Chapter 352 – The Locked City
Chapter 352 Locked City
For the protectors of Frost, this night was destined to be a difficult night to sleep.
The dark clouds over Dagger Island were still gathering overhead, and the wreckage of the “Sea Petrel” that had returned in a strange manner was still lingering on the surface of the sea outside the harbor, and at this very moment, the Sea Mist Fleet, which had been haunted by countless terrifying legends, had arrived near the city.
The cursed fleet of undead had already finished assembling and remained silent at the edge of the sea, no one knew what they came for or what they wanted to do next.
After resting for less than an hour at midnight, Lister, the chief commander of the harbor’s defense, reappeared in his command office, where he met several other commanders with similarly worried brows, as well as a confidential secretary who had just arrived from the city hall.
Dressed in a blue slim-fit jacket and wearing gold-rimmed glasses, the secretary, who looked to be in his early thirties, immediately stood up from his chair as soon as he saw Liszt, with a fine sweat on his forehead, “Mr. Colonel, the consul wishes to know the latest and most accurate information – is there any chance of the Sea Mist Fleet launching an attack or not? possible?”
“If that’s the only answer the consul wants, it’s yes, every day for the past half a century,” Lister took out the refreshing essential oil and relied on the oil’s strong medicinal effect to lift his spirits, while glancing at the machine secretary, “The Sea Mist Fleet doesn’t exist only today –It has always been there, and there has never been any peace agreement between Frost and that ‘Steel Lieutenant General’.”
The Commander-in-Chief was clearly not in the best of moods, and the machine secretary, realizing that her question wasn’t making sense, immediately switched gears, “How prepared are we?”
“All shore guns are in combat configuration, the fleet led by Admiral Guyton is constructing an interdiction belt on the northern and northwestern flanks of the Sea Mist fleet, they are well fueled and have all the ammunition they need – despite the fact that we’ve just lost a primus inter pares Rear Admiral due to the Sea Petrel incident, the Frost Navy still guards the City-State by Ready for anything,” Lister said with a solemn expression, “For more detailed information, my superiors should have already reported to City Hall.”
While speaking, he let his gaze pass over the machine secretary in front of him and landed on several of his subordinates not far away, “What’s the current situation over at the Sea Mist Fleet? Any unusual movements?”
One of the commanders immediately stood up, “Yes sir, there is something out of place, you should come and take a look at this.”
Upon hearing this, Lister’s brows furrowed slightly as he quickly walked towards the long table in the center of the room and came to a piece of intelligence that had just been delivered here.
“What is this?”
Looking at the document drawn with marking symbols in front of him, this harbor commander was somewhat stunned.
“It’s a light signal,” said the subordinate commander who had spoken before, “a light signal from the Sea Mist.”
Lister’s expression was a bit stagnant, the effect of the refreshing oil seemed to be suddenly a bit ineffective, he looked at those dazzling pause markings and the notes next to them were messy, he actually felt a bit dizzy, and muttered after a long time, “What the hell …… Sea Mist fleet seems to be using a new kind of light signals? The light signal? Or is it using some kind of classical code to transmit information?”
He snapped his head up and looked at his subordinates, “Where are the military advisors?”
“They’re in the next room working on these things, along with several signalists and cryptographers who have just been called in, plus a couple of specialists in classical naval history and research into the phenomenon of the undead are on their way.”
Lister pursed his lips and stared dead at the jumble of symbolic markings for a few more seconds before raising his head and looking at the Mr. Machine Secretary who was looking worried.
“No one is going to sleep tonight.”
“I think so, Mr. Colonel.”
……
Duncan slept well last night.
While most of the time his being didn’t need much sleep, proper rest still helped him maintain his full energy and lessened the burden that came with controlling multiple bodies at once – although for him, that burden didn’t really matter much.
But he likes to maintain this normal human-like routine.
Outside the window, the snow had stopped, at least temporarily, and a clear sky for an unknown length of time was blanketing the city, with Vision 001 gradually climbing from the city’s edges towards the high points of the sky, and the faint golden glow of the double rune appearing to shine brightly at the edge of the brilliant sunwheel.
The small missing section of the rune ring was still there and visible to the naked eye.
Duncan stood in front of the window and stared at the small missing piece of the sunwheel’s rune ring for a few seconds, then withdrew his gaze and moved his shoulders.
He made his way to the first floor.
Alice had already made breakfast, a simple toasted slice of bread, omelette and vegetable roll that wasn’t exactly hearty but showed that Miss Doll’s handiwork was indeed getting better, and Vanna and Maurice were sitting at the table, eating, when they stood up after seeing Duncan appear. “You guys eat your food, no need to concern yourselves with me.” Duncan waved his hand at them.
Breakfast was good, but unfortunately he was not blessed with it in his current body.
Although both of them are “temporary shells”, the situation of his current body and the body in Prand’s antique store are actually very different, although Prand’s body was also taken over after death, but due to the slight damage and timely takeover, the current state is actually no different from a living person, whereas his body in the Frost …… however, has lost most of its inner functions.
This is more like a corpse driven by mysterious power, from the nature, even closer to the “corpse” than those undead under Tirion.
Duncan himself can not say what the principle is, but the world is too many strange and weird things, he has long looked away.
Evil is evil, anyway, in this world itself is the biggest evil.
“There’s a copy of the latest newspaper by the couch,” Morris at the dining table spoke up, “you can take a look, there’s news you’re interested in.”
“Oh?” Duncan stepped over to the couch and saw the morning paper that had just been delivered that morning – the paper still smelled slightly of ink, and a few sheets were neatly stacked, he picked up those and casually flipped through them as he took a seat on the couch, and quickly found the news item that Maurice had mentioned.
Alice came clattering over, poking her head out from behind the sofa and looking curiously at the newspaper in Duncan’s hand: “what does the headline say?”
“Ka-da.”
A round head then fell onto Duncan’s newspaper and rolled down it onto his arm.
The head rolled over and Alice was on her back facing Duncan, her eyes blinking innocently, “Save …… save …… save …… save …… “
“Will you get a clue?” Duncan sighed, almost resignedly picking Alice’s head up, straightening the blonde wig she wore on the outside, secured with a rope hoop, and the silver hair inside, and lifting his hand to press the pretty head back down onto the gothic doll’s neck, “Besides, Dog can read a newspaper, and you can’t even read a headline?”
Alice muttered in embarrassment as she fumbled to right her head, “Actually, there were only four or five words I couldn’t read ……”
Duncan instantly glared at her, “The headline is a total of eight words!”
Illiterate Mannequin: “…… Heh heh heh.”
“It’s a warning notice from City Hall,” Duncan sighed, feeling that comparing himself to this Bean was actually physically and mentally exhausting, so he reached out and pointed to the words on the paper, reading them one by one to Alice, “To the public, reduce going out- -The following is to tell the residents of Frost to stay away from the coastal area for the near future, to reduce congregation on the public roads, to be ready to cooperate with inspections by sheriffs or guardsmen, and to raise the curfew level so that no one can now leave their homes at night, except for churchmen and those with special industry nighttime permits.”
Alice moved around from the side of the couch to sit beside Duncan and curiously moved over to look at the text on the paper while following Duncan’s fingers as she turned her head and waited until she had read it once before looking up curiously, “What does it mean?”
“It means that Tirian’s pressure is in place,” Duncan said lightly, “If nothing else, Frost’s external transportation will be blocked, so we won’t have to worry about contamination spilling out of the city-state, and the Annihilists hiding inside will no longer be able to communicate with the outside world, and on the other hand, the ‘whistle-blower’ letter that I sent over will be sent to the city. On the other hand, the ‘whistle-blowing’ letter I sent over seems to have irritated the church, a higher curfew and strict ban on passage means more stringent heresy detection – more Annihilists will reveal themselves.”
“And then …… things worked out?” Alice’s eyes widened in surprise, “The bad guys will all be arrested?”
“How can it be that simple,” Duncan shrugged, “catching a few Annihilationists is just the beginning, but as more and more Annihilationists fall into the net, the method they use to construct a connection with the deep sea could be exposed, and that’s when the problem is really dug out. ”
While saying that, he folded the newspaper and put it aside.
The rest of the content on it he skimmed over, and there was nothing worth paying attention to anymore.
“So …… what are we doing next?” Alice asked from the side.
“Since the Frost Authorities are busy, we’re going out for a walk,” Duncan stood up and looked in the direction of the dining room, “After dinner out – we’ll talk to one of Tirion’s ‘informants’ under the man’ to say hello.”
(end of chapter)