As he didn't know what state Amon was in right now, Klein didn't dare delay. After his mental problems were resolved, he immediately came to Calderón City and prepared to obtain the river water of the River of Eternal Darkness.
And because it involved a sefirah, he could only vaguely see some visions when using divination or making a prophecy. He couldn't accurately make a judgment.
After surveying the area, Klein raised his hand to summon the Historical Void projection from a few minutes ago, allowing his true body to return to Sefirah Castle.
His consciousness then shifted to the projection, making it corporeal.
Following that, Klein grabbed at the void again and pulled out the Staff of the Stars's historical projection.
To be honest, after being able to use most of the Beyonder powers below Sequence 0 of the Apprentice pathway through Sefirah Castle, Klein no longer needed a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact like the Staff of the Stars. He could basically replicate whatever mystical effects it had without the negative effects.
However, he always felt that an angel still had to possess a close-combat weapon because it was possible to fall into a region that nullified Beyonder powers at some point in time.
In the mysterious world, this was definitely something that could happen. Be it the law restrictions from the Arbiter pathway, or the Beyonder effects of a particular Outer Deity, it was possible to achieve similar effects.
Under such circumstances, if he picked up a hard staff that came with passive effects and directly smashed it in the enemy's head, it would prove to be rather effective.
As a King of Angels of the Seer pathway, making preparations in all aspects was an instinct!
After weighing the Staff of the Stars and pressing down on his top hat, Klein took out the golden bird-shaped accessory from Sefirah Castle and placed it in his left breast pocket.
Then, he took a step and entered Calderón City, the divine kingdom of ancient Death—Phoenix Ancestor Gregrace.
The first thing that entered his vision was a huge bottomless pit. All sorts of strange buildings circled the deep pit and extended downwards in circles, forming a grand city that was beyond the understanding of ordinary people.
Some of the buildings were standalone houses that stood atop pale-white stone pillars, while others were huge rectangular coffins. There were no windows, and the doors were on the roofs. Some of them were just tombs with gravestones at the entrance, while others were constructed from all kinds of bones, making them seem rather messy...
The closer to the bottom of the pit, the more intact the buildings were. The closer they got to the top, the more they collapsed, filled with the decay and ruin of time.
With just a glance, Klein made a faint grayish-white fog appear around him. He directly used Sefirah Castle's status to resist the laws of Calderón City which turned all living beings into the dead.
To him, becoming a dead person wasn't a negative effect, but he didn't like that cold and indifferent feeling.
The grayish-white tide that rose previously has receded... Klein, who was wearing a top hat and trench coat while carrying the staff, nodded in thought. With one step, he stepped deep into Calderón City, which could be seen with the naked eye.
This time, he used the Marauder pathway's Beyonder powers to steal the distance of his perception so as to avoid being entangled with the various dangerous monsters that were active in this mysterious city.
This wasn't something he was afraid of. The ones who should be afraid were the monsters. If it wasn't for the fact that he didn't wish to waste time, he wouldn't have minded taking the opportunity to gather a batch of marionettes to make up for the losses caused by the destruction of Utopia.
Apart from this reason, Klein was still cautious about something else.
Calderón City was a city of the dead. It was very likely that in the deepest depths of the city flowed the River of Eternal Darkness. And in essence, marionettes were already dead, so once they approached anywhere close to the bottom, there was a possibility of a mutation.
Venturing deeper one step at a time, Klein realized that he had thought too much.
None of the monsters hidden in this strange city dared to appear. The aura of Sefirah Castle allowed their instinctual desire to live to overcome their inclinations of madness and their habits of hunting.
The deeper he went, the quieter his surroundings became. The strange buildings remained intact, but they seemed to be dead for years. Even their auras were cold, gloomy, and decadent.
It's the same as looking at a black-and-white film. If I didn't hear my breathing and heartbeat, I would've suspected that I was deaf... Klein coughed lightly and used his grumbling to resist the silence of death.
His intuition told him that once he got used to this environment, his body and mind would become still and silent. Then, he would truly die in the full meaning of the word.
The closer he got to the ground, the stronger this feeling became.
As he kept stealing the distance, Klein proceeded forward for a long time before finally seeing the bottom of the pit.
No, this wasn't the true base of the pit. It was just a huge, black palace that stood in the way.
The palace was propped up by columns. There were all kinds of bones and different corpse pieces embedded in them. Some parts of the palace were even covered in blood. They belonged to different races.
Klein stared at it for a few seconds. Without any hesitation, he carried the Staff of the Stars and entered the palace through the open door.
On both sides of the hall were different types of coffins in different colors. They sat there silently, as if they had already been weathered by death.
As Klein entered, there was a sudden noise coming from inside the coffins. It sounded like a rusted joint opening.
The grayish-white fog around Klein thickened again as all the coffins suddenly quietened down.
Ignoring them, Klein walked to the depths of the hall. There was a grayish-white stone staircase descending with a huge stone monument erected at the entrance.
At the top of the stone monument stood a long and slender statue that resembled a giant bird made of bronze. Its wings had all kinds of pale-white symbols.
Under the bronze bird-shaped statue, the surface of the stone monument was written in text that originated from the Language of the Dead. Their shapes were all different, looking like simplified birds or coiled snakes that looked different. They formed a few indistinct words:
"Even deities cannot escape;
"Imprisonment even in death."
Is this a warning to all living beings who come to Calderón City to not go down the stairs? It directly leads to the River of Eternal Darkness? Klein's thoughts raced as he carefully read the words on the stone monument.
From his point of view, this meant that, even if a Sequence 0 true deity were to approach the River of Eternal Darkness, they would be trapped there and unable to escape. And even if they were to die, they would still be imprisoned by this abstract river, this sefirah. Although they wouldn't dissipate, they wouldn't be able to escape.
From the looks of it, it's just like the Chaos Sea. Without any sefirot protection, merely approaching the River of Eternal Darkness will result in a terrifying mutation... Klein retracted his gaze and tidied up the golden bird-shaped accessory attached to his breast pocket. He walked past the bronze statue's stone monument and walked down the grayish-white staircase.
He didn't steal the distance again, to prevent himself from slamming headfirst into danger.
In the dark, silent, and cold environment, the golden bird-shaped accessory in front of Klein's chest released a pale-white glow, illuminating a small area. It was like a tiny lifeboat struggling in the waves of death.
After descending for an unknown period of time, the aura of Sefirah Castle around him expanded out of reflex and became extremely thick, like a grayish-white cocoon.
At the same time, Klein turned his head slightly and heard a faint, illusory whooshing sound.
This seemed to indicate that a dark river was slowly flowing deep underground not far from him.
In the next second, Klein looked down at his feet.
At some point in time, there was a dark stream of incorporeal water surging out from somewhere.
Even light couldn't exist on its surface.
This is different from what I saw last time... Klein frowned slightly.
Back when he came to Calderón City to hunt the Spirit World Plunderer, he had caused a certain change, causing large amounts of grayish-white illusory tidal water to surge up the bottom of the pit.
The colors that he saw the two times were completely different.
Just as Klein's thoughts raced, at the bottom of the stone staircase, where the dark tide surged over, a thin grayish-white fog spread up. Together with the illusory liquid, it expanded into a grayish-white liquid that was more mist-like.
When the water reached Klein's feet, it silently shrank back as though it was constantly ebbing up and down at a particular frequency.
This faint gray fog is a little familiar... Klein's expression turned solemn.
After pausing for a few seconds, he continued down.
This time, the rising illusory tide drowned him, causing his body to turn light, causing his emotions to quickly turn cold and his thoughts to gradually weaken.
If not for the protection of Sefirah Castle's aura around him, Klein suspected that he would passively fuse with the tide without being able to resist.
Following that, the grayish-white cocoon rose and bobbed up and down in the water before slowly reaching the end of the staircase.
At the end was a void. Amidst the emptiness flowed a straight, wide, illusory, colorless, dark river.
This river was so blurry that it was difficult to see it clearly. This was because its surroundings were covered with a swath of grayish-white like a thin layer of fog.
"Indeed..." Klein couldn't help but mutter when he saw this.
He was no stranger to this kind of fog. He had seen it behind the door in Bansy's ruins before. He had seen it at the easternmost end of the Forsaken Land of the Gods before, as well as beneath Sefirah Castle!
And unlike other places, there was a portion of the water from the River of Eternal Darkness that penetrated the grayish-white fog and fused to some extent with the latter, changing colors between dark-black and pale-white.
The river water here kept swirling up before falling down, like a stream that was running through the illusory darkness.
On both sides of the distributary stood huge and pale-white stone pillars. They seemed to be supporting something, preventing whatever it was from collapsing.
At this moment, between the stone pillars, and on the banks of the distributary, countless blurry, translucent figures were pacing back and forth, slowly but unceasingly.
Among them, the most eye-catching one was a seemingly lost figure that would occasionally enter into the depths of the distributary before turning around. Yet, it didn't seem like it could leave the river.
It was huge, similar to the stone pillars around it. It had a heavy black robe draped over it, and from its side profile, it looked very old.
Suddenly, it turned its head and looked at Klein.
Its face had obvious Southern Continent characteristics, but it had already rotted while white feathers stained with pale yellow oil grew out.
Klein knew "Him," and "He" was Mr. Azik's father, the Death of the Fourth Epoch:
Emperor of the Underworld Salinger.
