1367 Distributary (2/2)

”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.