Chapter 431: Ashes Ignite

As the early morning light began to break, the opaque, seemingly impenetrable mist that had taken hold over the icy seas started reluctantly withdrawing, slowly unveiling the harrowing spectacle hidden behind its curtains. This was the first glimmer of visibility they had encountered since the unexpected maritime chaos had unfurled.

But, as the mist pulled away, the sight that came to the fore was as chilling as the icy water that lapped against the ship’s hull. A chilling aftermath of a battle, with the sea being a graveyard of ghostly shipwrecks, was revealed – wrecks burning fiercely, their fires flickering like grotesque spectres on the waves. Distorted, uncanny shapes of phantom fleets, like an ethereal army, loomed ominously over the wreckage-strewn water. The oily surface was ablaze, sending thick plumes of smoke spiraling upwards, further polluting the clearing air with a foreboding murkiness.

First Mate Aiden was the first to venture towards the porthole, his eyes widened in awe at the sight unfolding. After taking in the scene for a moment, he shouted, “The fog is lifting! Captain! The fog is pulling back!”

“I can see that,” Captain Tyrian replied tersely, making his way quickly to the porthole. His hardened eye retained its intensity despite the dispersing fog. “It’s pulling away... but can we truly say it has retreated?”

“Captain, shouldn’t this be a sign of relief?” Aiden asked, sensing an underlying tension in Tyrian’s voice. “The clearing mist could mean that whatever mysterious force has been brewing in the Frost is...”

“Something isn’t right...” Tyrian interrupted Aiden, a serious expression etched on his face. He peered intensely towards the horizon. “The fog has cleared, but those phantom ships... they remain. And the sea... it’s... it’s...”

“The sea?” Aiden queried, furrowing his brows, following Tyrian’s gaze to the horizon and sucking in a breath as realization dawned.

As the Captain had implied, something was terribly wrong—the illusionary fleets in every direction weren’t dissolving. On the contrary, more ghostly vessels began to breach the sea surface. And in unison, the sea began to darken as if gradually dyed by an invisible hand!

An all-consuming darkness seeped through the sea, indicating something hidden was stirring, with numerous obscure shapes rising to converge on the surface. It was as if some gigantic creature—or perhaps an army of beasts—was surfacing from the deep abyss of the ocean!

“Oh God...” Aiden began, but his words were cut short as the temporary tranquility achieved by the fog’s retreat was violently interrupted by a succession of deafening roars.

The sea around them was splitting, revealing a multitude of massive vessels. Some were wrecked and battered, others twisted into ghostly apparitions, while a few bore a chilling resemblance to their own fleet—in the suddenly pitch-black sea, it appeared as though an entire fleet of phantom ships was being launched simultaneously!

“Alert! Enemy vessels are surfacing! They’re... they’re everywhere!” A terrified sailor screamed, jolting the crew into action.

Their defensive cannons mounted along the ship’s edges thundered to life, firing projectiles into the air and transforming the sea into a battleground filled with enormous splashes of water and explosive detonations.

Amidst this sudden chaos, Captain Tyrian stood as if frozen, silently observing the sea as the enemy continued to rise from the water, one after another.

Even amidst the chaotic scene, some of the resurfacing ships were unmistakably familiar to his crew.

“It’s the ‘Knight’! The ‘Knight’ that we sank to the depths at the very start of this nightmare!”

“And the ‘Black Flag Soldier’! We sent the ‘Black Flag Soldier’ to its watery grave just a quarter of an hour ago! Yet, it’s bobbing back to the surface!”

“The ‘Courage’! And the ‘Prince of Jotun’, too!”

“Captain!” First Mate Aiden’s voice rang out with an edge of panic, a startling contrast to his typically collected tone. “All the phantom fleets... the ones we thought we defeated... they’re all rising from the sea again!”

As Tyrian was about to respond, a voice echoed within the labyrinth of his thoughts, “This was inevitable, as long as the source of these illusionary fleets persists.”

“Any news from Agatha?”

“We’ve failed to establish contact with Gatekeeper Agatha,” the assistant reported hurriedly. “The exploration team that ventured into the mines with her reported that she vanished after walking into a mysterious stone wall. Now, with the mine consumed by darkness, I fear...”

“The gatekeeper is not one to fall so easily. Agatha will fulfill her duty... she certainly will,” Bishop Ivan asserted, his voice filled with unwavering belief.

The assistant hesitated, “Archbishop, perhaps you should consider evacuation...”

“Evacuate? Do you suggest I retreat into the prayer room’s safety within the cathedral? Or perhaps flee the city by boat?” Bishop Ivan turned towards his assistant, shaking his head with a solemn gravity. “There’s no need for my evacuation. I will remain here. Your duty is to lead the guardians stationed at the hill’s base and guide all the civilians who can be moved up the hill. Resist for as long as possible.”

The assistant hesitated for a few more moments, then finally nodded with determination: “As you command, Archbishop!”

With his departure, Bishop Ivan was left alone on the terrace once more.

His gaze drifted towards the cathedral entwined in thorns, an uncanny doppelgänger of the Silent Cathedral.

The cathedral was devoid of the usual hustle and bustle of the clergy, standing eerily silent.

Though merely a mirrored apparition, its manifestation signified the final incursion of Mirror Frost’s “inverse.”

“Agatha... you must still be out there, carrying out your mission...”

Bishop Ivan murmured as though talking to himself, or possibly uttering gentle encouragement for a protégé now off the grid.

Slowly, he lifted his hand, unclasping the grand robe emblematic of his archbishopric stature, and removed his crown, setting it beside him on the railing.

“Always remember, we, the Saints of Bartok, stand resolute until our ultimate demise...”

Beneath the regal trappings of his robe and crown lay swathes of bandages. With a trembling hand, Ivan reached out, slowly loosening a knot at his collar.

“With our mortal forms, we wage a relentless war against corruption. Upon the cessation of life, our indomitable spirits continue the tireless defense, and when these mortal vessels too meet their demise...”

As he unwrapped the bandages, it was as if a pressure cooker, kept under intense stress for decades, was suddenly relieved of its burden. Beneath the bandages, there was no marred flesh – there was no flesh at all.

Only a cloud of ghostly dust remained.

“In the end, what remains are our fiery ashes.”

As the bandages dropped away, ashes fluttered and scattered from the edge of the terrace, morphing into a wispy veil of white smoke that slowly shrouded the sky above Frost.