"Hello, Zhou Mingrui."

Under the crimson moonlight, a slightly pale hand pushed aside the stone slab and coffin lid and emerged from the soil. Then a brown-eyed, black-haired man in formal tailcoat attire sat up.

A trace of confusion still lingered in his eyes. Before he could figure out what was happening, a voice rang out alongside a gust of cold wind:

"...Klein?"

Klein jolted.

He whipped his head around. The man had bronze skin and world-weary eyes. It was none other than Mr. Azik!

*...?*

Then right now, he was...?

Klein lowered his head and quickly realized that this was indeed a grave.

-He had just sat up in a coffin.

Klein turned back to Mr. Azik in bewilderment. He felt he ought to say something, but had no idea what. Azik seemed to notice his confusion and said:

"Let's restore this place first, then find somewhere secluded."

Klein instinctively did as he was told.

Calming himself, checking his wounds, destroying the evidence-as he did all this, Klein finally regained his composure and began to consider his situation.

He did not ask anything right away. Only after they reached a secluded spot did he say, "Mr. Azik, aren't you puzzled by what just happened?"

Azik Eggers showed no change in emotion. He replied calmly, "I have far more experience with this than you do."

Klein's lips moved a couple of times, but in the end, he could not get a word out.

Like an elder offering guidance, Azik Eggers said:

"You'd best not return to the Church of Evernight. Go somewhere unfamiliar and start a new life. Of course, before that, you can retrieve some of your old belongings..."

This... certainly lives up to the Death Pathway...

Klein listened numbly to his senior's advice, remaining speechless for a long time.

By the time Azik finished patiently sharing his experience, Klein had recovered his bearings. He committed most of the key points to memory and nodded.

"What you've told me is very helpful... thank you.

"Once I've settled down, I'll write to you."

They said their goodbyes, and only then did Klein breathe a sigh of relief. He did not leave immediately. Instead, after Mr. Azik departed, he ascended to Sefirah Castle.

Above the Gray Fog, a crimson star swelled, clearly the one emitting the prayers. Yet Klein frowned at the sight.

-It was not one of the three stars he knew!

Without a word, Klein extended his spirituality toward it. He saw a young woman sitting on a bed, leaning sideways against the wall. Her long black hair was meticulously braided, her eyes were closed, and a smile curved her lips.

Her skin had the pallor of a corpse. Judging by her appearance alone, someone might easily mistake her for one. Her features resembled an ink painting, gentle and serene, and by Klein's standards, she could already be called beautiful. His gaze, however, lingered on her clothes.

-She was wearing a T-shirt and cargo pants.

"?"

The distinctly modern outfit left Klein utterly bewildered. He only had a moment to stare blankly, because the contents of her prayer were clearly even more shocking:

"Hello there, Zhou Mingrui? Hmm... would you mind inviting me to Sefirah Castle for a visit? I believe you can guess where I mean."

*...?*

Who... was she?

Klein withdrew his spirituality. He was certain he had never seen that face before. Moreover, the young woman's features were not sharply defined; she seemed closer to the Asians he remembered, to say nothing of her modern clothing.

-She seemed to be a transmigrator.

The realization filled Klein with anticipation and joy. He did his best to calm himself and recall what the young woman had said.

Sefirah Castle... she probably meant this place?

Klein looked around, then reached out to summon a pen and paper. He wrote a line: "Her origins."

Then Klein sank into a dream.

Once the grayish white dissipated, a pure white realm appeared before Klein. Thick snow covered the ground, and snowflakes hung in the air. Klein was certain that time flowed here-his intuition told him so. Yet, bizarrely, the snowflakes remained suspended in midair, utterly motionless, as though time had stopped.

The uncanny sight sent a chill through Klein from the depths of his heart. He shuddered, and the dream shattered. He woke, only to discover that he had already lost the ability to shudder.

His body froze inch by inch, turning into an ice sculpture. The cold seeped into him from the outside. He should have been afraid, but even his emotions were frozen. His heartbeat and thoughts slowed little by little. All he could do was watch himself freeze over and the ice and snow spread outward.

Fortunately, the gray fog did not betray his trust. With a clatter, chunks of ice broke off and fell to the ground. Klein shook himself, though a faint chill still seemed to linger inside him. He knew it was psychological. Ignoring it, he began adjusting Sefirah Castle to restore it to its original state.

Once he had finished, Klein frowned. After pondering for a moment, he raised his pen and wrote a new statement:

"It is safe for me to summon her to Sefirah Castle."

The clockwise rotation of his bracelet made Klein breathe a sigh of relief. Without further hesitation, he touched the star with his spirituality and pulled the young woman up.

When the crimson light appeared before her, Neph had just found her breakfast in that pure white space and performed a little experiment along the way-she could bring out things she had taken in herself, but although she could see, touch, and use the things originally in that space, she could not bring them out.

The result gave Neph something of a headache. Just as she was considering the possibility of retrieving things through a ritual, the crimson light she had been waiting for appeared.

Neph did not struggle. She obediently closed her eyes, feeling her spirituality being drawn up to Sefirah Castle. Once everything settled, she looked around, studying the palace with curiosity.

Neph had seen this palace in both the comic and the animated trailer, but sitting in the real thing felt entirely different. Under Klein's strange gaze, she looked this way and that and remarked:

"It looks so much better... ah, right."

She fell silent and turned toward the figure shrouded in thick fog. An inexplicable emotion crossed her face. Then, as though something had occurred to her, she lowered her head to look at her clothes.

-There it was: a black cat wearing a top hat was painted on her shirt.

She had painted it herself with acrylic paint after buying the shirt.

It was a drawing of Klein as a cat.

Remembering this, Neph could not help wanting to laugh. She struggled to restrain herself, raised her head to look at Klein, and spoke in that language resembling Jotun:

"Hello, Klein."

After a brief pause, Neph spoke again, this time in Chinese:

"Hello, Zhou Mingrui."