It had always been thunder and lightning falling from the heavens; this time, lightning ripped upward from the earth.
The weapon Madame Tangli held in her grip truly was a kitchen cleaver snatched straight from her home, not some hidden sacred artifact. Her prior whetting and sharpening had been less about the blade itself and more about using the motion to scrape away her own rusted edge.
After all, she had not seriously fought anyone in many years.
The effect of this single slash was nothing short of astonishing.
The colossal hand was sheared clean off at the wrist. Severed from its source, it plummeted a short distance before beginning to disintegrate into nothingness.
Projected manifestations like a dharma body were ultimately unlike a giant's true physical form; they possessed no constant, fixed threshold. At times they were indestructible, yet at other times they could prove utterly fragile.
The difference lay entirely in whether an attacker's power could shatter its breaking point. Once breached, it crumbled like dry tofu dregs.
A muffled grunt echoed from deep within the dark clouds. Evidently, the figure within had never expected someone to forcibly enter the fray at such a moment and sever the hand attempting to manipulate the situation.
"When children fight among themselves, standing off at a distance to watch and cheer is one thing, but you actually had the nerve to step onto the field in person! Aren't you embarrassed?!
"And what—did you think there were no grown-ups on our side?!"
Madame Tangli's voice sounded deep and resonant, entirely stripped of any feminine quality. As she soared from the ground, crimson lightning enveloped her body, providing the most flawless cover in plain sight.
To put it plainly, both sides had maintained a degree of restraint in this sudden outbreak of infighting within the Church of Order. Even while drawing blood, neither had truly torn away the veil of civility.
Yet for this Guardian to intervene when the outcome was already decided constituted a blatant violation of that unwritten rule.
What Madame Tangli found most intolerable was that she refused to let Karen look like someone who had no backing. His paternal grandfather might be asleep, but he was still cared for at his bedside by a former High Priest—and his maternal grandmother had been living in the very same city with him all along.
The figure above clearly had no intention of giving up so easily. Soon after the hand was severed, an eye materialized in the dark clouds, glaring down at Madame Tangli.
At the same time, the vast space surrounding Madame Tangli began to boil invisibly. Though she did not move, her environment suddenly turned into a giant, heated pot—an attempt to boil her like an ant.
"Just what gave you the courage to treat me with such arrogance?!"
Madame Tangli laughed out of pure exasperation. She spun the cleaver swiftly in her grip, then raised both hands high.
The next instant, the massive phantom of a dark-red blade materialized behind her. The air around the blade was saturated with grief, struggle, fury, and despair, as if countless unseen vengeful specters were prowling and howling, venting unspoken agony.
The Nightmare Blade she had gifted to Philomena was Madame Tangli's former weapon. She had infused into it the tragic fate of her family—a bloodline originally blessed by the God of Eternity, reduced to pitiful slaughter-pigs for nearly an entire epoch.
Such suffering had never faded even to this day, and her own son had remained withdrawn for all these years because of that bloodline "curse."
Only because she had endured it did she cherish the present so deeply.
Madame Tangli's eyes snapped wide, and her lips parted. A piercing screech tore from her throat. In an instant, the boiling heat gathering around her that threatened to ignite was shattered completely.
The blade slashed downward.
A sturdy barrier had already formed to shield the eye. Yet as the blade descended, the barrier warped immediately. It resisted the edge, but its resistance proved pitifully limited.
*Crack!*
The blade struck the eye squarely.
The eye rapidly congested with blood. Then, across this stretch of sky, reds and blacks spun into a frantic fusion before exploding outward, raining down endless glittering radiance.
Madame Tangli breathed slightly harder, yet she showed no real sign of exhaustion. Instead, it seemed as if her warm-up had ended, leaving her body in the middle of a swift resurgence.
Age was an inescapable reality; the decay of flesh and soul was a natural progression.
In her youth, sitting around a campfire with her companions, she had once remarked how she envied figures like the Temple Elders, who could delay the onset of decay as much as possible.
Diss's answer back then had been: *Temple Elders can die, but they do not die of old age.*
Theisen, who had always understood Diss well, had visibly shivered at those words.
For that single sentence revealed the true essence of a Temple Elder's existence. Without the process of aging, death would still come—and when it did, it was a sudden threshold arrived at in a single day, like being drained dry and instantly evaporated.
Madame Tangli had not understood back then, nor did she understand now, but from another perspective, she agreed with what Diss had said.
Without reminiscing in old age, the youth squandered in one's early years would never seem quite so precious.
This was how life was truly meant to be.
"Come on! Keep going! What's the point of playing with dharma bodies? Bring your real body over and see if I'm afraid of you!"
On the rooftop, Old Delon was utterly spellbound.
His temperament had been set since his youth—steady, rigid, unbending as the array patterns carved into a stone slab, tolerating not the slightest deviation.
Yet the single most reckless thing he had ever done in his life was pursuing his wife without restraint after meeting her.
He loved her; from the first moment he saw her, he had fallen hopelessly in love.
That love had reached an almost exaggerated depth. When he was willing to leave the Church of Order to become a free-roaming pair of wanderers with her, she had taken the initiative to toss the Nightmare Blade to him so he could seal it, telling him she was tired and wanted a stable life.
In the realm of love, the moment you begin calculating the cost of what you give, you have already lost.
If you find the right person, they will remember what you gave up. Throughout their half-lifetime together, Delon had never once lost his temper with his wife. In their household, her word was law.
The old man had always believed that since she had surrendered a free and unburdened life for him, he could not allow her to suffer any grievances in their marriage.
They had truly been young once; they had truly been wild. Watching his wife high in the sky, Delon suddenly felt a trace of regret. Had he known things would blow up this big tonight, why hadn't he been given more time to prepare? If he had brought sufficient materials and leisurely laid out a grand killing array, how wonderful that would have been!
A voice descended from above: "I have memorized your aura. Standing in opposition to Order, I hope you can bear the consequences."
Madame Tangli hurled the kitchen cleaver upward. The blade detonated directly above.
*Boom!*
The blast tore through all that nagging chatter.
"Either fight cleanly or get the hell out! What's with all this useless babble?!"
*Aside from myself, every single member of my family is an Order priest, and I'm standing in opposition to Order?*
*Just how devout would someone on the side of Order have to be, then?!*
A half-torso began to manifest above. Evidently, the Guardian intended to escalate his intervention.
Madame Tangli rolled her neck. Above her, crimson lightning brewed; beneath her feet, electric serpents coiled. Both sides were ramping up their confrontation.
However, when the Guardian's silhouette had only half-condensed, it began to dissipate once more.
The Guardian's phantom made no further move, nor did his true body appear. This was an internal conflict within Order; his earlier move had only been to return a favor—or rather, to keep matters from spiraling completely out of hand.
Now, the situation was clearly different. He could not stake everything on the line; otherwise, a simple reprimand would turn into a reassignment to the pioneering spaces, demoting him from a revered Guardian of the Yorktown Region to a penal laborer forced to risk his life fighting powerful demons day after day.
Moreover, when the Guardian's dharma body appeared, the two regional powerhouses had each issued inquiries under their official authority.
Head Bishop Bern's formal inquiry read: *What manner of crisis has the region encountered?*
Regional Chief Sus's inquiry read: *Is the assistance of the Whip of Order required?*
The unspoken subtext was clear: *You crossed the line. If you want to blow this up, fine—we will see it through with you.*
The incident had started with Karen seeking revenge by killing those from the Church of the Desert. First came the forceful interference from an upper-level faction, followed immediately by the intervention of the local fundamentalist faction led by Davins.
As the two figures holding real authority on the surface of the Yorktown Region, resisting interference from both external forces and shadows was second nature to them. They had risen to power by opposing the original local protective cliques, but that didn't stop them from becoming the new local protection once they occupied those seats.
Faced with multifaceted pressure alongside this mysterious, sudden powerhouse, the Guardian had no choice but to back down.
Seeing that the other side would not strike again, Madame Tangli, whose blood had just begun to boil, felt a wave of disappointment. It was rare to find an excuse convincing enough to let herself fight, and she had genuinely wanted to show off before her grandson. Now it felt awkwardly anticlimactic.
Madame Tangli vanished from the air and reappeared on the rooftop.
Old Delon hurried over at once. "Darling, you worked hard! Are you hurt? Do you need some water?"
Madame Tangli turned her head to look at her husband. "After striking like that, they will investigate me."
"Don't worry, my love. Your happiness matters most." Delon patted his chest. "Besides, they won't trace it to a bishop's wife."
"And what if they really do? Your seat as bishop hasn't even warmed up yet."
"If they find out, so be it! Now that I've reached the bishop tier, I can just file for retirement, enjoy a bishop's pension, buy a boat with you, and go adventuring across the sea."
"What about the children...?"
"They're already grown."
Madame Tangli reached out to stroke her husband's aged face, recalling how, in their youth, she had often teased him for being a pretty boy with this exact gesture.
Now, this face was neither tender nor fair; it felt rough to the touch.
Growing old together sounded romantic, but in truth, it was cruel. If the bond was lacking, watching the person beside you slowly age and wither would only breed mutual disgust.
Madame Tangli shook her head and chided, "Forget it. Who wants to go adventuring with an old codger? Save your breath."
***
Bernie had been responding to the massive hand coming to extract him, only to watch it get severed in one stroke. The ensuing clash and stalemate above played out right before his eyes, culminating in the Guardian's retreat.
This made it abundantly clear to Bernie: not only had the mission failed, but his chance of escape was entirely gone.
Anyone else might have chosen to throw caution to the wind and stake everything on one final, desperate struggle, dying if they must.
Yet Bernie was Bernie. Back when Karen had borrowed garrison knights to bear down on the headquarters building, Karen had slapped him across the face before the crowd and stabbed him with a knife—and even then, Bernie had endured it. All the more so now.
Furthermore, he noticed the flames poised to erupt from Neo's eyes and the terrifying taboo aura brewing within him... He had already suspected Neo's identity, and now he dared not expose it.
Once certain secrets were revealed, the only step left was silencing witnesses.
He also believed that unless pushed to the absolute brink, Neo would not willingly expose his secrets.
Bernie retrieved the two wooden puppets once more, two bursts of flame consuming them.
Instantly, the giant trapped within the Black Prison Castle let out a wail of agony, while flames burst across the assassin whom Philomena had dragged into a dream.
Enjoying such high-intensity blessings had required lowering their soul defenses toward Bernie. Now, Bernie's actions proved that their earlier wariness toward him had been entirely justified.
As the two puppets burned to ashes, the souls of the giant and the assassin dissolved with them, leaving behind only their pristine, undamaged corpses.
Having done this, Bernie raised both hands and spoke:
"I surrender. I'm willing to cooperate and give a statement."
Right then, Bernie's pupils dilated drastically. A scene he had never anticipated unfolded before him: Neo did not halt on account of his surrender. Instead, he coalesced a mass of scorching flames of Light into a towering spire.
The Tower of Light descended straight onto Bernie, crushing down with overwhelming force.
"You—!"
Bernie's body was slammed hard into the earth by the tower. The ground caved in beneath him as terrifying Fire of Light incinerated both his body and soul.
A savage grin appeared on Neo's face.
"Just go and die!"
In the end, filled with fury and indignation, Bernie's body and soul were utterly annihilated under the radiant brilliance of the Tower of Light.
***
"Two fine corpses. A pity they aren't qualified to lie in coffins."
"What?"
Alfred glanced at Vic and chuckled. "You aren't permitted to know that just yet."
Just then, the distant manifestation of the Tower of Light caused astonishment to flicker in the eyes of several people present.
Vic said, "I've never known how to handle him... He's a remnant of Light who sought refuge on his own, yet he is so formidable."
"You could express your thoughts more directly. For instance, you suspect this powerful remnant of Light shares a very close relationship with our young master, or else he wouldn't be involved with this department."
"Is that what I should do?"
"No. On this matter, you may play dumb." Alfred pointed below, reminding him, "Alright, it's your turn to take the stage."
Vic walked to the edge of the rooftop and asked, "Will I regret the choice I made today?"
"I believe that in the future, when you lie in bed, you won't be able to stop yourself from hiding under the blankets and grinning at the choice you made today."
"Mr. Alfred, I'm finding that you are truly suited to being a missionary."
"Then it seems my work hasn't been thorough enough, given that you've only just noticed."
Vic leapt from the rooftop and blew his whistle. From both flanks of the building, groups of Light remnants wearing Order robes—led respectively by Vernon and Helen—rushed out immediately and began setting up a simple, temporary communication array.
Alfred put away his drawing board and transmitted a mental message: *Young Master, we can wrap up.*
Karen nodded, cast a glance at Neo who still hovered in place, and told the others, "Withdraw."
The rest began to depart, including Purr's skeleton. Karen left first, then donned a silver mask before returning.
Neo appeared beside Karen.
Karen said, "You were impulsive."
"Are you blaming me?"
Karen shook his head.
"You really have no idea how much he deserved to die when he raised his hands right to your face and said 'I surrender.'"
"Is that so?"
"Yes. I didn't want him staying alive only to pop out one day and stir up trouble again. Someone like that is better off dead."
"I'm not blaming you."
"I know you aren't. I merely did what you wanted to do. But it really was a surprise that he belonged to that organization too."
"It isn't strange. Once any organization grows large enough, opportunists will inevitably appear."
"What about you? Your group?"
"The same."
"Phew. You're certainly broad-minded. But we need to hurry. The Tower of Light will draw many eyes; we must relocate quickly."
"Whose fault is that?"
Vic revived the unconscious Jisen with an art. Upon waking, Jisen started screaming in pain before spotting Vic.
"Vic?"
Clearly, he recognized Vic, though they weren't close. After all, dragged down by Rasma's reputation, Vic was treated somewhat like a jinx within the Church.
"Ah, I'm glad you still recognize me."
"How could I possibly forget you?"
"Then why didn't you invite me to dinner alone before?"
Jisen: "..."
Helen stepped up and reported, "Boss, the array is set up. We can activate it at any time."
"Alright, let's pick up the pace." Vic drew a dagger and plunged it into Jisen's chest.
*Squelch!*
*Hiss...*
"See? Just like that. Now, I want you to issue an order through the communication array: state that you discovered those people from the Church of the Desert plotted the assassination of Head Bishop Wolflen, and that you ordered their arrest. Anyone who resists is to be killed on sight."
"I..." Jisen's eyes darted about, finding no sign of Karen and the others, seeing only a cluster of Order priests around him.
Vic raised the dagger once more and warned, "You have ten seconds to consider. If you refuse, I'll kill you right now."
"I agree!"
"Very good. Activate the array."
Once active, the communication array resonated with the arrays before Sus and Bern, projecting images of both sides.
At the same time, Sus and Bern each cast deliberate glances to ensure the memory crystals arranged beforehand were actively recording.
Vic took a deep breath and pressed the dagger against Jisen's back.
Through the communication array, the two powerhouses launched quickly into their opening lines:
Sus: "Director Jisen, were you attacked?"
Bern: "Director Jisen, what happened?"
Jisen spoke: "I discovered that the Church of the Desert plotted the assassination of former Head Bishop Wolflen. I now request your assistance in apprehending all of them. If they resist arrest, kill them on sight."
"Understood."
"Acknowledged."
Jisen turned his head toward Vic. "I've done it. Can you guarantee my safety?"
"No, not yet," Vic reminded him. "Come on, give us a smile. Let's take a group picture."
The communication array remained open.
Vic slung an arm around Jisen's shoulder while taking deep breaths of his own.
Across the array, Sus and Bern remained quiet as well. They did not terminate the transmission, waiting in silence.
Private matters could be settled privately, but official matters required an official pretext.
Even though Jisen had personally issued the order, he could still turn around and deny it later. Therefore, an extra layer of insurance was needed.
Vic shouted:
"Hey, the lighting's too dim! Bring up some background light!"
Behind him, the large gathering of Order priests—including Neo and Karen—simultaneously released a brilliant surge of Light!
Chapter 663