Chapter 251: Beneath the Surface

Chapter 251: Beneath the Surface
Tirion was a few seconds late in noticing that Duncan had mentioned a “meeting” with the Frost Queen, and he was shocked to say the least.

Duncan was not surprised by this reaction, he just shook his head gently: “My ‘meeting’ with her is very special, it is not in the normal timeline, you can understand it as I once intervened in the cracks of history, and saw Rae Nora as a bystander – and in the normal history, it is not. -And in normal history, I have not had contact with that Frost Queen.”

Tirion frowned as if trying to comprehend what these difficult words meant, then his eyes twinkled slightly as he gathered all his emotions together and looked up at Duncan, “Why are you interested in the matter of the Frost Queen? Is it because of that ‘side of the story’? Or is it because of …… the doll who calls herself ‘Alice’? Has she told you anything?”

“Alice doesn’t know anything about the Frost Queen, her memories are as pure as white paper,” Duncan said lightly, “I’m interested in the Frost Queen because the world says that the Frost Rebellion of that year was due to Rae Nora’s collusion with the Lost Country’s foiled plot- -Don’t you think it’s only natural that I should take an interest after learning of this rumor?”

“…… colluding with the Lost Country,” Tirian’s voice was low and his eyelids were lowered so that one couldn’t tell what emotions he was feeling at the moment, “Yes, that’s how they set up the charges against Her Majesty Rae Nora. ”

“Judging by your reaction, it is indeed a crime of framing,” Duncan’s voice came from the mirror, “So the Frost Rebellion of that year was just a complete and utter conspiracy, and the charge that Rae Nora was placed on was completely unfounded?”

While saying this, he watched Tirian’s reaction.

But instead of answering him at first, Tirian frowned slightly and asked a rhetorical question, “Does this truth mean anything to you?”

“It does,” Duncan said with a serious look on his face, “After all, from a certain point of view, I am half a party to this.”

Tirion was visibly stunned for a moment, seemingly unable to refute his father’s answer, before he sighed with a helpless smile and shook his head, “There was indeed a conspiracy in that rebellion, but if I must say so, the name used by the rebels wasn’t entirely fictitious ……”

“Oh?”

“The Frost Queen has never colluded with any Lost Country Horns, but she did …… have done some research in forbidden areas, and once these research programs were made public, even if there was no rebellion, it should be very difficult for her to remain in her position as the ruler of the city-state.”

Duncan’s eyes deepened, and only after a few seconds of silence did he suddenly open his mouth, “It’s called the ‘Subterranean Project’, isn’t it?”

Tirion’s head snapped up in shock.

“I know more than you realize.” Duncan said lightly.

“But all the information related to the Subterranean Abyss program has been destroyed, and even the traitors who exposed the program back then have been liquidated and executed by the rebel forces internally ……,” Tirian said incredulously, “Everyone is convinced that the The name of the program itself has been tainted by a curse, and the last people who knew about it are long gone ……”

“Oh? All the information has been destroyed?” This time it was Duncan who felt a little surprised, he had thought it might be more classified, but had not expected it to be covered up to such an extreme, “Even all the people who knew about it are dead?”

Tirion hesitated a bit, he knew the situation back then better than anyone else, and naturally he was aware of the reason why this plan was buried, but after a moment of silence, he still spoke slowly:

“This forbidden plan was tainted with too many things related to curses, subspace, and spiritual pollution, so much so that even the rebels back then didn’t dare to casually talk about the information they found.

“But in fact, the name of this plan was once, and only once, made public – it was at the final execution ground, when the rebels uttered those words in order to proclaim the Frost Queen’s guilt, and it was on that day that the unprecedented and horrifying collapse of the Frost City-State’s Lookout Cliffs took place, and the entire The entire sea cliff, along with a quarter of the city, fell into the infinite sea, and all those who heard the words ‘Subterranean Plan’ were all turned into dead souls in the deep sea. “Back in those years, the rebels had originally prepared a series of follow-up propaganda efforts against the ‘Subterranean Abyssal Plan’, intending to make this matter widely public without revealing those forbidden elements, in order to completely erase the Frost Queen’s influence in the northern seas and emphasize the righteousness of this rebellion, but after the sea cliff’s great Collapse, these propaganda plans were immediately scrapped – just as I said earlier, they were convinced that the names of the ‘Subterranean Plan’ had all been tainted by the curse, and simply destroyed all materials related to this plan, including its name, completely.

“That’s why I’m particularly curious …… through what channels did you learn about the ‘Subterranean Abyss Program’ again?”

Tirion finally stopped avoiding, but looked directly into Duncan’s eyes, after hearing that half-century-old plan from the other party, the ups and downs of his mind were hard to be calmed, and for a moment, he even began to suspect that there was some kind of collusion between the Frost Queen of that year and the Lost Country.

“As I said, I have ‘observed’ some things in the cracks of history,” Duncan spoke frankly, and asked again, “So, what exactly is the Subterranean Abyss program? Why is this program so secretive and forbidden that even you …… seem to have a bit of fear lingering when you mention it?”

Tirian’s face was solemn and silent for a long time before he finally spoke in a low, slow voice, “Simply put, it is an exploration plan – but unlike those explorers who explore new routes at the borders of civilization, the Subterranean Plan, explores the deep sea.”

“Explore the deep sea?” Duncan frowned, “You mean the Spirit World, the Profound, and Subspace? But if it’s just research in those areas, it shouldn’t even come close to the word ‘forbidden’, although it’s certainly dangerous, but occult research in this area has always been conducted legally in various city-states, and the Academy of Truth even has a specialized subject matter group …… “

“I’m not referring to the occult concept of the ‘deep sea’,” Tirian shook his head gently, “I’m talking about the deep sea in the true sense of the word, the deep sea in the natural realm of- -a ‘deep sea’ that is right in front of all of our eyes, but which all of us pretend not to see, not to touch, and not to dare to touch.”

Tirion said, and suddenly asked a question, “Father, have you ever thought about this, what it looks like underneath our city-states, underneath these islands in the sea …… that hold entire civilizations today?”

Duncan did not speak.

But beneath the calm exterior, a sudden ripple had risen in his mind.

He really hadn’t considered this issue, or …… he hadn’t even realized that this was an issue that needed to be considered before!
In this world, people have been accustomed to using terms such as “spiritual world”, “profound sea” and “subspace” to refer to the “depth” of the world. This structural model does explain to a certain extent the way the world works today, but in reality it is only an interpretation based on “occult concepts”, and strictly speaking it describes the “dimensional” structure of the world, rather than the reality of the world. Strictly speaking, it only describes the “dimensional structure” of the world, not the “physical structure” of the real world!
What Tirion was talking about at the moment was obviously not the dimensional model based on occult concepts, he was referring to the physical concept of the body of water from the sea surface downwards.

Corresponding to the classic model of “Reality – Spiritual World – Profound – Subspace”, the “deep sea” that Tirion was talking about was in fact in the first layer of the model: the reality dimension, however, it was the “deep sea” that was only located in the first layer that seemed to be a part of the human race. However, this “deep sea”, which is only located in the first layer, seems to be a complete blank in human cognition.

Duncan had never considered this problem because he had a set of “common sense”, and he took it for granted that underneath the city-state there must be a geological structure rising up from the sea, such as a mountain range in the sea, or a rising crater, and further down, of course, there should be the seabed or something like that, but at this time he carefully recalled all kinds of knowledge that he had encountered since he had come to this world. world after coming into contact with all kinds of knowledge, but found that …… human beings have never studied the underwater world that is more than two hundred meters deep!

“Apparently, you haven’t considered this issue either,” Tirian’s voice suddenly came, interrupting Duncan’s thoughts, “And before I met the Queen of Frost, I had never considered this issue either – the Infinite Sea covers the entire world, our city-states are isolated islands floating on the surface of the sea, the shelter of the gods lays a strong foundation for the real world, and the illumination of Vision 001 brings us safe and stable daylight, as for what lies beneath the surface of the water …… why should we be concerned? The Spirit World, the Profound, and Subspace …… these ‘dimensions’ on the ‘deep sea area’ are already enough to give us a headache.”

Tirian said, shaking his head gently.

“But Her Majesty Rae Nora tells me that this issue is important, as important as the secrets of the ‘Spirit World’, the ‘Profound’, and the ‘Subspace’, and that it is right beneath beneath our feet, just below the city-states and the sea, just in our real world, there is such a vast expanse of the unknown, and she, being a spirit of discovery, could not accept that such a large area of her dominion was shrouded in the unknown.”

(End of chapter)