Chapter 417 – The Consul’s Whereabouts

Chapter 417 – The Consul’s Whereabouts
The deepest mines of the Frost Mines were exhausted decades ago, and the “blood” that this city-state relies on is probably just the result of some kind of distortion. At the bottom of the Boiling Gold Mine lies a door left behind by the first generation of the city hall, and the current city hall and the consul may also be the participant and the maintainer of this secret! —

Even the well-trained and disciplined guardsmen, who have often dealt with all kinds of dangerous and bizarre things, cannot help but fall into silence and be shocked when they hear such news.

And while stunned, they understood why this operation had been classified as secret, and why the Gatekeeper had not announced the details until after everyone had gone down the well.

Such news, even without considering the threat posed by the extraordinary visions behind it, the mere fact that the vein had dried up was enough to stir up a storm in the city-state!
“At this point, we can’t be sure if all the mine paths dried up decades ago, much less what exactly was shipped out of this mine when the veins dried up – the only thing we can be sure of is that if this is all really the product of some kind of ‘contamination’, and if it’s now the product of some kind of ‘pollution’, then we’re not going to be able to know for sure what it is. ‘ and that the anomalies in the city-state today are related to this contamination, then we are now located at the origin and deepest depths of the contamination.”

Agatha’s gaze swept over the surrounding minions, her tone as calm and composed as ever.

“I’m sure everyone is aware of what’s going on on the surface right now, and I know you’ve had your doubts about why one of your most elite squadrons was sent here at such a critical time to investigate some mining tunnel – I’m just as worried as you are about my compatriots who are battling monsters in the fog, and about the surrounding battles on the sea.

“But we’re also in a battlefield at the moment – to investigate what’s going on in this mine is to help our comrades elsewhere to the greatest extent possible, to get to the source of the crisis at the root, rather than going to the fog and doing endless exertion with those monsters.

“That’s it, anyone else have any questions?”

She looked around the room, and all she saw was the usual calm and determined look on her men’s faces, and nodded gently.

“Good, then let’s get moving, aiming for the deepest mining levels. Keep an eye out for darkness along the way, and keep checking the status of ventilation and lighting fixtures. Everyone received a set of mine self-rescuers when they came down here, now put on your masks and open the external recirculation valves – you all remember how to use them, don’t you? If you encounter a situation, the valve is turned clockwise to internal circulation and the self-rescuer pin is pulled out, while retreating quickly towards the main tunnel, saving yourself as a priority.”

The guardsmen and priests and nuns immediately carried out the orders, putting breathing masks over their mouths and noses, confirming the condition of the connecting tubes and the circulation valves, and fixing the special downhole lifting lamps to the hanging clasps on their chests to avoid interfering with the operation.

Agatha, on the other hand, did not wear a mask – as the Gatekeeper of the God of Death, her physical constitution has long been different from that of ordinary humans, especially in the area of “breathing”, and ordinary poisonous gases and suffocating environments would not affect her movements.

Just as her men were preparing for their departure, a slight hissing sound suddenly reached Agatha’s ears.

At first, she thought it was the sound of the circulation valves as her men breathed through their masks, but she soon realized that the hissing was coming from farther away – beyond the crowd, in the shadows where the lights didn’t shine.

“Attention!” Agatha reacted instantly and raised her voice in warning, and in the next second, several other Guardian warriors noticed the sound of a valve deflating from the darkness as well, and several rays of light shone in that direction at the same time.

In the haze of entangled light and fog, Agatha saw that a figure actually surfaced in that dark corner – a figure wearing a thick black coat, a gas mask, and seemingly carrying a firearm.

The figure was collapsed in the middle of a pile of debris, breathing hard, and hissing sounds came out from his gas mask.

Why would a person suddenly appear here? The guards had checked the entire traffic point earlier, there was no way they could have missed such an obvious figure!
Questions instantly sprang up in Agatha’s mind, but without hesitation, she took a few steps and arrived next to the seemingly dying figure, with the guardsmen right behind her.

“…… Soldiers of the city-state,” one of the guardsmen instantly recognized the fallen figure’s equipment, “The consul’s immediate guard.”

Agatha shot a quick glance at the soldier, seeing that the other man had a metal breastplate over his thick black coat, while the power tubes connecting the breastplate to his arm guards were shattered, and a military breathing mask obscured almost all of his face, so that it could only be judged from his stature that it was a male soldier – and his fatal wound was near his chest. It looked like it had severely damaged his internal organs.

One of his arms was broken, while the other hand was still gripping the rifle.

Seemingly stimulated by the sudden glow around him, the soldier with the breathing mask suddenly moved as Agatha approached, as if trying to raise his head.

The surrounding guardsmen were instantly startled and subconsciously grabbed their weapons, but Agatha waved her hand, stepped forward, and bent down slightly.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“Consul Guard …… Martin …… Brad …… Sergeant …… …… “

“Sergeant Blythe, why are you here?” “The Consul …… Winston …… ” The Guardsman who called himself Sergeant Blythe spoke hoarsely, his voice getting harder and harder beneath his breathing mask as he mentioned the Consul’s name and struggled to raising his arm as if trying to point somewhere, “Mr. Winston …… has entered a chamber …… We need …… support! ……”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence before the arm suddenly lost its strength, and from under the breathing mask came a final, rapidly diminishing hiss.

He died, and the next second the life left him, Agatha saw a foul black sludge slowly oozing from his wounds and from beneath his mask – the body disintegrating as quickly as it had melted, with a chilling, slimy, writhing sound.

“Fake!”

The surrounding guardsmen reacted instantly and quickly retreated, while the accompanying priests snapped forward while sprinkling a handful of powdered mixture that had been prepared long ago onto the disintegrating corpse and hurling a pale ball of fire at it.

With a roar, the pale flames rose into the air, and the fake corpse was engulfed in flames in the blink of an eye, and after a quick and brief burn, all that remained was a pile of black slime that had dried up and stopped writhing, as well as the lingering heat in the air.

Agatha looked at this scene with a calm expression, when the figure just appeared, she realized that the other party might also be a copy of the fog, but now, she turned her head thoughtfully, and looked at the place where that “Sergeant Blythe” had pointed to before he died.

“In this direction?” she mumbled softly.

“Lord Gatekeeper, that’s just a fake compulsion,” the priest heard the mumble and couldn’t help but step forward to warn, “It could be a trap for the enemy.”

“But it doesn’t seem to realize it’s a forgery,” Agatha, however, shook her head gently, “Remember the information we had earlier? These ‘fakes’ seem to come in three varieties, one is muddled and attacks all living people, one seems to be under control and will destroy the city in an organized manner, and the other, it seems to retain the memories and emotions of the original body, and doesn’t even notice that it’s a fake …… “

The priest froze for a moment, his tone a little hesitant, “What you mean is ……”

Agatha’s eyes seemed to be a bit complicated for a moment, but no one noticed her momentary hesitation, and after a short silence, she said in a calm tone, “This ‘fake’ was copied not long ago, and he probably retains memories from a few hours ago or even a shorter time period –On the other hand, while we were down the well, news from the Town Hall has been passed on by the machine secretary on behalf of the Consul Winston, whose whereabouts appear to be unknown.”

The chaplain responded quickly, understanding Agatha’s meaning.

“The ‘forgery’ is a fake, but its memories are real,” he said quickly; “Consul Winston may really have been here not long ago with a party of soldiers, and one of them, a sergeant named Martin Breed, was killed in the killed in battle in the mine tunnel-this fog duplicates the sergeant who was just killed in battle and his memories!”

“Perhaps this is the truth.”

Agatha nodded gently, then turned to the mine tunnel that was illuminated by a hazy light.

The situation deep within the extraction layer was anyone’s guess, but Consul Winston was clearly in possession of some truths that no one else knew – now that he had led a group of soldiers into the depths of this mine at the crucial moment when the whole city was caught in a vision, there was no doubt that the biggest clue could lie in this direction.

“Thanks for the directions.”

Agatha turned her head and nodded solemnly towards the pile of dried mud that had become completely unrecognizable from the outline of a human being, before giving a wave to her surrounding men, “Follow – let’s go and find out what happened to the Consul!”

……

At the same time, on the boundless ocean shrouded by the chaotic, dim sky, the twin-born, twin-shadowed ghost ship swept through the waves like the wind, threading its way through uncountable, illusory ship shadows.

Lawrence stood at the bow of the White Oak, looking down at the undulating sea below.

Between the layers of undulating waves, he could already see the …… reflection of the city state in the distance.

(End of chapter)