"Release them. Listen to me, child."
The red-necked boy instinctively resisted Mr. Luther's command, but its defiance appeared feeble now—especially with the crystal hanging from its neck, resembling an exquisitely crafted... dog tag.
It was restrained, controlled, and suppressed.
No matter how fiercely it rebelled inside, defying Mr. Luther's will was the ultimate unforgivable transgression.
This was the highest tier of control, transcending money, coercion, ethics, worldly norms, and even spells, illusions, and curses.
Your life—no, your very reason for existing—was dictated by another's will.
As an individual, you could push back and resist, but taken as a whole, the outcome was predetermined; there was only one possible answer.
Much like the... angels created by the God of the Abyss.
Except angels were forged directly by the god, whereas the red-necked boy seemed more like an entity forcibly endowed after the fact.
The medium of this bond was that crystal, and in all likelihood, it was... a godhead fragment.
For countless years, condensing a godhead fragment had been the grandest ambition in the hearts of generations of believers, a supreme longing worthy of a lifetime's pursuit.
Had it not been for his grandfather, Diss, Karen would probably have held the exact same view.
Diss had fiercely resisted condensing a godhead fragment. He had been capable of doing so long ago, yet had constantly devised ways to delay and suppress it—and not merely to enjoy a quiet, modest life of happiness with his family.
He was a genius. During that brief era of his youth, his presence had utterly eclipsed a host of "prominent figures" around him. At the same time, he was a man of immense pride, guarding his self-respect as a human being above all else.
He had once said that condensing a godhead fragment was simply getting a dish tagged and labeled for whenever God grew hungry.
He was disgruntled, furious, and bitter that the God of Order he had once faithfully followed had been deceiving His believers all along. Thus, he upheld Order, yet held the God of Order in contempt.
He had declared: *The God of Order was raised by a whore.*
That was the greatest possible insult to the God of Order's character, or rather His "divinity": *I recognize your contributions to Order, and I acknowledge the monumental deeds you achieved, but toward your moral character, I reserve nothing but absolute disdain.*
Imagine if the one sitting here right now were not Mr. Luther, but the God of Order, and the one kneeling here were not the red-necked boy, but Diss...
Once you condensed a godhead fragment, once the very purpose of your existence was wholly subsumed into another god's laws, how could you retain any shred of dignity before Him?
In the end, the red-necked boy could not withstand Mr. Luther's command. It retracted its hair, and Karen and Neo regained their freedom.
It was a relative freedom, however, for the red-necked boy glared at them icily, as if yearning for them to do something rash so it would have an excuse to strike.
Unfortunately, Karen and Neo disappointed it.
Both men possessed far too much experience in combat and field operations. Without exchanging a single word, they knew that now was the time to "have a good talk." After all, the others were likely still in the tunnel and had not reached safety yet; they needed to buy their comrades every possible chance to escape alive.
Neo's theatrical streak flared to life. Refusing to let the atmosphere grow cold, he rose immediately, pressed his right hand over his chest, and declared with a solemn face:
"Ah, Mr. Luther, is it truly you?
"Words cannot begin to convey my profound emotion right now! I am a devout believer of yours. I fully endorse the equal-rights movement for purple-haired people, and I support your cause. When news reached me that you had been assassinated, grief seized me so completely that I could barely breathe!"
His tone was earnest, his emotion sincere, delivered with a choke in his voice measured to perfection.
It was the sort of performance where you knew full well he was lying, yet still found it impossible to dislike him.
Mr. Luther offered a faint smile. "Thank you for your endorsement, Mr. Philias."
Neo: "..."
Karen's eyes narrowed: *Is this... divine omniscience?*
Mr. Luther continued, "Just a moment ago, I had a brief chat with Mr. Philias. We had a delightful conversation. He told me he was setting out on an endless journey, but the person he worried about most was his dear friend—a friend named Neo."
Neo asked, "You can see through my disguise?"
"No, you wear no disguise." Mr. Luther's fingers tapped softly against the armrest of his chair. "Much like flipping through old files, a gentle flick of the fingertip brings your past into view before me."
"Then what's the difference?"
"The difference? It lies in the fact that your disguise sits before you, wrapped around your exterior, but to my gaze, there is no distinction between front and back, inside and out.
"No matter how flawless your castle may be, how could it ever keep out the wind?"
Neo swiftly collected himself and asked, "Well then, Mr. Luther, may I ask... are you a god now?"
"Heh..." Mr. Luther chuckled. "If I told you I were a god, would you be disappointed?"
Neo shook his head. "Neither of us has ever seen a true god. Without a point of comparison, how could we be disappointed?"
"Still, no matter what, a god could never look like this. I have admired many religious murals and immersed myself in sacred scriptures. A god should be radiant and magnificent, whereas I... am rotting."
"What does that have to do with whether you are a god? No one ever decreed that gods must be dazzling. A god could even be a dog."
*Hiss, hiss, hiss...*
At those words, the red-necked boy's gaze turned vicious, and a low warning growl rumbled in its throat. Clearly, it took Neo's remark as an insult, since the most common slur hurled at purple-haired people was "purple-haired pigs and dogs."
Mr. Luther turned to the red-necked boy and said:
"When someone is willing to converse with you, you should engage them with sincerity. Your heart must not be overly sensitive, assuming every word uttered is an intentional slight against you.
"Of course, perhaps you could use your rage to ban certain words forever, forcing others to deliberately avoid them.
"Not just spoken vocabulary, but other taboos as well—dietary habits, dress codes...
"Do you think that erecting enough forbidden zones will grant you adequate protection?
"You might even view it as a privilege you've gained, but in truth, it is merely another form of elevated discrimination. While you indulge in your smugness, you will lose far, far more in places you cannot see."
The red-necked boy growled at Mr. Luther. Clearly, it had no patience for such lecturing.
Mr. Luther turned back to Neo. "My apologies. I cannot control this child."
Neo shrugged. "It's fine. I can tell you're being coerced by it."
"No, that is not the case. It is not coercing me; rather, I can only exist because of it. Without it, there is no me."
*Without it, there is no you?*
Karen turned those words over in his mind. *So the red-necked boy is actually the crystallization of the purple-haired people's fury?*
No wonder every time Mr. Luther spoke to the child, it felt as though he were reasoning with an entire multitude. His true audience had never been this single boy, but rather the purple-haired populace across Wien and its surrounding nations.
Pu'er had once asked Kevin why he was so lazy and had never thought to establish a small church of his own back then. Kevin's reply had been: *When you gain a church of your own, you also lose certain things.*
Neo pressed on, "You still haven't answered: are you a god, or not?"
Mr. Luther replied, "I can only say that a god did appear, briefly."
"What does that mean?"
"It means..."
From the rotting flesh of Mr. Luther's chest, a crystal slowly emerged—identical to the one hanging around the red-necked boy's neck.
"A god appeared for a fleeting instant, so brief she was almost impossible to touch. Yet she undeniably arrived; otherwise, she could not have left me and this child behind. Put another way, the reason he and I could be born is precisely because a god once manifested."
"This..."
Mr. Luther let out a sigh. "Our god was born, and then she fell."
Hearing this answer, Karen and Neo were both deeply shaken.
So the god-creation experiment conducted by the two divine cults—Order and Principles—had actually succeeded. But the god had already fallen, which meant the eruption of divine pollution was also real.
Neither of the two before them, whether Mr. Luther or the red-necked boy, was a god. They were products that had emerged after the god's fall—one could even say they were the two greatest manifestations of divine pollution.
"Oh, by the way, Mr. Neo, you mentioned a dog just now?"
"Uh, yes. Just a figure of speech."
"No, it was no figure of speech." Mr. Luther smiled. "Before my brain rots away completely, my thoughts and perception still retain a few special properties."
"Chatting with you really isn't a very pleasant experience."
"Yes, indeed it isn't. So you still prefer chatting with those two, don't you? I mean the other two, aside from Mr. Philias."
"They talked to you as well?"
"Yes, we spoke. One poured his heart out about the loneliness and suffering of being sealed away for countless ages. The other attempted to preach to me, claiming that only Light could redeem my present state—because above Light, no god exists; as long as I convert to Light, I can shed the filth that is gradually devouring me."
Neo curled his lip and laughed. "That sounds just like them."
Then, Neo joked to Karen, "Today I finally experienced something even more uncomfortable and shameful than running naked through the streets."
Mr. Luther said apologetically, "I am sorry for causing you distress."
"Ah, don't worry about it. No need to be so polite, really." Neo pointed at Karen and asked, "Didn't you chat with the crowd on his side? Mine can only host a tea party at best, but his place is throwing pool parties every day."
"Is that so?"
"Of course! Wait... asking that means you haven't had the chance to talk to his side yet?"
"The wind cannot blow inside."
"What do you mean? You can't see what's inside him?"
"Indeed, I cannot. His body is... healthier than mine."
A body modified by Raniedal, the fusion of the Dark Moon bone, combined with Karen's own unique nature—if Neo had built a castle that could not keep out the wind, Karen stood at the very eye of the storm.
Feeling an acute sense of unfairness, Neo spread his hands. "That's not fair! Why was I the only one who got peeked at?"
"Because inside you, there is an aura very similar to mine... You once fused with a part of me, didn't you?"
Hearing this explanation, Neo's eyes gradually widened. He remembered: he had once ambushed people from the Church of Principles and seized an earthenware jar, then inhaled the special aura collected inside, which had driven him mad while stimulating the awakening of the Mad Pope's bloodline.
"So what you're saying is... you have a backdoor inside me?"
"You could understand it that way. If I were willing, and you were willing, perhaps I could join you for tea inside as well."
"I'd be glad to welcome you, but could you leave that thing behind?"
"With or without it, the result is the same. Once I join your tea party, you could never leave this place. This would be your home, a place you could never escape for the rest of your life."
"Then let's catch up another time. You know, my wife's tomb is outside. If I had to pick a place to stay forever, I'd rather be before her grave than here."
"I can understand that."
"You're truly understanding. If Order and Light hadn't gotten to me first, I think I would have been willing to follow you."
"Heh, I can hear the sincerity in your voice."
"Right? My respect for you..."
"...though meager."
Neo: "Uh, fair enough."
Mr. Luther said, "All right, now we can speak of other matters."
Neo frowned. "I knew you had another twist."
"I know what you are thinking, but reality differs greatly from what you imagine. First of all, the area I can temporarily control is limited strictly to this spot. Even this was only possible because you managed to injure it, briefly disrupting the balance of power between us. Otherwise, between it and me, it has always held the upper hand.
"Furthermore, I cannot control it for long. I am decaying continuously; once I rot away entirely, not only will I be unable to suppress it, but I will also be devoured by it, becoming part of its power.
"When that happens, it will grow even more formidable."
Neo asked, "What about our people?"
"They have already reached the outermost edge, but they cannot leave. Although the two divine artifacts are in their hands, they cannot depart the way they entered, because it..."
Mr. Luther looked toward the red-necked boy. "It drove the bulk of the pollution out to the periphery, deliberately keeping them alive rather than killing them. It is waiting for the people outside to retrieve them, though I doubt your people outside are foolish enough to fall for the trap."
"So you're saying we can only sit here and wait to die?"
"Perhaps the people who sent you in never anticipated that our god would have manifested, nor did they foresee that we would be born."
"Right, they didn't anticipate it. For all their passion about god-making, I bet they themselves never truly believed a god could actually be created."
"Their assumptions were not entirely wrong either. Alas, where in this world can pure right and wrong be found?"
As he spoke, Mr. Luther finally turned his main attention toward Karen. "Isn't that so, Mr. Reporter?"
"My apologies," Karen responded formally. "I could have saved you back then, but duty bound me. I was afraid my actions would bring about even greater devastation."
"You owe me no apology. He and I are not the same person. He was I, and I am I; even if identical, we are not the same individual. Still, I remember that talking with you was very pleasant."
Neo chimed in at once, "Naturally! That's my friend's greatest talent—chatting. He always handles conversations with perfect grace."
"In my memory, you were critical of my positions."
Neo looked at Karen with a tight smile. "Are you insane?"
Karen nodded. "Yes, that's true. Even now, I still hold that view."
"Oh." Mr. Luther was not angry. "Or perhaps now, we have a little time to ourselves to talk it through."
Neo asked, "If the chat goes well, is there a reward?"
"A reward?"
"Yeah," Neo said matter-of-factly. "Usually, at the end of some perilous place, you always run into a kindly old gentleman who gives you tests and questions. Pass them, and you get a reward. Isn't that how novels and movies always do it?"
"Oh, a reward. Yes, there is."
"What is it?" Neo licked his lips.
"A reward should only be announced at the very end, and its nature depends on your performance on the test, does it not?"
"Ah, you're right."
Mr. Luther looked toward Karen, gesturing for him to continue. "Now, speak what you wished to say that day but left unfinished."
Karen said, "I do not agree with your insistence on blindly renouncing violence and believing that equal rights can only be pursued through civilized, peaceful means."
"So you advocate the use of violence?"
"I advocate retaining violence as a viable means."
"Yet like a crack appearing in a dam, do you know what that entails?"
"I know the consequences of abusing violence. That is why one must remain vigilant: violence must never devolve into an outlet for individual venting."
"More specifically?"
"I advocate retaining violence—specifically, orderly violence."
Neo twitched his mouth: *Damn it, are you proselytizing right now?*
Just then, Neo noticed that the red-necked boy's gaze toward Karen had softened slightly compared to before—evident in the sharp contrast between how it looked at him, how it looked at Luther, and how it looked at Karen.
Clearly, to the red-necked boy and the collective will of the purple-haired people it embodied, Mr. Luther's death had stoked a rage that deeply rejected his doctrine of "civilized, nonviolent rights advocacy."
Mr. Luther sighed wistfully. "Yet that is far too difficult. My abilities were insufficient to achieve it. Can you?"
Neo immediately answered, "Of course he can."
"I cannot do it right now."
"So you mean you can in the future?"
"Not necessarily in the future either."
"Then what meaning is there in your 'now'?"
"Now, we can begin to explore."
"Explore? Are you certain you can grope your way toward an absolutely correct path?"
"I am not certain. But it should be possible to find an approach better suited to the present—a path that is at least better than the past, so long as we learn to fight through the struggle itself."
"Alas, I am already dead. I have no chance to explore anymore, nor any chance to learn."
Karen hesitated for a moment, but still answered head-on, "If losing you alone causes the purple-haired people's equal-rights movement to forfeit its ability to explore, learn, and progress, then that only means you were never truly prepared for a protracted struggle. You failed to clearly recognize the true reality of the fight, and even less did you lay out an effective, concrete plan for the future."
"Then my question remains: if handed to you, could you do better than me, yes?"
Neo broke in, "Of course! What he's working on right now is magnificent too."
"No. In all likelihood, I would not do better than you," Karen said. "As you know, standing on the sidelines and talking is always far easier than rolling up your sleeves and doing the work. While theories may be transferable, different arenas present entirely different realities."
"Hehehe." Mr. Luther let out a soft laugh. "I like you very much. Not meeting you sooner so we could regularly share tea and talk is truly my regret."
"Likewise."
"No, it is not the same. You knew from the very beginning that I would not succeed."
Karen lowered his head in slight embarrassment. Yes, from the start, he had not held out hope for the equal-rights movement led by Mr. Luther, because it was simply too naive.
The indigenous inhabitants of the land of Wien were not the Maclay people either; the Maclay people had arrived as pirates, defeated the natives, and occupied the territory. In essence, Mr. Luther had been seeking civilized negotiations with bandits. It was nothing short of a pipedream.
"I may not have believed in your cause, but I have always respected you as a man, and I acknowledge your greatness."
"In your eyes, I was a naive man, wasn't I?"
"Yet sometimes, only someone naive and earnest is willing to step forward. I believe that from the moment you took up this cause, you received endless death threats and intimidation. You knew better than anyone that the bigger your movement grew, the more likely you were to be assassinated. Yet you still chose to persevere bravely."
"Ah." Mr. Luther clicked his tongue, but the joy in his eyes was unmasked.
For a man like him, meeting someone who could converse with him and truly understand him—even if not an ardent follower—was an exceptionally rare and gratifying gift.
Neo immediately chimed in, "So, how did he do on the test?"
"I am very satisfied."
Neo: "And the reward?"
"There is one. I will give it."
"So what kind of reward is it?" Neo suppressed the urge to rub his hands together.
Mr. Luther looked at the red-necked boy beside him, a tender smile appearing on his face.
He said:
"The reward is... taking my place in this seat, to rot away for eternity."
Chapter 713