Chapter 433 – The Call of Fire

Chapter 433 – The Call of Fire
In the harbor area, Liszt, who was commanding the garrison to fend off the attack while keeping the harbor running as much as possible, suddenly raised his head and looked at the direction of the city-state somewhat blankly.

Inside the city-state, mysterious twisted buildings were emerging and surfacing from above the normal streets, the earth in the distance was warping and inverting, vague thorn-like phantoms covered the mountains, and chaotic light was descending out of the illusion – however, in the midst of this horrifying and eerie light, some kind of delicate and pale “dust” suddenly drifted down.

The pale dust appeared in the sky out of nowhere, and it fell in a flurry, like the first snow of winter, through the interlocking phantoms and distorted alien neighborhoods, scattering little by little on the frosty streets – weightless, but seemingly endless.

Where the dust fell, the city-state that had already appeared blurred and chaotic due to the overlapping of phantoms seemed to be suddenly “clear-cut” again, even though it was only for a moment, even though it was only a small change, Lester could clearly see that there was a boundary between those phantoms and the real streets again.

But at this moment, he could not even think about what was going on, or even what would happen to him in the next minute.

The hiss of the steam walkers firing and the distant roar of the coast defense guns drew him back to reality.

“Keep those freaks out of the dock area!” Lister yelled to the soldiers and commanders as he crossed the walkways between the buildings and through the line of defense constructed by a single steam walker and a makeshift barricade, “Make sure the fuel depot and ammo lanes are clear! The harbor must not fall!”

Smoke filled the air in all directions, and the air was laced with the pungent odor of blood, oil, and all that foul mud as it dried, and as one Steam Walker was destroyed, immediately the next Spider-Machine rushed out of its bunker to sustain the fragile line of defense.

And inside that line of defense were the scarred dock facilities and a team that was running between the harbor buildings.

Lister came to a high point and looked in the direction of the docks.

When those monsters ran out of the fog in large numbers, the harbor nearly fell, and it took him and his soldiers a great deal of effort to clean up the contamination within the harbor and build a defense line on the road leading inside the city-state and hold it off until now.

And at the moment, according to the last external communication, this is the only port in Frost that is still functioning – the ports elsewhere are either still hotly contested, have been lost, or are inoperable due to heavy damage to key facilities.

He had to keep this place running at all costs – because the battle lines at sea were already in jeopardy, and if he lost his only coastal support again, the City State Navy would truly be finished.

But …… could this place really be defended with the gradual intrusion of another horribly twisted city-state into reality?
Lister turned back and took one last look at the ghastly, deformed earth that was bulging out of the city-state as if it were a swollen abscess, and tried to ignore the fact that it was gradually spreading towards the harbor, turned around and left the defense line, returning to the Defense Command.

It was equally busy here, with officers and staff fretting and fretting, intelligence coming in from all over the place was dismal, while the calls and ticks of various radio communication devices went off incessantly.

A communications officer was sitting in the corner of the room, repeating hoarsely into the radio, “Announcement to all ships offshore, this is East Harbor, we are still present, repeat, we are still present – this is the only safe port of supply, do not approach any other ports … …”

Lister went straight to one of his men, “What’s the situation over at the supply docks?”

“‘Laurel’ is restocking and repairing the supply elevator, her sister ship has lost power and is being towed back by barge, we still have plenty of ammo, fuel, and fresh water, but the crane at dock four has been sabotaged, and that side is being crippled… …”

Lister listened with a grim expression on his face, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps coming from the side, and another junior officer came to him with a tense look on his face, “Sir, there’s a situation ……”

“There’s a situation everywhere now,” Lister shouted, “Direct report!”

“Yes, a ship is applying to enter the harbor for repairs, it’s a ship from the …… Sea Mist Fleet,” the junior officer’s eyes were complicated, “The undead on board said their drive mechanism failed, and the ship’s maintenance equipment couldn’t cope. ”

Lister was stunned for a moment, after three seconds, he gritted his teeth, “Let them enter the harbor, and help them fix it as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

The subordinate left, while Lister quickly walked to the window and observed the situation in the direction of the sea.

A battleship with rolling smoke was slowly approaching the repair dock, the Frost Queen’s flag fluttering at the bow, while on the even more distant sea, there were floating wrecks everywhere.

“It’s been half a century …… this flag finally returned to Frost in this way ……”

Lister subconsciously muttered.

But in the next second, a noise then suddenly came from the direction of the corridor, interrupting this harbor defense chief commander’s exclamation.

“What’s the situation again?” He turned his head and inquired loudly.

A soldier nervously and hurriedly pushed the door in and said to the chief commander with a face full of embarrassment, “Sir! There are two …… ordinary citizens, two girls, who somehow ran in and insisted on talking to you ……”

“Ordinary citizens? Arrange for them to take shelter ……” Lister subconsciously opened his mouth, but just as the words were in the middle of his mouth, a burst of even a beating movement quickly approached from the corridor, and immediately after that he heard a young girl’s voice staggering outside-

“All fucking make way! Make way! Time is precious! What’s that word for …… window, oh, the window is just a fucking moment!”

Lister looked up in dismay, and in the next second, he saw that two young girls had broken through the soldiers’ barrier and forcefully barged into this vital command headquarters.

One was short and skinny, wearing a black cotton skirt, but with one hand, she pushed the two big-waisted soldiers out of the doorway, while the other one was slightly taller, wearing a plain brown jacket with a cotton skirt, and her face seemed to be a bit nervous.

Both looked to be no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, and the skinny one even looked a little younger.

“Leave at once,” Lister said at once, annoyance giving way to his tone of voice, “this is no place for you to be fooling around, and if you’re separated from the sheltering crowd, you’ll be ……”

“You’re the boss here? We have important business,” the skinny girl staggered out without waiting for the man to finish his sentence, “Is there anything around here that we can’t use for a while? We need to start a fire ……”

“Start a fire?” Liszt couldn’t help but be stunned, and immediately realized that this was a bad joke – he couldn’t understand why two inexplicable civilians would still come here to cause trouble at a time like this, but immediately after, the sense of vigilance brought about by his profession alerted him, and he immediately shouted out an order, “Soldiers, get them under control! Hold them!”

Several soldiers immediately rushed in to grab the two strange girls, and the short one immediately jumped up and down, “We really have important business! The angle of your place is too suitable, an open space will do for You ……”

She suddenly stopped and looked out the window with wide eyes, as if she had discovered something. “Hey! That side can be! The whole avenue is deserted, and it leads right to the coastline!” The girl jumped up so high that two or three soldiers couldn’t hold her down, and immediately afterward she turned her head and greeted her companion, “Nina, you go over there, and then with the two arson spots we just found on the south side, we’ll definitely have enough on this side of the city-state!”

“Ah …… good!” The young girl called Nina immediately responded, and immediately after that she turned back to Lister with embarrassment and apology, bending slightly, “Right …… sorry sir, my friend isn’t very good at dealing with people, let’s go now… …”

Lister stared, the overly outrageous situation in front of him made his mind a bit confused, but he still subconsciously took a step forward, “Stop, you ……”

He didn’t finish his words.

Because something even more outrageous happened.

The young girl in front of him suddenly surged with heat around her, and right after that, she blinked into a leaping and piercing arc of flame, which rose in the room, its piercing light as if just looking at it could make one’s soul burn with it – the next second, the flame flew towards the open window next to her, like a backwards flying like a meteor flying backwards, rushing straight towards a high platform near the harbor area.

Lister looked at this scene in dismay, but before he could turn his head around, the flame suddenly rushed back into the room.

The flame bent down towards him, outlining the girl’s silhouette, and a voice accompanied by crackling and popping but polite came out from it, “Thank you for protecting the city, I’m off! Bye!”

The arcing flame rushed out of the room once more.

“Bye bye bye!”

In the room, the short girl shouted back and forth, and right after that, a pitch-black chasm suddenly surfaced around her, and shadows surged in the chasm, dragging her out of thin air and disappearing in front of everyone’s eyes.

“This …… this TM all ……”

Lister looked at this scene with dismay and bewilderment, and subconsciously followed and rushed towards the open window, but only had time to see an arc of fiery flames rushing straight up into the sky from the distance.

And below this blaze, the coast …… illuminated by the blinding light suddenly burst into flames!
“The Frost Coast has ignited!”

On the lookout of the Sea Mist ship, an undead sailor picked up a trumpet and shouted out.

The waves rose and fell, the cold winds rolled back, Tirian stood at the edge of the ship’s bow deck like a standing reef, and in his lone eye, the Frost Coast, which was igniting several fires, was reflected.

A bright fire jumped over the city-state, constantly igniting the no man’s land on the edge of the city-state – towering cliffs, reefs jutting out of the water, defenseless towers, damaged turrets, a fire point is gradually connecting, like …… a continuous candelabra! .

Around the Sea Mist, the vast expanse of sea is even burning in large swathes.

The wreckage left behind by the fake fleet was burning, the ships of the Sea Mist fleet or the city-state navy were burning, and the oil that leaked out was burning.

The entire sea, was being set ablaze by the flames of war.

And in this burning sea, the twisted and strange light of the mirror world was being reflected – the ghost fleet that was constantly floating upwards, the grotesque and horrifying mirror frost in the distance, and the boundless darkness that filled the area around these twisted things.

“Captain!” First Mate Aiden ran over and exclaimed beside Tirion, “The last barrel of fuel has been dumped, and the fires around it are just about to roll into the ship!”

“I know,” Tirian said calmly, a smile actually slowly appearing on his face, “What’s the reaction from the Frost Navy?”

“They did what we told them to do, and set the excess whale oil on fire, but they still can’t figure out what we’re trying to do, and are doing as they’re told in complete confusion – they’re hoping we’ll give an explanation.”

“An explanation ……”

Tirian mumbled softly, slowly raising his hand and pointing around the Sea Mist, at the sea that was becoming increasingly eerie as it continued to be covered by a thicker darkness.

“Aiden, what does the sea look like to you?”

Aiden was stunned for a moment, looking up and around.

In the next second, his expression gradually froze, and even a hint of panic surfaced.

On the surface of the sea, the wind and waves had quickly receded at some point, and the boundless darkness made the entire sea gradually take on a mirror-like texture.

Flames burning in front of the mirror, from the Frost Coast, all the way to the fleet melee sea, the continuous battle fire …… is like a ritual candlestick in front of the mirror.

The wind and waves of the sea and the sound of artillery seems to have suddenly weakened, everything is distant as if from another world, and in this strange and short silence, Aiden heard his captain speak softly.

“Father said that if you want to actively seek him out, find a mirror and light a flame in front of it.”

Tirion slowly opened his hands and faced the sea that was gradually turning into a pitch black mirror.

“The fire has been lit, are you there?”

With that, the frosty sea opened its eyes.

“I am.”

(End of chapter)