Deep Sea Embers

As he said this, he paused, sensing something peculiar about the situation. “But if that’s all there is to it, how is this project connected to the Vanished? Subspace where the Vanished disappeared and the deep sea the Frost Queen aimed to explore are two distinct concepts. The rebels shouldn’t be so muddled that they can’t even differentiate between the two…”

Tyrian didn’t reply directly but instead posed a question, “Don’t you find it odd? If it’s merely about diving into the water to investigate the underwater conditions of the city-state, what’s so ‘taboo’ about it? Harbor builders and offshore fishermen in the city-state frequently dive for work purposes, and it’s common for them to descend safely to tens of meters. Why has the Frost Queen’s ‘Abyss Plan’ become taboo?”

Duncan’s expression grew serious, “…How deep did you go?”

“Extremely deep, incredibly deep. I’m unsure of the exact depth the Queen reached because I’m not a scholar myself. I only participated as a naval commander, offering some peripheral support, and I wasn’t directly engaged in the actions during the latter half of the project. However, as far as I’m aware, before the project began to go awry, their manned submersible had descended to at least 1,000 meters underwater, and they consistently broke that record.”

“One thousand meters underwater…”

Duncan rapidly processed the information in his mind – on Earth, this seemingly insignificant number is, in fact, the limit for many advanced military submarines, with most capable of diving only to depths of 400 to 500 meters. Records of extreme deep dives reaching several thousand or even close to ten thousand meters are typically achieved by specially designed deep-diving equipment in a short duration, requiring high-quality equipment and often unmanned.

At the time, the Frost Queen’s manned submersible had already reached the “1,000 meters” threshold. Given the industrial level of this world half a century ago, this was already a remarkable feat, even with the aid of some supernatural powers.

And behind this remarkable number… it appeared to have brought something even more “astounding.”

Tyrian previously mentioned that the project gradually went “wrong” in its later stages, and Duncan didn’t miss this detail.

He gazed at Tyrian, his eyes intensifying, “I want to know the specifics of the entire exploration project – whatever part you were involved in, tell me about it.”

Perhaps because he had already answered numerous questions and grown accustomed to this kind of conversation, Tyrian didn’t hesitate for long this time. He delved into his memories and began to recount slowly, “… Apart from the Frost Queen’s Abyss Plan, the recorded human conventional diving depth, or ‘safe water depth,’ is 150 meters, restricted to nearshore areas. Our project initially started at this depth, and everything proceeded smoothly until we reached 300 meters.”

“At that depth, it was already incredibly dark. Sunlight from the surface couldn’t penetrate such a thick layer of water, and the high-powered lights on the submersible could only illuminate a small area. To investigate the ‘structure’ beneath the city-state’s islands and avoid dangerous ‘creatures’ in the open sea as much as possible, like deep-sea offspring heirs, we had the submersible dive along the coast and moved close to the island’s nearshore areas. I still remember the description provided by the explorer when he resurfaced…

“He said that beneath the island was something like a rough and unsightly pillar, covered with thick calcareous deposits, and some peculiar creatures lived in the pits of the deposits. Other than the ‘pillar,’ there was nothing else, just darkness.”

“A pillar beneath the island?” Duncan couldn’t help but interrupt Tyrian, “Not a gradually expanding support structure, but a pillar?”

“Yes, at least that’s the case for Frost,” Tyrian nodded, “Is there an issue with that?”

Duncan shook his head, “…No issue, continue.”

Tyrian gathered his thoughts and resumed sharing his past experiences, “That was the scene at a depth of about 300 meters, which was the limit of the first submersible. After realizing that this depth wasn’t sufficient for deep-sea exploration, the Queen instructed the scholars to construct a second submersible. This one was highly successful, reaching a depth of 800 meters in a single dive. And through half a meter of high-strength glass, the explorer still observed… a pillar, a straight pillar.

“Of course, in comparison to the city-state’s radius, this ‘pillar’ of at least 800 meters in length was still relatively short in proportion. Instead of a support column, it was more like a normal, disk-shaped base supporting the island.”

“Subsequently, we built a third submersible – due to technical constraints, the advancements of this submersible were much more modest than the second one. It had to carefully dive and challenge the record set by the second submersible. It was during this gradual descent, meter by meter, that we discovered something.

“The ‘pillar’ beneath the city-state was actually only 850 meters ‘tall.’ Beyond that, there was nothing.

“The entire structure was floating in the seawater.”

Tyrian paused and looked into Duncan’s eyes, “Now do you understand why I said earlier that it’s more like a disk-shaped base than a pillar?”

Duncan furrowed his brow. He remained silent but quickly visualized the entire structure in his mind based on Tyrian’s description—

In the deep-sea era, people “lived in cramped conditions” in the city-states. Initially, Duncan believed these maritime islands were crowded and narrow, but in reality, as functional, self-sufficient living spaces, these city-states were certain to have a sizable “foundation.” Although there were some smaller islands, the “foundation radius” of most large cities that had a name spanned tens or even dozens of kilometers. As the largest city-state in the Cold Sea, Frost would not be smaller than this number.

Corresponding to this massive maritime structure was its underwater “base” that was “only” 850 meters deep. When the explorers first glimpsed the underwater part of the city-state at a depth of 300 meters extending straight into the deep sea, they instinctively imagined it as a pillar reaching the “ocean floor.” However, in terms of proportion, the shape of this “pillar” more closely resembled a thin floating disc in proportion to the radius of the island that’s resting on it.

As Tyrian described it, the entire structure was floating in the seawater.

Nevertheless, when Duncan envisioned this model, a significant question arose in his mind: was every city-state like this?

If every city-state was like this, all being foundationless “floating objects,” then how could they be so stable? If the city-states’ own “stability” was due to their large size, then how could the stable relative positions between the city-states be explained?

Despite the endless rolling waves, these “floating islands” never changed position. Why?

Duncan expressed his doubts, but Tyrian merely shook his head, “We also had doubts about this, but in the end, we couldn’t figure it out. And compared to what happened later… the question of ‘how the city-states float on the sea’ became insignificant.”

“What happened later?” Duncan couldn’t help but feel curious, “What exactly did you see in the deep sea?”

“Later… the third submersible continued to challenge the extreme depth. We spent nearly two years pushing the record from 850 meters to 950 meters. As you can imagine, during this diving process, the submersible gradually moved away from the city-state’s ‘base.’ Do you remember what I mentioned earlier? To avoid problems in the open sea area, we had the submersible dive in the ‘nearshore safety zone’ close to the coast. Throughout this process, the submersible was actually always near the city-state and the underwater ‘structure’ of the island. But as the dive continued, the explorer moved away from the ‘base,’ and things began to go awry.

“Audio and visual hallucinations, mysterious lights appearing in the seawater, feeling someone tapping on the hull, and even sensing someone turning the hatch handle outside. The deeper they went, the more severe these situations became. Even specially trained, strong-willed explorers started to feel immense pressure during each dive, and the protective effects of the holy oil, sacred books, and scripture cloth they carried grew less and less noticeable.

“Of course, up to this point, this was still within our expectations. Exploring the unknown inherently involves confronting challenges of willpower. Scholars investigating the spirit world and the deep sea often face such difficulties, so we continued, only enforcing the strictest standards for strengthening the explorers’ mental defenses.

“The problem occurred when attempting to reach the 1,000-meter depth from 990 meters.

“The third submersible suddenly sent an emergency surfacing signal, then, as if it had gone mad, emptied its ballast tanks and raced to the surface. The explorer inside seemed not to care that this rapid ascent would cost him his life. After reaching the surface, he had gone mad. The hatch opened, and he screamed and shouted in the sunlight, as if frantically attempting to describe something horrifying to us. After a lot of incoherent, chaotic speech, he uttered the only comprehensible sentence: ‘We all died there.\'”