The Mutated "City of the Dead," Calderon

What appeared in midair was an enormous city "hanging" in the sky.

The city was high around the edges and low in the center. Its buildings extended in ring after ring toward the end of a deep underground pit, giving the whole place the feeling of an inverted mausoleum.

The buildings within came in all kinds of styles, yet all were equally strange. Some were towering Pale Stone Pillars, their tops carved into enormous stone houses. Some were rectangular blocks without windows, with their doors built into the rooftops. Some were constructed underground, with a tombstone standing at the entrance. Others were made of bones and appeared quite disorderly.

The closer they were to the central pit, the better preserved the buildings were. The nearer they were to the upper edge, the more buildings had collapsed, filled with the sense of decay and desolation wrought by time.

Hobart's first reaction was that this was the "City of the Dead," Calderon—and a Calderon that had undergone some sort of mutation.

He then glanced at the Official Extraordinaries beside him. Aside from Ted and the two Sequence 5s, most of them were Low Sequence Beyonders.

If left unattended, even Ted might die here.

After considering it, Hobart said to them, "Stay behind me. Let me think of a way."

He then assumed a contemplative pose and tried to enter the Country of Disorder. Fortunately, he could enter the Country of Disorder from here.

However, even using the Creator's True Sight, he could not see where the boundary between the Underworld and the real world lay. He could only see that the Underworld was gradually eroding Montesson Port, swallowing more and more of the real world.

With the enhancement to his spirituality granted by the Country of Disorder, Hobart likewise sensed that the