A faint, almost imperceptible premonition came to Leyton, and the next moment, a crimson light suddenly surged before his eyes, rapidly engulfing his entire vision.
The crimson light quickly receded, and the scene before him had transformed into the ancient, unchanging palace above the Gray Fog, with him sitting in the high-backed chair belonging to White Tower.
My spiritual intuition can already detect Sefirah Castle? This should be the residual image of Knowledge Moor on me from just now.
As thoughts flickered, he turned his head to look at the head of the mottled long table and calmly greeted Klein:
"Good evening, I didn't expect you to still be awake?"
Klein's expression paused for a moment, and he looked at Leyton speechlessly, saying:
"Even if I were asleep, your prayers would wake me up."
"You're not sleeping in the middle of the night and sacrificing a strange metal ring to me just to confirm if I'm asleep?"
As he spoke, Klein's gaze swept over the rusty metal ring he had placed on the table in front of him. He had already examined it just now, and it was just a very ordinary metal ring, at most, a very ancient one.
Leyton leaned back slightly against the chair, turned his head to look at Klein, and chuckled:
"I'd like to ask you to help me divine its past."
"You should also be very good at divination, so is there anything special about it?"
Klein looked at Leyton with some suspicion and asked.
Recalling his recent encounter, Leyton nodded with a somewhat pained expression, explaining with a touch of emotion:
"This is an item belonging to a Phoenix. It lived in the second epoch, during the era when Phoenix Ancestor Gregrace was still active."
"When I peered into the past through it just now, I saw Gregrace and the River of Eternal Darkness, and I almost just kicked the bucket."
"..." Klein fell silent for a moment, quite speechless, then retorted:
"So you think my divination here won't be affected?"
"Of course not, but with the blessing of this Gray Fog, even if you explode into dust, you'll reform."
Leyton shook his head, explaining righteously.
"I just won't die, it doesn't mean I won't feel pain." Klein said this with a somewhat gritted-teeth feeling.
"I have a secret technique to block pain." Leyton said with a prepared smile.
My fists are getting hard. If I weren't no match for him, I would have already gone face-to-face. He likes playing so much; tomorrow, I'll ask Arrodes to play truth or dare with him.
Klein remained silent, taking a moment to compose himself before leisurely speaking:
"Do you know about the Naturism Sect and the Mother Tree of Desire?"
Leyton raised an eyebrow at Klein, and the corresponding memories surfaced in his mind. He chuckled, saying:
"No wonder you're still awake so late."
As Klein's face gradually darkened, he curved his lips, withdrew his gaze, rested his right elbow on the armrest of the high-backed chair, and propped his chin with his palm, smiling as he said:
"The Naturism Sect is a branch of the Rose School of Thought. Its leader is Zatwen, a Saint of the Rose School of Thought. They worship the Mother Tree of Desire, which is the tree that holds the Bound God. Demons and Mutant are all pathways under its control."
"It holds some authority over fate, which is why it can glimpse the aura of Sefirah Castle on you."
Klein listened in silence, sighing helplessly in his heart. Besides Amon, I have another enemy, and a true evil god at that, with more than one church. I must become a demigod as soon as possible, otherwise, I could attract prying eyes at any moment due to the aura of Sefirah Castle.
Making a silent decision in his heart, he turned his gaze back to Leyton, and said with a slight hint of doubt in his tone:
"Is that Mother Tree of Desire an Above the Sequence existence that controls multiple pathways?"
Leyton nodded gently, saying calmly:
"That's right, but because of the characteristics of the Demon and Mutant pathways, and some missing Beyonder characteristics, its condition is not good, and it can only barely maintain its position."
"It is precisely because of this that it is particularly active in corrupting this world."
"Heh, what a truly disaster-ridden world." Klein sighed, and following his intuition, he did not continue the topic.
He reached out and picked up the gray-blue and dark-gold intertwined metal ring, now covered in rust, from the table. His eyes flickered, and he turned to Leyton, saying:
"Give me the secret technique for pain suppression."
"No problem." Leyton responded with a light chuckle.
His eyes instantly covered with a layer of deep blue, almost purple, radiance. In his mind, a pair of cold, indifferent, lashless eyes, containing countless brilliant stars, began to take shape.
His gaze met Klein's, and the pair of eyes he had envisioned in his mind instantly reflected in Klein's eyes.
Klein felt as if he had seen a brilliant galaxy, where every star was the condensation and concretization of knowledge.
As he focused his attention on this brilliant galaxy, knowledge began to swarm into his mind, causing his thoughts to become hazy, like a computer lagging from too many open tabs.
No wonder the Hidden Sage's knowledge pursuit would directly cause Mystery Pryer to lose control and even go mad. Even this somewhat gentler, harmless, and non-dangerous knowledge infusion makes me so uncomfortable.
Klein sighed in his heart, then began to organize the secret technique knowledge in his mind. This was modified by Leyton, so even Beyonder of other pathways could use it normally as long as they mastered the corresponding knowledge.
Klein leaned back against the chair, and according to the knowledge in his mind, he shielded his pain. Then he stretched out a hand, allowing the rusty metal ring on the table to float automatically into his hand. He rubbed his forehead with the other hand, softly chanted the divination phrase seven times, and then entered a state of deep sleep through meditation.
Klein, now in a state of sleep, quickly entered a dream. His consciousness awoke within the dream, and he found himself in the perspective of the metal ring's owner.
This is a scene from the second epoch? As soon as the thought flickered, Klein saw the dream change. The surrounding scene transformed into the Spirit World, rich in color and full of symbolic meaning.
He saw many Phoenixes around him, seemingly observing something, waiting for something. As Klein's thoughts changed, the surrounding dream flickered again, and all the surrounding Phoenixes disappeared, leaving only flickering pale flames, lingering far off in various parts of the Spirit World.
In the Spirit World Depths, layers of illusory doors suddenly appeared, and a soul-shaking cry, full of death and decay, more akin to a roar, rang out.
Klein only felt his consciousness fall into a trance, as if he saw his own death and end. It was right before his eyes, silently watching him, waiting for him to approach it.
The quiet Spirit World suddenly stirred with a cold, wailing wind. An unimaginably massive figure flew out from the layered illusory doors. Its body was covered in feathers woven from pale flames and mysterious patterns, and its eyes seemed cast from bronze, holding layers of illusory doors within them.
All concepts related to death converged upon it, forming a terrifying storm of pale mist around it.
These pale mists obstructed Klein's vision, preventing him from being harmed by directly looking at the deity and being forced to interrupt this divination immediately.
Klein stared intently forward. He watched the grayish-white mist rapidly spread outwards, as if even space itself was being segmented at that moment, a world shrouded in death. Is this the Underworld? Gregrace is opening up the Underworld!
Recalling the reply he received from Azik when he consulted him about the messenger problem, he became even more certain that this area, now shrouded in pale mist and continuously expanding outwards, was the legendary Underworld.
I didn't expect the owner of this metal ring to have witnessed Gregrace opening the Underworld. Perhaps it was once a demigod-level Phoenix.
As Klein's thoughts flickered, the dream scene changed again. This time, the Phoenix directly entered the Underworld. It moved swiftly through the Underworld, and countless things came into Klein's view.
Everything was so absurdly bizarre and indescribable. Klein felt his spirit being polluted by this place, irresistibly heading towards death.
Just as Klein felt he was nearing the end of his life, he heard the ethereal sound of flowing river water.
Before he could react, he once again saw the colossal figure of Gregrace, shrouded in pale mist. Its form enveloped the entire City, moving through a dense Gray Fog.
Gray Fog! This is the Gray Fog from Sefirah Castle!
Klein stared in shock at the Gray Fog before him. That familiar sensation allowed him to instantly confirm that this was the Gray Fog beneath their feet during every Tarot Club meeting.
A colossal figure covered in pale flames suddenly rushed out of the Gray Fog. Its movements were too fast, its body too large, so much so that Klein only saw the pale flames enveloping his head.
The ethereal sound of flowing river water grew clearer in his ears. Before he could question it, he saw a vast, black long river emerge from the Gray Fog.
The illusory river water entered his eyes, and Klein was slightly stunned. He seemed to see the eternal darkness that engulfed everything, the end of all things, he saw true death, absolute death!
He felt nothing, not even a flicker of thought; his consciousness simply plunged into darkness.
Inside the grand and ancient palace, Leyton watched Klein's body rapidly crack into fissures, from which tiny pale downy hairs grew. In the blink of an eye, these downy hairs grew into white feathers.
These feathers quickly withered and fell from his body. Before they could touch the Gray Fog beneath his feet, they had already dispersed into a pale yellow dust.
Klein's body crumbled and fell apart, as if he had stepped through death, walking towards the true end.
Buzz~
The surrounding Gray Fog quickly vibrated, surging like waves, and streaks of crimson light were swept up.
Leyton quickly closed his eyes, sealing his perception of the outside world with his spirituality. He felt a strong sense of danger; this was Sefirah Castle's reaction to the aura of the River of Eternal Darkness.
In that moment when he could neither see nor hear, a wailing gale swept through the palace, and the stirred Gray Fog directly engulfed the entire palace.
After nearly half a minute, the space above the Gray Fog gradually calmed down, the crimson light slowly receded, and as the sense of danger disappeared, Leyton unsealed his senses. He turned his head to look at the head of the mottled long table, at the high-backed chair belonging to The Fool.
Klein's figure sat quietly there, seemingly still not fully recovered, his eyes somewhat hollow and bewildered, staring straight ahead.
The metal ring he had been holding in his hand had completely weathered away, leaving only a small circle of mottled, rusty remains, which continued to shed fragments. In just a moment, it completely dispersed.
This scene surprised Leyton. He had used it for divination before, but it had only caused it to be covered with a new layer of rust.
Because the divination performed through it caused this ring to also be tainted by the aura of the River of Eternal Darkness, it directly reached its end. But the previous divination only caused its surface to be covered with a new layer of rust. Was it because it was reset along with me?