The black earth poured down and covered the not very wide tomb, like night closing at the end of time, to bury the eternal death, and the God who was born after the death of all things now rested, and at the end of the world, turned into a small mound on the hill.

The disorderly wind blew through the darkness and gently caressed the small hill, and the nameless wildflowers and wild grass on the hill swayed in the wind, making a slight rustling sound, and Duncan stood in the wind, holding the shovel in both hands, and stared at the pile of fresh dirt in front of him for a long time.

Then he looked up and looked around - the Grim Reaper didn't have a tombstone for himself, and there wasn't any material here that looked like a tombstone.

Duncan thrust the shovel that had been used to dig the dirt in front of the mound, and then took some dirt from the side and piled it around the shovel to reinforce it, thus serving as a tombstone.

When he had done this, he let out a long exhale and pressed his hand on the handle of the shovel one last time.

Wisps of faint green firelight spilled from his fingers with a faint starlight, slowly covering the "tombstone" of the Grim Reaper, and then vanished.

"May you rest in peace, Bartók, goodbye." Duncan whispered, and the figure slowly disappeared into the wind.

The messy and shattered weathering turned into a short whistling, light and shadow overflowed from the darkness and reassembled in an instant, and after a brief period of weightlessness and changes in the five senses, the feeling of groundedness reappeared, and the scene in front of Duncan's eyes quickly stabilized.

The majestic Death's Gate still stood silently in the center of the Gravel Wasteland, while in front of the triangular gate, the tall figure sitting on the dark throne was slowly disintegrating silently, like a shattered dream that had been awakened in the morning, and the invisible shadow shrouded in the black robes was scattered by the wind, and the robes fell like night, rotting, and weathering.

In the fluttering black debris and soot, only a faint green glow shimmered in the wind.

Duncan lowered his head, and saw that the edge of the hourglass in his hand was flickering with a faint glow, and a vague whisper seemed to ring in his ears, and he realized something, and then took a few steps forward, and placed the quaint and delicate hourglass next to the throne where the Grim Reaper once sit.

He stepped back and saw Agatha standing quietly in place, looking at the empty throne with some distraction, and it didn't take long for the "gatekeeper" born from the phantom to slowly turn his head, his eyes revealing mixed emotions: "...... Is He at rest? ”

"Well, I've given him one last ride," Duncan nodded slightly, then added, "In that hourglass is a part of his power, and I have left it by the throne so that the Church of the Dead on earth can still borrow some 'blessings' for a short time...... They still need it. ”

Agatha nodded slowly, as if she wanted to say something, but she couldn't say it, and in the end, all her thoughts and emotions could only turn into a casual sigh.

"It's time for us to go back," Duncan said slowly, "the final countdown has begun, and we must return to Queen Leviathan's node at once." ”

Agatha let out an "um" and looked up in the direction she and the captain had come, only to see that there was only a field of rubble that looked like no mark.

Darkness of night enveloped this dead country, and there was no way back to the paths of the dead.

But at this moment, she saw that the "gatekeepers" standing around the Throne of Death suddenly moved—the tall phantoms who stood silently slowly raised their hands, one by one, and raised their hands to point in a certain direction in the darkness, and the twilight of dusk seemed to escape from them, and then converged with the direction of their fingers, extending and flowing invisibly.

Guided by a thousand tall visions, a path appeared in the gravel wasteland, shrouded in twilight, with nameless wildflowers blooming and swaying slightly in the wind.

After the mechanics of death were suspended, and after the Grim Reaper rested, for the first time in the realm of death, there was a path to allow the living to return.

Agatha watched this scene with some consternation, and subconsciously looked up at the tall gatekeeper who had shown her and the captain the way in the first place, only to see that the gatekeeper was just silently waving at her.

Go away, don't look back, don't communicate with the kingdom of the dead.

Agatha understood what they meant, and turned and set out with the captain on the path out of the gravel wasteland.

There was no "gatekeeper" on the way back, only the occasional breeze blowing from the darkness, accompanying Agatha and Duncan, who walked on the path for an unknown amount of time, until the gravel wasteland disappeared, and the black and white nameless grass reappeared in view, until they returned to the depths of the grassy wilderness, and the huge figures of the Lost Country and the Bright Star appeared at the end of the field of vision—and then, after only two steps in the direction of the Lost Country, Duncan and Agatha returned to the place where they had left off.

The paper-folded boat was still parked in the clearing, and Lucrecia was standing at the bow in a daze, and when she saw Duncan, she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and then immediately jumped out of the boat and headed for it.

"You've been waiting here?" Duncan looked at the "Witch of the Sea" in surprise in front of him, "We've been away for a long time this time......"

"You've only been gone for a few minutes—just a few moments after your and Agatha's figures suddenly passed through a curtain of twilight light," Lucrecia said in surprise when she heard Duncan's words, "I thought you had suddenly turned back in some way." ”

"A few minutes?" Duncan frowned, but quickly put the inexplicability aside—he was used to it after so many strange situations.

"We're done," he said briefly, "now let's go home." ”

Lucrecia looked at Duncan and then at Agatha who was following her, she instinctively sensed that in the past "just a few minutes", her father and Agatha seemed to have had an unforgettable experience or "testimony", but she didn't ask anything in the end, just nodded slightly: "...... Good. ”

……

The pale flames in the brazier were extinguished, and the low, faint whispers faded into her mind, and Agatha, who was kneeling in prayer and meditating, raised her head, as if sensing something, and turned her head to "look" at the mirror beside her.

Her black-clothed eyes could no longer see the earthly world normally, but a clearer spiritual eye allowed her to see the "truth" from other dimensions more clearly than ordinary people.

In the mirror, she sees a tomb, a wilderness plunged into darkness, and a twilight fading in the distance.

This brief "revelation" lasted only a second.

The young gatekeeper and archbishop, however, had already understood the truth that this scene had conveyed to him.

She sat silently in front of the icon, bowed her head a moment later, and returned to prayer—her lips twitching, silently reciting the blessings for the dead.

The prayer was not long, but she repeated it three times, and then slowly got up from her cushion and came to a shelf not far away, where she took a dried flower with pale petals from a wooden box on the shelf, and turned to place it beside the candlestick in front of the icon.

In distant cities, the faint sound of commotion crossed the streets and entered the churches.

Slightly hurried footsteps came from the direction of the corridor, and a moment later, the voice of a priest came from outside the door of the prayer room: "Archbishop, are you inside?" ”

"Come in." Agatha said casually.

The door to the prayer room was pushed open, and a middle-aged priest with short black hair and half of his face covered in bandages stepped in.

Then his eyes were drawn to the small white flower in front of the icon.

The middle-aged priest subconsciously frowned, he instinctively felt that the flower seemed to have some meaning, which gave rise to some natural doubts, but found that he couldn't remember what it was, he opened his mouth, and his eyes, which looked pale and cloudy due to the loss of vitality, were full of doubts.

Then, Agatha walked over from the side and used her body to block between the middle-aged priest and the little white flower.

"What's the matter?" She asked.

The trance on the middle-aged priest's face flashed, and then he immediately reacted, and hurriedly reported: "Archbishop, another group of people have come to the cathedral to seek refuge and guidance, more than a dozen people, according to your orders, I asked Mark to take Sister Natasha to the reception." ”

"Well," Agatha nodded, then asked casually, "how are those people doing?" What neighborhood are they from? ”

"They seem to be frightened, in a state of shock and doubt, but they can't describe exactly what happened," the middle-aged priest reported, "The best of them said that he suddenly 'woke up' this morning, and then felt that there were many things around him that were not right, and even his relatives and friends around him seemed strange and ...... Frightened, he went to the chapel for help, where he met other people who asked for help......

"The priest of the chapel gave them an urgent reassurance and blessing, and then sent two guards through the city to send them here.

"Most of them are from the southern port vicinity, and three of them are from the cemetery ring, almost none of them know each other, they have not crossed paths, and there is no uniform character of their place of residence......

Listening to the middle-aged priest's return, Agatha didn't say anything, just nodded with a calm expression.

"After that, the city hall will send someone to come, and the shelter in the city at the foot of the hill has been temporarily housed...... The conditions are limited, but it's safe there. ”

"Okay," the middle-aged priest responded, then glanced at Agatha with some hesitation and uneasiness, and hesitated to speak while observing the expression of the "temporary archbishop", "Archbishop, what the hell is ...... What happened? This has happened one after another lately, and there have been ...... in churches."

"John," Agatha interrupted, "do you remember what I said the day before yesterday when I summoned the priests?" ”

The middle-aged priest's expression changed slightly, and then he nodded.

"I can't explain it to you now, because even if I did, you wouldn't have heard those voices," Agatha said calmly, "but when you suddenly 'wake up,' you'll understand—and then don't panic, just go straight to the inner sanctuary, and someone will arrange it there." ”

(End of chapter)