Sometimes, the world was just wondrous like that.
Yes, at this very moment, Karen discovered him—a skeleton standing with hands on hips, chatting away...
No evidence was needed, no subtle clues, no need to watch his micro-expressions, not even the need to open his eyes... Even if a single pea were cushioned beneath dozens of mattresses, you could still sense its presence.
It was just that clear, just that simple.
Even when facing legendary figures, Karen had never felt this tense, because that skeleton had truly peered into his deepest secret.
Karen looking at him was just like Diss looking at him when he had first awakened back then. Even though Karen had done his best to disguise himself, Diss had seen through him with a single glance:
*You are a fake.*
And as the young man who had just shouted for Old Ville to serve the food felt Karen's piercing gaze and turned his head, his expression shifted several times across that brief movement:
"Hey, sir, hello!"
"Aha, sir, you look so much like a friend of mine!"
"Why are you looking at me? Did a flower bloom on my face?"
"Hey, what are you glaring at me for? Looking for a beating?!"
By the time the young man finally turned his head all the way around, a wry smile formed on his face.
He could effortlessly hide himself in a myriad of perfectly natural ways, but the moment their eyes met, he knew that the other man had recognized him.
The young man wasn't surprised, because he had recognized Karen as well.
Both had disguised their identities, yet... it had all been useless.
"My reverence for you has deepened even further. I truly never expected that you would be waiting for me here."
At this moment, Karen also began to feel that Neo hadn't sent Philomena here to keep watch merely to brush her off.
Neo often gave people the impression of being utterly unreliable, but upon closer reflection, whenever a critical moment arrived, he never seemed to drop the ball.
Reading Philias's memories, enduring the nagging of the bloodthirsty aberrant demon ancestor, and now adding the legacy of the last Mad Pope;
and most importantly, he was a ruthless madman who could tear off his own face to disguise himself as himself just to steel his inner core.
It was hard to imagine what kind of freak had formed under the fusion of so many extreme elements.
In fact, Grandmother had repeatedly used the word "radiance" to describe Diss in his youth. No matter how outstanding his peers were, they were utterly eclipsed by Diss. The one suppressed the most miserably had undoubtedly been Rasma, yet Rasma later became the High Priest. Another who revered Diss was Theisen, who later took a seat at the Round Table.
Around Karen, the only one who could stubbornly voice displeasure at the imbalance in the "Scales of Secrets," constantly seeking to make up the difference while still finding his own fun, was Neo.
And from the skeleton's perspective, according to his current worldview, if he knew this location was tipped off by "Light" and that "Order" had come here to wait for him...
He would feel that walking right into the snare this time wasn't unjustified at all—in fact, it could even be considered immensely glorious.
Even if he had known full well it was a trap, he wouldn't have been able to resist jumping right in, or he would have regretted it for the rest of his life!
Karen stood up and silently grasped the Sword of Diamance resting beside him.
"I say, can we wait until I finish eating before we fight?" the young man asked.
Karen shook his head in refusal.
He couldn't afford to give this fellow time. Although there was no defensive formation pre-laid like in the theater for him to use, Karen wasn't entirely confident he could defeat him on an equal footing.
During their previous clash, both had held back, barely even breaking a sweat.
If he were given more time, heaven only knew what else he might set up. Karen was deeply wary of this fellow's repertoire.
"Sigh, I really only worked up the courage to eat Wien food because I was starving. Old Ville, your cooking is authentic—authentically terrible."
*Buzz!*
In the next instant, an aura flared behind the skeleton. Philomena, who had been sitting beside Karen with a dazed, frozen expression, vanished like the wind—what remained was merely an afterimage left behind.
Philomena clenched her right fist, condensing a spell imbued with a shattering effect within it, while her left hand gripped the Nightmare Blade, slicing straight down at the nape of the young man's neck.
Without turning around, two large bones abruptly thrust out from his back, forming a scissor-like shearing grip that threatened to cut Philomena in half at the waist.
As the Nightmare Blade slashed down, wedging itself between the two elongated bones, Philomena's right fist struck toward the back of his head.
*Buzz!*
A defensive barrier materialized, blocking her strike, but the shattering effect cloaking her fist caused the barrier to convulse, rippling like water.
Though it didn't shatter, it was enough.
Philomena closed her eyes and spoke in a deep voice:
"Enter the dream."
Power seeped through the cracks in the ripples. Pulled by the dream intrusion, the young man felt a prickle of numbness across his scalp.
He wasn't successfully dragged into a dream, but his consciousness was definitely snagged and slowed.
At that moment, Karen moved.
The Sword of Diamance traced a perfect arc, slashing diagonally across the young man's chest.
*Pfft!*
The young man's clothes exploded, his chest sliced open.
It was undeniably an immaculate two-on-one coordination, yet Karen felt little joy in his heart, because as the blade cleaved downward, he had felt almost no resistance.
*Boom!*
A gray blast of air erupted from the young man, laced with an intensely dense power of pollution.
Philomena fell back to create distance. Karen's eyes narrowed; faced with pollution, he also chose to retreat.
However, after blasting outward, the gray surge seemed to reverse, pulling back at astonishing speed. The young man's skin and flesh began sloughing away, revealing the bronze skeleton beneath.
From the skeleton's right shoulder down to its left hip—precisely along the trajectory of Karen's downward slash—all the bones were split open. Yet this wasn't damage dealt by Karen's strike; the opponent had purely anticipated his slash and proactively split his own bones in advance so the blade could pass through cleanly.
This was just like how Neo had once loved shifting his heart from side to side to bait enemies into striking a "fatal" blow—at minimum, it minimized damage, and if he could seize the chance for a counter-ambush, it was pure profit.
Where Karen had stood earlier, a demonic face had appeared, exuding terrifying ferocity.
If Karen had relied on his immunity to pollution to press forward with another attack, that demonic face would have latched onto him.
The other party knew he had a powerful resistance to pollution, yet still chose to use pollution to force him back. He really... understood him all too well.
"I truly never imagined our second meeting would come so quickly, so fast that I didn't even prepare in advan—"
Killing intent erupted behind the skeleton once again.
"Miss, you should at least let me finish my sentence!"
A crisp snap came from the skeleton's neck as its head spun a full hundred and eighty degrees to face backward, its arms swiveling right along with it. One skeletal hand lunged to grab Philomena, while black lightning crackled across the other, blasting straight forward.
Yet Philomena's form vanished, seemingly teleporting out of thin air. Through an incomprehensible spatial shift, she appeared at the skeleton's flank.
"Oho, what movement technique! Fascinating!"
Receiving praise, Philomena offered no polite response. Instead, she drew her right palm across the blade of the Nightmare Blade. As fresh blood scattered, the blade blazed with dazzling radiance, and when she swung again, it carved out a small black hole.
"Hiss, what kind of weapon is this?"
The skeleton attempted to block it with his own defenses, but upon contact, no metallic clash occurred. The Nightmare Blade seemed to bypass all barriers, manifesting directly at the skeleton's temple.
*Bang!*
The tip plunged into the skull, and the blade drove deep inside.
"Oh!"
The skeleton let out a shriek and drove a right fist toward Philomena.
Philomena crossed her arms into an absolute defensive stance. Under the punch, she offered no rigid resistance at all, allowing herself to be hurled backward. Crashing through a wall, her eyes flashed with a red glow.
"Enter the dream!"
The Nightmare Blade embedded in the skeleton's skull trembled. This was a drag into the dream far more powerful than the last.
In fury, the skeleton roared, trying to force the blade out of his body, but a beam of crimson light lanced out diagonally, piercing clean through his entire skull.
On Priest Island, Karen had obtained a goddess's bone, and Philomena had obtained a remnant of the goddess's aura, tucked away in her dreams.
The skeleton cried out in bewilderment, "What kind of power is this...?"
Evidently, he had awakened. Even though she had managed to drag him into a dream, Philomena clearly couldn't maintain it for long.
Yet she had already succeeded. Two consecutive ambushes had created immense openings for Karen. That was the advantage of having a helper—it made combat far more composed.
Of course, this was also inseparable from the rewards of accompanying an old lady on evening walks over the past days. Respecting the elderly really did bring good fortune.
After the power laced with the Dark Moon Goddess's aura detonated within the skeleton's skull, he looked thoroughly miserable. What was worse, he suddenly realized Karen had been preparing something all along.
The skeleton quickly raised his hand, chanting an obscure incantation as a black vortex appeared beneath his feet.
Yet the moment the vortex surfaced, an even deeper black suddenly enveloped the entire shop.
Karen clenched his right fist and spoke:
"Seal!"
Using the time bought by Philomena's ambush, Karen had completed the formation's deployment. Hidden inside the sleeve of his clerical robe, a Rubik's cube had long been spinning rapidly.
The vortex summoned by the skeleton dissolved straight into the blackness, losing its teleportation effect.
"Aaargh!"
The skeleton let out an enraged roar, swinging his arms as his bones expanded like two massive battleaxes.
"I truly never thought today would be the decisive battle between me and the one I revere."
Karen shook his head and raised the Sword of Diamance. As his sealing spell took effect, the perimeter isolation formation previously laid by the skeleton was pierced through, and the Sword of Diamance unleashed a flare of Fire of Order, shooting through the roof like a firework to bloom in the sky above.
The skeleton whined aggrievedly, "Oh, doing this really spoils the fun. This isn't the scene I was looking forward to at all—not a shred of heroic drama."
Karen answered impassively, "Give it up. This entire main city is full of my people."
"Phew..."
All the skeleton's teeth were bared, forcing a wide grin. Then, with a twist of his fingers, a gold-trimmed scroll appeared in his hand. The moment it materialized, the surrounding space violently warped and tore.
"A forbidden curse spell scroll—Tears of the Moon God. The power released is sufficient to blast a massive crater right here, erasing me, you, and that little girl all together."
"Are you threatening me?" Karen asked the redundant question, while the Rubik's cube inside his sleeve rapidly calculated the actual destructive power of the scroll and his odds of survival under various choices.
The first thing he calculated was whether the scroll was a fake, but unfortunately, the result came back... it was genuinely a forbidden curse scroll.
In other words, the skeleton wasn't bluffing.
"Are you pondering, sir? You are adept at reading people's hearts, but it is pointless. I really can drag you down to die with me."
"Go ahead and use it, then," Karen said. "I'd like to test whether it can actually blow me up."
The skeleton pointed toward Philomena collapsed on the ground and asked, "What about her?"
"If you want to get things done, necessary sacrifices are unavoidable."
"Oh~ you truly are shameless."
"Philomena, if he activates the scroll, stand in front of me. Sacrifice yourself to cover my retreat and increase my odds of survival a bit."
"Yes, Minister."
Philomena knelt on one knee, gripping the Nightmare Blade in her right hand, without the slightest hesitation in her eyes.
The skeleton nodded and said, "I take back what I just said—you are even more shameless. But let me remind you of one more thing: even if this body dies, I won't die. I don't have that many clothes, but I still have a wardrobe full of them."
Karen said, "You are a woman?"
The skeleton held the scroll in front of him. "Though I couldn't witness your rise, if I have the opportunity to take you—destined to be great in the future—out of this world with me, it would seem to be an honor of sorts."
"You don't dare trigger the scroll. Even if this is only your puppet avatar, an avatar of this caliber shares a powerful connection with its true body. If a forbidden curse detonates, it will inevitably spill over to your true body."
In Mr. Hoffen's notes, there was a specific volume describing this, and Mr. Hoffen had annotated at the start of that volume: *Among all the churches, the Church of Principles is the most skilled at using puppet avatars.*
That night, during the massacre targeting the purple-haired people in Yorktown, Karen and Neo had been hunted by a war engine controlled by a priest of the Church of Principles. For believers of the Church of Principles, who were generally not proficient in combat, it was entirely normal to focus on developing auxiliary battle implements like this.
"I knew you were proficient in formations, but I truly didn't know you understood puppet avatars as well. It seems there are indeed many secrets about you that I haven't unearthed. No—my understanding of you can only be considered the tip of the iceberg."
"I don't like people investigating me in the shadows."
"Oh, really? Of course, I know you certainly dislike it, but I just can't help myself, heh heh heh. You're right. If my avatar is destroyed by a forbidden curse, my true body would suffer from the curse's lingering power. It would certainly be very painful. So...
"Thank you for giving me this chance. Your people are almost here, so I'll bid you farewell for now.
"What a pity. I had originally hoped to witness your brilliance during this period in the Church of the Crypt, and I had even reserved a good show, but it seems I won't get to see the curtain rise.
"You may let that fellow minister of yours do whatever he pleases to his heart's content. I'm not lying to you—my gaze and my footsteps will have to temporarily leave this area.
"Consider this scroll a little gift to the object of my future reverence."
As soon as his voice fell, wisps of gray smoke rose from the skeleton's skull. Soon, it stood there motionless, still clutching the forbidden curse scroll in its hand.
Without waiting for Karen's signal, Philomena dashed forward on her own, risking the chance that it might be a trap, and snatched the scroll from the skeleton's grasp.
Confirmed!
"Minister, this avatar of his committed suicide."
"No, it hasn't completely killed itself yet." Karen walked forward and instructed, "Go outside. Tell the reinforcements not to come in for now."
"Yes, Minister."
After Philomena left, Karen placed his hand on the skeleton's smooth cranium. Beneath Karen's feet, a Chain of Order emerged, turning white as it sank into the skeleton.
Just as a bone stripped clean of meat could still be used to brew broth, there were always traces left behind. Or rather, in such a short amount of time, without applying an additional purification spell, completing a rapid "suicide" was somewhat difficult.
Back when facing Qihe, Karen had used this method to reconverge Luoya's consciousness that had remained on those women, dreaming with them. That had shown Karen that the application of "Awakening of Order" could be far broader than merely reviving corpses.
This time, he was going to condense the remnant consciousness within the skeleton.
The gray smoke that had stopped rising was forced out once again, instantly locked down by the Chain of Order.
Suddenly, Karen felt a tremendous upward thrust frantically pushing him from below, while he felt as though he were submerged in the deep ocean, surrounded on all sides by murky blackness.
His soul was enduring immense pressure, with a faint danger of being torn apart. This was Karen attempting to use the remnant consciousness of this skeletal puppet to trace the connection between it and its true body.
Karen wanted to catch a glimpse of who this person truly was—this person who understood him so intimately!
*Whoosh!*
In an instant, Karen "broke the surface of the water," and a very blurry vision appeared before him.
He saw a hand holding a fountain pen, writing something in a notebook. The notebook rested on a desk—a desk with a mirror. No, it was a vanity table. And this was a woman's hand.
The owner of this perspective seemed to be looking up. As the gaze shifted upward, Karen would soon see her face in the mirror!
Nothing unexpected happened; there wasn't even any hesitation. The other person seemed entirely unaware that Karen had established a conscious link with her at this moment.
Finally,
her appearance emerged in the mirror. Although his vision was blurred, Karen still saw a woman's face.
A face he was intimately familiar with...
Eunice!
Karen's emotions surged violently. He couldn't believe what he was seeing!
"Ahem..."
The woman let out a soft cough, and the fountain pen in her hand jabbed violently onto the desk.
The connection snapped. Riddled with intense doubt and reluctance, Karen was severed from the link, an immense backlash—countless times stronger than before—sweeping over him.
*Bang!*
Feeling as though the back of his head had suffered a heavy blow, Karen snapped his eyes open.
*Pfft...*
Karen spat out a mouthful of blood, an extreme exhaustion washing over his soul.
Karen propped his hands against the floor. The intense confusion and reluctance that had suffused his face and eyes just moments before completely receded, leaving behind only clarity and calm, as though that earlier overwhelming shock had merely been a deliberate performance for her benefit.
The best way to keep the other party calm was to let her believe her identity hadn't been discovered.
*Heh, how could it possibly be Eunice?*
Karen, of course, wouldn't foolishly suspect that his fiancée had some hidden identity.
Besides, Eunice was the granddaughter-in-law Diss had personally chosen for him, someone who had stood before Diss and received his nod of approval. Even Raniedal, concealed so thoroughly back then, hadn't escaped Diss's eyes and had been dragged into the light, hadn't he?
"The ability of the Chains of Order is unique to me; you certainly didn't expect at first that I could trace back to your true self.
"Whether you let me see your real face or not actually wouldn't have mattered much anyway. With just a blurry portrait, could I search the entire world for you?
"You didn't dare let me see you, and even hastily chose to show me Eunice's appearance...
"That proves...
"You are a woman I know."
Chapter 627