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Sudden darkness and silence swallowed the deepest reaches of Calderón, leaving only the faint, illusory sound of flowing water.
In that utterly lightless world, Death, who had resolutely stepped onto the path of the ancient gods once more, briefly recalled the Red Priest Uniqueness he had once obtained.
Long before the War of the Four Emperors in the Fourth Epoch, Salinger had learned the mysteries of the hidden adjacent pathways. Through experiments on his believers, he had also confirmed the proposition that "Corpse Collectors, Demonesses, and Hunters can indeed switch pathways at high sequences, with risks only slightly greater than switching between adjacent pathways." Thus, the moment the War of the Four Emperors began, Death had set his sights on Alista Tudor.
After he expended considerable effort to kill Alista Tudor, none of the gods of the Northern Continent had any outstanding Hunter pathway Beyonders worth nurturing at the time, nor was anyone willing to touch that Uniqueness and those characteristics, which had absorbed mental imprints "starting with three Sequence Ones and culminating in one insane true god" within an extremely short time.
Death, who had planned for this all along, took those things directly. He successfully became the last living participant and victor of this war of the gods, reaping the greatest benefits.
Although it remained uncertain whether a true god like him could successfully occupy a "hidden adjacent pathway," Death had no intention of abandoning this opportunity-nervousness and fear were normal, but what if he succeeded? Looking back now, Salinger always felt that his actions back then and their eventual outcome had all carried traces of conspiracy. Yet he was certain that, given another chance, he would still choose to seize those things. Even if he did not accommodate them himself, leaving them to soak in the