Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 247: Chapter 251 “Abyssal Depths

Listening to Tyrion’s narrative, Duncan fell into brief contemplation. Half a minute later, he raised his head and spoke thoughtfully, “So, she initiated a ‘Deep Abyss Project’ to satisfy her own desire for exploration, but the essence of this project isn’t actually about exploring some Subspace, but just… literally ‘diving into deep water’?”

At this, he paused, feeling that something was peculiar about the whole affair, “But if that was all, how did Homeloss get involved in the project? The Subspace Homeloss went to and the deep sea that the Frost Queen wished to explore are two entirely different concepts; surely, the rebels couldn’t have failed to understand that…”

Tyrion didn’t answer directly but instead suddenly posed a question, “Don’t you find it strange? If it’s just about diving into the water to explore the depths near the City-State, what’s so ‘forbidden’ about that? Port builders and nearshore fishermen from the City-States often dive into water for work. It’s quite common to dive ten or even dozens of meters in the safe waters. Why has the Frost Queen’s ‘Deep Abyss Project’ become a taboo?”

Duncan’s gaze grew serious, “…How deep did you dive?”

“Very deep, very deep. I don’t know the exact depth Her Majesty eventually reached because I’m not a scholar myself. I was merely involved as a naval commander and only in some peripheral assistance. Moreover, during the latter part of the plan, I no longer directly participated. But as far as I know, before the project started becoming… ‘wrong,’ their manned submersible had already reached a depth of at least one thousand meters underwater and was continuously breaking that record.”

One thousand meters underwater…

Duncan quickly sorted through his knowledge—on Earth, this seemingly insignificant number is actually the limit of many advanced military submarines, and most military submarines can only dive to four or five hundred meters. As for those “extreme deep-dive records” that reach several thousand or even nearly ten thousand meters, they are usually achieved by specially designed deep-diving vessels in a short amount of time, require extraordinarily high-spec equipment, and often only unmanned equipment can be used.

At that time, the Frost Queen’s manned submersible had already reached the threshold of “one thousand meters”. Considering the industrial level of half a century ago in this world, even with the assistance of Transcendent powers, this was an astonishing number.

And behind this astonishing number… evidently came some even more “astonishing” things.

Tyrion had just mentioned that the project started to gradually become “wrong,” and Duncan hadn’t missed that phrase.

He looked at Tyrion, his expression turning solemn, “I would like to know the details of the entire exploration plan—you tell me as much as you participated in.”

Perhaps because he had already answered many questions and had already adjusted to this manner of conversation, Tyrion didn’t hesitate for too long this time. He fell into his memories and began to speak slowly:

“…Aside from the Frost’s Deep Abyss Project, the recorded conventional diving depth for humans, or what is called ‘safe water depth,’ is one hundred and fifty meters, and it is confined to nearshore areas—our plan also started at this depth, and everything went smoothly until we reached three hundred meters.

“It was already very dark. The sunlight from the surface couldn’t penetrate such a depth of water, and the high-powered lights carried by the submersible could only illuminate a small area. To explore the ‘appearance’ of the island below the City-State, and to avoid some of the dangerous ‘creatures’ from the far offshore, such as the deep-sea offspring, we directed the submersible to dive along the coast and move close to the island’s nearshore area. I still remember the scenes described by the explorers when they came up…

“He said that underneath the island lay a column, ugly and rough, covered with thick calcareous deposits, with some bizarre organisms dwelling in the nooks of the deposits. Besides the ‘column,’ there was nothing else, just pitch darkness.”

“The island underneath is a column?” Duncan couldn’t help interrupting Tyrion, “Not a gradually expanding support structure, but a column?”

“Yes, at least that’s the case with Frost,” Tyrion nodded, “Is there a problem?”

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

Tyrion organized his thoughts and resumed his previous recollection, “That was the scene observed at about three hundred meters deep, which was also the limit of the first submersible. After realizing this depth was far from sufficient to explore the deep sea, the Queen ordered scholars to build a second submersible. This submersible was very successful; it plunged straight down to a depth of eight hundred meters. And through the half-meter-thick high-strength glass, the explorers saw… still a column, a perfectly straight column.

“Of course, in comparison to the radius of the City-State itself, this ‘column’ that was at least eight hundred meters long was still very short proportionally. It’s less like a support column and more like a neat disk-shaped base, above which an island was perched.”

“Afterward, we constructed the third submersible. Because of technological limitations, this submersible had far fewer improvements than the second one. It had to descend cautiously to challenge the record set by the second submersible, and it was during this slow, meter-by-meter descent that we discovered something.

“The ‘pillar’ beneath the City-State is actually only eight hundred and fifty meters ‘long.’ There’s nothing below that.

“The entire structure is floating in the seawater.”

Tirian paused, then looked up into Duncan’s eyes, “Now you understand why I said earlier that it resembles less a pillar and more like the base of a disc?”

Duncan furrowed his brow tightly. He didn’t speak but swiftly sketched the entire structure in his mind based on Tirian’s description—

People of the deep-sea era “lived” within the City-States, these isolated islands in the sea that initially gave Duncan the impression of being cramped and tiny, but in fact, as functional and self-sustaining living spaces, these City-States were bound to have a substantial “size foundation.” Although there were also some smaller islands, most of the large cities that could be named had “foundation radii” reaching tens or even dozens of kilometers in size. Frost, once the largest City-State in the Chill Sea, would not be smaller than these figures.

In contrast to this vast sea structure was its underwater “base,” which was “only” eight hundred and fifty meters deep—explorers who first saw parts of the City-State underwater at a depth of three hundred meters and imagined it as a pillar reaching straight “to the seabed”. However, in actual proportions, the “pillar” resembled a thin disc more closely.

The massive City was set atop this “disc.”

Just as Tirian had described: the whole structure was floating in seawater.

But once this model materialized in his mind, Duncan was overwhelmed with immense doubt—

Were all City-States like this?

If every City-State was this way, floating without foundations, then how were they so stable? If it was said that the City-States’ “sturdiness” came from their size, then what about the relative stability between the City-States? How could that be explained?

The waves of the Endless Sea were turbulent, yet these “floating islands” had never changed their positions. Why was that?

Duncan voiced his doubts, but Tirian simply shook his head, “We also wondered 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 irrelevant.”

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

“After that… the third submersible continued to challenge the depth limits. It took us nearly two years to push the record from eight hundred and fifty meters to nine hundred and fifty meters. As you can imagine, during this descent, the submersible was gradually moving away from the City-State’s ‘base’—remember what I said at the beginning? To avoid problems in the remote sea areas, we had the submersible descend in the ‘nearshore safe zone’ close to the coast. Throughout the process, the submersible was always close to the City-State and its underwater ‘structure.’ But as the descent continued and the explorers moved away from that ‘base,’ things started to go awry.

“Hallucinations, visual and auditory, feelings of inexplicable lights in the sea, the sensation that someone was knocking on the hull, or even turning the handles of valves outside— the deeper it went, the more severe these episodes became, and even the explorers who underwent special training and had strong will started to feel immense pressure with each descent while the protective effects of the holy oil, sacred scriptures, and consecrated cloths they carried became increasingly less evident.

“Of course, up to that point, it was all within our expectations—exploring the unknown always requires facing challenges of the will. Scholars who explore the Spirit Realm and the profound sea areas often encounter these issues, so we continued, only enhancing the explorers’ mental protection according to the strictest standards.

“The problem happened while attempting to reach one thousand meters from nine hundred and ninety meters.

“The third submersible suddenly sent out an emergency ascent signal, then, as if mad, it emptied its ballast tanks and rushed to the surface. The explorer inside seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that this rapid ascent could take his life. When he surfaced, he had gone mad. As the hatch opened, he screamed and shouted in the sun, desperately trying to tell us something terrible, but after a torrent of incoherent, jumbled words, he said the only lucid sentence:

“‘We all died there.'”