Chapter 1 The Room Owner

In the center of the magnificent bed, the newly awakened "room owner" leaned against the pillows, curiously scrutinizing Duncan, the uninvited guest. The silvery-white hair and violet eyes were so familiar.

Duncan subconsciously called out the name "Alice"—a low, hoarse, resonating "voice" emanating directly from the chest cavity of this body.

But then, he frowned slightly, awakening from that fleeting moment of surprise and bewilderment, and thoughtfully looked at the woman.

She wasn't Alice—though the appearance was identical, the temperament was completely different. More importantly... Alice wouldn't be in this place, so the greater possibility was...

"Rei Nora," Duncan guessed the identity of the person before him, looking into her eyes with a questioning gaze as he slowly spoke, "The Frost Queen?"

"It seems I haven't heard that title in a long time," the newly awakened woman smiled, adjusting her posture on the bed, her eyes filled with curiosity. "Who are you? How did you enter this room directly without opening that door?"

"Door?" Duncan frowned, hearing the word "door" again piquing his curiosity. "What door?"

The woman didn't speak, but simply raised her finger and pointed to a spot not far away.

Duncan followed the direction of her finger and saw a closed door decorated with intricate patterns—obviously the door to the bedroom.

"Those who come here are either servants of the mansion or guests with keys. You are clearly not a servant of the mansion, but you also don't have a key."

Duncan's heart skipped a beat—keys! She had mentioned keys!

"The key you're talking about, is it a brass key used to wind up a doll?" He turned back, his tone calm to conceal all emotional fluctuations. "Are you really the Frost Queen, Rei Nora?"

"I am," Rei Nora smiled and gently shook her head. "But you still haven't answered my question—who are you?"

Duncan suppressed the emotional changes in his eyes, quickly organizing his thoughts in his mind as he spoke slowly, "...You can call me Duncan."

He only said his name, without mentioning the more famous surname, but Rei Nora's eyes widened slightly upon hearing it, and then her face revealed an even more pleasant smile: "Ah, so it's you—the legendary Captain Duncan. It's much more reasonable that you could enter this room, but... I never imagined you'd be in this form."

Duncan was taken aback upon hearing this, and then looked down at his body.

It was still that extremely bizarre, pitch-black human form, like a "rough cast" that the Creator had not had time to embellish the details of when creating humans. This abstract appearance was truly not what one would call "friendly-looking."

"This is just a temporary avatar," Duncan explained casually, feeling a bit embarrassed, then he noticed a slight incongruity in her attitude. "You don't seem that surprised? Did you know I was coming?"

"I didn't know, but I lost the ability to be 'surprised' many years ago," Rei Nora said calmly. "If you can always see too many things you shouldn't, understand the world's various bizarre postures, experience death before death arrives, and be trapped in dreams before falling asleep, then you will eventually lose this ability..."

She smiled, her indifferent tone as if discussing the weather: "Even if there are still unpredictable things in the world, numbness will make you face all accidents with equanimity."

Duncan looked into Rei Nora's eyes, recalling various intelligence about the Frost Queen under her calm demeanor—

It was said that Rei Nora was a natural psychic, whose spiritual talent could communicate with a large number of invisible beings. It was said that she could even foresee the future and know the truth out of thin air...

Organizing this information in his mind, Duncan's eyes showed no change, and instead, he casually came to a corner of the room, pulled a chair in front of the large bed, and looked earnestly into the Frost Queen's eyes after sitting down: "I have many questions, and I hope you can answer them."

"I also have many questions," Rei Nora smiled. "I haven't spoken to anyone in too long. A visitor is precious to me—so if you are willing to answer my questions, I am also willing to answer yours."

"Good, then I won't be polite," Duncan said bluntly. "What exactly is this place? Why are you here?"

"Ah, such a difficult question to answer right from the start..." Rei Nora frowned, seemingly troubled about how to organize her words, and then slowly spoke, "To explain it in an easier-to-understand way, this is a 'drifting ground'—it's not an exact location, but a 'connection' of many locations. Do you see that darkness at the end of the room? The scenery outside sometimes changes—suitable conditions can allow it to connect to suitable 'places,' but for me, its only function is to allow my dream to connect to the deep sea below Frost.

"Do I need to explain to you what the deep sea below Frost means?"

"No need," Duncan shook his head. "Continue. Why are you here?"

"Okay, it seems you already know what's in the deep sea," Rei Nora breathed a sigh of relief. "I am here embracing a dream, ensuring that the existence in that deep sea can continue to slumber."

Duncan's expression turned serious. "The Gloom Lord?"

"...It seems you know even more than I thought," Rei Nora looked at Duncan quietly. "But you're wrong. Although it does come from the 'Crawling King,' the existence in that deep sea is not the true Gloom Lord. Strictly speaking, it's just a copy."

In an instant, Duncan recalled a sentence he had seen in that strange "dark space"—The cluster controller has begun to copy itself.

The giant "pillar" in the deep sea was indeed not the Gloom Lord's main body, but just a replica that appeared in the real world for some unknown reason!

So, the most accurate situation was... the ancient god's replica pierced through the "city-state original blueprint" in the deep sea, and the power it released caused a series of subsequent events? And the source of all this... was because the "Gloom Lord" had completely lost control?

Could it be inferred that before this replica appeared in the real world, the Gloom Lord had not actually lost control? Had He been in a state of constant deterioration over the long years until now?

Then, if this line of thought continued... what about the other gods? If the "horrific evil gods" in the eyes of the world were actually deteriorating from a stable state to a state of loss of control, then what was the situation with the "Four Gods" in the mortal world? Would they lose control? Or... had they actually begun to gradually lose control?

Duncan thought of the successive incidents in Prand and Frost, which were under the protection of the Storm Goddess and the God of Death, and he thought of the already malfunctioning Anomaly 001... This obvious, large-scale system gradually malfunctioning... was this the manifestation of the entire world "losing control"?

The unresolved guess was confirmed, and a large number of chaotic thoughts flooded his mind in an instant. Duncan instantly associated it with a series of events that had occurred on the boundless sea during this period.

Just then, Rei Nora's voice came from across the room, interrupting his brainstorming: "Now it's my turn to ask questions."

Duncan quickly collected his thoughts and organized his thoughts: "Ask away."

"How did you get here?" Rei Nora asked with curiosity in her eyes.

"In the deep sea below Frost—I found that 'replica,' and at its breaking point, I found an 'entrance' that could enter here," Duncan did not hide anything. "As for how I came to such a deep place... I rode a submersible from the Frost City-State."

"Submersible?" Rei Nora frowned, but soon she seemed to have guessed something. "Ah, it seems they really secretly built new ones again..."

"You knew the 'rebel government' would build new submersibles after your... death?" Duncan was a little surprised. "As far as I know, the 'Abyssal Dive Project' was the source of that rebellion. They also used it as a pretext to... 'execute' you."

"They would," Rei Nora just smiled. "Because they are Frost people."

Duncan didn't speak for a while, just quietly looking at the former queen.

The latter then calmly continued, "Frost people never die silently and docilely. When the darkest moment arrives, we will burn everything to survive. So when my Abyssal Dive Project lost control and the city-state fell into a survival crisis, there would definitely be insurgents rising up and overthrowing me to ensure the survival of more people. And when they discovered the secrets in the deep sea, they would definitely build submersibles like me and try to solve this problem.

"They will improve the machines, slow down the plans, and learn from my radical lessons, doing all this in a gentler and harmless way. And if they still fail in this way, then new insurgents will appear, and successors will chop off the heads of the incompetent and then try to change the method... continuing to challenge this cold darkness in the deep sea."

"This will continue until the last Frost person dies, or this darkness dissipates."

She raised her head and calmly looked into Duncan's eyes—on the latter's bizarre and terrifying "rough cast" body, only those eyes carried a bit of human brilliance.

"I just didn't expect that the one who came down in the submersible would be... the legendary Captain Duncan, and a Captain Duncan who had obviously gained reason. It seems my successors are a bit more extreme than I was back then?"

"...They failed," Duncan was silent for a few seconds, then shook his head gently. "A disaster destroyed the city-state government. They failed to restart the Abyssal Dive Project before the situation lost control—the only good news is that the disaster eventually subsided, and that submersible was a 'trophy' we found after the situation calmed down."

(End of this chapter)