“If I were to list all my titles, it would probably take some time, but I don’t have enough time right now.”
Xia De didn’t answer the question, but instead asked:
“So, you appeared here not because you were ‘sucked’ in, but voluntarily?”
The man nodded:
“Yes, this place needs to be guarded. This world doesn’t have a core, but there are some dangerous places. When the Natural Church was originally located, it was to suppress this place, which corresponded to this world, but later the problem became more and more serious, so every hundred years, the Church would allow sufficiently powerful Ring術士 to preserve their self-consciousness through a ritual before death, and then enter this world to guard the Church.”
He introduced, without any intention of hiding anything:
“So if you have nothing to do, leave here. If something unexpected happens here, no one will survive.”
“Sorry, I have some things I need to enter the Church for. But I promise, I will absolutely not damage the Church’s seal.”
Xia De said, trying his best to make his tone truly express the emotion of “apology.” He greatly admired the soul in front of him.
“Alright, you can go in then.”
The man shrugged.
“Hmm?”
The eyes behind the mask blinked. This was not expected:
“You’re just letting me in like that? Aren’t you abandoning your duty?”
“Oh, I feel a powerful force on you. To be precise, if we were to fight, even with the power of this Church, I wouldn’t be able to defeat you. The Ring術士 system is a system where soul and body are unified. Without a body, even a high-tier before death is useless. Rather than fighting and letting you destroy the Church’s sealing measures, it’s better to let you in. Moreover, after staying here for a long time, I can also distinguish the characteristics of souls. Your soul is not bad, in fact, it can be said to be noble. I feel the power of compassion and bravery.”
“Thank you then?”
Xia De nodded as he spoke, then asked:
“Excuse me, has anyone entered before me? Just recently.”
The man still leaned against the wall:
“Yes, a winged man. He was terrifying, very terrifying. I didn’t even dare to show my face to see what he looked like.”
That was undoubtedly Priest Augustus. It seemed his power in the Gap was very strong.
The Natural Church’s Ring術士 soul pointed towards the depths of the Church:
“The other party seems to be very good at manipulating the power of death, and he doesn’t look like a bad person. He entered the deepest part of the Church, probably wanting to obtain Ling Runes related to death by approaching death.”
Things were going much smoother than Xia De had expected.
“Do you know that strange winged fellow? Do you know what he’s doing? If possible, I really hope you can take him away too. Nothing can go wrong here.”
The soul asked, Xia De shook his head:
“I don’t know what he’s doing either. Didn’t you follow him?”
“We are forbidden from entering the interior. I can only move in the nave.”
The soul said helplessly.
“Then can you tell me what’s in the depths of the Church?”
Xia De asked again. He had expected the other party might not say, or might give a vague answer, but he didn’t expect the soul to nod readily again. Xia De felt that he would definitely remember this person; he had encountered too many people in this world who only spoke half of what they meant.
“Of course I can tell you, there’s a door inside.”
Xia De hesitated for a moment:
“You’re not going to tell me that inside the Church, that’s the door that leads from Between Life and Death, through true death, are you?”
“Yes.”
The soul looked at Xia De, his transparent eyes full of spirit:
“Restless death is invading here, which in turn affects the Sicar Mountain area in reality. If the Church doesn’t intervene, sooner or later, the overflowing death will swallow the central and eastern parts of the continent, turning the entire Rommel Mountains into something like the ghost city of Bordeaux. Besides the Church, there are other powerful existences helping to suppress this abnormal world. What the Church seals and suppresses is just this door here. This place gives death the opportunity to invade reality, and this place is becoming stronger and stronger.”
He didn’t use the term “Old Continent,” which indicated that when he was alive, the New World might not have been discovered yet.
“Such an important place, and you actually allowed that winged person to pass through?”
Xia De asked again, but the latter shook his head:
“No matter how strong, one cannot affect the other end from this end. Only death from the other end can affect the Gap we are in, and then affect the real world. This is the rule of the Gap. So, I didn’t stop him.”
Xia De nodded, then, after a slight nod of thanks, walked along the aisle between the benches, which were covered with candles, towards the depths of the Church.
“I need to remind you.”
Behind him, the soul leaning against the wall was still speaking:
“No matter what the person you are looking for has done, you must never cross that door. If you cross it, you will truly die. All mortals must die, and all things have an end. Beyond that door is the true end.”
Xia De stopped:
“Of course.”
He continued walking towards the depths of the Church.
Compared to the “one soul every three steps, one ghost every five steps” state outside the Church, the number of ghosts inside the Natural Church was significantly fewer. Among the ubiquitous candles that never shortened no matter how much they burned, and the talismans hanging on silver threads, only ghosts dressed as Natural Church clergy drifted unconsciously, showing no reaction to Xia De’s appearance.
Xia De could at least be sure that there were no evil spirits here, so he wouldn’t need to fight on the rest of the journey.
The Church itself was a building with a complex internal layout, but inside this Church Between Life and Death, there was almost only one path. All the forks were tightly blocked by tables, chairs, benches, or other debris. Only the path forward had dense ritual marks, almost illuminating the interior of the Church in gold.
Perhaps because of the existence of the door representing the concept of “death” in the depths of the Church, which distorted space, as Xia De walked through the corridors inside the Church, he felt that the corridors were slanted.
This was not just a horizontal slant in the direction of extension, but also included left, right, up, and down slants. Coupled with the golden ritual marks everywhere, the silver threads connecting the steam pipes on both sides, the hanging talismans that had to be pushed aside to avoid hitting his head, and the candle flames that flickered even though there was no wind, the scene in front of him became increasingly strange.
As he advanced, the white mist became thinner and thinner, but at the same time, the air grew colder and colder, and all objects from the real world slowly faded.
When Xia De turned into the last corridor, the candle flames on the ground had all turned blue, the walls were dilapidated as if they had undergone thousands of years of erosion, and all the divine spell traces were still there, but all had decayed.
“death is affecting this place. Priest, what is he doing?”
The white mist completely receded here, and the air was so cold that every breath Xia De took produced white mist. If he didn’t know this was a Church, the scene in front of him looked very much like a haunted house covered with talismans.
“Is the Priest just ahead?”
The pulling force from the holy emblem pendant on his chest was also getting stronger, indicating that Xia De was getting closer to his target.
Turning the corner of the corridor, the corridor in front finally became completely unlike the architectural style of a Church interior due to its abnormalities. The long, winding corridor eventually led to a square entrance connected to the underground, and from that entrance, black wind gradually blew out.
The wind swept past Xia De, who was checking the situation, making him shiver violently. His soul felt a coldness he had never experienced before.
The wind left a thin, long cut on his face, and then from the cut, golden light traces shone, and speckles of golden embers drifted behind him with the wind.
“What’s going on? There’s a god’s power nearby.”
Xia De covered his face, then saw cracks slowly crawling and extending on his raised right hand.
“No, but this position will make the power of the soul more prominent.”
“Is it already enough to manifest Divine Radiance?”
Xia De muttered to himself, looking at the black underground passage entrance. Although silver threads covered with talismans and bells blocked the entrance, pushing aside those extremely elastic metal threads, it was still possible to continue downwards.
“Outsider, the concept of death ahead is almost overflowing.”
“I know, I’ll be careful. I’ve come this far, I have no reason to retreat.”
He bent down and walked down, stepping on the rough stone steps. After passing the Thirteen-Tier, he arrived in the underground corridor.
The whistling black wind constantly blew from the front of the corridor. Countless whispers filled his ears, and Xia De could clearly hear that they were the murmurs of the dead in their last moments of life. The cold wind was like knives, leaving cuts on Xia De’s body and tears on his clothes. Then, golden Divine Radiance appeared from these cracks, protecting the Outsider’s soul.
Even Xia De had to raise his arm to shield himself in front of him to barely continue forward. The wind blew him off balance, and the soft black mud underfoot seemed to make him sink into the ground with every step.
No white mist, no divine spell rituals, not even a single ghost. This was the final path.
Aside from the golden scars on his body, the brightest color on Xia De was the slender thread on his wrist. It seemed to have truly ignited, and fiery red light, along with the biting cold wind, scattered sparks behind him. Xia De was using his right hand, tied with this thread, to shield his forehead, only then was he able to maintain his body temperature and the stability of his soul.
“So, what kind of fire is that flame in Sister Devlin’s hand? It’s so powerful.”
death was suppressing all extraordinary powers, and the holy emblem pendant on his chest, which had been guiding him, had lost its function. But it didn’t matter, because on the muddy ground covered with rotten mud, there was a clear set of footprints, Priest Augustus’s footprints.
Xia De held his right hand to his forehead, lowered his head, and resisted the black wind with the power of death, then watched the footprints on the ground move forward step by step in the final dark passage.
death was eroding him, embracing him. The icy power seemed to materialize directly in space. Xia De even had a feeling that the death Ling Rune might appear in his Destiny Ring in the next second.
Step by step forward, the light marks on his body also became brighter and brighter. Because he couldn’t look up, he could only constantly hope to see Priest Augustus lying on the ground, or an old man sitting against the wall, in the next second.
But nothing appeared, until Xia De reached the end of the corridor, walked out of the passage, and arrived in the final huge, towering square space of the passage, still without seeing the familiar figure.
There was nothing here, only a double-leafed, massive stone door, standing on the wall directly opposite the end of the passage.
That ancient stone door seemed to represent time itself. Carved upon it were stories of death, and ancient runes that would make Xia De dizzy with a single glance. This place seemed to describe the original death, but also seemed to describe other completely incomprehensible stories.
And those black winds with the power of death were blowing from the cracks of the stone door, yet still eerily silent, cold and still, as if everything in the world had come to a standstill here.
“Outsider, you feel the whisper.”
At the same time he saw the door, a prompt appeared in his ear. Xia De thus understood that the door separating true death was actually a relic.
“But where is Priest Augustus?”
He walked out of the passage, then stopped, looking at the trail of Priest Augustus’s footprints on the ground leading all the way to the door.
At this moment, even Xia De felt his entire body was numb and almost unable to move, and at the same time, weariness was surging, he had to concentrate all his spirit to resist the desire for eternal slumber.
That desire was truly tempting, but fortunately, the images of Mia and the girls kept echoing in Xia De’s mind.
After so many adventures, traveling from Tobesk a thousand miles away to Middlersburg, and finally standing in the deepest part of the Gap, what Xia De saw was that the footprints extended to this ancient stone door, but the Priest was not here:
“The Priest said in his dream that he had ‘crossed the boundary of death.’ Could this not refer to Between Life and Death, but rather…”
Xia De slightly opened his mouth and looked up at the stone door. He could feel that beyond the door was the end of everything, and he even felt as if he could see the recent past, what happened to Priest Augustus.
Latt Augustus had crossed the Death Door.
PS: According to the first sentence of this chapter, how many titles can Xia De say now? At least five or six.
