Ice Vapor Goddess

Chapter 3 Snow Country
“Ober, Ober Nelson,” the knight said coldly, “the current captain of the Speyside Parish Guard.”

"I see, it's a pleasure to meet you." Xilun warmly shook his hand. "So we're colleagues. I look forward to seeing you in the future."

The knight was not used to the bishop's enthusiastic expression, nor to that attitude of equality. Colleague? What high-ranking clergyman would call the captain of the guard a colleague? He could only keep a straight face and be shaken back and forth by Siron like a puppet.

After exchanging pleasantries for a while, Xilun asked with a smile, "Where is my carriage? Is there anything else I need to do?"

Aobo then remembered his main task and said, "These three carriages are for your exclusive use. This is the reception room, the bedroom is in front, and the dining room is in the back. There is also a document that you need to sign."

He pointed to the documents on the table next to him. Xilun glanced at them; they were roughly confirmation documents or something similar. So he signed his name in beautiful cursive script, then burned a spoonful of sealing wax and stamped it with the seal of the power ring.

The knight put it away and said, "This train is a special train bound for Speyside. The new abbot of Speyside Monastery, three parish priests, rune masters, engineers, and others are also on board. The guard is in carriage number two. If you encounter any danger, you can ring the bell to call us."

Xilun noticed the copper pull rope next to him and nodded.

"If there's nothing else, I'll take my leave now." Aobo bowed slightly.

“Tell me about Speyside,” Siron said.

“I’m sorry, sir, I’ve only just taken office myself. I’m from the south,” Aub said expressionlessly.

Xilun could tell that he didn't really want to talk to him, so he waved his hand and said, "Okay, go ahead."

As Aubo's figure disappeared at the end of the carriage, Xilun began to ponder.

The bishop is new, the guard is new, the abbot is new, and he's brought three new priests... Why such a major reshuffle? What exactly happened in Speyer? And what does that doomsday prophecy my senior brother mentioned mean?
He got up and flipped through the documents, and accidentally found the freight bill for this train.

Just as Aubo had said, the first few carriages were passenger cars, but the rear had a total of twelve freight cars, including three carriages with a total of two hundred tons of mercury, eight other carriages with various rare materials, and one carriage with winter clothes.

But it's summer now, and there's still a month until autumn.

“The horror of blood and freezing…” Xiren murmured. “Is it winter? This winter, or next? And what is blood?”

I thought about it for a long time but couldn't figure it out, but drowsiness slowly crept in.

He suffered a mental shock shortly after transmigrating, and then worked hard for most of the day. As night fell, his eyelids began to droop, so he went to the bedroom compartment, washed up briefly, and lay down on the bed.

At night, dreams repeatedly haunted his mind. He died repeatedly in his own home, the murderer appeared as his own face, and a comet fell in Libra, but it was the breast of a mistress.

He woke up the next morning with dark circles under his eyes and kept sighing.

As a psychoanalyst, he naturally understood dreams. From Freud's perspective, they were repressed id desires; from Lacan's perspective, they were symbolic expressions of unconscious language. Those chaotic dreams likely meant that the old personality of "Silon" had become part of his unconscious, influencing him with the desires, memories, and thoughts that once belonged to Silen. Only when the rational censorship mechanism relaxed in the unconscious state would it surface.

Before he could think any further, the doorbell rang, and three newly appointed parish priests came to see him from the back of the train.

The Diocese of Spesse comprises 43 churches, each overseen by its parish priest, meaning these three are his new subordinates.

He had just taken office as Bishop of Spesse and had no power whatsoever, so he had to win over these three people. So, Siron gave himself a Holy Healing, which lifted his spirits a little. He smiled and opened the door, inviting them to have breakfast together.

Half an hour later, Ober came from the front of the carriage and told us that we would arrive in Speyside in another half hour.

Siren nodded, wiped his mouth with a white napkin, and smiled gently at the three elderly priests in front of him: "Alright, then we—"

He was about to say some farewells and do some more homework before arriving when he suddenly noticed that white ice crystals were spreading rapidly on the corner of the train window.

His pupils suddenly contracted, and he looked up.

The sky was unusually gloomy today, as if summer had ended and the melancholy of autumn enveloped the world. And among the gray clouds, an ice-blue "moon" had appeared out of nowhere.

"Your Excellency?" Several priests looked at Siron with confusion, while the young bishop stared out the window with shock and bewilderment in his eyes.

But they no longer needed to look out the window, because ice crystals covered half of the glass. In just a dozen seconds, the temperature suddenly dropped to the cold of winter, and they, wearing only thin robes, shivered all over.

Then, the world fell silent. The roaring boilers, the grinding gears, the shaking connecting rods, and the vibrations of the rails all disappeared, as if the cold had gripped the heart of steel, suffocating it.

The next moment, a tearing wail came from the steel, and the entire train shook violently. The white steel python, like Jormungandr who had been struck on the head by Thor, let out a dying howl. The brass was twisted by the enormous force, the boiler exploded under pressure, and the rails broke off one by one.

Suddenly, darkness fell outside the window, turning it into a white hell. Snowflakes and ice crystals, like a frozen tsunami of billions of ice crystals, surged into the world.

Xilun instinctively crouched down and covered his head, but the entire train flew off the tracks with a twisting sound. He felt weightless and flew up like an astronaut, and everything in the room floated up as well.

In that instant, a resolute look flashed across Obo's face, his muscles bursting with a dazzling gold, and then he leaped forward, embracing Xilun in the brief moment of being airborne.

He didn't speak, his face was stern, and he took a step that covered the distance of three and a half gaps in the wooden floorboards, very imprecisely, but he held on very precisely.

The next moment, the Northern Throne, like a colossal beast falling from the sky, plowed a horrific black trench in the newly snow-covered plains. The windows of the carriages shattered with a deafening roar, and countless fragments, accompanied by a flurry of sharp snowflakes, poured into the twisted steel carriages, devouring lives.

The steel skeleton pierced through the fully wound wristwatch, freezing time forever in that moment. The captain of the guard held Xilun tightly, silent within the giant python's belly. The cold current quickly froze his blood, and the white snow, like the cloak of death, embraced the human remains.

(End of this chapter)