Chapter 78: Whose Church?

Chapter 78: Whose Church?

A cluster of churches… Same as my judgment…

Klein looked at the ruins ahead and silently muttered to himself.

At that moment, the thin crimson moonlight penetrating the accumulated fog spilled over those half-collapsed buildings. Compared with before, it had grown much richer, drawing closer to the color of blood.

Klein maintained Gehrman Sparrow’s signature coldness and spoke without the slightest emotional fluctuation.

“Which area did you explore previously?”

As he spoke, Klein glanced at the battered but unbroken lantern in the Hanged Man’s hand. His muscles and skin instinctively tightened when he saw the light cast by the flame.

Although the flame was always isolated by thick glass and a metal grille, it still made him somewhat afraid.

Alger did not notice Gehrman Sparrow’s subtle change. He raised his right hand, the one holding his short blade, and pointed at the most intact and grandest building among the ruins.

“There.”

Only the main body of that structure remained. It was impossible to know what its original floor plan had been like. One could only judge from its surviving sections that it had thick walls, was magnificent and enormous, had narrow windows, and had once possessed a tower and a bell tower. Its exterior was plain, and its style ancient.

“This is an architectural style from the early Fourth Epoch. It is recorded in the Church of Storms’ scriptures. It is said that during that period, the various Churches widely used similar forms to construct churches,” Alger said. He had a deep impression of these ruins and, over the years, had searched through many books, gaining a certain understanding. “Its greatest feature is that the upper level is a temple, while the lower level is a tomb. Life and death are unified together. However, I cannot be certain that the interior of this ancient church matches my description, because I have never gone deep inside.”

Perhaps this architectural style was inherited from the Third Epoch…

Klein formed a tentative guess and led the way toward the ancient church ruins with an unusually tall doorway, leaving the lantern behind him—enjoying only the light without bearing the flame.

The two quickly followed the exaggeratedly tall gray-white stone steps to the entrance. There, they saw surviving classical stone pillars and concentric, multi-layered arches.

Klein did not rush inside. He reached into his pocket with his left hand and took out a gold coin, making it flip and leap between his fingers while seemingly muttering something.

Suddenly, he flicked the gold coin into the air with a clang. While spreading his palm to wait for it to fall, he turned his head toward the Hanged Man and said, “What did you rely on to judge that in the depths of this church, there was an item no less valuable than a Card of Blasphemy?”

After speaking, he glanced at the coin that had fallen into his palm and casually put it away.

Alger pointed inside.

“As I said, my strength at the time was inferior to Qilangos’s. Naturally, I did not go as deep as he did, and I could not know exactly what he saw. I could only judge from some of his words that there is something very precious and very important inside, and that one would need at least the level of a true Sequence 5 to have any chance of obtaining it.

“However, the murals near the entrance and the traces on the ground may explain some things.”

Klein nodded and stepped into the deep, dark doorway that the crimson moonlight could not directly reach. The black trench coat draped over him fluttered faintly backward. Alger, meanwhile, followed behind him with the lantern in one hand and his short blade tightly held in the other.

Passing through the entrance, Klein borrowed the red moonlight falling from gaps in the dome to see the area ahead. It was a fairly deep hall, supported by classical stone pillars, a small half of which had already collapsed or broken.

At its far end, there was no altar and no ascending…