Everything... Converted to Order!

When Karen charged upward, the Throne of Order had not yet appeared. Thus, Karen had not charged toward the Throne of Order out of fearless bravado; he simply had no time to make any other choice. The Throne of Order had been the most terrifying existence in the late stages of the previous era. Even gods had to submit or retreat under its crushing pressure, for it was the symbol of the God of Order's majestic might. Karen had encountered the Throne of Order several times before. The first time, though very close in distance, he had not truly been at the scene; he only knew that above the church at the end of Mink Street, the apparition of the Throne of Order had once manifested. Its purpose in being summoned had been to suppress Diss inside the church, though in the end the Church of Order had taken the initiative to withdraw it. His previous encounter had taken place outside the Church of Samsara's Church Affairs Building in York City, where his maternal grandfather Delon and his department personnel had summoned the Throne of Order outside the building, sealing all the Church of Samsara priests within and ultimately forcing their surrender. This time, the Throne of Order Karen faced was different from the previous two occasions. The first two had been summoned by priests of Order, whereas this one had been arranged personally by the God of Order back then. Although it had weathered the erosion and wear of countless years, and although the Mural God Rielsa was drawing closer and closer to awakening, no one would dare underestimate this throne seal. Because preserved within it was the will belonging to the God of Order! The instant he plunged in, Karen sensed streaks of terrifying black thunderbolts blasting down upon him. There was no buildup, no prelude—like an adult stepping on an ant while walking, unaware that it had even occurred. The first thing to trigger defensively was the Sea God's Armor within Karen's body. Confronted by danger and the unknown, its emergence was almost instinctual. Yet the moment it materialized over Karen's body, it was instantly blanketed in black thunder. Immediately after, Karen watched with his own eyes as the Sea God's Armor upon him was deconstructed. Yes, not shattered, but deconstructed—stripped of the premise of its existing template and erased of the very purpose of its existence. The Sea God's Armor broke apart bit by bit, glistening blue shards drifting away like flying mist, radiating a desolate beauty. A stabbing agony shot through Karen's chest where his heart was. He clutched at his chest with his right hand, but it was utterly useless, for the source of the pain was not the chest of this conscious projection, but the actual heart within his physical body! An invisible hand had already gripped his heart—not pulling, not dragging, but simply and brutally seizing it, then squeezing it to bursting! *Bang!* Karen was in such pain he could scarcely breathe. His consciousness hovered on the verge of fainting several times, only to be jolted back awake by the stimulus of the next wave of even sharper torment. It felt as if he were tossed into a furnace to roast, fished out and plunged into ice water to shock him, over and over again in an endless loop. What astonished Karen even more was that the power of Order within his body completely disregarded the commands of him, its master, actively joining in this torture and becoming puppets under the throne's will. The Sea God's Heart had already ceased beating. Karen knew this likely meant the egg his dog had paddled through the water with such effort to fetch for him had gone to waste. Yet this was only the beginning. Karen's eyes began to gleam with red. If the Sea God's Armor was an instinctual defense, then the emergence of the Dark Moon Eye at this moment was a reaction entirely beyond his control. The moment it appeared, Karen knew: *Damn it.* Sure enough, two bolts of black thunder, as if lying in wait for ages, struck Karen squarely in the eyes. The sheer intensity of the pain stripped Karen of his sensation of pain in an instant. This was no mercy, for what replaced it was endless loneliness and disorientation. The eyes were the window to the soul; what those two lightning bolts destroyed was not just Karen's "sight," but his ability to perceive the outside world in this state of consciousness. This was a torment far exceeding dismemberment and sensory deprivation—you existed, yet you could sense nothing of the outside world. Boundless claustrophobia closed around him like heavy shackles, locking him away and cutting him off completely. In all of Karen's memory, this was his most desperate hour. His abilities, his intellect—not an ounce of it mattered now. The methods he took pride in day-to-day were being stripped away one after another. Within his blackened, lifeless eye sockets, a burst of light appeared in the hollow of his right eye. The power of Light within Karen was awakening, and Karen, who had just been enduring endless isolation, finally gained a new window through which to perceive the outside world. Yet if not seeing brought the terror of blindness, seeing brought the terror of what met the eye. When another thick bolt of black thunder struck, Karen desperately wanted to close his eyes, but it was already too late. *Boom!* The powers of Light and Order began to tear into each other, and their battlefield was Karen's eye socket. It was as though an iron pestle had been jammed into his eye, around which his entire body was violently and rapidly spun. His deep reserves of spiritual energy had always been Karen's greatest trump card, but right now, it had turned into his nightmare, because it meant the duration of his torment was prolonged. Thankfully, it was finally coming to an end. Only, just as the battle in his eye socket ceased and the Light was completely eradicated, Pu'er's figure emerged behind Karen. Before Pu'er even opened her eyes, she began scolding: "Stinky Karen, why haven't you summoned me this whole time..." Then Pu'er opened her eyes, and her voice cut off abruptly, because she saw an incomparably wretched Karen floating before her. She could hardly believe that little Karen, always so composed and dignified, could look so utterly tragic. More than shock or astonishment, what filled Pu'er's heart at this moment was aching grief. Karen sensed her appearance as well, but battered and riddled with wounds as he was, he offered no explanation, nor did he attempt to convey any message. He merely raised his hand and, in an instant, forcibly severed the connection between himself and Pu'er. Once established, a symbiosis contract could not be severed, like two plants sharing entwined roots. Karen's "slash" struck directly at those shared roots. He never expected to truly sever them; he only wanted to use this method to block the power of the Throne of Order from tracing back to Pu'er. "Karen!" Pu'er cried out, and her phantom figure dissipated immediately. Next, the figure of Ancestor Allen appeared behind Karen, only to be instantly shattered by a bolt of thunder the moment he manifested. A Gate of Samsara emerged, yet it too quickly broke apart. Cracking sounds echoed from every part of his body, like a porcelain vase spiderwebbing with dense fissures before shattering completely with a sharp crack. Karen knew this was the sound of his body shattering. The thunderbolts of Order shattered the body Raniedal had modified! Not only had the dog's effort in fetching the egg gone to waste, but even its proudest bodily masterpiece had now been erased. Beneath the Throne of Order, no existence outside of Order was permitted. All departures from Order would be suppressed. Diss's figure manifested—a manifestation of Karen's family belief system. Thunder still crashed down. Under the church's belief system, families could only merge into the church; a family could never be carved out from it. After withstanding three consecutive strikes of black thunder, Diss's figure still stood behind Karen, standing firm like a great tree. Yet when the fourth bolt crashed down, Diss's figure finally began to fade, and his straight back began to bend. Karen slowly raised his hand, withdrawing his family belief system just as he had earlier chosen to temporarily cut off his connection with Pu'er. Yet when you were in a state of absolute weakness, your choices no longer mattered. When you could not even protect yourself, the things you wished to protect stood even less chance of being spared. An extraordinarily thick bolt of thunder blasted Karen. The power of Order inside him spiraled completely out of control, spilling out of his body and wildly engulfing his consciousness. Once all this concluded, the impurities would be thoroughly purified into the form of Order, integrated into the system of Order beneath the throne. Order, after all, was fundamentally a rule that turned chaos into structure. And "chaos" here had many interpretations. Everything upon him was peeled away layer by layer like an onion, then dyed. Karen felt like a corpse that had just undergone an autopsy. Every organ, every tissue, the flesh, the bones—everything had been cleanly excised and laid out on display. He never would have imagined that one day he could become so clean and refreshed. This was the true essence of why the Throne of Order could suppress deities: whoever dared resist its will, even a god, would be dissolved, then absorbed. A beam of light shone down on Karen. As an existence that dared offend the Throne of Order, Karen was about to meet his final destination: integration into the operational rules of the throne. A purple chain descended from the central region of the Throne of Order, coiling around Karen to reel him in. Yet the instant the purple chain made contact with Karen's consciousness, Karen—who had fallen into a state of utter muddleheadedness—clutched at it like a drowning man grasping a straw. He saw the ceased Sea God's Heart, the shattered Dark Moon Eye, the nearly extinguished flame of Light, the fractured Gate of Samsara, the battered Ancestor Allen, and most of all, the hunched figure of Diss. His fists clenched. He raised his head. "Order... Awaken!" The purple chain suddenly froze. Immediately after, a dense torrent of Order power surged down from the throne through the chain, pouring into Karen's body. In an instant, the one being absorbed became the absorber. The roles of predator and prey reversed in that singular breath. The influx of majestic Order power caused Karen's consciousness to begin regenerating; previously blasted into tatters, he began to coalesce once more. Yet Karen did not focus solely on repairing himself; instead, he generously channeled the Order power flooding into him straight into his family belief system first. Diss's previously hunched posture gradually straightened and grew towering once more, as if he had returned to that original grandfatherly figure. Yet this was not enough. As the power of Order continued to pour in, a set of gold-trimmed Order robes manifested upon Diss. These were the robes belonging to a Temple Elder, something that had never appeared before. The robes concealed Diss's face, leaving only the majesty and solemnity proper to an Elder. The Immorales family belief system was tailor-made by Diss for his grandson Karen. The purpose of its creation was to provide Karen with support rather than inheritance, because anyone who was not a true genius could never awaken the family belief system. If Karen's descendants could ever build a family on the scale of the Allen family, their records would likely read: *Ancestor Diss founded the family belief system; Forefather Karen perfected it.* From this point on, when Diss's phantom appeared behind him, Karen would no longer need to fear exposure, for in the eyes of outsiders, he would appear to have received the inheritance of a Temple Elder without anyone knowing the elder's identity. Karen then funneled the power of Order into the battered figure of Ancestor Allen. Ancestor Allen's form coalesced anew, clad in a suit of armor belonging to the Order Knights. His left hand held a burning bow and his right a freezing sword; ice and fire were now steeped in the aura of Order. This was a new Ancestor Allen system, detached from the original Allen family belief system so that it would not affect the main system. However, if Karen were to have children with a woman of the Allen family in the future, those offspring would inherit this new branch. With one prerequisite: they had to believe in Order. Back then, Diss's approach had been to sever the family belief system from the church belief system; what Karen was doing now was merging the Ancestor Allen family belief system into the church belief system. In essence, it was the same principle as only those of Guman bloodline being able to utilize the fully realized Key to the Rubik's Cube. Next came the Light. After the power of Order was injected into the Light, the two forces that had just been locked in mortal combat like fire and water actually displayed a rare harmony. The Light was restored, yet it was no longer pure white. Instead, white and black swirled through one another; it was still there, yet no longer the same. In other words, Karen could still use the properties of Light, but he was no longer a pure inheritor of Light. This was not a matter of sacrifice, for ahead, more bolts of black thunder were already gathering, poised to strike. When the threat of death confronted you once more, the choice was actually exceedingly simple and clear: Either everything was converted to Order, or... be suppressed by the throne once more! Captain Neo dreamed day and night of turning his Light back into Order, yet could find no way and knew it to be virtually impossible. What he yearned for in his dreams had now been realized by Karen. Only, this "realization" was utterly impossible to replicate. Karen looked toward the Dark Moon Eye. It began to dissolve, turning red and merging into Karen's pupils. The Eye of Order appeared—no longer confined to his left eye, but filling both eyes with the hue of Order. In the beginning, Karen had Light in his right eye and Order in his left, with the Dark Moon Eye serving as the foundation. Now, the Eye of Order had supplanted everything, completing the fusion of Light and the Dark Moon Eye. From now on, Karen possessed only the Eye of Order, yet could express the characteristics of both Light and the Dark Moon. The Sea God's Armor recondensed. Blue was gone from it; all its runic sigils now pulsed with the flowing aura of Order. When it draped over Karen once more, it gave off the impression of armor belonging strictly to the Order lineage. The fractured Gate of Samsara repaired itself, but the aura of Samsara was gone from the gate, replaced by a Door of Order. Just moments ago, Karen had lost everything he originally possessed; yet now, everything he had originally possessed had returned in a new form. High above, the Throne of Order continued to operate in accordance with the will it had carried for countless years, yet this time, someone had managed to steal from it. Karen felt as though he had undergone a new purification. The physical sensation of his body began to return, meaning his physical body in reality was being reassembled anew. The body Raniedal had modified and which had then been shattered was now reconstituting in a brand-new way. It was still the body modified by Raniedal, yet had severed all ties to Raniedal; Karen's body would no longer retain any "characteristics" associated with Raniedal. The purple chain still wound around Karen, and a chain appeared beneath Karen's feet, beginning to merge with it. Karen was not yet satisfied; he wanted to use this method to integrate this purple chain into his own body as well. All around, streaks of black thunder had long been poised to strike, but once Karen was thoroughly converted to Order, their presence lost its purpose. There was no longer any reason to attack Karen again. He was like a thief who found a key, entered someone else's house, not only borrowed their washroom to take a shower, put on a clean new pair of their pajamas, but even spritzed on their perfume—so much so that the household dog was confused about his identity and no longer dared bare its teeth at him. However, before he could pry apart the purple chain, a roar of fury echoed from below. A tremendous pressure surged up—a terrifying collapse within the vortex of consciousness! The Mural God Rielsa seemed on the verge of an early awakening, and the Throne of Order began to suppress her. The purple chain was retracting. A new, far more powerful target had appeared, and a new protocol of rules was initiating. Karen had no choice but to give up chasing after the purple chain. He had no desire to be dragged into the throne along with it, where he would merge with the throne and spend the rest of his existence serving as the sealing spirit that imprisoned the Mural God Rielsa. Even so, Karen noticed that his own chain had already been tainted with a touch of purple. The entire ordeal had been fraught with extreme danger. One could say that as his consciousness was plunging into total oblivion, Karen had forcefully dragged himself back by casting Awakening on himself. Yet the result was astonishing. This was plundering. This was learning. This was... conversion to Order. Karen's consciousness drifted upward, escaping the reach of the Throne of Order. After a flash of light, Karen sensed that he had finally returned to reality. Once his physical sensations returned, the first thing that flooded in was an intensely overwhelming emotion, overriding everything else and filling Karen's mind completely, as if his body and soul were crying out together: "I'm so hungry..."