At this moment, Mr. Pavaro gave off a profoundly "sacred" impression—a sanctity that had nothing to do with "gods."
To Karen, forcibly linking the Mr. Pavaro before him to a "god" was both flattering the god and desecrating the man.
Even Purr, perched atop Kevin's back, was gazing solemnly at Mr. Pavaro.
He was neither dying nor merely dead; having died once already, he was now on the verge of complete oblivion.
Under such circumstances, he still adhered strictly to the creed and principles in his heart.
Purr was beginning to understand why Karen had addressed Mr. Pavaro with respectful honorifics ever since Awakening him.
After speaking those words, Mr. Pavaro stooped considerably, the light in his eyes dimming noticeably. Having endured through that earlier ordeal, the spirituality within his body was visibly waning.
At that moment, Little John—who had been trailing behind, clutching his arms and trembling—slowly raised his head. His eyes turned entirely white, and his demeanor shifted to icy coldness.
"What a sickeningly hypocritical ceremony. What laughably absurd words."
Everyone turned to look at Little John, including Alfred, who was standing by the sliding door observing the situation outside.
Little John pointed at Mr. Pavaro, then down toward the "pigsty," and laughed.
"Do you see? These are the miracles wrought by the very faith you worship. Truly vivid—so vivid it leaves an indelible impression."
Karen looked at Little John and asked, "Who are you?"
"Who am I?" Little John pointed at his own face with a chuckle. "Didn't you bring him here specifically so you could talk to me?"
Karen shook his head. "I brought him along because he has nowhere else to go right now."
"He was the first to be corrupted. His aura and his vessel are the most suited to temporarily host my will. And now you dare claim this wasn't by your design? I have appeared before you, and you have seen me. I do not wish to waste breath bickering over pointless words and reduce myself to his level."
Little John pointed toward Mr. Pavaro once more.
"All right." Karen nodded. "I brought him along specifically to talk with you. So now, could you tell me who you—my meticulously planned conversation partner—actually are?"
Ferocity flared across Little John's face. He opened his hands wide, and a piercing shriek ripped from his throat!
In an instant, an ear-splitting sound capable of piercing the soul rippled outward.
The golden retriever flattened his ears, and atop his back, Purr did the same with hers.
The dog and cat remained utterly calm.
They might have flinched if someone threw a fork at them, but they had no fear of such so-called soul attacks, for the level of their souls was extraordinarily high.
Mr. Pavaro no longer had a soul within him; his present existence was sustained solely by the remnants of spiritual power in his corpse, so he simply stood where he was, unaffected.
Alfred, who was walking over, merely furrowed his brow. According to the church's classification of aberrant demons, he was a mental-type aberrant demon and possessed fairly strong immunity to this kind of soul assault.
In truth, the only one present who actually had to endure the brunt of this attack was Karen.
Karen felt a dizzy spell wash over his brain, followed by the world spinning around him, but he adjusted quickly. Although he lacked Alfred's natural immunity, he had long grown accustomed to throbbing head pain.
He even felt that Little John's present assault paled in comparison to the agony of practicing the Spear of Punishment back at Allen Manor.
Practice proved that just as frequent labor builds calluses on the palms, the mind and soul can grow calloused as well.
Little John was astounded to find that his attack had failed to bring down anyone present—including the cat and the dog!
"How dare you be so insolent!"
Alfred stepped forward, but Karen raised a hand to signal him to stop.
Sensing Alfred behind him, Little John lowered his arms and halted the attack.
"Young Master..."
"Keep watch outside. He's no danger."
"Yes, Young Master."
Alfred returned to the sliding doors to watch the outside.
Karen looked at Little John and asked once more, quite earnestly, "Who are you?"
Little John tilted his head back, mouth open, emitting a continuous "Urrgh..." sound as his body trembled faintly.
After a short while, Little John lowered his head and said in a deep voice, "I re-examined his memories of you."
"Oh?"
"His memories tell me you arranged everything long ago."
"Children tend to view things through a narrow, biased lens. You shouldn't take it as fact. I genuinely have no idea who you are."
"I still don't believe you."
"Woof!"
At that moment, the golden retriever barked, then craned his head around to look at Purr on his back.
Purr, puffed up with annoyance, swatted the stupid dog's head vigorously with her paws.
Seeing this, Karen shifted his gaze back to Little John and asked, "Are you... a sacred relic?"
Little John stared intently at Karen, realizing the other person had no reason to feign ignorance any longer.
"So you truly didn't know who I was?"
"I didn't."
"Then what did you come here for?!"
Karen pointed behind him toward the pigsty below and replied, "I came to resolve this matter."
"You didn't even know who I was beforehand, yet you came to resolve it?"
"I've guessed the gist of it. His Honor the Jurist wasn't doing this for some blood spirit powder. He was nourishing something here through sacrifice, and that something is you. In all likelihood, you are that sacred relic, aren't you?"
After being Awakened, Mr. Pavaro had told him that once he discovered the Jurist stood behind them, he realized the purpose behind all of this went far beyond blood spirit powder.
"And then?" Little John asked.
"There is no 'and then,'" Karen shrugged. "I didn't come for you. I came to save the people down there."
"They don't need you to save them anymore. Having taken the forbidden medicine, their lives are already counting down. Hehehe... once dragged down here, their only destiny is to die in agony and torment so that the resentment in their bodies can be squeezed out as nourishment. Oh, and during the process, they bleed profusely, which seems to be gathered as material as well. So there's no need to save them. It's meaningless."
"No, it has meaning. At least no one else will be brought down here in the future," Karen said.
"Hehehehe..." Little John chuckled. "Are you saying your character is as noble as his?"
Karen glanced at Mr. Pavaro, then shook his head. "No, I'm not as noble as he is."
At that moment, Purr patted the golden retriever's neck again and let out a "Meow." Kevin immediately turned and bounded down the raised platform with Purr on his back.
"There's a massive array encircling the perimeter of this place," Little John said.
"We know."
"But did you know there's actually a far more delicate surveillance array inside?"
"That, we honestly didn't know."
"If I hadn't concealed your entry from the surveillance array, the God's Servants responsible for monitoring it would have sounded the alarm by now."
"Mhm, all right. Thank you." Karen then called toward Alfred, who was still guarding the sliding doors, "No need to watch the door anymore. Someone's already covering for us. Go do what you need to do."
"Understood, Young Master." Alfred turned and walked over, casting a wary glance at Little John before hurrying down in the direction Kevin and Purr had gone.
On the raised platform, only Karen, Pavaro, and Little John remained.
"My intuition tells me you aren't very strong," Little John said. "For some reason I cannot see into your inner self, but if you were truly powerful enough, you wouldn't need to sneak in like thieves."
"You're right," Karen agreed once again.
Little John started to speak, then stopped. More accurately, Karen's simple, blunt responses kept leaving him at a loss for how to continue.
"What are they doing down there?" Pavaro asked Karen.
Below, Kevin was continuously sniffing the ground, while Alfred drew array materials from his pocket, following behind the cat and dog in preparation.
"Didn't you keep asking me what I planned to do once we found this place? This is my solution."
"I don't quite understand." Pavaro glanced at Little John, and after confirming that Little John posed no threat to Karen, asked, "May I go down and take a look as well?"
"Of course. I'll help you down."
"No, no need. I'll take it slow. You stay here and talk with this... this gentleman."
"Mr. Pavaro," Karen called out to him.
"Yes?"
"You may watch, but you cannot stop them."
"Of course. I'm already dead. What could a dead man stop? Nor do I have any right to stop anything."
With that, Pavaro staggered down the steps.
At this point, only Karen and Little John remained on the raised platform.
Little John raised both hands, opened his mouth, and screamed once more!
"Aaahhhhh!"
This time, however, it wasn't a soul attack; he was purely screaming to vent his emotions.
Finally, he finished.
"Oh, I suppose you thought we came here for you, right?"
Little John did not answer.
"And finding out our target wasn't you left you terribly disappointed?"
Little John still did not answer.
"I'm sorry for disappointing you."
Karen nodded at Little John, then turned his back to him, sat down on the edge of the platform, and watched Kevin, Purr, and Alfred busy at work below.
Footsteps sounded behind Karen.
Immediately following, a pair of small hands touched Karen's back and crept slowly toward his neck.
"Sit."
"Why aren't you afraid of me?"
"Because your abilities seem rather lacking."
The power displayed by the possessed Little John at this moment... well, it was only slightly stronger than Little John unpossessed.
Even that opening shriek had merely caught him off guard at first; he had adapted almost instantly, so it was nothing to write home about.
"I really dislike talking to you. Truly. When I talk to them, I feel pleasant, but talking to you, the fury inside me wells up over and over again uncontrollably."
"Believe it or not, I make a living by conversing with people." Karen patted the spot beside him again, gesturing for him to sit.
Little John hesitated for a moment before sitting down next to Karen.
"Why aren't you afraid of me? No, not just you, but them as well..." Little John pointed down at Purr and the others. "None of them fear me."
"I just told you why."
"But I don't like that answer."
"All right. It's true that wasn't the only reason. Mainly, it was because the moment you appeared, you cursed Mr. Pavaro—that man over there."
"The soulless one?"
"Yes."
"Why would you stop fearing me just because I cursed him?"
"Because you were right to curse. And most importantly, your words happened to reveal where you stand."
"Where I stand..."
Karen pointed at the people lying in the pens below. "You pity them. You feel rage on their behalf."
"I..."
"So right from the start, you showed where your sympathies lie, and our stances happen to align."
"I feel... strange."
"There's nothing strange about it. I have no interest in you. While I imagine any sacred relic nurtured in such a manner by a Jurist must be immensely powerful or possess unfathomable abilities, if my goal were to steal a sacred relic, I wouldn't have come here in the first place."
"Why?"
"Because it's far too dangerous. Throwing my life away for a sacred relic isn't worth it."
"Is it worth it... for them?"
"Not really, either." Karen shook his head. "If I hadn't known about them, or if I had merely heard about this on the street, I might have pretended not to hear, or treated it as an unreliable rumor and done my best to ignore it."
"I... don't understand what you mean."
"Some things aren't about whether they're worth it or not. It's just that once you stumble upon them, you can't bear to turn away and flee."
"I still dislike talking to you." Little John shook his head. "But if you can grant them release, I would be glad to see it."
"They exist to nourish you, don't they?"
"Yes. Without them, I could not have been born."
'Is this... nurturing an artifact spirit?'
"The one who buried me here hopes to use them to give birth to me, nurture me, and bring me to maturity."
"You will soon lose the soil that fosters your growth. Doesn't that bother you?"
"You see, they call them 'pigs in a pigsty,' and you call them 'soil.' But in my eyes, they—coming batch after batch, dying batch after batch—are the family who raised me."
"I understand."
Karen truly hadn't expected that an artifact spirit spawned in such a horrific manner would possess such innocent sentience.
"This is my second time possessing him," Little John said. "The first time was when I had just learned to walk. Aside from the old grandfather who always wore dark red clerical robes, no one else could see me. I was rather lonely. Having just learned to walk, I was very lonely. Then, I saw him. He was even smaller back then. I wanted to play with him, but we only played for a short while before his father took him away. I couldn't leave this place, so I had no choice but to detach from his body."
So this was how Little John had become corrupted.
"Later, upon discovering I could walk, that old grandfather placed a new layer of seal upon me. After that, every six months, he would apply fresh seals based on how much I had grown."
"You don't hate him?"
"Without him, I could not have been born, so I treat him as family."
"I see."
Little John pointed at the pens below. "It is a fond wish. Do you know, whenever I talk with them in dreams, after we finish, they always beg the exact same thing of me."
"What thing?"
"They beg me to kill them. So I hope that one day, he will meet the exact same end as these kin of mine."
Karen fell silent.
"It's very difficult, isn't it? I know who he is, because a few God's Servants were corrupted by me before, and I read their memories. I also know their faith. Heh, faith. Their faith is the same as that soulless man down there: the God of Order."
"It's not the same," Karen corrected. "They worship the God of Order; he believes in Order."
"Is there a difference?"
"There is."
"There's something I've always been curious about. Having read their memories, I wonder: how can someone who commits such atrocities still hold faith and grow so powerful? It completely contradicts the Code of Order and the Light of Order I saw in their memories."
"The place we are in is called Wien. Wien is a nation. When the civil servants of this country take office, they all swear an oath to uphold the constitution. Yet that does not prevent some of them from becoming corrupt and degenerate later on, climbing to higher and higher posts, wielding ever greater authority. No matter how much they embezzle or abuse their office behind closed doors, they can still put on an act before the voters, projecting an image of pristine integrity and uprightness."
Most importantly, Karen remembered the time he saw the God of Order; the deity had scattered starlight in response to his believers in a manner that was almost mechanically numb.
"I like your explanation very much." Little John looked at Karen. "So, I'm prepared to answer one of your questions as well."
"Still that first question."
"You already know I am a sacred relic."
"Be more specific."
"I... am a copper coin."
"A Rax copper coin? You are the Source of Sin?"
A vivid image immediately flashed in Karen's mind: Ron clutching that copper coin, drool dripping down his chin as he yelled, "My money... my money... my money..."
"How surprising. You actually know."
"Are you an imitation of a Rax copper coin?"
"Theoretically, I have eight other brothers—or sisters."
"So you are an authentic one?"
"I need to share a piece of unfortunate news with you."
"My apologies. Poor choice of words; I shouldn't have referred to you as an 'authentic one.'"
"Although that phrasing does indeed make me uncomfortable, that wasn't what I wanted to tell you."
"Then what is it?"
Little John stood up, turned toward the sliding doors, and said, "I sense Grandfather has returned."
...
[Rax Copper Coin: True God Rax commanded his followers to gather the source of sin throughout the world, smelting them into nine copper coins and sealing them within a bronze coffin alongside his corpse.]
Chapter 142