Karen touched the sand wall imprisoning him with both hands. His fingertips could easily press indentations into it, the texture feeling like low-quality seaweed mud.
The moment he pulled his hands away, the indentations vanished. It was dynamic and circulating; breaking it purely through brute force was somewhat unrealistic.
Karen began to consider other methods, whether magic formations or using the alternating effects of multiple elemental powers to find a breach.
He opened his palm, and a Rubik's cube appeared, spinning rapidly to help analyze the current situation and find a way out. This was where the advantage of running a "sundries shop" showed—with plenty of gadgets on him, the combinations he could employ were endless.
Torisa's voice had stopped, and silence fell outside the sand wall.
Judging from his reaction after awakening, he must be lonely.
In this respect, it was very similar to the feeling Karen had when visiting Old Saman and Count Rekar not long ago—and compared to Torisa, how long had those two been "lying down"?
The calculations of the Key to the Rubik's Cube required more information. Whether true or false, it could extrapolate either way; its greatest vulnerability was an insufficiency of data. Having absorbed the previous information, Karen was now prepared to take the initiative in conversation.
"Did you ever regret it?"
Outside, silence lingered.
Karen looked down and glanced at the spinning cube. It had just calculated twelve potential methods to break the imprisonment, and was now simulating and deducing each of the twelve.
Then Torisa's voice came from outside: "I have. Including now."
Karen was in no rush to reply. He knew Torisa would keep talking—the man wouldn't be able to help himself. When it came to grasping human psychology, Karen was a professional.
"My Lord, I originally thought it foolish to constantly look back and dwell on whether something already done was worth it. I naively believed I could resist the erosion of it all, but reality slapped me in the face—no, slapped me many times over.
"I cannot deceive myself. I cannot stop myself from reliving those past years over and over again. If I hadn't chosen to do this back then, I would probably be dead by now—no, dead long ago.
"Even if I hadn't died on a mission, my life would have reached its natural end.
"Yet at least I would have had a relatively complete life.
"At first, my eyes saw only the objective and the result; now, I appreciate more and more the preciousness of the journey.
"Of course, my Lord, you may take my words as the grumbling of a failure. I believe that with your skill and standing within the Church, you would never end up as I did."
Up until now, Karen hadn't truly known Torisa's purpose in doing all this, but he could hear it now: Torisa had failed—or at least, had not attained the success he sought.
[What caused you to fail?]
No, that question was too soft. It didn't suit his assumed status, nor would it help what came next; it would put him at a disadvantage.
[Do you know the reason you couldn't succeed?]
Still no good. Though Torisa had lain here for nearly three hundred years and was a bit neurasthenic, he unfortunately hadn't been driven mad by his confinement. A hook that was too straight wouldn't catch him.
Neo's "ramblings" had bought him a handy ambiguity of identity. Karen felt he should make the best possible use of it, so he said:
"You were too greedy."
Outside, Torisa sighed deeply and replied:
"Yes, I was too greedy. In the beginning, my progress was immense. After all, I wasn't comprehending alone, wasn't cultivating alone. Nearly the entire team was serving me..."
Hearing this, Karen's eyes snapped wide, because he finally understood what Torisa had been trying to accomplish.
The pollution left by the evil spirit of the sand upon its death had created this sand pool, effectively acting as an isolated barrier that preserved corpses and souls over the long term.
After the phantasm beast Compasini died, Torisa had extracted its core from its cranial bone, using it to establish mental control over his subordinates.
Why did his team members exhibit signs of suppressed thought? Because Torisa, lying inside, had commandeered their minds!
They had wandered in a daze for nearly three hundred years, walking in endless circles around that central spot. Meanwhile, Torisa lay there, cultivating with the aggregated wisdom of the whole squad concentrated into one man.
Those ten people—no, eleven including his wife, Luna—were all his sacrificial offerings.
It truly was an unimaginable method. The moment Torisa spoke, Karen pieced it together, but his immediate reaction was: could this ever work?
Intuition told Karen that this was impossible.
Because within church circles, there was an underlying law of conservation.
Whether Dalis or Madame Felscher, their method of concentrating family talents into themselves via curses was an internal gathering linked by blood.
Diss had sacrificed the faith path of later generations of the Inmeles family for Karen's sake, peeling away family faith from Church faith—all of it the price to pave the road for him.
As a genius of the Allen family within their family faith system, Purr had been stuck her entire life at the hurdle between Rank 4 and Rank 5. Though she had devoted herself to broadening her other abilities horizontally so that her strength could no longer be measured merely as Rank 4 in family faith, that hurdle had always constrained her—a limitation rooted in the boundary set by their ancestor.
So far, Karen had never seen anyone transfer and aggregate talent outside of blood relations. If one had to give an example... it could only be a church.
This explained why church faith ranked higher than family faith.
Yet what kind of church faith did Torisa possess? Nor did it have anything to do with family faith. What right did he have to lie here and directly leech the "wisdom" of his subordinates to nourish himself alone?
Cultivating while drawing upon the wisdom of eleven subordinates would certainly multiply his efficiency many times over. But if that could work, wouldn't geniuses be far too cheap?
Had those lunatics in the Church of Principles never attempted something similar? Could other orthodox churches not forcibly mass-produce geniuses like this?
Impossible, absolutely impossible!
Yet Torisa had believed it and acted on it. He hadn't even thought of himself as a failure, merely believing he hadn't achieved his desired optimum result.
So, had Torisa gone mad?
Karen began to reconsider the situation. The rotation of the cube in his palm had paused briefly while he was thinking, then resumed.
"My heart of faith took root and sprouted. I watched it grow continuously, putting forth stems and spreading branches. In the past, those were realms so difficult to cross, yet I reached them in rapid succession.
"I was already fantasizing about the standing I would attain within the Church once I emerged. Though I would need to find an explanation for the disappearance of my subordinates and myself all those years ago, I didn't think that would be much of an issue. The Church would forgive me once they saw my growth and how powerful I had become."
Torisa was right about that, because in the memory projections Karen had witnessed with his own eyes how the Norton ancestor used wicked methods to drag out his lifespan before his natural end, successfully condensing an incomplete godhead fragment and drawing forth the gates of the Temple to receive him.
Had his grandfather not appeared to slay him on the spot for vengeance, there might have been one more Temple Elder named Norton in the Temple of Order today.
If Torisa could truly reach that stage, whatever he had done before would most likely be swept under the rug by the Church.
Yet even the wicked path taken by that Norton ancestor had only been to extend lifespan, not to forcibly stack cultivation realms through swallowing and plundering. That meant even he considered such a thing impossible.
The pollution of the evil spirit of the sand and the core of the phantasm beast Compasini were precious, Karen conceded, but against the heritage of an orthodox church, they were merely decent. After all, the containment space of the Church of Order held so many divine artifacts that they practically held regular tea parties.
So how could Torisa ever succeed, unless...
Just as Karen's thoughts reached this point, the Key to the Rubik's Cube halted once more, then began spinning rapidly in the opposite direction.
"Yet I soon hit a bottleneck. No matter how many branches spread, it never bore leaves. In truth, I shouldn't have been in such a rush, for my speed of progress was already astonishing. But man is never satisfied.
"I grew irritable, anxious, impatient. Then I made a decision I would regret: since my faith in Order refused to put out leaves, why not try cultivating another faith?
"That should have been impossible. How could one person possess two faiths? Yet the moment I had that thought, I received immediate feedback. Desert power actually manifested within me! I assumed it was because I had lain in the sand pool for so long, my body and soul steeped in Desert power.
"I had gained this opening, this opportunity. I was overjoyed, convinced I was chosen by the heavens!
"Soon after, I couldn't stop myself from cultivating Desert power. It progressed fast, extraordinarily fast. I nearly lost track of time, immersed in the pleasure of ascending to new realms.
"My heart of Desert faith took root, sprouted, grew stems, and surged upward rapidly until branches blossomed!
"I thought I was a genius. I believed there was no one else in this world who could master two faith systems like me!
"However...
"What came next filled me with regret."
As someone who had been through it, the proprietor of his own "sundries shop," Karen spoke:
"They conflicted."
"Yes, my Lord is wise.
"One day, I suddenly discovered that the branches of the two plants within me—Order and Desert—had become entangled. They bound and strangled each other, their roots twisting together as well. Over the long years that followed, I watched them gradually wither, decay step by step, and finally slide toward total desolation.
"I had thought I was a pioneer, a genius who could forge a new path. The dual-faith system I took such pride in ultimately ended like this.
"I failed.
"I shouldn't have been greedy, my Lord. It was greed that ruined me."
Karen wanted to tell him that greed wasn't what caused this outcome. The error had occurred long before.
His method had been fundamentally flawed from the very start—completely unfeasible.
Yet another problem arose: when Torisa opened his eyes within the cocoon, he had launched a wave of spiritual probing against Karen. Although his mental shock hadn't overwhelmed Karen and he had quickly withdrawn out of wariness, Karen had genuinely sensed how immense his spiritual power was back then—a strength that should have far surpassed Bishop Dolph's.
That conflicted with Karen's deductions.
No, that couldn't be. His reasoning shouldn't be wrong; Torisa had to have been mistaken from the beginning.
So why had that earlier display occurred?
Karen lowered his head, and the Key to the Rubik's Cube in his palm stopped once more.
There was no need to keep analyzing how to break through the sand wall right now; first, he had to figure out why Torisa possessed such vast power despite having been on the wrong track all along.
As for a way to break free, or even a way to deal with Torisa, Karen already had one in mind.
The Key to the Rubik's Cube resumed spinning.
"I will not hide it from you, my Lord... no, I probably couldn't hide it from you anyway. Only two withered branches remain in my body now. Over all these years, I have tried countless methods to revive them, but all failed. By my reckoning, most of my time has been squandered in pure, wasted stagnation.
"Yet when I wanted to end all this, I found I couldn't stop the curse here. I had been steeped in it for too long, trapped by it. I thought I would remain sealed away here forever, awaiting the day of my total dissipation. But your arrival, my Lord, has given me new hope.
"If only you are willing to take me in, not only will everything here be yours, but I will become your most loyal servant. Once outside, I could even seek new methods to reawaken myself—if there are any..."
Karen pulled his focus back and said, "There are."
"My Lord, you have a way?"
"Indeed. A person can possess more than one faith system, just as a church can encompass multiple sequences. But the prerequisite is that there must be a primary and a secondary."
"There must be a primary and a secondary..."
"If you wish to encompass other faith systems, what you must do is bring it—or them—under Order."
"Bring them under Order?" Hearing Karen's words, Torisa looked shocked. He was deeply moved.
At this moment, having had no doubts about Karen to begin with, Torisa became all the more certain of his identity and status. Torisa had wrestled with this question for centuries, and Karen had provided a clear direction in a single stroke. He had a premonition that Karen's advice was correct.
The guidance Karen provided was indeed correct, because Karen had succeeded.
Purr had warned him long ago that with so many disparate powers within him, conflicts were bound to arise eventually. But inside the Gate of Samsara, when Karen breached the seal of the Throne of Order, he had used the Throne's strangling grip on him to achieve that very Orderization.
Ever since, this problem had ceased to exist for Karen. Even if he brought in new powers in the future, he could personally Orderize them.
Yet doing the right thing wasn't something just anyone could achieve. A simple duplication of experience wouldn't yield the same result. Anyone else attempting to breach the Throne of Order would likely be dissolved and absorbed on the spot. Only Karen, through his unique nature, had managed to escape with his life, and achieving Orderization had been the product of surviving by the skin of his teeth.
Torisa couldn't possibly do it. No, he didn't even have the right to speak of it.
"My Lord, can you teach me?"
Thud!
A heavy sound of kneeling came from outside.
The gesture shared the same purpose as Neo stamping hard in front of the welcoming corpses earlier—deliberately making noise for fear the other wouldn't hear.
"I will not sign any symbiotic covenant with you. You are not worthy."
"My Lord..."
"However, I can help you recover. I can provide the specific method. I can help you... Orderize.
"Because once you recover, having a slave like you would still hold some value to me. Far more useful than that hound of a Light remnant outside—that man is utterly useless."
"My Lord, are you truly willing to help me?"
"On one condition. And that condition isn't that you release this cage now. I admit this confinement is somewhat interesting, and this avatar of mine doesn't currently possess the ability to shatter it in a short time.
"Still, it's merely a matter of a little extra time. Either I send another avatar over, or my true self comes here in person.
"My condition is that I will sign a master-servant contract with you. Because you, Torisa, have no right to stand as my equal. In truth, signing a master-servant contract with me is an honor for you."
"A master-servant contract..."
Torisa hesitated. Once signed, he would completely become the slave of the lord inside the sand wall.
He was an ambitious man, an intensely selfish one.
As selfish and greedy as a fellow like Neo was, he was never stingy with his squad members. Yet this captain had turned his entire team into his sacrificial offerings.
Karen decided to stoke the flames further—to light a truly roaring blaze.
"Do you know why I came here? Heh. Though separated by this sand wall, I know you can see through it from outside."
With that, Karen pressed his right palm against the sand wall. Flames of Order emerged, tracing glowing trails along the outer surface.
Next, Dark Moon power surged, sketching its own pattern on the exterior of the sand wall.
Torisa's eyes went wide, his mouth dropping open. The lord inside was demonstrating his success!
Karen did not release Light power. Instead, he channeled the Sea God's Armor and the Gate of Samsara deep in his soul, pouring in full strength to project the trajectories of Sea God power and Samsara power.
Torisa's breathing grew ragged, and his eyes began to redden.
Inside, the corners of Karen's mouth curled into a smile. Behind him, the phantom of Diss appeared.
"You must be curious about my identity. As I told you, this is merely a young avatar of mine, which I use to walk the mortal world and observe.
"Now, feast your eyes on my true form."
The phantom of Diss shifted forward, pressing almost flat against the sand wall.
From Torisa's perspective outside, a humanoid relief manifested on the sand wall: a dignified, majestic elder whose divine robes were vividly distinct, with threads of golden radiance bleeding through the relief.
"You are... a Temple Elder!!!"
Karen spoke in an exceptionally calm, cool tone:
"Humble, pitiful Torisa... become my servant before I change my mind."
Chapter 555