Deep Sea Embers.

Chapter 412 Tracking
The room fell into silence for a while.

The silence lasted for more than ten seconds before Agatha heard Bishop Ivan's deep and hoarse voice coming from under the bandage: "Ahh—"

"...Your reaction is a bit unexpected."

"Because your information is so unexpected," Bishop Ivan seemed to have finally recovered, he adjusted his sitting posture, and his tone became extraordinarily serious, "You said that the boiling gold mines in the Frost City State have been exhausted decades ago ? Is this the truth you found down there?"

"Yes, there is a gate at the deepest part of the second waterway, which may have been blocked by the first-generation city hall. Behind the gate is a mine that has long been exhausted—judging from its location, it should be in the enrichment area at the bottom of the mine, which is also a theory. The area that will be mined last..."

Agatha did not hide anything, and told all of her discoveries underground. In the process, Bishop Ivan's eyes became more and more dignified.

After a while, Agatha finished talking about her discovery below, but added with a little hesitation: "...that's just a mine, and there are countless mines in the mine, even if it's in the enriched area. At the deepest point, it cannot be judged that the entire mine has been exhausted, so a large part of my conclusion is based on conjecture... I know, this conjecture is too crazy."

"...Yeah, it's too crazy to conjecture," Bishop Ivan said slowly, "after all, if according to what you said, the boiling gold mine has already been exhausted—then what we have been transporting out of the mine in the past half century What is it? What is the boiling gold catalyst that the Frost City State has transported to other cities for so many years?"

Agatha didn't speak. She knew that the question Bishop Ivan asked was unavoidable and impossible to answer.

Frost City-State has always produced the highest-quality boiling gold raw ore and finished catalyst rods. In the past 50 years, the production of boiling gold in Frost City alone is almost equivalent to the sum of the rest of the city-states in the entire Cold Sea—the boiling gold in the mines is endless. Incessantly, the excavation machines are pumping out wealth day and night, the catalysts produced by the smelting factories are transported to the whole world, and the ships using those catalysts are spread all over the boundless sea.

In the entire half century, there has not been a single case of boiling gold orders that have gone wrong.

If the mines had really dried up decades ago, let alone the problem of the Frost Mine—there are so many ships on the boundless sea, what is burning in their steam cores?Phantom?
After a long time, the gatekeeper could only sigh softly: "... If that is also a polluting creation, then our world is really absurd to a terrifying degree."

"Our world has always been absurd, but maybe...you really found the key clue this time," Bishop Ivan shook his head, "Let's not care about whether that conjecture is crazy or not. From a rational point of view, decades ago The contradiction between the exhausted ore veins and the mines that are still producing steadily today is likely to be related to the abnormal situation in the current city-state."

"...But according to the clues we have obtained before, the current anomaly should be caused by those Annihilation Cultists," Agatha reminded, "What do they have to do with the mine?"

"They don't necessarily have anything to do with the mine—they might just take advantage of and detonate this crisis," Bishop Ivan thought quickly, the experience accumulated in decades of life, especially the experience of dealing with cultists, is helping him at this moment Perfect this puzzle, "It is impossible for those heresies to be laid out in the city-state for decades without being discovered, not to mention that the depletion of the mineral veins may be traced back to the Queen's era. In that era, the frost hit the heresies more vigorously than today, and there is no cultist. Can escape the eyes of the Frost Queen..."

Speaking of this, the old bishop paused for a moment, and then asked suddenly: "You just said that the Winston Consul knows nothing about the door deep in the second waterway?"

Agatha nodded: "That's what he said."

"...I don't really believe what he said." Bishop Ivan shook his head hesitantly, "The situation in the first city hall was indeed a bit chaotic, but the handover between the first few consuls and the administrative team should not have happened Such a big mistake, especially such a critical and sensitive secret..."

"You mean, Consul Winston has hidden something from me?" Agatha frowned. "Why did he do that?"

"I don't know, maybe it's to maintain the authority of the city hall, maybe there's something bigger behind this secret, or maybe it's because he's already been controlled by something, I can't say for sure," Bishop Ivan said, his gaze It suddenly fell on Agatha, "I'm even more surprised that you didn't have any doubts in this regard—you wouldn't have such negligence in the past."

Agatha froze.

In this moment of daze, she recalled the scene she experienced when she returned from the second waterway—the reflection in the pool, and the "other self" in the reflection going in the opposite direction.

"Agatha, what's wrong with you?" Bishop Ivan's voice woke her up from distraction.

Agatha blinked and shook her head slightly.

"Are you sure there's no problem?" Bishop Ivan obviously had doubts in his tone, "You have lost your mind more than once in the past two days, and..."

"I'm fine, I've been fine," Agatha interrupted the old bishop's words. For some reason, after a short trance, her tone became lighter at the moment. She exhaled softly, got up from the chair, "I just suddenly figured out something - I should go."

Bishop Ivan stood up: "...Are you going to the mine?"

"The navy is blocking the enemy, and the sheriff and the guards are controlling the situation. They bought time, and I still have a chance to figure out the source behind all of this. It's time to go."

Agatha paused here, and said again as if to emphasize: "Time is limited, I can't rest here for too long."

"Okay, let's go," Bishop Ivan nodded lightly, "I hope you can find out the truth and return safely."

"I'll find out the truth."

……

In the dense fog, distant gunfire sounded from time to time, occasionally mixed with warning broadcasts from the Sheriff's Force or Guardian Force, as well as the sound of sirens automatically sounded by certain facilities.

The city-state has been blurred in the fog, and the fog is filled with invisible horrors.

"I'd be more than happy to take on hundreds of heavily armed cultists, or make a few more rounds in a burning city."

Fan Na dismissed the giant sword condensed by the ice casually, frowned and said while looking at the ground in front of her.

In the limited field of vision, the ground as far as the eye can see is covered with criss-crossing horrible cracks, and a large amount of dirty black mud is slowly flowing, wriggling, and quickly solidified between those cracks, and some of the mud is barely retained The outline of the human figure, but showing a chilling twist on the key limbs.

"It's disgusting." Fan Na muttered again.

"Seriously, would you really like to fight another fight in a burning city?"

Morris' voice came from the side. The old scholar held his cane, glanced at the fragmented "battlefield" in front of him, and casually said to Fan Na.

"...Well, I don't want to," Fanna shrugged. "Whether it's a fake city-state filled with thick fog, or a burning city where the black sun descends, it's not much better."

While speaking, thick fog flowed, and a tall figure suddenly emerged from the mist behind Fanna. The head of this figure was swollen and deformed, and the huge one-eyed trembled violently in the fog. In the next second, this monster rushed towards Fanna.

Fan Na didn't turn her head, she just stomped on the ground—the invisible shock wave spread instantly, and the deformed and distorted thing only took a step forward before being directly shattered by the lower half of its body, and quickly turned into mud after falling to the ground.

Under her conscious control, Morris, who was close at hand, was not affected by the shock wave in the slightest—the old scholar just straightened his monocle and calmly looked around the foggy streets around him.

The next second, he suddenly looked at a certain position, and a silver light appeared in his eyes:
"The McCaffeney Conjecture and Proof."

In the next second, continuous low-pitched explosions, like a watermelon being stepped on, came from the fog, and a few figures could be vaguely seen emerging from the fog, their heads exploding like fireworks.

"The good news is that these inferior fakes imitate a certain degree of thinking ability, and the controllers behind them need to be more intelligent." Morris retracted his gaze, and the silver light in his eyes gradually weakened. "I was worried at first that they all are empty husks of Chaos, and the power of knowledge would not work so well against them."

Fan Na looked at those monsters with exploding heads gradually turning into mud in the distance with a strange expression, and looked back at Morris: "When you taught me back then, you never said that 'the power of knowledge' is so easy to use."

"That's when I judged that you are not suitable for this path." Morris said casually.

Fanna: "..."

Miss Judge felt that she was being ridiculed for a moment, but after recalling her exam results that year, she decided to maintain a humble attitude.

"Are there any around?"

She maintained her vigilance and asked in a low voice.

"Not for now." Morris shook his head.

He is always aware of the surrounding situation - when those monsters appear from the fog, their chaotic thinking will first appear in his perception, the fog can block people's sight, but the brilliance of thinking is like a night light in his eyes striking.

Few people can actively control their thinking, so in the field of "detection of intelligent creatures", no one can compare with the saints of the God of Wisdom.

"It's fine if there aren't any for the time being, although there will be new ones coming out soon," Fan Na exhaled, moving her hands and feet a little, "Do you think...there are a lot of counterfeit freaks in this direction, and they are aggressive. Obviously better than other places?"

"You feel it too?" Morris raised his eyebrows, "It seems that my judgment is correct."

"You mean..."

"The 'fakes' that emerge from the fog are not all acting blindly, some of them are controlled by someone behind them."

(End of this chapter)