"This isn't the one." Disappointed, Azekiel closed the coffin before stepping back. "If one of these Gods has the stone I'm looking for, it must be their King... The owner of the Gauntlets of Gluttony."
"Come, we need to find the right one."
Azekiel moved over to the next room. The second room was also completely identical to the first room, only having a Wooden Coffin inside.
"Zaim," Raphael muttered the name of the one inside the coffin, reminiscing about the last.
Inside the Coffin laid an old man who had a long white beard and a serene calm on his face.
He couldn't help but remember how the old man used to help him back in the day. He was one of the gods who taught him how to fight. He also tried to get him out of trouble whenever he was in one. Unfortunately, even he couldn't save him when the Godking cursed him. Zaim didn't have the authority.
Raphael placed his hand on the hand of the old man. "Thank you for everything you did for me. And I'm sorry for not being there when you needed me."
As Raphael talked his heart out, Azekiel kept checking the coffin. Even he hated doing something like this to the dead bodies of people Raphael cared about, but he had no other option. Time was of the essence.
"Nothing here as well." Azekiel sighed tiredly before asking Raphael, "Should I close the Coffin, or you want some time?"
"I'm fine. You can close it. It's time we let him sleep in peace." Raphael took his hand back, glancing at the old man one last time.
Azekiel closed the coffin. Patting the shoulders of Raphael, he moved over to the next room. One after another, Azekiel kept checking the rooms, searching inside each of the coffins.
Before long, Azekiel had already checked around a hundred coffins, and still, there were a hundred more left to check.
He just wanted to skip to the last room, getting bored of all the checking and failing. Unfortunately, he knew that it was counterproductive if the stone was in the next coffin itself.
He went in proper order, checking each coffin.
Two hours... It took two hours before he finished checking close to two hundred rooms. Along the way, he kept eating fruits he had gathered before in the forest so as to not lose himself in hunger.
As Azekiel kept checking the room, a thought also crossed his mind, which made him realize what a missed opportunity it was. There were so many gods lying before him, dead. If he could absorb their Soul Energy, it could've made him so strong.
Unfortunately, the Limitation of his skill came into effect, upsetting him. He could only absorb the Soul Energy from the bodies that were killed in the last twenty-four hours. With every body he saw, he realized how much this limitation screwed him over.
There was only one room left to check now— the room straight at the end of the corridor. So far, they hadn't seen the body of the Godking, which made Azekiel believe that the last room was going to have his coffin, along with the stone of time.
"Finally, we are there." Azekiel pushed open the door, expecting to be greeted by another coffin. However, what fell before his eyes was something entirely different.
It was a massive room that appeared to have a pool inside. The pool had covered the entire room, leaving no space to walk. On the other end of the room, there existed another door, golden in color.
Moreover, the pond didn't have ordinary water either. It was filled with pitch black water that appeared to be bubbling from the heat.
Azekiel brought a small fruit out of his storage ring and tossed it at the pond.
As he saw the fruit submerging in the water while being destroyed slowly, he couldn't help but frown. "It's Acid. I guess I was too optimistic if I thought getting to the Godking's body would have the same difficulty as the other gods. Then again, whoever made this place didn't expect us to fly, did they?"
"Raphael, can you carry me to the other end?" Azekiel reached out his hand to Raphael. Raphael didn't take his hand. Instead, he shook his head.
"We can't fly above it."
"Why?"
"There are Spirit Lines," Raphael pointed at the strange marks on the wall. "They seem to be made for the reason itself. They control the wind inside the room. If I fly, the wind in the room will become too unstable because of those Spirit Lines. We might even fall into the black acid."
"What if I destroy those formation lines with energy bullets?" Azekiel suggested. "If I can create a flaw, they should stop working."
"That'll be even worse. Any flaw in them will mess with the gravity of the room. The water might start rising, which will make it impossible to pass through."
Azekiel rubbed his chin, noticing his fingers. A thought came to his mind.
"If we can't fly, and we can't go through the water, maybe we can use the wall."
He called forth his Gauntlets again, which had sharp claws. " If these claws penetrate through the wall, I should be able to get to the other side slowly."
He thrust his claws to the wall ahead.
Clank~
His claws hit the wall, only to make a metallic noise. The sharp claws failed to even leave a single scratch on the wall, let alone penetrate them.
"So much for that." Azekiel smiled wryly. "We have no option but to go through the water. What if there's something like a boat? Will the Spirit Lines create trouble for us?"
"A boat? We would need a boat made from something that doesn't get destroyed due to the acid. But it must be light as well. Finding a material to make that boat itself will be hard, let alone making it."
"A material that doesn't get destroyed by the acid... I think I have something like that in mind." Azekiel took a few steps back, going back to the last room he had checked.
He opened the door of the room. "What do you think about that? Can it survive the acid? If it does, we might have our boat.'
"The Coffin?" Raphael asked in surprise.
"I don't see anything else that can help us. We can't go out of the Graveyard, or we'll have to face the Vines again. The only other thing we can get are the tombstones, but I doubt they can float. That only leaves the Coffins... Moreover, they are made from the wood of World Tree. Do you think it can survive?"
