Since he wasn't sure what state
However, since this involved the Sefirah, he could only divine and prophesy to a limited extent — catching vague glimpses of images without being able to make accurate judgments.
After surveying his surroundings, Klein raised his hand and summoned the historical void projection of himself from a few minutes ago, allowing his true body to return to the "Sefirah Castle."
His consciousness then transferred into the projection, granting it a tangible sense of existence.
Next, Klein reached into the void once more and extracted the historical projection of the "Staff of the Star."
Honestly, now that he could access most of the Beyonder powers below Sequence 0 of the "Apprentice" Pathway through the "Sefirah Castle," Klein no longer really needed the "Staff of the Star," a Grade 0 sealed artefact — he could replicate nearly all of its wonders, and with almost no negative side effects.
However, he still believed that an Angel ought to have a melee weapon on hand, because one never knew when one might fall into a predicament where active Beyonder abilities became ineffective.
In the mystical world, this was absolutely something that could happen. Whether it was the rule restrictions of the "Arbiter" Pathway or the Beyonder suppression brought about by one of the Outer Deities within a certain range, both could produce similar effects.
Under such circumstances, grabbing a sturdy staff imbued with some passive effects and directly smashing open the enemy's skull was a perfectly viable solution.
As an Angel King of the "Seer" Pathway, preparing for every eventuality was simply instinct!
Hefting the "Staff of the Star" and adjusting the top hat on his head, Klein retrieved the bird-shaped golden ornament from within the "Sefirah Castle" and pinned it to the breast pocket on his left side.
Then, with a single step forward, he entered the city of Kaledon — once the divine kingdom of the ancient Death God, the Phoenix Progenitor Gregorii.
The first thing that greeted his eyes was an enormous pit with no visible bottom, surrounded by buildings of bizarre and grotesque shapes spiraling downward ring after ring, forming a magnificent city far beyond ordinary human comprehension.
Some of the buildings were solitary houses perched atop pale stone pillars; others were massive, elongated coffins with no windows and doors that opened onto their roofs; still others were simply grave pits with stone stelae standing at their entrances; and some were constructed from all manner of white bones, looking quite haphazard and chaotic...
The closer to the bottom of the pit, the better preserved the buildings were; the closer to the top, the more had collapsed — filled with the decay and ruin worn away by the relentless passage of time.
Klein took just one glance, then allowed a faint gray-white fog to materialize around his body, using the authority of the "Sefirah Castle" to directly resist Kaledon's rule that converted all living beings into the dead.
Being turned into the dead wasn't exactly a majorly negative consequence for him; he simply disliked that cold, apathetic feeling.
"The '
This time, he was using the Beyonder power of the "Swindler" Pathway, directly stealing away the distance within his perception range to avoid entanglement with the various dangerous monsters active within this mysterious city.
It wasn't that he was afraid — if anything, those monsters should be the ones afraid. Had he not wanted to waste time, he wouldn't have minded seizing the opportunity to collect a batch of marionettes to make up for the losses caused by
Besides that reason, Klein was also cautiously wary of another point: Kaledon was a city of the dead, and deep beneath its surface, the "River of Eternal Darkness" very likely flowed. Since marionettes were essentially already dead, once they approached the depths below, mutations could occur.
As he descended step by step, Klein realized he had been worrying a bit too much: Not a single one of the various monsters hidden within this strange city dared to show itself. The aura of the "Sefirah Castle" had caused their survival instincts to overcome both their tendencies toward madness and their predatory habits.
The deeper Klein descended into the subterranean depths, the quieter his surroundings became. The bizarre structures, though intact, seemed to have been dead for countless years. Even the air felt cold, dim, and decayed.
It was like watching a silent black-and-white film. If I couldn't hear my own "breathing" and "heartbeat," I'd suspect I'd gone deaf... Klein gave a soft cough, using internal muttering to combat the deathly silence.
His instinct told him that once his mind and body adapted to this environment and became still, he would begin to die, truly and irreversibly, bit by bit.
The closer he got to the very bottom, the stronger this feeling became.
After stealing distance for what felt like a long time, Klein finally saw the bottom of the pit.
No, it wasn't the true bottom. Rather, a massive, pitch-black palace blocked the way downward.
This palace was supported by enormous pillars, inlaid with all kinds of bones and different body parts. In some places, still-dripping skin from various races was even draped.
Klein stared for a few seconds. Without hesitation, gripping his "Star Staff," he entered the palace through its open gates.
Coffins of various shapes and colors were lined up on both sides of the main hall, resting quietly in their places, as if their very existence had been weathered away by death.
As Klein stepped inside, faint sounds suddenly emanated from within these coffins, like rusty joints creaking open one after another.
The grayish-white fog surrounding Klein grew denser, and all the coffins abruptly fell silent.
Ignoring these things, Klein took a single step to the hall's depths. There, a downward staircase of grayish-white stone led to a lower level. At its entrance stood an enormous stone stele.
Perched atop the stele was a tall, slender statue of a great bird, seemingly forged from bronze. Its wings were covered with all sorts of pale symbols.
Below the bronze bird statue, on the surface of the stele, characters from the "Tongue of the Dead" formed two phrases of ambiguous meaning. The characters resembled various simplified birds of different shapes, or snakes coiled in different postures.