Chapter 363: “Sunken Island”
Chapter 363 “Sinking Island”
Agatha stepped forward and spoke in a serious tone, “Where did that ‘ship that failed to arrive’ come from?”
“The port of origin, Prand, it resupplied once in the middle in Lunsar, then Cold Harbor,” the soldier who came to report the situation immediately said, “Frost was its last stop – until the time it resupplied in Cold Harbor, that ship’s condition was all right.”
“Dammit ……,” Colonel Lister pressed hard on his forehead in an obviously very bad mood, “we’re all in a heap of trouble ourselves right now… …and a ship disappeared just as it was about to arrive in Frost …… Where’s the energy to worry about what’s going on outside the city-state right now ……”
Agatha gazed at the defense commander in front of her, her tone extraordinarily grave, “But like you said, Mr. Colonel, it went missing just as it was about to arrive in Frost – so it can’t be ruled out that it was also affected by some kind of transcendental vision.”
Lister looked up, “What you mean is ……”
“Frost is in a state of being infested by some kind of transcendent power, there have been a lot of unusual cases within the city-state, the Haiyan incident proved that this ‘anomaly’ is not limited to our island, and now that a White Oak ship has gone missing on the edge of the sea offshore, I have reason to suspect that a scale of ‘vision’ that is far greater than what we can imagine ‘anomaly’ is covering the entire Frost Region – not only on the land beneath our feet, but also a large portion of the surrounding seas.”
Lister braced his hands on the table and suddenly looked up after a few seconds, “The blockade will have to be expanded and warnings will be issued to all neighboring city-states – the Frost’s pollution is spilling over, and a physical blockade will likely be ineffective.”
At this he stopped abruptly and clenched his teeth, seemingly very hesitant, a sight Agatha of course noticed, “What other concerns do you have, Mr. Colonel?”
“…… We’re afraid we’re going to have to talk to that big pirate,” Lister said with a grimace, “although personally I’d very, very much prefer not to do so.”
“You mean …… Tirion Ebnomar?” Agatha’s tone changed slightly – despite being the “gatekeeper” of the city-state, she was still a native Frostbite, and had grown up listening to scary stories about the Sea Mist Fleet, “If we don’t get some sleep, Captain Tirian will take advantage of the rising tide… Captain Ryan will take advantage of the fog to capture you” is the most impressive childhood memories of every Frost person under the age of fifty, Agatha is no exception, “Do you think he will accept our negotiations?”
“Not necessarily a negotiation, but at least a conversation is needed,” Lister raised his eyelids and gazed at the gatekeeper in front of him, “He came here at a most sensitive point in time, but then again, he has not made any further moves until now, and for a while I suspected that he was involved with those who appeared in and out of the city as ‘fakes’, but now it seems more like he’s simply cordoning off the area – like we’re doing. We’ll have to send someone to talk to him, or at least figure out what he’s up to.”
“…… Legend has it that he’s a cold and mad accursed man, whose breath is as icy as the winds on a cold sea, and whose gaze can freeze the sea,” Agatha said softly, “Who could act as the ‘messenger’?”
“Those legends are exaggerated, people with a little knowledge can actually find out that the Sea Mist Fleet has a relatively normal communication channel with many forces on the Cold Sea, and the so-called ‘Sea Mist Venture Capital Company’ has even set up an ‘office’ in Cold Harbor. ‘ – that great pirate is merely being extra cold to Frost,” Lister sighed softly, “the messenger problem will be solved, there is never a shortage of brave men amongst the city-state’s soldiers and ……”
He stopped abruptly and raised his head thoughtfully, looking out the window in a certain direction.
“Lady Agatha, did you hear any strange noises just now?”
“Strange sounds?” Agatha frowned and similarly raised her head to look out the window, while at almost the same time, she also heard some kind of distant and low strange sound.
It sounded like a persistent humming, yet it wasn’t any kind of sound she knew of that would occur in nature.
It was the direction of Dagger Island.
In the offshore area of Frost, a steel warship with a white hull, three main guns, and flying the Queen’s flag was cruising slowly, and a short, stout captain was standing at the bow, watching the situation in the distance through binoculars – he was wearing the uniform of the Queen’s Guard from a half-century ago, and there was a lurid, gaping hole in his stomach that looked straight across, and he was wearing the uniform of the Queen’s Guard. Pieces of clothing from the breach floated slowly in the air as if soaked in seawater, and occasionally a series of bubbles appeared out of thin air.
He was a member of the Sea Mist fleet, the captain of the mighty warship “Sea Raven”, Nixon.
He looked out at the small island with a curvy coast in the distance.
On the surface of the sea in that direction, he could still see some small black shadows.
Those were the naval ships of the Frost City State – they were on a blockade mission against Dagger Island in the other direction, and at the same time, were cautiously observing every move of the Sea Raven and the other sea mist ships nearby.
“Those ships are kinda annoying,” a sailor said as he slipped over the side, beside the shorter, sturdier Captain Nixon, “Can we fire a couple salvos at them to say hello?” “No, unless you want to be shoved into a mechanical cabin and stirred for twenty-four hours by Admiral Tirion,” said Nixon without looking back, “We’re not here to fight the Frostbite – in the Admiral’s words, we’re on the same side as them for now. on the same side for now.”
“Well,” the sailor shrugged his shoulders, “they’re blockading the other side of Dagger Island and we’re blockading this side, so it’s not a bad ‘cooperation’, but if those fellows get dizzy and really come close, we won’t be blamed for the The artillery went off, right?”
“If it goes off, you’ll be the first to be fired over,” Nickerson looked back at his subordinate, then his gaze turned back to the island in the distance, “Dagger Island …… tsk, I remember standing guard on that back in the day yet.”
“Back then it had boiling gold to mine, and there was even a town on the island,” the sailor sighed, “Alas, the good old days are gone.”
Nixon frowned, as if to say something, but suddenly, as if he had heard a voice, his expression grew serious.
A peculiar humming …… sound reached his ears.
“What is that movement?” The sailor next to him also reacted immediately with a nervous expression on his face, “Is it made by those Frost People?”
“I don’t know, but those ships of the Frost didn’t act suspiciously …… “Nickerson immediately raised his binoculars, “They don’t seem to know either ……Wait a minute! Dagger Island is shaking!”
He suddenly took the binoculars away and looked at the distant sea in dismay.
A hazy fog was rising from the direction of Dagger Island, a low humming sound came from there, stirring his mind as if it was trying to penetrate into the human mind, and he saw that the island seemed to be alive, with a hazy tentacle spreading out from its edges, which was rising and writhing in the fog, stirring up the sea and fog around it over and over again, while the island itself was descending a little bit, and countless huge shadows on its surface like giants rising up appeared in the fog.
Nixon was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly picked up the binoculars again, wanting to take a closer look at the island.
However, just as he was about to do so, a loud thunderous sound suddenly came from the sea of rising mist, followed by countless explosions – smoke rose up on the island, blending with the surrounding sea mist, and the flashes of light and the flames that rose up to the sky could be seen clearly even without binoculars!
Dagger Island had been detonated – all the facilities on the island were exploding, and all the “ultimate means of security” pointed to the same answer: Process 22, nitroglycerine explosives.
Nixon stared in disbelief for a few moments before realizing what had happened, but then, once again, what he saw was beyond his imagination.
Dagger Island was sinking, like a battleship that had been blown through its hull in a series of explosions.
“The island is sinking?” The ministry’s shocked voice came from the side, the sailor who had served on the ship for most of a century had never seen such a spectacle, “The Frost People …… have sunk Dagger Island! They can sink an island?!”
“Nonsense! There are no such explosives in the world – how could an island be ‘blown’ and sunk?!” Nixon immediately and instinctively chortled, but the sight it saw before its eyes made it swallow its latter words:
Dagger Island really sank, and the sinking speed became faster and faster, and finally even fast to the degree of unimaginable, one minute before, he could still see two thirds of that island remained on the surface of the sea, a minute later, the whole island was only left with a small hill, and then after a few seconds …… that island had completely disappeared from the surface of the sea.
The mist dissipated, and the trace of Dagger Island could no longer be seen in the cold sea.
“Not even the vortex appeared ……”
Captain Nixon swallowed hard and muttered incredulously.
The sea in the distance was still calm, the sinking of an island would theoretically trigger a terrifying maelstrom that would be large enough to engulf the largest ship in the world, yet in fact …… no whirlpool had appeared at all.
It was as if …… the island was not sinking, but melting into the sea water.
(End of chapter)