The Third Floor of the Tower of Sin was the most unorthodox floor according to all the Kings that had cleared this Floor. Unlike the others, the challenge here was quite different. They didn't need to fight; they didn't need to defeat anyone; they also didn't need to use any abilities to clear the floor.
All the other Floors at least had some semblance of danger with the possibility of death of the Lords and the Kings, but this Floor had none of them. That was also why it was also called the safest floor after floor zero.
Even when Azekiel returned to the past, he had decided to keep his focus on the first and the second floor to get stronger. He didn't even consider the Third Floor something worth taking seriously, at least not until he found out that there was more to the floor than what met the eyes.
As soon as Azekiel stepped onto the third floor, he glanced back to see if the other Kings were coming here to follow them. No one came after him.
"So this is the place you call a Tomb of Gods. Shouldn't it rather be called the Ruins?" Lia asked, gazing at her surroundings.
The tomb of Gods looked more like the ancient city that had been destroyed brutally. The entire city was completely dark, as if all the structures here were painted black.
The ground was also pitch black. If they couldn't feel that they were standing on the solid ground, many would've been confused that they were standing in a dark space.
Not a single building in this place was intact. All the streets were filled with rubble from the damaged building.
Many fall statues could also be seen at regular intervals, but none of those statues were intact either. Almost all the statues were broken and missing their heads.
"This place... It reeks of destruction." Raphael glanced at the distant statues. "What is the trial on this floor that we need to finish?"
Azekiel glanced at the screen before him where a mission was being shown, which he already knew about.
"We need to help one of them," Azekiel answered.
"One of them? And who are them?"
"Them." Azekiel pointed in the distance.
None of them could see anything in that direction as it was utterly dark, but a barely audible sound of crying could be heard coming from that direction if one was to listen really carefully.
For a moment, there was complete silence. Both Raphael and Lia heard the sounds of crying, which had started intensifying slowly. The sounds were getting louder as well.
"What's there?" Lia frowned. "Who is crying? These cries... It's like they are filled with pain and sorrow. Who could be crying?"
"You will know as we get there." With his hands in his pocket, Azekiel started advancing towards the darkness in the distance. "They won't hurt you. That's for sure. But they will play with you mentally. I don't know if you two will get affected by that or not, but still, it's better for you two to be careful."
Lia was really curious as to what they were going to find in the darkness. The cries... There were just so many hidden emotions behind those cries as if they belonged to someone who had lost everything they held dear.
As Azekiel entered the darkness, things became so dark that he couldn't even see anything. "Raphael, Lia, Remember what I told you. Be careful."
"Raphael?" Getting no response, he asked again. "Lia?"
Even now, there was no response. He couldn't hear them. It was as if they had separated from him, which should've been impossible since the three of them were walking in a straight direction at the same speed.
The crying was so intense now that they were bordering the same pitch of a scream.
Azekiel felt as if there were thousands of kids who were screaming around him.
"Raphael! Lia! Can you hear me?!"
~
There was still no response which forced Azekiel to stop trying to contact them. He didn't know if it was because of the darkness or what, but he seemed to have lost contact with his two spirits, and he was all alone.
He hadn't even considered the possibility of this happening, mainly because no one entered this place in a group. Everyone went alone and especially without a Spirit, so he didn't know how this place worked with groups.
Azekiel stopped walking amidst the screams and closed his eyes. Since he couldn't see anything, he just wanted to imagine who was where based on the cries. Closing his eyes, he could focus more on the cries.
"I am here to help you! Tell me what you want!" Azekiel declared as he stood like a blind man in a screaming crowd.
All the cries went silent in an instant before they all spoke a few words.
Since they all spoke at the same time, Azekiel couldn't understand a single thing. It was as if hundreds of people had talked at the same time, and he didn't know what to focus on. It all sounded like someone was speaking a bunch of nonsense.
"I brought food. Who wants food?" Azekiel brought a small rice ball out of his bag and raised his hand. "If you're hungry, take it. There are more."
This was the trick Michael used, which Azekiel saw through his memories. Michael had tried thousands of things to help whatever was in his surroundings, but nothing worked initially. After a long time, he left and came back with some food. That trick worked, and he finally cleared the Floor after three days.
Azekiel wanted to achieve the same feat but on the first try itself. He just needed to find someone who was hungry and help him. He believed that should've been easy. Unfortunately, no one took the rice ball from his hand.
Instead, someone seemed to hit his hands, letting the rice ball fall. Everyone started crying once again.
"So the old trick won't work here, it seems. Once someone is helped, that option stops existing as if... As if there isn't a real person here but a Spirit with unfinished business..."
"Could it really be that? We are supposed to help the Evil Spirits here in fulfilling their last wishes? So far, that's only an assumption, but that seems highly likely. But if no two spirits share the same desire and after each desire is fulfilled, the Spirit leaves, that means all options I know won't work?"
To test this assumption, he used another method that he knew to be helpful in the past. Unfortunately, just as he had expected, that option also failed.
