Deep Sea Embers

The world in Alice's eyes seems to be completely different from that of ordinary people from the very beginning-but until today, no one has discovered this.

Even Alice herself didn't realize it.

Duncan learned from Vanna about the battle that took place in the alley, and Alice's performance in that battle—from her detecting the hidden enemy through the "floating thread" to her taking a The Annihilation Cultist who tried to escape turned into a smashed porcelain doll, and Duncan was amazed by the whole process.

Now, all eyes are on the lady doll who has been in a daze from beginning to end.

"...It turns out that you can't see the 'line'..." No matter how slow Alice was, she realized what was going on at this time, she scratched her head with an innocent face, "I thought it was common sense, after all Everyone has that stuff floating around their heads and limbs..."

Duncan stared into Alice's eyes with a very serious expression: "Let me confirm again, everyone has a 'line', right?"

"Yes, everyone—but you haven't, Captain." Alice replied immediately.

Duncan thought for a while, then asked again: "...Is it because I don't have my body, or I don't have this body?"

"You don't have this body now either," Alice replied honestly, and then added, "Neither does your body in Prand..."

Duncan nodded lightly, his thoughts were racing, and various conjectures came and went.

In Alice's eyes, people all over the world have floating "threads", but she does not have them, and neither does the body she occupies... So, this so-called "thread" is not connected to the flesh and blood, but Is it a symbol of something more essential? Is it the soul? or personality?

What about her ability to easily "grab" someone else's string and use it to restrain or attack her opponent when she's close enough? Is it her undisclosed ability from the beginning as anomaly 099, or is it a mutation that occurred after she became a member of the Lost Home?

Duncan was thinking here, never leaving Alice's face, and finally even this dull puppet felt awkward, she twisted her neck subconsciously: "Captain...you keep staring at me...I'm so nervous of."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Duncan reacted immediately, blinked to make his eyes less stressed, and then turned his head to look at Fanna next to him thoughtfully, "As far as I know, Alice is now His 'official name' has been changed to Anomaly 099-Doll, right?"

"Yes, her original name was Doll Coffin." Fanna nodded immediately, and at the same time she already guessed what Duncan meant, "You mean to say that Alice's power is also related to this change?"

"Perhaps... the coffin and the puppet represent different powers from the very beginning. The former is a symbol of death, so it has the ability to behead simple and rough, while the latter is the manipulation of humanoid objects, which is exactly in line with the 'doll' position," Duncan said unhurriedly, "it's just that Alice belonged to the 'content' of the coffin before, so the 'combination' of anomaly 099 fully presents the characteristics of the coffin, and now... the doll has become The 'main part' in anomaly 099, her original ability has also been released."

"The coffin and the puppet have different powers..." Morris, who was still silent at the side, muttered softly, "This is a very possible speculation."

Duncan felt somewhat emotional in his heart.

For a long time, he thought that the powerful power of Anomaly 099 had disappeared—after Alice's wooden box was "transformed", she was nothing more than a somewhat weird cursed doll that could move and think, and she had no food. She was cowardly and naive, but she never expected that she would show such a weird ability today, how should I put it...

Sure enough, it is worthy of the number with less than one hundred digits—although it is still very good on the Lost Homeland number.

Alice obviously didn't have so many thoughts. She just kept turning her eyes around as Duncan talked with other people, looking at this and that. It took a long time before she barely understood some of the current situation, but her face showed With a somewhat uneasy look, he cast his gaze cautiously: "...Captain, have I done something bad?"

"No, it's a good thing." Duncan shook his head immediately, "You are very brave, and you have protected yourself well. Heretics are by no means innocent."

"Then..." Alice thought about it again, raised her hand and gestured, "Then is my ability a bad thing?"

Duncan looked at the puppet quietly. After a long time, a smile suddenly appeared on his face: "It's a good thing."

Alice seemed a little confused.

"You can control it, can't you?" Duncan asked.

"Yes," Alice waved her hand, "it's very simple."

"So it's a good thing," said Duncan, laughing. "It's never a bad thing to have power—losing control is the trouble. Now you can help me a lot more, Alice."

The puppet lady finally laughed, swaying around with a particularly happy look: "That's great, I see everyone is so serious all of a sudden, I thought it was a bad thing..."

Duncan just stretched out his hand and gently stroked Alice's hair.

She shook a little too much, and her head was about to fall off.

At the same time, the thoughts in his heart did not calm down.

Even though he knew Alice's current ability and roughly deduced that "dolls and coffins have their own symbols", this does not mean that all the mysteries have been solved, on the contrary, it just made him more conscious In front of the eyes, this puppet hides more secrets.

He has been with Alice for a long time, and because of this time, he is used to the noise of this puppet on the boat, and she is used to running around in front of him all day, but she is harmless to humans and animals. He almost forgot that before this doll became the cook on the Lost Home, it was an anomaly numbered 099, a strange thing that floated up from the cold deep sea after the death of the Frost Queen .

In a sense, she is actually of the same origin as those weird and twisted "replicas".

But she's nothing like any other duplicate that's been seen so far—and there's no reason for that.

For some reason, he suddenly remembered a sentence said by the Annihilation cultist who appeared after the explosion of the Haiyan——

"If it wasn't for that queen..."

Duncan shook his head, temporarily suppressed the complicated thoughts in his heart, and looked up at Fan Na.

"The situation tonight shows one thing. The 'replicas' in the city are indeed the hands and feet of those Annihilation Cultists, and those cultists are not only acting secretly, but also secretly paying attention to the replicas they released into the city—— This kind of observation is very similar to collecting some data."

"Based on my experience, this is preparing for a bigger operation. The replica in the city is just the beginning, and the erosion on Dagger Island is probably just another bigger test site," Fan Na nodded, "They also tried to transport the pollution from Dagger Island to Frost Island. Although this action was blocked, it already shows that their actions have reached a very critical stage."

"It doesn't matter, I will take action—but first I need to know which gutter they are hiding in," Duncan said casually, "It is meaningless to kill a few believers or priests, or even destroy a few assembly points. Experience has shown this."

As he spoke, he raised his eyes. Through the gap in the bandages, he looked through the dirty window next to Frost's row upon row of spires and eaves.

"...where are you hiding?"

The wind became stronger, the second snow began to fall, and the snowflakes fluttered down in the night, and the streets in the distance became hazy as if they were hidden in the fog.

This snow fell almost all night, until the sun rose, the afterglow of the creation of the world dissipated in the sun, and the golden red glow diffused along the streets into the city, and the numerous snowflakes gradually stopped.

The heavy and solemn wrought iron gate of the cemetery creaked open, and the old guard in a thick coat hung the hook used to fix the gate on the fence, and glanced at the streets in the direction of the city.

Everything at the entrance is covered with thick snow, and the outlines and boundaries of the streets in the distance are blurred under the thick snow, turning into a vast expanse of white.

The steam pipe above the block is emitting white mist, and the heat energy from the steam core is being transported to key nodes everywhere to melt the ice and snow in the pipe network hub and power station. Big, white-smoke, low-pitched roars rumbled across the streets, clearing important lines of traffic.

Since the visitor left, the cemetery has returned to tranquility, and nothing unusual has disturbed the dead. However, neither the guards of the cemetery nor the guards sent by the church have relaxed after this.

In the second half of the night, a "sentence" was sent to the caretaker's hut through a high-pressure steam pipe. The dispatch came from the city hall, and the content was very strange-requiring all the extraordinary guards in the city to be vigilant, but did not explain what exactly to be wary of.

Agatha seemed to have received some information shortly after that. She sent a small team to Hearth Street, and the guards haven't returned yet.

The wind and snow in the second half of the night were very heavy, and the howling wind and chaotic snowflakes seemed to indicate something.

The old guard tightened his coat tightly.

"This damn weather..."

(Time to push the book, from Master Qie, the title of the book is "The Most Exciting Demon Slayer in Eight Directions", a story about a professional demon-slaying demon-slayer who pulls people into an introversion competition, a masterpiece of group friends , everyone can support it~)