In the night-shrouded gravel wasteland, countless black-robed figures silently walked in the same direction, the twilight of dusk from an invisible dimension shining on their night-like robes, surrounding the tall phantoms with a real glow, and they walked on the wasteland, gradually converging into rivers of twilight that flowed in the darkness—and eventually, these rivers of twilight came to the center of the wilderness of death, surrounding the funeral.

There stood a large door, the triangular door silent and solemn, at first Duncan even thought it was a small hill, but almost in the blink of an eye, he came to the door, and saw that it was as majestic as another erected earth, and the opening in the center of the triangle was closed, and the dark red lines like blood vessels covered the door, like chains.

The order of death had been locked by the door, and now the deity who had locked it himself sat quietly on the throne in front of it—taller than Duncan had imagined, even more than Taregin, and even in his chair, his body almost the size of a house.

He was dressed in a ragged robe as black as night, and the robe was wrapped with dark red thorns, and his face could not be seen in the shadow of the robe, as if He had no face in the first place, but only a dark shadow outlined by the robe—as recorded in the sacred scriptures of the Church of the Dead:

Death is a faceless shadow that is hidden in a cloak called darkness, and this shadow is everywhere, and when you see Him, He sees you too.

But now the faceless shadow of death was dead, and a short sword that was as sharp as an alien thorn pierced through his chest, almost nailing him to the dark throne, his hood crooked to the side, as if the last moment of death was still looking back at the triangular door behind him, which represented the order of life and death.

This scene is like murder, except that the murderer is the deceased himself.

This is the most peculiar of the four "dead gods" - at the end of death and decay, Bartók performs a second "killing" of himself.

Countless twilight-clad apparitions surrounded the gate, silent and motionless like frozen tombstones, but between them there was a path, as if reserved for visitors, from the wilderness to the dark throne.

The tall gatekeeper who led the way slowly walked forward, Duncan and Agatha followed behind him, and walked along the path through those quiet phantoms, and the twilight glow sprinkled by the phantoms around them was also reflected on them, Duncan was not affected by the twilight glow, but Agatha's originally illusory and transparent body gradually solidified in the glow, and even seemed to have a physical entity for a short time.

They finally stopped in front of the throne, and the tall gatekeeper who led the way nodded silently, and then silently stepped aside and stood among the other gatekeepers.

Duncan looked up at the figure on the throne that was taller than Tarigin, at the first and last dead man in the world.

No wonder Agatha's use of the sailor's forged "dead" could not attract the gatekeeper - because the real, final dead are here.

Agatha looked up at the dark-clad deity for so long that even Duncan had no way of knowing what she was thinking at the moment—the "gatekeeper" who had all the memories of the devout members of the Church of Death, but was only a "fake", never imagined that he could come here, to this place that countless devout believers could not reach for a lifetime of penance, let alone that he would see this scene, the scene of the Grim Reaper's funeral.

She stood quietly like this for a long time before slowly retracting her gaze and speaking in a complicated tone, "...... Captain, what do we do next? ”

Before Duncan could speak, another gatekeeper who had been standing next to the throne silently walked over, the tall apparition bent down and placed something in Duncan's hand, then turned back to the queue around the throne.

Duncan looked down and saw in his hand an old and delicate hourglass—he recognized it, he had seen exactly the same thing in Queen Leviathan's final sleeping palace.

But there is no sand in this hourglass in front of you.

Duncan subconsciously frowned, looking up to ask the gatekeeper who had delivered the hourglass, but suddenly, as if he heard a low murmur from the breeze around him, he gradually understood something.

As Agatha watched, he reached out over the hourglass, and a cluster of starlight-soaked flames leaped to his fingertips, then slowly pierced through the hourglass's shell and flowed into its glass container—the life that the hourglass had recorded briefly revived in the flames and began to flow as the hourglass flipped over.

In the next second, Duncan heard an illusory wind whistling in his ears, shattering the light and darkness silently, and then circling and reorganizing in his vision.

He stood on a small mound, illuminated by a faint light from a source, and in the distance there was a dark night with no end in sight, and at his feet were nameless wildflowers, which swayed in the wind and smelled like real and illusory.

The sound of shovels digging came from the side, and Duncan turned his head to see a skinny old man bent over, digging hard into the ground.

He had dug a shallow pit of black dirt beside it, and he dug it with a spade, and although the pit was shallow, it felt as if it had been dug here for a hundred centuries.

Duncan watched the scene, then walked over to the old man who was digging.

"I'm coming...... Sorry, I may have been a step late. ”

"It's not too late," said the old man, as he continued to bend down and dig, "death is never too early, but never too late, and it's always the right time to go to the appointment." ”

He reached out again, pointing to the small mound next to him—at some point, an extra shovel was stuck in the pile of black dirt, "Can you help?" ”

Duncan didn't say anything, but stepped forward and picked up the shovel, and then silently came to the old man's side, bent down and shoveled hard into the earth.

For a moment, only the sound of digging remained on the hillock.

After a while, the thin old man suddenly spoke again: "The other three...... It's been a long time since I last saw them, and since then they've only been able to contact them through the 'channel' left behind by Pilot-2, how are they doing now? ”

"They're all right," Duncan said calmly as he dug into the dirt, "and I made a promise with them that we would meet again in the New World." ”

The old man nodded, "Oh, that's good...... It's something to look forward to. ”

Duncan was silent for a few seconds, then raised his head to look at the old man beside him: "This is what you are?" ”

"No," the old man said slowly, not looking up, but digging into the dirt earnestly, "I don't have a face, not from the beginning, but I feel ...... Now that they have decided to leave, they should still leave a face. ”

"You don't have a face?" Duncan was a little surprised and curious.

"Yes, I'm not like the other three – I'm 'death' itself." The old man said lightly.

Duncan didn't speak, he waited for the old man to continue.

"The process of destruction of each world is different, some last for years, some last longer, and some ...... The civilizations of those worlds struggled to support and used various methods to postpone the end of the world, even for a hundred years. ”

The old man continued as he dug through the dirt under his feet.

"And in my world...... Everything happened very quickly—fast enough not to experience any kind of decline and resistance, but not short enough, not short enough for people to be unaware of the moment when everything was falling apart, it ...... Just enough, enough for everyone to know the process of death coming.

"Many, all of them, died in that instant, death whistling through time and space, shaking even the crumbling stars, and at the last second of the home world, 'death' became the most shining, universal, and only thing born in the entire universe.

And all the good, the ugly, the fearful, the brave, the tenacious but fragile humanity and the mind, are compressed in that second.

"And so, death is born after death—when I open my eyes, the first blink of an eye, everything is finally crumbling before my eyes, and in the second blink of an eye, the scorching, chaotic ashes have replaced my hometown, which I have only met once."

The old man pressed down the shovel with all his might, shoveled the dirt out of the pit, and threw it aside.

"I've been digging for a long time, the day the shelter was built, I was digging this pit, but the work was almost impossible to accomplish - death is hard to kill death itself, but thankfully, with your help, usurper."

"Don't you want to go to the New World? Maybe there's a way to ...... if you want."

"No, thank you for the invitation," the old man shook his head slightly, scooped up a shovel of dirt again, and then raised his head and looked at Duncan calmly, "I'm not like the other 'people', you should have thought of it - I am not a survivor of the Old World, I am a product of the Great Annihilation, a part of this scorching ash, and it is for this reason that the work of defining the rules of apoption for this world has always been the only one that can be done by me - the Shelter needs a 'recycling mechanism' like me to complete the full cycle of birth and death, but in the New World...... The demise of things should not be carried out by a similar 'god', not even by leaving the possibility to do so.

"What was born from the Great Annihilation, let it be left to the Great Annihilation."

Duncan stood silent for a moment, then scattered another spade of earth into the tomb.

"Don't you feel sorry?"

"No," the old man smiled, "I have done all the things that I had to do, and after that I have enjoyed a restful sleep that will never be disturbed, which is the greatest compliment to 'death'." But for you...... I have a word of advice. ”

The movement in Duncan's hands stopped.

"Don't be tempted to be sacrificed, though you may feel that this is not for me to say," the old man looked calmly into Duncan's eyes, "but in you I smell death...... It's a smell I'm familiar with, but it shouldn't be on you. ”

Duncan didn't speak, he just stood quietly.

Beside him, there was no thin old man, no second shovel—he was the only one standing.

The god of death lay quietly in the tomb, most of his body had been buried in the earth, and he calmly closed his eyes, as if he had been lying there a long, long time ago.

After a long silence, Duncan bent down and continued to sprinkle dirt into the tomb.

(End of chapter)