Deep Sea Embers

In the port area, Liszt, who was commanding the garrison to resist the attack while maintaining the port as much as possible, suddenly raised his head and looked in the direction of the city-state in a daze.

In the city-state, mysterious distorted buildings are emerging and emerging from the sky above the normal streets, the distant land is warping and turning upside down, faint thorn-like phantoms cover the mountains, and chaotic and chaotic lights and shadows are descending from the illusion—however In this horrible and weird scene, some fine and pale "dust" suddenly fluttered down.

The pale dust floated out of nowhere in the sky, they fell one after another, like the first snow in winter, they passed through the overlapping phantoms and distorted blocks, scattered on the frosty streets bit by bit-weightless , but seems endless.

Where the dust was scattered, the city-state that had been blurred and chaotic due to the overlapping of phantoms seemed to suddenly become "clear and distinct". There are boundaries between streets.

But at this moment, he has no time to think about what is going on, or even think about his fate for the next minute.

The roar of steam walker fire and the roar of distant coastal defense guns brought him back to reality.

"Keep those freaks out of the wharf area!" Liszt walked through the walkway between the buildings, passing through the defense line made up of steam walkers and temporary barricades, and shouted at the soldiers and commanders, "Ensure the smooth flow of oil depots and ammunition! The port must not fall!"

Gunpowder smoke filled all directions, and the air was mixed with blood, engine oil, and the pungent smell emitted when the dirty mud dried up. A steam walker was destroyed, and the next spider machine rushed out of the bunker immediately, maintaining the fragile line of defense.

And inside this line of defense are the scarred dock facilities, as well as teams running between the port buildings.

Liszt came to a high place and looked towards the direction of the pier.

When those monsters ran out of the dense fog in large numbers, the port almost fell. He and his soldiers paid a huge price to clean up the pollution in the port area and build a bridge on the road leading to the interior of the city-state. Line of defense, and has been resisting until now.

According to the last external communication, this is the only port in Frost that is still operating—ports in other places are either still in a state of fierce competition, or have fallen, or cannot be reached due to heavy damage to key facilities. run.

He must continue to operate here at all costs - because the sea front is already in jeopardy, if the only coastal support is lost, the city-state navy will really be finished.

But... with another terrifying, twisted city-state gradually invading reality, will it really hold up here?

Liszt turned his head, took one last look at the swollen and abscess-like deformed land that was rising from the city-state, tried his best to ignore the appearance that it was gradually spreading towards the port, turned away from the defense line, and returned to the defense headquarters .

It is also busy here, the officers and staff are overwhelmed, the intelligence from everywhere is not optimistic, and the calls and beeps of various radio communication equipment are ringing non-stop.

A communications soldier was sitting in the corner of the room, repeating hoarsely into the radio: "Notify all offshore ships, this is Donggang, we still exist, repeat, we still exist - this is the only safe supply port, do not approach Other ports..."

Liszt went straight to a subordinate: "How is the situation at the supply dock?"

"'Laurel' is replenishing ammunition and repairing the bomb supply elevator. Its sister ship has lost power and is being towed back by barge. Our ammunition, fuel and fresh water are still sufficient, but the crane at No. 4 Pier has been damaged. Then Edge is paralyzed..."

Liszt listened with a gloomy face, and then there were hurried footsteps coming from the side, and another junior officer came to him with a nervous expression: "Sir, there is a situation..."

"The situation is everywhere now," Liszt said loudly, "report directly!"

"Yes, a ship is applying to enter the port for repairs. It is... a ship of the Sea Fog Fleet," the junior officer said with complicated eyes. "The undead people on board said that their transmission mechanism is faulty, and the maintenance equipment on board cannot cope."

Liszt was stunned for a moment, and three seconds later, he gritted his teeth: "Let them enter the port, and help them fix it as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir."

After his subordinates left, Liszt quickly came to the window to observe the situation in the direction of the sea.

A battleship billowing with thick smoke was slowly approaching the maintenance dock, the Frost Queen's flag was flying on the bow, and on the farther sea surface, there were floating wreckage everywhere.

"Half a century... the flag finally returned to Frost this way..."

Liszt muttered subconsciously.

But in the next second, a burst of noise suddenly came from the direction of the corridor, interrupting the exclamation of the commander-in-chief of port defense.

"What's the situation again?" He turned his head and asked loudly.

A soldier pushed the door in nervously and hastily, and said to the commander-in-chief with embarrassment: "Sir! There are two... ordinary citizens, two girls, they don't know how they came in, and they insisted on talking to you... ..."

"Ordinary citizens? Arrange them to avoid..." Liszt subconsciously said, but just in the middle of speaking, a burst of noisy movements quickly approached from the corridor, and then he heard the voice of a young girl outside blah blah——

"Give way! Give way! Time is precious! How do you say that word... window, oh, the window period is only a short time!"

Liszt raised his head in astonishment, and in the next second, he saw that two young girls had broken through the soldiers' barriers and forced their way into this crucial headquarters.

One was short and thin, wearing a black cotton skirt, but he pushed two big-waisted soldiers out of the door at once. The other was slightly taller, wearing a plain brown coat and cotton skirt, and his face seemed a little nervous.

Both of them looked only sixteen or seventeen years old, and the thin one looked even younger.

"Leave immediately," Liszt said immediately, his irritability made his tone unfriendly, "this is not a place for you to mess around, if you get separated from the refugee crowd, then..."

"Are you the boss here? We have something important to do," the thin girl bluffed without waiting for anyone to finish her sentence. "Is there any place around here that is temporarily unused? We need to set the fire..."

"Set it on fire?" Liszt couldn't help being taken aback, and then realized that it was a bad joke-he couldn't understand why two inexplicable civilians came here to make trouble at this time, but then, the professional The sense of vigilance brought about made him vigilant, and he immediately ordered loudly, "Soldier, control them!"

A few soldiers rushed in immediately, trying to catch the two strange girls, the short one jumped up and down immediately: "We really have something important! The angle of your place is too suitable, just an open space! You guys... ..."

She stopped suddenly and stared out of the window, as if she had discovered something.

"Hey! That's fine over there! The entire avenue is deserted, and it leads directly to the coastline!" The girl jumped up high, and two or three soldiers couldn't hold her down. Then she turned her head and greeted her companions , "Nina, you go over there, and then add the two arson spots just discovered in the south, the city-state side will definitely be enough!"

"Ah... good!" The young girl called Nina responded immediately, and then she turned her head and bowed slightly to Liszt with embarrassment and apology, "Yes... I'm sorry, sir, my friend is not very good. Good at dealing with people, let's go..."

Liszt stared, the outrageous situation in front of him made him a little confused, but he still took a step forward subconsciously: "Stop, you..."

He didn't finish his sentence.

Because something even more outrageous happened.

The young girl in front of him suddenly had a surge of heat, and then she turned into a jumping and dazzling arc-shaped flame in the blink of an eye. All the souls of the people burned up - the next second, the flame flew towards the open window next to it, like a meteor flying upside down, and rushed straight to a high platform near the port area.

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

The flame bent down towards him, outlining the outline of the girl, and a polite voice came from it, accompanied by crackling and crackling: "Thank you for protecting the city, I'm leaving! Goodbye!"

The arc of flame burst out of the room again.

"Goodbye!"

In the room, the short girl also yelled again and again, and then, a dark crack suddenly appeared around her, and the shadows surged in the crack, dragging her out of thin air and disappearing before everyone's eyes.

"This... all this shit..."

Liszt looked at this scene in astonishment and blankly, and subconsciously rushed towards the open window, but only had time to see an arc of flames rushing straight into the sky from a distance.

And under this raging flame, the coast illuminated by the glaring light... suddenly burst into flames!

"The Frost Coast is on fire!"

On the observation deck of the Seamist, an undead sailor picked up the horn and shouted loudly.

The waves were heaving and the cold wind was blowing back, Tirian stood like a standing rock on the edge of the bow deck, and in his one eye, reflected the frost coast where several fires were burning.

A bright flame jumped over the city-state, constantly igniting the no man's land on the edge of the city-high cliffs, reefs protruding from the water, lost towers, and damaged forts. The fire points are gradually connecting, as if... Continuous candlesticks.

Around the Sea Fog, the vast and endless sea was burning in large areas.

The wreckage of the fake fleet was burning, the ships of the Fog Fleet or the City Navy were burning, the leaked oil was burning.

The entire sea is being ignited by the flames of war.

And in this burning sea, the twisted and strange light and shadow of the mirror world are reflected - the ghost fleet that keeps rising, the grotesque and terrifying mirror frost in the distance, and the boundless darkness that surrounds these twisted things. .

"Captain!" Aiden, the first mate, ran over and shouted beside Tirian, "The last barrel of fuel has been poured out, and the surrounding fire is about to engulf the ship!"

"I know," Tirian said calmly, with a smile slowly appearing on his face, "What's the reaction from the Frost Navy?"

"They also set fire to the excess whale oil as we were told, but they still couldn't figure out what we were going to do and did it in complete confusion - they wanted an explanation from us."

"explain……"

Tirian grunted softly, and slowly raised his hand, pointing at the surroundings of the Seamist, pointing at the sea that was being covered by more and more darkness and becoming more and more weird.

"Aiden, what do you think the sea looks like?"

Aiden froze for a moment, looked up and looked around.

In the next second, his expression gradually froze, and even a trace of panic emerged.

On the surface of the sea, the wind and waves have subsided quickly at some point, and the boundless darkness makes the entire sea area gradually present a mirror-like texture.

The flames are burning in front of the mirror, from the Frost Coast to the sea area where the fleet is fighting, the continuous flames of war... It's like a ritual candlestick in front of the mirror.

The sound of the wind, waves and artillery on the sea seemed to have suddenly weakened, and everything was as far away as if it came from another world. In this strange and short silence, Aiden heard his captain speak softly.

"Father said that if you want to find him, you should find a mirror and light a fire in front of the mirror."

Tirian slowly opened his hands, facing the sea that was gradually turning into a black mirror.

"The fire is lit, are you there?"

Thus, Frost Sea Territory opened its eyes.

"I am here."