(There was a major recommendation today, so here's an extra chapter.)
Just as Bernadette had described, nothing barred the entrance to the mausoleum. There wasn't even a door.
Raphael felt that the Underworld Emperor had probably remodeled the underground portion of some ruins once dedicated to the Phoenix Ancestor. He might even have built that underground section himself during the Third Epoch.
After the Phoenix Ancestor fell, quite a few believers had likely turned to the Underworld Emperor, who was still an Archangel then. It was perfectly normal for him to have ties to a city that had once worshipped the Phoenix Ancestor.
By the Third Epoch, the only Church of the True Gods was the Church of the Sun God. Someone like the Underworld Emperor could only build secret organizations in the shadows.
For him, a city that had once worshipped the Phoenix Ancestor was an ideal place to secretly establish a power base.
After the Great Cataclysm, the Underworld Emperor had somehow returned here and continued developing these ruins, leaving arrangements for his resurrection.
As these idle thoughts ran through his mind, Raphael followed Bernadette into the mausoleum.
There was little worth mentioning about the first two levels. The three Saints dealt with the monsters there easily.
The third level seemed to serve as a buffer. The two levels above had fallen into utter disrepair, but from the fourth level onward, the place barely felt like ruins at all.
The tomb passages were clean and tidy. Pale flames even burned in the braziers on the walls.
There were no monsters left here. Bernadette and Cattleya had cleared them all out.
Raphael guessed that the monsters on the fourth and fifth levels probably contained Beyonder characteristics, which explained why the two ladies had been so eager to clear them