Chapter 251 “The Deep Sea”
Listening to Tyrian’s account, Duncan beca lost in thought for a brief mont. After about thirty seconds, he lifted his head and spoke pensively, “So, she initiated the ‘Abyss Plan’ out of curiosity, but its true nature isn’t about exploring so lower planes, but rather… a literal ‘dive into deep water’?”
As he said this, he paused, sensing sothing 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 aid 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 rely about diving into the water to investigate the underwater conditions of the city-state, what’s so ‘taboo’ about it? Harbor builders and offshore fishern in the city-state frequently dive for work purposes, and it’s common for them to descend safely to tens of ters. Why has the Frost Queen’s ‘Abyss Plan’ beco taboo?”
Duncan’s expression grew serious, “…How deep did you go?”
“Extrely 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 so 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 subrsible had descended to at least 1,000 ters underwater, and they consistently broke that record.”
“One thousand ters 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 ters. Records of extre deep dives reaching several thousand or even close to ten thousand ters are typically achieved by specially designed deep-diving equipnt in a short duration, requiring high-quality equipnt and often unmanned.
At the ti, the Frost Queen’s manned subrsible had already reached the “1,000 ters” threshold. Given the industrial level of this world half a century ago, this was already a remarkable feat, even with the aid of so supernatural powers.
And behind this remarkable number… it appeared to have brought sothing even more “astounding.”
Tyrian previously ntioned 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 about it.”
Perhaps because he had already answered nurous questions and grown accustod to this kind of conversation, Tyrian didn’t hesitate for long this ti. He delved into his mories 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 ters, restricted to nearshore areas. Our project initially started at this depth, and everything proceeded smoothly until we reached 300 ters.”
“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 subrsible 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 subrsible dive along the coast and moved close to the island’s nearshore areas. I still rember the description provided by the explorer when he resurfaced…
“He said that beneath the island was sothing like a rough and unsightly pillar, covered with thick calcareous deposits, and so 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 resud sharing his past experiences, “That was the scene at a depth of about 300 ters, which was the limit of the first subrsible. After realizing that this depth wasn’t sufficient for deep-sea exploration, the Queen instructed the scholars to construct a second subrsible. This one was highly successful, reaching a depth of 800 ters in a single dive. And through half a ter 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 ters 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 subrsible – due to technical constraints, the advancents of this subrsible were much more modest than the second one. It had to carefully dive and challenge the record set by the second subrsible. It was during this gradual descent, ter by ter, that we discovered sothing.
“The ‘pillar’ beneath the city-state was actually only 850 ters ‘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 mariti 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 so smaller islands, the “foundation radius” of most large cities that had a na spanned tens or even dozens of kiloters. As the largest city-state in the Cold Sea, Frost would not be smaller than this number.
Corresponding to this massive mariti structure was its underwater “base” that was “only” 850 ters deep. When the explorers first glimpsed the underwater part of the city-state at a depth of 300 ters 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 rely 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’ beca insignificant.”
“What happened later?” Duncan couldn’t help but feel curious, “What exactly did you see in the deep sea?”
“Later… the third subrsible continued to challenge the extre depth. We spent nearly two years pushing the record from 850 ters to 950 ters. As you can imagine, during this diving process, the subrsible gradually moved away from the city-state’s ‘base.’ Do you rember what I ntioned earlier? To avoid problems in the open sea area, we had the subrsible dive in the ‘nearshore safety zone’ close to the coast. Throughout this process, the subrsible 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 soone tapping on the hull, and even sensing soone turning the hatch handle outside. The deeper they went, the more severe these situations beca. Even specially trained, strong-willed explorers started to feel imnse 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’ ntal defenses.
“The problem occurred when attempting to reach the 1,000-ter depth from 990 ters.
“The third subrsible suddenly sent an ergency surfacing signal, then, as if it had gone mad, emptied its ballast tanks and raced to the surface. The explorer inside seed 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 scread and shouted in the sunlight, as if frantically attempting to describe sothing horrifying to us. After a lot of incoherent, chaotic speech, he uttered the only comprehensible sentence: ‘We all died there.'”
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