There was silence in the room for a moment.

The silence lasted for a full dozen seconds before Agatha heard Bishop Ivan's low, hoarse voice coming from under the bandage: "Ahhhh

「······ Your reaction was a bit unexpected."

"Because your information is so unexpected," Bishop Ivan seemed to finally come to his senses, adjusting his sitting posture and his tone became extremely serious, "You said that the boiling gold veins of the Frost City-State were decades ago

Exhausted? That's the truth you've found below?

"Yes, there is a gate in the deepest part of the second waterway, probably blocked by the first generation of the town hall, and behind the door is a mine tunnel that has long been depleted - judging by the location, it should be in the enrichment area at the bottom of the mine, and it is also the area that will theoretically be mined last......

Agatha did not hide it, and told all her discoveries underground, and in the process, Bishop Ivan's eyes visibly became more and more solemn.

After a while, Agatha finished what she had found below, but added with some hesitation, "...... It was just a mine, and there were countless tunnels in the mine, and even if it was the deepest part of the enrichment zone, it was not possible to tell that the entire mine had been depleted, so a large part of my conclusion was based on conjecture······ I know it's crazy."

「…… Yes, too crazy a conjecture," Bishop Ivan said slowly, "after all, if the boiling gold mines have long since dried up, as you say—what have we been bringing out of the mines for the past half century?" What is the boiling gold catalyst that the Frost City-State has sent to other cities over the years?"

Agatha did not speak, knowing that the question that Bishop Ivan had said could not be avoided or answered.

The Frost City-State has always produced the finest raw ore and finished catalyst rods, and over the past fifty years, Frost City alone has produced almost as much boiling gold as the rest of the Cold Sea combined—the boiling gold in the mines, the tunneling machinery pumping out the wealth around the clock, the catalysts from the smelting factories being transported around the world, and the ships that use those catalysts all over the sea.

And for half a century, there has not been a single case of boiling gold orders.

If the veins were really depleted decades ago, not to mention the problem of the Frost Mines - what are the steam cores of so many ships burning in the infinite seas? Phantom?

After a long time, the gatekeeper could only sigh softly, "...... If that is also a polluted creation, then our world is truly absurd to a terrible degree."

"Our world has always been absurd, but perhaps...... You did find the key clue this time, but Bishop Ivan shook his head, "Let's not care if that conjecture is crazy or not, from a rational point of view, the contradiction between the veins that dried up decades ago and the mines that are still producing steadily today are likely to be related to the anomalies in the city-state now."

「…… But based on the clues we had before, the current anomalies were probably caused by the Annihilationists," Agatha reminded, "What do they have to do with the mines?"

"They don't have to do with the mines—they may have just used and triggered this crisis," Bishop Ivan thought quickly, the experience he had accumulated over decades, especially his dealings with cultists, was helping him to perfect the puzzle at the moment, "Those heretics could not have been laid out in the city-state for decades without being discovered, not to mention that the depletion of the veins may date back to the Queen's time, when the Frost was so powerful against heresy that no cultist could escape the eyes of the Frost Queen......

At this, the old bishop paused, and then suddenly asked, "You just said that Archon Winston knew nothing about the door deep in the Second Waterway?"

Agatha nodded, "That's what he said."

「…… I don't believe him," Bishop Ivan shook his head hesitantly, "The situation at the original town hall was indeed a bit chaotic, but the transition between the first consuls and the government team should not have been so flawed, especially with such a critical and sensitive secret......

"You mean Archon Winston is hiding something from me?" Agatha frowned, "Why did he do this?"

"I don't know, maybe it's to maintain the authority of the town hall, maybe it's a bigger story behind this secret, or maybe maybe it's because he's been controlled by something, I can't say," Bishop Ivan said, his gaze suddenly falling on Agatha, "I'm even more surprised that you didn't have any suspicions in this regard—you wouldn't have had such negligence before."

Agatha froze.

In this moment of stunnedness, she recalled the scene she experienced when she returned from the second waterway—the reflection in the pool, the "other self" in the reflection that went in the opposite direction.

"Agatha, what's wrong with you?" Bishop Ivan's voice woke her from her wandering mind.

Agatha blinked and shook her head slightly.

"Are you sure?" There was obvious suspicion in Bishop Ivan's tone, "You've been distracted more than once in the past two days, and you've ......

"I'm fine, I've been fine," Agatha interrupted the old bishop, and for some reason, after a brief trance, her tone relaxed at the moment, and she exhaled softly and got up from her chair, "just suddenly figured something out—it's time for me to go."

Bishop Ivan stood up: "...... You're going to the mines?"

"The navy is holding back the enemy, the sheriffs and the guards are controlling the situation, they have bought time, I have a chance to figure out the source behind all this, it's time to go."

Agatha paused here and said, as if to emphasize, "Time is limited, I can't rest here for long."

"Alright, let's go," Bishop Ivan nodded slightly, "I hope you can find out the truth and return safely."

"I'll find out the truth."

In the thick fog, distant gunshots rang out from time to time, interspersed with occasional warning announcements from the sheriff's forces or the Guardians' forces, as well as the sound of sirens sounding automatically at some facilities.

The city-state has been blurred in the fog, and the fog is filled with invisible terror.

"I'd rather deal with hundreds or thousands of heavily armed cultists, or a few more rounds in a burning city."

Vanna casually dispersed the giant sword condensed from the cold ice, frowned and looked at the ground in front of her and said.

In the limited field of vision, the ground as far as the eye could see was strewn with horrific rifts, and large amounts of dirty black mud slowly flowed, wriggled, and quickly solidified between them, some of which barely retained the outline of a human form, but took on a chilling twist on the key limbs.

"It's disgusting." Vanna muttered again.

"Seriously, are you really happy to fight again in a burning city?"

Morris's voice came from the side, and the old scholar took a cane, glanced at the shattered "battlefield" in front of him, and said casually to Fanna.

「…… Well, no," Vanna shrugged, "neither the fog-filled forgery city-states nor the burning city of the black sun are any better."

As he spoke, the fog flowed, and a tall figure suddenly appeared behind Vana from the mist, the figure's head was swollen and deformed, and the huge one-eyed trembled violently in the fog, and in the next second, the monster pounced on Vanna.

Vanna didn't look back, just stomped on the ground hard—the invisible shockwave spread instantly, and the deformed, twisted thing only took a step forward, and was directly shattered in the lower half of its body, falling to the ground and quickly turning into mud.

And under her conscious control, Maurice, who was close at hand, was not affected by the shockwave in the slightest—the old scholar just lifted his monocle and calmly looked around at the foggy streets.

The next second, he suddenly looked at a certain location, and a silver light appeared in his eyes: "McAfeni conjecture and proof."

In the next second, a continuous low roar like a watermelon being trampled on came from the fog, and several figures could be faintly seen emerging from the fog, their heads exploding like fireworks.

"The good news is that these shoddy fakes mimic a certain level of thinking ability, and the controllers behind them need to have more brains," Morris retracted his gaze

"At first, I was worried that they were all empty shells of chaos, and then the power of knowledge would not be very useful to them."

Vanna's expression was a little strange as she watched the monsters with exploding heads gradually turn into mud in the distance, and glanced back at Morris: "When you taught me, you didn't say, 'The power of knowledge is so easy to use.'"

"That's when I judged that you weren't fit for this path." Morris said casually.

Vanna: "......"

Miss Inquisitor felt as if she had been ridiculed for a moment, but after recalling the past

After the test results, she decided to maintain her humble attitude.

"Is there anything else around?"

She asked in a low voice, keeping her guard on the lookout.

"Not yet." Morris shook his head.

He was always aware of his surroundings - when the monsters emerged from the fog, their chaotic thoughts would appear first in his perception, the fog could block one's vision, but the light of thought was as bright as a night light in his eyes.

Very few people can actively control their thoughts, so in the field of "detecting intelligent beings", there is no one like the saints of the God of wisdom.

"It's fine not yet, though new ones will pop up soon," Vana exhaled, moving her hands and feet slightly, "Do you think...... There are a lot of fake freaks in this direction, and they are significantly more offensive than elsewhere?"

"You feel it too?" Morris raised an eyebrow, "Then I was right.

"You mean ......"

"Those 'fakes' that emerge from the fog are not all blindly acting, some of them are controlled by someone behind them."