The room fell silent for a moment.
The silence lasted for more than ten seconds before Agatha heard Bishop Ivan's low and hoarse voice coming from under the bandage: "Ah oh——"
"...Your reaction is a bit unexpected."
"Because your information is so unexpected," Bishop Ivan seemed to have finally recovered. He adjusted his sitting posture and his tone became extremely serious, "You said that the boiling gold veins in Frost City State had been discovered decades ago.
Depleted? Is this the truth you discovered below?
"Yes, there is a door in the deepest part of the Second Waterway. It may have been blocked by the first-generation city hall. Behind the door is a mine tunnel that has long been exhausted. Judging from the location, it should be in the enrichment area at the bottom of the mine. This is also the theory. Go to the area that will be mined last..."
Agatha did not hide anything and told everything she found underground. In the process, Bishop Ivan's eyes became more and more solemn visibly.
After a while, Agatha finished talking about what she had discovered below, but added with some hesitation: "...It was just a mine tunnel. There are countless mine tunnels in the mine, even those in the enrichment area. At the deepest level, it cannot be judged that the entire mine has been exhausted, so a large part of my conclusion is based on conjecture... I know that this conjecture is too crazy."
"...Yes, it's too crazy a conjecture," Bishop Ivan said slowly, "After all, if according to what you said, the boiling gold mine has long been exhausted - then we have been transporting more and more from the mine in the past half century. What is it? What is the boiling gold catalyst that Frost City State has sent to other cities over the years?"
Agatha didn't speak. She knew that there was no way to avoid or answer Bishop Ivan's question.
Frost City-State has always produced the highest quality boiling gold raw ore and finished catalyst rods. In the past fifty years, the output of boiling gold in Frost City alone is almost equivalent to the total of the other city-states in the entire Cold Sea - boiling gold in the mines There is an endless supply of excavation machinery pumping out wealth day and night, the catalysts produced by the smelting factories are transported to the entire world, and the ships using these catalysts are all over the boundless sea.
In the entire half century, there has not been any problem with any boiling gold order.
If the veins were really exhausted decades ago, let alone the problem of the Frost Mine - with so many ships on the Infinite Sea, what is burning in their steam cores? Phantom?
After a long time, the gatekeeper could only sigh softly: "...If that is also a polluted creation, then our world is really absurd to a terrifying degree."
"Our world has always been absurd, but maybe... you have really found the key clue this time," Bishop Ivan shook his head. The conflict between the depleted mineral veins and the mines that are still producing steadily today is most likely related to the anomalies in the current city-state."
"...But according to the clues we obtained before, the current anomaly should be caused by those Annihilation cultists," Agatha reminded, "What is their relationship with the mine?"
"They may not necessarily have anything to do with the mine - they may just use it to trigger this crisis," Bishop Ivan thought quickly. The experience accumulated in his decades of life, especially the experience of dealing with cultists, is helping him at this moment. To complete this puzzle, "It is impossible for those heretics to have been deployed in the city-state for decades without being discovered. What's more, the depletion of the mineral veins may be traced back to the Queen's era. The frost in that era was far more powerful in combating heretics than it is today. There are no cultists." Can escape the eyes of the Frost Queen..."
Having said this, the old bishop paused and suddenly asked: "Did you just say that Archon Winston knew nothing about the door deep in the Second Waterway?"
Agatha nodded: "That's what he said."
"...I don't quite believe what he said," Bishop Ivan shook his head hesitantly. "The situation in the first generation of City Hall was indeed a bit chaotic, but the handover between the first few consuls and the political team should not have happened. Such a big mistake, especially such a critical and sensitive secret..."
"You mean, Archon Winston is hiding something from me?" Agatha frowned, "Why would he do this?"
"I don't know, maybe it's to maintain the authority of the city hall, maybe there's a bigger involvement behind this secret, maybe it's even because he's been controlled by something, I don't know for sure," Bishop Ivan said, his eyes glaring. Suddenly it fell on Agatha, "I'm even more surprised that you didn't have any suspicion in this regard - you wouldn't have such negligence in the past."
Agatha was stunned.
In this moment of daze, she recalled the scene she experienced when returning from the second waterway - the reflection in the pool, and the "other self" walking in the opposite direction in the reflection.
"Agatha, what's wrong with you?" Bishop Ivan's voice woke her up from her distraction.
Agatha blinked and shook her head slightly.
"Are you sure there's nothing wrong?" Bishop Ivan's tone was obviously suspicious, "You've been distracted more than once in the past two days, and..."
"I'm fine, I've always been fine," Agatha interrupted the old bishop. For some reason, after a brief trance, her tone became relaxed at the moment. She exhaled softly and stood up from the chair. "I just suddenly figured out something - it's time for me to go."
Bishop Ivan stood up: "...You want to go to the mine?"
"The navy is blocking the enemy, and the peace officers and guards are controlling the situation. They have bought time. I still have a chance to figure out the source behind all this. It's time to set off."
Agatha paused here, and then added as if for emphasis: "Time is limited, I can't rest here for too long."
"Okay, let's set off," Bishop Ivan nodded lightly, "I hope you can find out the truth smoothly and return safely."
"I will find out the truth."
In the thick fog, distant gunshots could be heard from time to time, occasionally interspersed with warning broadcasts from the Sheriff's Forces or Guards Forces, as well as the sound of sirens automatically sounded by certain facilities.
The city-state has been blurred in the fog, and the fog is filled with invisible terror.
"In comparison, I would rather deal with hundreds of heavily armed cultists, or charge back and forth a few times in a burning city."
Fanna casually dismissed the giant sword condensed by ice, frowned and looked at the ground in front of her and said.
In the limited field of vision, the ground as far as the eye can see is covered with criss-crossing horrific cracks, and a large amount of dirty black mud slowly flows and squirms between the cracks, and quickly solidifies. Some of the mud even barely survives. It has a humanoid outline, but the key limbs present a chilling distortion.
"That's disgusting." Vanna muttered again.
"Seriously, are you willing to fight another battle in a burning city?"
Morris's voice came from the side. The old scholar held his cane, glanced at the fragmented "battlefield" in front of him, and said casually to Vanna.
"...Well, I don't want to," Vanna shrugged. "Whether it's a fake city-state filled with thick fog or a burning city where the black sun comes, it's not much better."
As he spoke, the dense fog flowed, and a tall figure suddenly emerged from the fog behind Vanna. The figure's head was swollen and deformed, and its huge one eye trembled violently in the fog. The next second, the monster pounced on Vanna.
Vanna did not look back, but just stepped hard on the ground - the invisible shock wave spread instantly. The deformed and twisted thing only took one step forward, and its lower body was directly shattered. After falling to the ground, it quickly turned into mud.
Under her conscious control, Morris, who was close at hand, was not affected by the shock wave at all - the old scholar just adjusted his monocle and calmly looked around the foggy streets.
The next second, he suddenly looked at a certain location, and a silver light appeared in his eyes: "McCafeney's conjecture and proof."
The next second, a continuous low-pitched explosion, like a watermelon being stepped on, came from the fog. Several figures could be vaguely seen emerging from the fog, and their heads exploded like fireworks.
"The good news is that these low-quality fakes imitate a certain degree of thinking ability, and the controllers behind them need to be more intelligent." Morris looked away and looked at
The Zhongyin light gradually weakened, "I was worried at first that they were all empty shells of chaos. In that case, the power of knowledge would not be very effective on them."
Vanna looked at the monsters with exploding heads that gradually turned into mud in the distance with a strange expression. She looked back at Morris and said, "When you taught me back then, you never said, 'The power of knowledge can be so useful.'"
"At that time, I judged that you were not suitable for this path." Morris said casually.
Fanna: "..."
Miss Judge felt that she had been ridiculed for a moment, but after recalling the events of that year
After her test results, she decided to remain humble.
"Are there any more around?"
She kept her guard up and asked in a low voice.
"Not for now." Morris shook his head.
He is always aware of the surrounding situation - when those monsters emerge from the fog, their chaotic thoughts will first appear in his perception. The fog can block people's sight, but the brilliance of their thoughts is like a beacon in the dark night in his eyes. Eye-catching.
Very few people can actively control their own thinking, so in the field of "detecting intelligent creatures", no one can compare with the saints of the God of Wisdom.
"It's okay not to have them for now, although there will be new ones popping up soon," Vanna breathed out and moved her hands and feet a little, "Do you think... there are a lot of fake monsters in this direction, and they are very aggressive. Are they obviously better than those from other places?”
"You felt it too?" Morris raised his eyebrows, "Then it seems that my judgment was correct.
"You mean..."
"Those fakes that appear from the fog are not all blind. Some of them are controlled by people behind them."
