In truth, Karen had very little time to think. Because he had not known from the start that it was Bishop Dolph summoning him through the silver mask, he had not set aside any time for deliberation.
Fortunately, Karen was experienced with playing the role of an "exalted figure." He knew very well that once he accepted Bishop Dolph's devout "summons," he couldn't possibly negotiate or hash things out with him. Every response had to be curt and concise.
Blessedly, what Mr. Dalis had said during dinner was still fresh in his mind:
His father was not the type of bishop who would preserve his final shred of dignity by writing a suicide note and ending his own life when faced with something like this.
Following that line of thought, why not make Bishop Dolph write a suicide note?
It was Karen who had answered his summons. For some reason, the Temple Elder hadn't shown up, which meant... he probably wouldn't come at all, right?
Even if he did show up later, he surely wouldn't agree to clash head-on with the High Priest just for the sake of the Norton family.
In the absolute worst-case scenario, could a regional bishop really outweigh the High Priest's prestige?
Having returned from Fire Island with Vic at his side, and having personally witnessed the dynamics between the High Priest, the Whip-Wielder, and Theisen, Karen felt his own grasp of high-level political struggles was perhaps even sharper than that of a bishop like Dolph.
Vic had made it crystal clear: the current High Priest held the firmest stance toward the Temple of any High Priest in history.
"Yes, I understand. Please rest assured, I shall draft the suicide note immediately and release it to the entire church!"
Bishop Dolph agreed at once, convinced the method proposed by the "great entity" made eminent sense.
It was only natural that a bishop who occupied no prominent position in local politics and had awful interpersonal connections would fail to see the high-level situation as clearly as the former High Priest's student and retainer to the conservative leader.
Well then, the matter was settled.
Just as Karen was preparing to deliver a parting remark to bring this abrupt "meeting" to an end, Bishop Dolph spoke up again:
"There is one more matter I wish to consult your great and learned self upon. Please forgive me; this is not out of greed, but because the matter is deeply bizarre and concerns the succession of the Norton family. It involves something that happened to my son."
*Your son?*
Karen instantly ruled out Trison and Vicolai. Bishop Dolph had three other sons, but the one he meant had to be Mr. Dalis.
Earlier, during their debrief after dinner, Karen had remarked to Neo that Dalis was either the only sane man among that den of lunatics, or the biggest lunatic of them all.
"Speak..."
"Yes. It is my second son, Dalis. I suspect he suffers from some sort of curse. Ever since he arrived, everyone in the family has grown restless and uneasy.
"My own cultivation has ground to a halt. My eldest son originally had hope of advancing further, yet mysteriously began suffering physical and spiritual decay in his middle age. My grandson... my son Vicolai struggles even to become an Inquisitor.
"The same goes for the rest of my sons.
"Including the next generation... Vicolai is my son, which means that to this day, I do not have a single grandchild.
"I feel the source of all of this must lie with my second son, Dalis.
"I suspect he carries a curse—he has cursed my Norton family!
"Countless times I have wanted to kill him, but I could never bring myself to do it. He is, after all, my son."
*Mr. Dalis... a curse.*
The family's cultivation had stalled, and their bloodline's reproduction had run dry.
If this went on, wouldn't Dalis be the sole survivor of the entire Norton family within a matter of years?
*Wait.*
*Why does this situation sound so familiar?*
Karen suddenly thought of Philomena's Felscher family. In fact, not only the York City Region, but even Vic knew about the Felschers, who were notorious as the "Cursed Family."
Were the Nortons competing with the Felschers for the traveling banner of honor awarded to the premier cursed family?
At the very least, one thing was certain: Mr. Dalis had serious problems.
Bishop Dolph continued, "I hate him. I hate this son of mine, but I truly could not bring myself to kill him. So please forgive me—I touched his wife because I wanted revenge on him. I do not know why such an impulse seized me, but at the time, I was truly being driven mad."
A father had wanted revenge on his own son, so he slept with his daughter-in-law and had her bear him a "child"—a boy who was both his grandson and his son.
It sounded absurdly twisted, yet within church circles, grotesque examples like this were never in short supply.
What surprised Karen even more was that another parallel had emerged: Dolph had treated his daughter-in-law this way, and according to Philomena, her grandmother had treated her father like a dog.
It was not just the stalling of cultivation or the cessation of reproduction; it also wrought extreme distortion upon human relations.
It was similar—uncannily so.
Factoring in that "detached" impression Mr. Dalis had given when they met face-to-face, especially when discussing arrangements concerning his family, his emotional response had not been extreme vengefulness or selfish apathy, but pure indifference.
Karen had perceived that very same aura in the early days of knowing Philomena.
To seek further verification, Karen asked:
"Has he ever said anything related to 'dreams'?"
Bishop Dolph froze, then grew visibly agitated. "He did! He did! Between the ages of eight and twelve, he would constantly say things like, 'This is a dream,' 'I'm still in a dream,' 'I haven't woken up yet,' 'Why am I still in a dream?' At the time, I thought he had lost his way in his cultivation, which worried me terribly.
"But as he grew older, he stopped saying such things.
"And the older he grew, the more uncomfortable he made me feel just looking at him."
"I see. I will handle it."
"Thank you! Thank you, great entity! The Norton family will remember your grace for generations!"
"Attend to your task. After this, all past favor is spent."
"Yes, yes, yes! We shall not trouble you again. We will not disappoint you!"
The gilded sphere began to dissolve, the communication array ceased functioning, and silence finally returned to the basement.
Prostrate on the floor, Bishop Dolph let out a long breath and sat up, a smile of relief gradually spreading across his face.
"The Norton family is saved at last."
...
Karen reached up and took off the mask.
He had expected to return to reality and find Neo sitting directly across from him, eagerly awaiting news.
Yet the moment he removed the mask, a breeze brushed his face—a damp, salty sea breeze.
Karen realized at once that he had not entirely taken off the mask.
*Dong! Dong! Dong!*
The toll of a bell sounded behind him. Karen turned around to see a great black bell hovering in midair, carved with dense, inscrutable runes.
Each time the bell tolled, streams of souls spilled from within, bearing varied expressions—some laughing, some weeping, some deep in thought, some melancholy.
Next, Karen looked down and saw that he was holding the silver mask in his hand.
He reached out and stroked the mask, pouring profound affection into the gesture.
"I'm sorry, Rohan. I lied to you. I wasn't worthy of your trust, and I failed the help and expectations you gave me... because I have strayed onto an evil path."
"Karen" stroked the silver mask while muttering to himself.
He understood this was not him, but a lingering memory preserved inside the silver mask, stirred awake by Dolph's summons.
Yet the immersion was so overpowering that Karen struggled to detach himself and remain a mere bystander. Fortunately, his intellect stayed clear, even if he had no control over the emotional resonance.
Feelings of loss, bewilderment, and regret swirled in his chest, like an entire shelf of seasoning jars knocked over, blending juices of every color and flavor into an indistinguishable mess.
In the end, it condensed into a single sigh:
"I wanted so badly to condense a godhead fragment. I wanted to see the magnificent Temple of Order with my own eyes. I wanted to serve closely beside the great God of Order.
"So I used special methods to prolong my lifespan.
"I hoped I could achieve it, even if it only granted me the slimmest chance.
"I am no longer clean, Rohan.
"I am terrified that after committing so many wrongs, I still won't be able to condense a godhead fragment.
"I am even more terrified that after committing so many wrongs, I will actually succeed in condensing one.
"That is why I avoided you, why I made sure you couldn't find me. I wanted to make one final push.
"Whatever the outcome, I will accept it."
Karen tucked the silver mask into his robes, even reaching in to caress it once more.
"No matter what, even if I sink into eternal corruption and become a rotting prisoner, I will always remember the friendship the three of us once shared."
Karen sat cross-legged, and his body rose into the air. Strands of peculiar soul essence flew out from the great black bell and burrowed into Karen's body. Immediately after, his soul power erupted like an ignited volcano.
*Is this... the soul strength of an entity at this level?*
Karen had always been confident in his own soul power, but only now did he truly understand what terror meant.
He was still quite far from that realm; power of that caliber remained entirely out of his reach for now.
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
This appeared to be a small island. As his body drifted upward, heavy thunderclouds gathered in the sky, and waterspouts formed across the surrounding sea.
And this was merely the beginning.
It was as if everything around him were water being heated degree by degree, steadily marching toward a rolling boil.
*Can I experience this scene firsthand too?*
Karen knew this was an extraordinary opportunity. If he could experience it in advance through this method, it would surely provide immense aid to his future growth.
He wasn't worried about pulling up seedlings to help them grow; he possessed absolute confidence in his own talent.
Yet just as Karen prepared to steady himself and welcome the experience, his vision began to warp, and his perception fell into chaos. It felt as though countless giant hands had seized him and were tearing him apart.
What made it all the more agonizing was that his mental fortitude was too resilient. This hyper-frequent tearing inflicted tremendous torment, stripping him of all perception of the outside world. He could see nothing and hear nothing, yet the pain persisted, and he could not even lose consciousness...
It seemed that due to the extreme circumstances at the time, certain memory fragments had failed to record properly onto the silver mask, resulting in corrupted playback.
"Ah..."
He had no idea how much time had passed. Karen knew his physical body in reality was bound to be showing corresponding reactions, but fortunately, everything finally subsided.
"Heheheh... Hahahaha..."
Vision gradually cleared from a blur.
Karen was squatting by the shore, laughing wildly.
As he laughed, tears began to stream down his face.
"I actually... succeeded... Rohan, would you believe it? I actually succeeded! But now, I don't know how to face you. Should I deceive you, my good brother? If I go to see you, should I conceal this past from you?
"If I come into close contact with the God of Order, when I draw near to the great God, will He see right through the filth upon me?
"So then...
"Should I go to the Temple of Order after all?"
Waves surged across the sea ahead. Immediately after, the phantom image of an imposing, majestic gate began to materialize.
It was the gate of the Temple. Whenever the Temple sensed that someone in the world had condensed a godhead fragment of the Order lineage, it would automatically manifest before them to guide them inside.
"The gate is about to open. Rohan, should I go in and see you?"
"You will enter."
A voice drifted from behind.
Karen turned around to see who had arrived, and froze.
Though far younger than the grandfather of his memories, this was distinctly Diss somewhere between his youth and middle age—roughly thirty years old.
According to Karen's understanding of his grandfather's past, Diss had displayed terrifying talent from a very young age. In Purr's words, whatever Diss tried to learn, he mastered with a single glance.
Thus, although Purr had watched Diss grow up, she had never considered herself his teacher, because she had never actually taught him anything, nor had Diss needed to be taught.
Purr was a genius in her own right, yet Diss was someone even Purr acknowledged as a true genius.
Before the age of twenty-five—perhaps even a few years earlier during his youth—Diss had presumably developed along the traditional path of the Church of Order. Otherwise, he wouldn't have known... or rather, Rasma, Theisen, and the others would never have met him.
In his youth, Diss had been granted the opportunity to enter the Temple of Order and pay homage. Rasma and the others had apparently been there as well, and when facing the Temple Elders, Diss had bluntly voiced his stance and principles.
Purr had once said it was pure mercy that the Temple Elder hadn't swatted him dead with a single palm back then.
Yet later, when Diss condensed three godhead fragments—one of which was his own youthful self... it seemed the young Diss hadn't merely been relying on youthful arrogance; he had possessed genuine backing.
Because his grandfather's time in the beginner's village had been so brief, it was difficult to estimate his exact strength at any specific age.
Even so, Karen felt that at Diss's current age in this memory, his strength had likely settled into a relatively stable stage.
Karen clearly remembered Diss lamenting to him that because he had walked too fast in his youth, by the time he came to his senses, he found there was no turning back.
"Who are you?"
Diss shook his head. "You have already done the deed. Why put on this hypocritical act? You fully intend to step through that Gate of Order; you yearn to enter and receive the extension to your lifespan.
"Yet you still seek justification for the filthy deeds you have committed, merely to absolve yourself of guilt.
"A man like you is truly tedious."
"Who are you really?!"
"I have no interest in introducing myself to you. I came looking for you because you stole something from my friend..." Diss pointed toward the mysterious great bell resting on the ground. "It would have been one thing if you had merely snatched his family's sacred heirloom, but you slaughtered his entire household and melted them into this bell to supply yourself with life force."
"I am curious: how did you find out? I remember clearly that I left no survivors that night."
"Indeed, you left no survivors. But my friend's wife killed her three-year-old child with her own hands. Before doing so, she recounted everything that happened that night to the child, including your identity.
"You wormed your way into his household long ago and became an honored guest, so you left behind far too many clues for me to trace.
"She killed her child and concealed the body.
"So after you slaughtered his family, even though you conducted an exhaustive search of the entire estate and left no one alive, you missed a single corpse—failing to perceive it, and thus failing to dispose of it.
"I found that child's body. When he was born, I personally bestowed a blessing upon him.
"I awakened him, and he told me what his mother said to him that day."
"So? What have you come here to do?"
"Avenge him." Diss let out a sigh. "I do not have many friends. He was one of the very few who made me feel happy simply being together."
"Heh. A pity. You should have come a bit sooner; then you might have had a chance. But now... you have none.
"Perhaps this is the blessing the God of Order has granted me."
Karen raised his hand and pointed at Diss.
"You should have reported me to the Church of Order instead of coming here alone."
"It would have been useless. When the Temple sees someone capable of condensing a godhead fragment, they are like starved dogs catching scent of a bone. When it comes to that, they have no bottom line.
"Besides, there is one thing I must correct you on, because your assumption is mistaken."
"Oh? And what is that?"
"I did not arrive late. In truth, I arrived long ago."
"Long... long ago?"
Diss nodded, his voice perfectly calm.
"I gave you time so that you could bear fruit."
Chapter 525