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Neither alive nor dead. Apply just a little pressure, and they would become part of the dead. Everything in this city had been thoroughly eroded by a strange power, giving off an aura that disgusted him.
The Monarch of Decay stood motionless deep in the alley, dressed in the standard attire of a Western gentleman, looking utterly out of place in this city steeped in Eastern flavor. It was like a Dunhuang flying apsara appearing in the painting The Birth of Venus, or a blond, blue-eyed Greek god painted in a realist style appearing in A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. The prickling sensation of pollution probing at his spiritual intuition had yet to fade, and a pair of eyes seemed to be watching him from the shadows. He reached out and grasped at the air before remembering that his "scepter" was still in the hands of his other half, who was dozing in Outer Space.
"This is also a good opportunity to establish contact with Earth." He spoke to himself, then rejected the idea. "Forget it. The City of Calamity has terrible taste. I don't like these bizarre things."
The Monarch of Decay walked out of the alley and into this subtly wondrous city of unknown era and region. The corpse-like pedestrians around him noticed him and began pointing curiously, spontaneously gathering around him and muttering words that seemed to belong to the Chinese language and literature system, but whose pronunciation was quite peculiar. The Outer Deity looked at them with a mysterious expression that probably meant, "The Sefirah is talking."
"It didn't even bother disguising the telegraph booths. So halfhearted. It seems the City of Calamity not only lacks artistic taste, but hasn't become sufficiently animate either."
He voiced this observation, then said rather casually, "Here,