Chapter 429: Klein's Divination

Reighton's intuition sent a faint premonition; the next moment, deep crimson light suddenly surged before his eyes, rapidly drowning his entire field of vision.

The deep crimson light quickly faded, and the scene before him had already changed to that eternally unchanging palace above the gray fog, himself seated in the high-backed chair belonging to the "White Tower."

My inspiration can already detect the Citadel? This must be an afterimage left on me by the Knowledge Wilderness just now.

As thoughts drifted through his mind, he turned his head to look at the head of the mottled long table and greeted Klein in a calm tone:

"Good evening. I didn't expect you'd still be awake either?"

Klein's expression paused for a moment, and he looked at Reighton quite speechlessly, saying:

"Even if I were asleep, your prayer would have woken me up."

"In the middle of the night, instead of sleeping, you sacrifice a strange metal ring to me just to find out whether I'm asleep?"

As he spoke, Klein's gaze swept over the rust-covered metal ring he had placed on the table in front of him. He had already examined it earlier—it was just a very ordinary metal ring, at most a metal ring of considerable antiquity.

Reighton leaned back slightly, pressing against the chair back, and turned to look at Klein with a light smile, saying:

"I'd like to ask you to divine its past for me."

"You should be quite skilled at divination too. What's special about it?"

Klein looked at Reighton with some suspicion and said.

Recalling his recent encounter, Reighton nodded with a slight ache in his teeth and explained in a somewhat rueful voice:

"This is an item belonging to an Undying. It lived in the Second Epoch, in the era when the Undying progenitor Gregrary was still active."

"Just now, when I used it to peer into the past, I saw Gregrary and the River of Eternal Darkness. I nearly died on the spot."

"." Klein fell silent for a moment, quite speechless, before asking in return:

"So you think my divination here won't be affected?"

"Of course not, but with the blessing of this gray fog, even if you're blown to dust, you'll be restored."

Reighton shook his head and explained with perfect self-justification.

"I just won't die—that doesn't mean I won't feel pain." Klein said these words with a distinctly gritted-teeth quality.

"I have a secret art that blocks the sensation of pain." Reighton said with a well-prepared smile.

This is maddening—my fists are clenched. If I weren't afraid of losing a fight, I'd have gone right up in his face already. He likes to play this game so much? Tomorrow I'll have Arodes go find him for a round of Truth or Dare.

Klein remained silent without speaking. After a pause, he spoke unhurriedly:

"Do you know about the Celestial Sect and the Mother Tree of Desire?"

Reighton raised an eyebrow and looked at Klein. The corresponding memories surfaced in his mind, and he chuckled:

"No wonder you're still awake so late."

As Klein's face gradually darkened, he curled the corner of his mouth and withdrew his gaze, resting his right elbow on the armrest of the high-backed chair, propping his chin in his palm with a smile:

"The Celestial Sect is a branch of the Rose Sect. Its leader is the Rose Sect's Saint Zatwin. They worship the Mother Tree of Desire—the tree from which the Bound God hangs. Both the Demon and Abomination pathways fall under His dominion."

"He holds some authority over fate, and therefore can detect the Citadel's aura on you."

Klein listened in silence and sighed helplessly in his heart. Besides A Meng, I now have another enemy—and a true evil god at that, with more than one sect. I must become a demigod as soon as possible, or the Citadel's aura could attract peeping eyes at any time.

Having silently made a decision in his heart, he turned his gaze back to Reighton and said with a slightly puzzled tone:

"That Mother Tree of Desire is an existence that has mastered multiple pathways of the Beyond?"

Reighton gave a slight nod and said calmly:

"That's right. However, due to the characteristics of the Demon and Abomination pathways and the partial loss of source matter, His condition is not good. He can only barely maintain His rank."

"It is precisely for this reason that He is especially active in eroding this world."

"Heh, what a disaster-prone world." Klein sighed with emotion and, following his own intuition, did not continue this topic.

He reached out and picked up the rust-streaked metal ring interwoven with gray-blue and dark gold from the table. His eyes flickered, and he turned to Reighton, saying:

"The secret art for blocking pain—give it to me."

"No problem." Reighton responded with a light chuckle.

His eyes were instantly covered by a layer of deep blue, nearly purple radiance. In his mind, he outlined a pair of cold, indifferent, lashless eyes that contained countless dazzling stars.

His gaze met Klein's, and the pair of eyes he had outlined in his mind instantly reflected within Klein's pupils.

Klein felt as if he were looking at a dazzling river of stars, every star a condensation and embodiment of knowledge.

As he focused his attention on this river of stars, knowledge began flooding into his mind, so much so that his thoughts grew dazed, like a computer lagging from running too many pages.

No wonder the Knowledge Pursuer of the Concealer directly causes Mystery Pryers to lose control or even go mad. Even this gentler infusion, free of any malice and without dangerous knowledge, is this uncomfortable for me.

Klein sighed in his heart, then began to organize the secret art knowledge in his mind. This was a version modified by Reighton—even a Beyonder who was not on the Reader pathway could use it normally as long as they grasped the corresponding knowledge.

Klein leaned back, pressed against the chair back, blocked his sensation of pain according to the knowledge in his mind, then extended a hand and let the rust-covered metal ring on the table float automatically into his grasp. With his other hand, he rubbed his forehead, softly chanted the divination incantation seven times, and then entered a state of deep sleep through meditation.

Klein, having entered sleep, quickly fell into a dream. His consciousness awakened within the dream, and he found himself assuming the perspective of the metal ring's owner.

Is this a scene from the Second Epoch? The moment the thought arose, Klein saw the dream shift. The surrounding scene transformed into the Spirit World, rich in color and full of symbolic meaning.

He saw many Undying around him. They seemed to be watching something, waiting for something. As Klein's thoughts shifted, the surrounding dream wavered again, and all the Undying circling around vanished, leaving only dots of leaping pale flames, resting far apart throughout the Spirit World.

In the depths of the Spirit World, layers of illusory doors suddenly materialized, and a cry that shook the soul—brimming with death and decay, more a roar than a call—rang out.

Klein felt his consciousness sink into a daze, as if seeing his own death and endpoint right before him, watching him quietly, waiting for him to draw near.

A cold, wailing wind suddenly swept through the silent Spirit World. A figure of unimaginable vastness 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 in bronze, concealing layers upon layers of illusory doors within.

All concepts related to death converged upon Him, forming a terrifying storm of pale mist around Him.

This pale mist obstructed Klein's vision, preventing him from being harmed in the first instant from directly gazing upon a god, and thereby being forced to interrupt the divination.

Klein stared fixedly ahead. He watched the gray-white mist rapidly spread outward in all directions, as if even space itself had been partitioned at this moment—a world shrouded by death. Could this be the Underworld? Gregrary is opening up the Underworld!

Recalling the reply he had received when he consulted Mr. Azik about the messenger issue, he became all the more certain that this region, shrouded in pale mist and constantly expanding outward, was the legendary Underworld.

He hadn't expected the owner of this metal ring to have witnessed Gregrary opening up the Underworld. It might have once been a demigod-level Undying.

As Klein's thoughts drifted, the dream image changed again. This time, the Undying flew directly into the Underworld, darting swiftly through it, and countless things flashed before Klein's eyes.

Everything was so absurd and bizarre, beyond description. Klein felt his spirit being polluted by this place, heading irrepressibly toward death.

As Klein felt he was nearing the end of his life, an illusory sound of flowing river water appeared in his ears.

Before he could react, he again saw the huge figure of Greygary shrouded in pale mist, its figure enveloping the entire city, moving through a thick gray mist.

Gray mist! This is the gray mist from the Source Fortress!

Klein stared in shock at the gray mist before him; that familiar feeling let him instantly confirm it was the same gray mist beneath their feet during every Tarot Club meeting.

A huge figure shrouded in pale white flames suddenly burst out of the gray mist; its movements were too fast and its form too large, so Klein only saw the pale white flames covering his head.

The illusory sound of flowing river water in his ears grew ever clearer; before he could even doubt it, he saw a vast black river surge out of the gray mist.

The illusory river water reflected in his vision; Klein stared blankly, as if he saw the eternal darkness that engulfs everything, the end of all things, the true death, absolute death!

He felt nothing, not even a flicker of thought, and his consciousness simply sank into darkness.

In the grand ancient palace, Leon watched as Klein's body quickly split open with cracks, from which fine tiny pale white down grew; in the blink of an eye, these down turned into white feathers.

These feathers quickly withered, drifting down from his body; before they even touched the gray mist beneath his feet, they had already scattered into a patch of yellowish dust.

Klein's body shattered and fell, as if he had stepped over death and was heading toward the true end.

Buzz~

The surrounding gray mist trembled violently like waves, with streaks of deep red light being swept up.

Leon quickly closed his eyes, using his spirituality to seal off his perception of the outside world; he felt a strong danger, this being the Source Fortress's reaction to the aura of the River of Eternal Darkness.

In that moment when he could neither see nor hear, a mournful gale swept up in the palace, the raised gray mist directly engulfing the entire hall.

After nearly half a minute, the space above the gray mist gradually calmed, the deep red light fading; as the sense of danger vanished, Leon lifted his spiritual seal, turned his head toward the head of the mottled long table, and looked at the high-backed chair belonging to The Fool.

Klein's figure sat there silently, seemingly still not having come to his senses, his eyes hollow and blankly staring ahead.

The metal ring he had been holding in his hand had completely weathered, leaving only a small fragment mottled with rust, still shedding bits, and in just a moment it utterly dissipated.

This sight surprised Leon; he had clearly used it for divination before, yet it had merely been recoated with a layer of rust.

Because using it for divination had caused the ring to also be tainted with the aura of the River of Eternal Darkness, leading straight to the endpoint—whereas the previous divination merely resurfaced it with rust—was it because it, too, had been reset along with me?

(End of chapter)