The Frost Queen was silent for more than ten seconds. Her purple eyes, as clear and calm as gemstones, showed no trace of her current mood. It was not until the silence almost froze into suffocation that she nodded gently: "Oh."

Then she thought for a moment and asked, "What's the situation with Frost now?"

Duncan looked into her eyes and spoke in a calm tone: "...Tirion is the new Archon. The Sea Mist Fleet is taking over the city-state. The remaining Frost Navy will be reorganized."

A smile appeared on Lenora's face. "Ah, Tirian, one possibility... fate is really hard to tell. This result is not bad. What do you think?"

Duncan did not respond, but continued calmly: "There is one more thing. The current rulers of the City-State Church must obey my orders."

Lei Nora finally showed a slightly surprised expression. She tilted her head slightly and said, "Hmm? It sounds like... you are the actual controller of Frost now?"

"I have no interest in taking control of a city-state—but you could assume so."

"Now I am more and more curious about what happened to make the situation in Frost become like this," Lei Nora's expression became serious. "I have arranged many things, but your appearance was beyond all plans. You mentioned a disaster, but in my estimation, even if "He" loses control to a certain extent, the situation will not deteriorate to the extent you said..."

"The army of replicas in the deep sea invaded Frostbite, and a mirror city-state almost floated up to the real world," Duncan said in a deep voice. "While you were trying to appease this tentacle in the deep sea, a group of heretics sensed its escaping power. And the continued mining of the boiling gold mine by the Frostbite city-state 'helped' those heretics to a certain extent."

Duncan did not hide anything next. He told the former queen everything that happened in Frost, including the changes that occurred after his intervention.

Lei Nora did not interrupt from beginning to end. She listened quietly until Duncan finished speaking. She breathed a sigh of relief and a complicated smile appeared on her face: "Compared with the ancient gods in the deep sea, crazy humans are indeed more terrifying."

Then she paused and sighed with relief: "But fortunately, despite the worst trend, there was a not-so-bad ending - most people survived."

"Even if the city-state eventually becomes the property of a 'warp shadow' like me?" Duncan asked deliberately.

Lei Nora just smiled, then looked into Duncan's eyes seriously: "Then you will surely become the most powerful guardian of Frost in history."

"Your attitude towards me is different from others," Duncan said with some emotion. "Since I regained my humanity, I have come into contact with many people. Most of them seemed to be shocked. Few people can remain calm when they meet me for the first time, let alone have such an optimistic attitude like you."

Lei Nora shook her head. "This is not optimism. This is a fact. You have regained your humanity and helped Frost. Then you are naturally the most powerful guardian of this city-state. I know that most people will have an instinctive fear of this, but I have embraced fear for too long and am used to seeing the true face of things through fear."

"...Now it's my turn to ask questions." After hearing what the Frost Queen said, Duncan was silent for two or three seconds, then he organized his words and spoke, "When did the replica of the Deep Lord... invade the real world? Will a similar 'invasion' happen again?"

"I'm sorry, I can't give you a clear answer to the first question," Ray Nora said with a hint of apology on her face. "When I sensed His presence, He had already appeared in the deep sea. During the first few contacts, I only heard one voice... He said He was a wrong replica, and He said He needed to stop running."

"Contact?" Duncan noticed the word immediately. "How did you first 'contact' Him? And from what you said... this replica took the initiative to tell you the situation and even asked you for help?"

Ray Nora nodded gently: "I wonder if you have heard that I am a natural psychic?"

"...I have heard rumors about this. They say you can even know everything in the past and present."

"The rumors are often exaggerated. I can neither predict the future nor see through everything. But at least one thing is true. Natural born psychics... can really 'hear' 'voices' that ordinary people cannot hear," Ray Nora seemed to be lost in memories. She spoke slowly while thinking, "When I was very young, I often heard those whispers from unknown sources, or saw strange and bizarre scenes in my dreams. Like most natural born psychics, these terrible 'diseases' are very dangerous, and even threatened the caregivers around me several times -

"Can you imagine? You are taking care of a two or three-year-old child, and then the child is just dreaming in his sleep, and deadly screams and shrinking and wriggling shadows suddenly appear in the room... After realizing that the frequent horrible anomalies in the house came from the youngest child, my parents had to send me to the church. Like other natural psychics, I was handed over to... 'professionals' for care.

"I grew up in the deepest cellar of the cathedral until I was twelve years old. Fully armed silent monks and ascetics were my nannies, specially made shackles and collars were my toys, and a blessed iron cage was my bed. The gatekeeper came to check three times a week to make sure that my mind was still on the human side. It was not until my twelfth birthday that my spirit and will began to thrive, and my cognition became clearer. The archbishop believed that I had stabilized on the 'human' side, so he blessed and baptized me, and announced to the public that I was a human.

"After that, I received strict training to adapt to and control my own talents, and at the same time, I learned to live in peace with my own 'nightmare'. Over the past four years, I gradually understood that my 'dream' was essentially a resonance with the world, and that the whispers and light and shadows in my dreams came from those beings that were wandering outside the borders of reality and trying to establish a connection with the real world. After confirming that my mind could bear it, the mentors taught me to use a special method to listen to those voices and to maintain my own self in the process...

"And it was during this process that my 'perception' began to be frequently led to the deep sea, and I began to sense... His existence.

“Or rather, He began to be aware of my presence.

"Every born psyker has his or her own resonance tendency. Some tend to hear the voices of history. Most of them will become outstanding archaeologists and occult scholars. Some tend to hear the voices of the Four Gods. As long as they can survive to adulthood, they are almost destined to be 'saints'. The more unfortunate ones will resonate with the warp - 99% of these people will not be able to leave the church crypt alive. The few who survive will become extremely rare 'secret keepers' or 'secret saints' and be retained by the church.

"And I have established a resonance with an ancient god who has awakened in the deep sea."

Lenoir paused, her eyes looking towards the end of the room, towards the fragmented land of darkness and chaos. Then the darkness surged under her gaze, the chaotic light and shadow representing the subspace faded away, and the floating island in the endless sea and the silent "pillar" appeared in the depths of the darkness.

That was her resonance, her nightmare, her fear and responsibility, the beginning and the end.

“In fact, most of the time, I couldn’t hear clearly what ‘He’ was saying. At first, I thought it was because I didn’t have enough strength and control over psychic resonance, but as time went on, I found that the reason was actually this ‘Ancient God’.

"He is incomplete. He is just a 'fake' that was mistakenly copied from a larger individual. He woke up in this dark ocean without knowing anything. His chaotic and shattered mind was filled with only one thought - error, stop immediately.

“He repeated this thought in my mind thousands and tens of thousands of times.”

Duncan finally spoke softly: "So, you started the Abyss Project?"

"No, I became the Frost Queen first," Lei Nora said calmly, "It took a little effort, but only by controlling the entire city-state can I have more ways to investigate and confirm what I 'heard'. In the process, I discovered the anomaly deep in the boiling gold mine, and the connection between all this and the 'deep sea' - the Abyss Plan is the final result, and I have done a lot of preparation for this final result."

Duncan didn't say anything for a while, but slowly got up from the chair and walked to the end of the room, looking thoughtfully at the deep sea "scenery" emerging from the darkness, and the tentacle that pierced through the Frost "blueprint" like a giant pillar.

After a long while, he turned his head slightly and said, "So He has no ill intentions?"

"There is no malice, nor goodwill," said Ray Nora. "In fact, He does not even have what can be called 'wisdom' - He only has a small, messy and fragmented thought, repeating simple judgments. He cannot even understand his own existence, and of course there is no 'attitude' towards those tiny and fragile creatures on the sea...

“He simply exists, exists in pain and confusion, exists in this cold darkness, but even this simple ‘existence’ is enough to subvert our delicate and fragile so-called ‘civilized world’.”

Duncan muttered softly: "Existence itself is a threat..."

A moment later, Lenora's voice came from behind him: "Now I can answer your second question.

"Will a similar 'invasion' happen again? I think... it is possible, even certain to happen."

Duncan turned around instantly: "Why?"

"Because this is not an 'invasion'. The Lord of the Deep did not 'enter' our real world from His realm - He did not need to do so.

"His 'components' naturally exist in the real world, in every deep sea, every city-state, and even in every human body. What happened in the Frost Deep Sea was not an 'invasion', but an... 'awakening'."

Lenora slowly opened her hands, with an unusual calmness on her face. She looked into Duncan's eyes and told him the greatest truth she had learned in this half-century nightmare sleep:

"Captain Duncan, in a sense, all of us, even the city-states beneath our feet, are descendants of the ancient gods."