those of an ascetic. Her body was covered in cracks large and small, and flames surged through her like boiling, eternal blood.

“Agatha… Gatekeeper?”

The High Deacon stared at the figure before him, feeling that she was both familiar and strange. He said her name, then saw more unfamiliar figures appear beside the Gatekeeper. Each of them was wrapped in ghostly green spirit form flames.

“I’m back,” Agatha said, turning her head. Two points of fire flickered in her empty eye sockets, and her voice crackled with sparks. “Take the rest of your people and fall back, or find a safe place and stand firm.”

“Stand firm?” the High Deacon repeated in confusion, not understanding what she meant for a moment. “And… why have you become like this…”

Agatha did not answer him. As the deep rumbling grew denser and louder, she turned the other way and looked toward the sea outside the city.

Thick smoke rose over the sea. The clouds hung low and black. The ocean was dark as a mirror, and a vast, nameless presence was… rising from that mirror.

Two huge green lights, almost like suns, slowly rose through the smoke and clouds. An outline beyond human imagination took shape in that smoke and cloud, as if the sea and the sky themselves were bulging and gathering into a form. The sight made even Agatha, who had already stopped breathing long ago, feel suffocated again.

It was a suffocation of the soul.

“God of Death…” The High Deacon could hardly endure the crushing pressure. His body, which he had just managed to get upright, shook and collapsed again. “That is… what is that?!”

Agatha only tilted her head slightly, her tone helpless. “I did remind you to find a safe place and stand firm.”

The High Deacon could no longer hear what the Gatekeeper was saying to him. As the outline in the clouds rapidly solidified, he finally understood what it was.

It was a figure rising from the endless sea, a being using the whole Frostholm sea region as a medium to project itself into the Mortal Realm.

The two green fires blazing in the clouds like suns were actually its eyes. The curling, surging clouds were its breath. The huge shadow slowly lifting inside the smoke… was its arm.

Now that hand was reaching toward Frostholm.

“My Lord!”

Someone cried out in the square.

But the hand, though it looked slow, moved faster than any shout or prayer. It had already passed over the sea, over the waters where the Sea Mist Fleet, Frostholm navy, and replica fleet were fighting, and over the city’s coast. It reached into Frostholm’s depths as if reaching into smoke.

In the next second, the arm began to rise slowly, as if lifting a mass of hundreds of millions of tons, inch by inch.

And rising with that arm was a mirror world city that was being peeled away from Mortal Realm Frostholm.

All the twisted buildings, the curled and swollen land, the thorns covering the mountains, and all those blasphemous things that half-mimicked the Mortal Realm yet overwrote it with horror were torn bit by bit out of the Frostholm city-state by that hand.

mirror world Frostholm had risen up into the Mortal Realm. Now it floated far higher than its Creators had ever planned, and it was still rising.

Agatha laughed, more happily than ever before.

With mirror world Frostholm torn free from the city and still rising, the scene looked like an evil spirit being driven out of a body that a malevolent spirit had invaded. That “evil spirit” was slowly lifted up toward the clouds by a gigantic arm.

Deep in the thick clouds, the two green fireballs burning like suns swayed slightly. A vague but stern and awe-inspiring face seemed to be looking down.

Many tiny sounds came from the palm.

Some were real noises, but most sounded like vibrations echoing on the level of thought—the howls echoing in a pile of twisted wreckage, and the stubborn, fanatical fantasies and delusions that clung to the mirror world city.

Duncan looked through the clouds at his own palm. The mirror world city there was like a swollen, misshapen lump of flesh. The streets that had clumsily imitated the Mortal Realm were quickly reverting into their original state as filthy mud. Between the bloated, twisted streets, hills, and buildings, tiny thorns kept pulsing in and out. Faint sparks, almost too small to see, flickered in the center of the mass. The tangled obsessions of hundreds and thousands of mad believers buzzed there, making a noise like a swarm of flies.

Mixed into them were fear, fury, unwillingness, and pure malice.

Were those fanatics still trying to preach their Doomsday theories? Or were they just trying to find a reasonable explanation for the disaster they had brought on themselves?

Duncan listened for a while, then lowered his gaze.

“You fools don’t know the first thing about a large-scale sacrificial rite.”

His gaze focused on the lump of mirror world city, and the whole city began to burn in his sight, in the palm of his hand.

Innumerable ash and green flowing fire fell from the sky like a storm pouring down from the clouds.

The hand, as huge as a city, slowly closed into a fist. mirror world Frostholm, already burned to ash in its palm, turned into powder with a terrifying grinding sound. Countless remaining pieces were flung out over the Frostholm sea region. They fell into the ocean, onto the coast, onto every place Tyrian could see.

But almost all the fallen relics avoided Frostholm’s main island and the sea where the Sea Mist Fleet and Frostholm navy were still active.

Tyrian looked around.

All the replica ships were collapsing quickly.

It was finally over.

He let out a slow breath.

First Mate Aiden stood beside him. The bald giant of a man looked up at the sky, but he could only see a small part of that huge figure’s outline.

Aiden’s body was still trembling.

“Any thoughts?” Tyrian turned his head and looked at his first mate with a half-smile.

Aiden fumbled a pipe out of his coat, but his hands shook so much he could not light it. After a long moment he put the pipe down again, his voice trembling a little. “The old captain… he won’t mind that we fought him before, right?”

Tyrian only smiled and took a rolled cigarette from his own coat.

“Father won’t care about such small things.”

But the Frost Sea Pirate Lord’s hands shook for a long time too, and he never managed to light his cigarette.