In a hotel room in Gulaen City.
Klein sat in an easy chair and took the black tea with lemon slices that "Winner" Enzo brought over.
On his other side, "Hell Admiral" Ludwell stood upright, face masked, a sword at his waist, like the most loyal guard.
Only now, having fully calmed down, did Klein have the energy to analyze what had happened in the Death's Treasury. Among it, what he cared about most was which existence had helped Mr. Azik out of his predicament at the critical moment and offered three choices:
"First, a female voice;
"Second, this matter must be beneficial to 'her,' otherwise no one would cross such a great distance to offer help. Of course, if she just happened to pass by and decided to help out of kindness, that could be understood and accepted. But the problem is that that Treasury is the product of the combination of divine power, characteristics, corpse, and natural environment at the Fall of the God of Death. Without the corresponding 'key,' even a deity could neither discover nor open its door. How could anyone just happen to pass by?
"Third, Mr. Azik's actions were very sudden. He didn't first go to the Spiritualist Church members who were executing the Artificial Death plan to 'inquire' for information. He directly followed the call, came to the Raging Sea, and entered the 'Death's Treasury.' Unless it could locate either him or me, or possessed powerful predictive abilities, almost no existence could have arrived so quickly and so timely.
"Lastly, Salinger, who can return from within Mr. Azik, is almost certainly the God of Death from the Fourth Epoch who said 'I'm crazy, and I'm also stronger.' That female voice actually called Him by name without any respect.
"This..."
In the midst of his intense analysis, Klein suddenly had a guess but couldn't help wanting to avoid that possibility.
As far as he knew, the three pathways of Darkness, Death, and Giant belong to a group and can be swapped at high Sequences. Besides using the honorific name 'Lord of Crimson' or possibly a specific Grade 0 Sealed Artifact to occupy a part of the 'Moon' authority, the Goddess also has the title 'Lord of Tranquility and Silence' which could wholly point to the underworld and the domain of Death.
And the previous experience in Misty Town, and the fact that he had used the holy sword in Tingen City to make an oath witnessed by the Goddess, plus the fact that the Goddess clearly also possessed the authority of misfortune, made Klein believe that he might already be on her 'special watch list,' just like how he used the 'Sea God Scepter' to mark certain believers.
"Bold hypothesis, careful verification. If it really is the Goddess, then almost all the problems can be solved:
"As one of the seven orthodox Gods, as one of the final victors of the 'Pale Era,' She has sufficient status and level to directly call the God of Death by name...
"And I, marked by Her, once an anomaly occurs, such as entering a strange place like 'Death's Treasury,' She would definitely detect it and respond. But because this inevitably involves a cycle, She couldn't arrive in time to stop it at the start...
"For Her, that Artificial Death, or the initially activated 'Uniqueness' of the 'Death' Pathway, could clearly strengthen the authority in 'Tranquility and Silence,' and even allow Her to directly invade the domain of Death, just as the 'Mother Tree of Desire' did to the 'Chained God'...
"When the God of Death fell, the three Sequence 1 characteristics should have actively separated and were taken by unknown persons. If the Goddess also collects them, perhaps Her title will have to add 'Lord of the Ancient Underworld, Monarch of All Undead' and other content...
"Although Mr. Azik has been tracked by high-Sequence experts from the Church, he has never been substantially threatened. It seems the Goddess has been waiting for today's events to happen..." Thinking of this, Klein suddenly felt guilty.
He quite piously—at least quite piously on the surface—raised his right hand, drew a crimson moon clockwise four times over his chest, and murmured:
"Praise the Goddess."
This reminded him of the answer he received when he had consulted the "Serpent of Destiny" Will Auceptin about how to obtain the high-Sequence potion formula of the "Seer" pathway:
"...You can only find the mad Zaratul, or go to the Hornacis Mountains. If you are a favored of the Night, pretend I didn't say anything."
After the Misty Town incident, Klein already found that going to the Hornacis Mountains and finding Zaratul were the same option, even going to the underground of Saint Samuel Cathedral to steal the Antigonus family notes. But only today did he feel that the latter half of the nonsense might not be meaningless.