The God of Order had banished the hunger addiction into the future?
Divine descent rituals typically required an offering of sacrifices. The higher the specification of the ritual, the greater the price demanded of the officiant.
What Diss had presided over was an Order-aligned over-specification divine descent ritual.
Yet Diss had told Karen that the God of Order had taken nothing at all.
So in truth, what came for free often proved to be the most expensive.
Because the God of Order had tossed over the problem that caused him the greatest headache.
No wonder he had gained the ability to "Awaken" before he was even purified into an Order servant. No wonder Raniedal had failed to wrest this body away from him. It even provided a clear possibility as to why Raniedal had descended alongside him in that divine descent ritual.
Raniedal had once immersed himself in researching the taboos of time. A portion of his research remained within the Church of Order, which had continuously attempted similar experiments, but only that supreme existence could truly master his core breakthroughs.
And so, when that being banished the hunger addiction into the future, perhaps he also took notice of Raniedal and casually unfastened his leash, or perhaps the process stirred some catalyst that resonated with Raniedal. In any case... Raniedal had thus been liberated from the God of Order's containment and suppression.
Though the exact details could not yet be verified, the general logic had surfaced.
He was a "victim" meant to shoulder the problem.
Yet even after realizing this, Karen felt no real resentment in his heart. He didn't even blame the God of Order.
For he truly had no reason to harbor any ill will.
To put it plainly, this life of his was a second chance picked up for free. And upon waking, he had met the Inmerais family. In his heart, he was deeply grateful for this arrangement of fate.
Although the hunger addiction had now become Karen's greatest and most dangerous problem, it had also granted him limitless possibilities.
Yes, scorching his own soul with the flame of light was comparable to the cruelest torture in the world, and tearing himself free time and again from the hunger addiction's shackles was an agony beyond words;
yet looking at it dialectically, without the hunger addiction, he would never have made it this far.
To be thankful for hardship was not to be grateful for the suffering itself, but to thank the version of himself who had overcome that hardship and emerged stronger.
Therefore, Karen did not hate the "terrifying problem" the God of Order had dumped on him at all. If anything, he felt inclined to thank the God of Order for sending him this gift.
The artifact spirit of the Spear of Eternity had been observing Karen intently. His gaze seemed capable of piercing through every barrier to look straight into the essence of things.
Consequently, his expression shifted three times: from playful amusement to surprise, and finally to deep bewilderment.
"It seems you know what the God of Order's problem was?"
"No, not only do you know what it is, you understand it intimately?"
"You have already grown familiar with it, lived through it, and you even think it's nothing too serious?"
Blue light flooded the dormitory. Budalas and the others stood frozen in place. Karen was slightly better off, but only marginally so; his movements were sluggish and labored, as if he were wading through a mire.
"Then why in the world is that?"
The artifact spirit seemed to be muttering to himself. He leaned down, bringing his face close to Karen's.
His gaze, piercing like a spear, stabbed into Karen's body and penetrated into his soul.
Above Karen's soul-consciousness space, a depression caved in, followed by two beams of blue light piercing inside, roving and scanning about.
At last, the two blue beams converged, intersecting right above the puddle below.
At that exact moment, within the puddle's reflection, a black eye appeared, radiating an ancient, majestic aura.
Nowadays, even though Karen was the master of this body, he rarely entered his soul space as he used to, because he knew all too well that this was now the domain of the hunger addiction.
At this moment, the presence within the puddle felt offended by the intrusive blue gaze.
While the gaze continued peering into the depths of the puddle, high above this soul-consciousness space, the phantom of a colossal statue was silently manifesting.
Like a homeowner discovering a thief who had broken into the house, slowly creeping up behind him step by step.
Until the distance closed and the moment was ripe.
*Hum!*
The statue's giant hand reached out, grabbing hold of the pair of gazes in midair. As if given physical substance, the beams twisted and distorted.
Black flames of Order spilled from the massive palm, instantly catching and spreading into a vast blaze. Countless pitch-black Chains of Order surged forth from the giant hand, binding and devouring the gaze.
"Ahhh!"
The artifact spirit let out a bloodcurdling scream, stumbling backward repeatedly before finally tearing himself free.
Karen was inwardly shaken. After intruding into his soul-consciousness space and falling into the bindings of the hunger addiction, the artifact spirit of the Spear of Eternity had actually managed to break free!
Such a thing had never happened before. In the past, no matter how powerful a soul was, once it entered the depths of his soul and was locked down by the hunger addiction, its fate was inevitably to become fodder.
The artifact spirit lowered the hands shielding his eyes. Two trails of fresh blood leaked from his sockets, trickling down his face.
Then he stared at Karen with an intensely complex expression.
"You..."
He began to speak, only to swallow his words back down.
Then, as if reaching a decision, he pressed his left arm against his side, placed his right hand across his abdomen, and bowed deeply to Karen.
Straightening up once more, he lifted his head and spoke:
"Do you know what that etiquette was just now? That is the etiquette reserved for facing a deity. However, you are not yet a god. Therefore, having paid my respects, I will remain rather casual from here on. That won't be considered disrespect toward a deity, understood?"
Understood what?
Was it because of the loneliness of endless eras that the artifact spirit of every divine artifact felt a bit unhinged?
"My master bestowed upon me the name Michios; I am the guardian artifact spirit of the Spear of Eternity."
The artifact spirit introduced himself first. Then he raised a hand, and the sense of restriction binding Karen vanished completely, allowing him to move freely once more.
After catching a glimpse of that hunger addiction statue deep within Karen's soul, the artifact spirit's attitude toward Karen had undergone a complete inversion.
Michios took a seat on the opposite chair and asked, "Shall we change the scenery for our talk? I know you must have plenty of questions in your heart."
Karen shook his head. "I don't think that's necessary. It's all fake anyway."
"Obsessing too much over what is real makes it easy to overlook the meaning of the unreal." Michios smiled faintly, wiping at the trails of blood on his face, though no matter how he wiped, they would not come off. "I offended divine majesty; this is my well-deserved punishment."
"What exactly is going on here?"
"What's going on? That question of yours is genuinely hard to answer."
"Because it's too broad?"
"No, not because it's too broad. Quite the contrary—it's too small. I assumed you would ask me directly about those great deities, but you seem far more interested in what happened in this dormitory."
"I want to know whether it was because of me that what's happening now, a thousand years ago, was affected."
"A thousand years have passed already?" Michios seemed a little surprised. "Time truly flies. The disturbance these lads caused me feels like it happened just yesterday."
"Didn't you say you would answer my questions?"
"Heh, you could say you influenced it, or you could say you didn't. You are a person of the future, not of the present. Since a thousand years have passed, you and they were destined never to exist in the same era."
"I'd like to hear the point."
"It seems your status right now is quite high, which makes your standards for subordinates' reports equally high. Alas, though I am an artifact spirit, I'm not like the ones you might imagine. I am rather peculiar; every so often, my thoughts and memories are reset.
"Well, you probably don't have much interest in me anyway.
"To continue answering your question: you did not actually influence this place a thousand years ago, for the simple reason that you do not exist here."
"Yet I played a role in this. Without me, they wouldn't have been able to summon you."
"No, no, no."
Michios walked over to Budalas, studying his face, then over to the Mad Pope, inspecting him closely. Next, he patted Dicarost on the shoulder, and finally came to a halt before Ukonga.
One of Ukonga's hands was still clutching the Spear of Eternity. His palm had been sliced open, blood spilling out, yet now everything remained frozen in stillness.
"They are an extraordinarily exceptional group of lads. Standing here, I can even smell their future glory. What do you think?"
"They truly are."
"Mm." Michios pointed a finger at his forehead. "This memory is very clear to me, yet there has always been a shadow cast over it. For a long time, I never knew what that shadow was. Now, I do.
"In my distinct memory, it was the four of them who summoned me in this dormitory. You claimed it was due to your role, but in reality, it wasn't.
"If each of these four lads contributed just a little more of their own secrets and squeezed out just a bit more of their latent potential, the feat would still have been accomplished.
"Your role was not irreplaceable; it merely made things a little easier for them."
"So, in what took place in this dorm room over a thousand years ago, I wasn't there?"
"Indeed, you were not. It was the four of them who summoned me. Of that, I am certain."
"Then what about what I just experienced?"
"Because among these four people, one has never died. As you said, over a thousand years... Sigh, he really knows how to live long. But he truly could live that long."
"Ukonga?"
"Yes, exactly him. I know his story. Would you like to hear it?"
Karen hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "You can tell me."
"Later in his duties, he frequently required the assistance of a divine artifact, and then fell in love with that artifact's spirit. At one point, he even wanted to elope with it, nearly getting condemned by the Church of Order as an apostate.
"Later, after some mediation, his family intervened, coupled with his own raw talent, and... at that time, your Church of Order's High Priest happened to be his roommate—this one right here."
Michios pointed at Budalas.
"He wasn't branded an apostate, and the matter was smoothed over. But he was dispatched to the Church of Order's frontier spaces—which was likely where your Church exiled people.
"Yet he survived crisis after crisis, advancing at astonishing speed.
"In the end, he successfully condensed a godhead fragment. The Gate of Order manifested before him, welcoming him into the Temple.
"On his very first day in the Temple, he ignored the welcoming ceremony held for him by the Temple Elders of the time, heading straight into the star enshrining that divine artifact to reunite with its artifact spirit.
"It was a happy ending, fitting for a fairy tale romance: they lived happily ever after."
"Then why is he still alive now?"
"Because when his lifespan as a Temple Elder drew near its end, the artifact spirit of that divine artifact willingly fused with him to prolong his life. He could live this long because he is no longer human, nor is he any longer a Temple Elder, but... a special kind of artifact spirit."
Karen subconsciously glanced at Ukonga again. It was truly difficult to imagine that such an insatiable stud in his youth would go on to live out such a romantic tale in the future.
No, what was most unbelievable was that he had actually fulfilled his youthful boast—he had really slept with an artifact spirit!
"Then what about the shadow?"
"The shadow is the fact that your presence did indeed exert an influence. When people gaze upon a temple built in antiquity, they can resonate with the emotions of the forebears. The reverse is also true: if you walk onto the construction site of a temple being built, you can resonate with the feelings of future generations when they behold that magnificent structure.
"You did not exist, yet you left a trace.
"Ukonga returned here many times afterward. He wasn't actually here to reminisce about past school days; he was searching. Searching for traces of that shadow. He was... searching for you."
"Searching for me?" Karen nodded. "So that's how it is."
If Ukonga's subsequent behavioral pattern could be defined this way, then Teacher Hiderode's logic became crystal clear.
A Temple Elder who had lived for so long was bound to possess immense influence within the Church of Order. Though the current High Priest had continuously strived to sever the Temple's influence over the Holy See, everyone knew it could never be eradicated all at once.
Had Hiderode brought him here to "explore the secrets" of this dormitory merely because he appreciated Karen's tutoring?
Had he used spiritual power to hypnotize students the moment class began just so they could get a good sleep while he slacked off?
Could this have been a screening process?
Screening for young students with sufficiently powerful spiritual power, and then bringing them to this dorm room to see if they could trigger the mental imprint here?
So Hiderode had carried a duty on his shoulders all along.
Michios smiled and asked, "Are you worried that Ukonga will remember you?"
Karen asked, "Is that possible?"
"You don't need to worry about that. Even I had no recollection of you before seeing you, only a vague shadow. His impression should be much the same as mine. At most, he might remember that when they pulled off that feat back then, someone else seemed to be beside them, yet he cannot recall that person's appearance, voice, or name.
"Vague and blurry, knowing only that the person was about his age, a fellow student.
"Originally, this should have passed in an instant, dismissed as an illusion. But who told him to become a Temple Elder? Who told him to live so long?
"He had sufficient ability, and sufficient time, to mull over that memory again and again, gradually teasing out the trace of a shadow.
"Yet that is as far as it goes.
"Do you know why?"
Karen did not answer.
Michios said, "Because one cannot look directly upon a god."
"Yet, just as you said earlier, I am not yet a god."
"But this is a special realm formed by the leak of the Spear of Eternity. When you entered and integrated into this place, you did not do so merely under your identity as Karen. And in fact, look at my eyes..."
Michios pointed to his injured eyes and continued, "I have already paid the price for looking directly upon a god."
Karen knew Michios was telling the truth. If Ukonga truly had a clearer impression of him, what Hiderode needed to do would have been far simpler—there would be no need to hypnotize class after class; he could simply search the roster of incoming freshmen each year for anyone named "Karen" and bring them here to test them.
Still wiping at the blood on his face, Michios chuckled. "In order to find you, Ukonga returned here many times, intentionally deepening the mental imprint he left behind. And precisely because the mental imprint he left was strong enough, it developed agency and took the initiative to invite you into this 'experience.' And in order to seek out the you who entered this experience yet remained unexpectedly blurry, he returned here again and again afterward, deliberately deepening the mental imprint he left.
"He has been chasing his own tail in circles all along."
Karen asked, "May I leave now?"
"Don't you want to know about the affairs of the gods?"
"Can you tell me?"
"I was waiting for you to ask, so I could answer: 'No.'"
"Heh."
"You seem to have anticipated that."
"The thoughts of an artifact spirit aren't always that hard to guess."
Karen stood up. He walked out of the dorm room, descended the stairs, and arrived at the dormitory entrance.
He turned back and saw Michios standing behind him, having followed him all the way.
"You truly won't stop me?" Karen asked. "In this place, you have the power to trap me forever."
"Over a thousand years ago, I must have spared you, and now, I will spare you all the same. In fact, I shall grant you my blessing, wishing you eternal health and safety, and smooth passage on your path.
"Alas, because of what happened over a thousand years ago, the Church of Order removed me from the containment space and sealed me away separately. If you can find me in the future, I will offer you every aid within my power.
"This is my promise to you."
"Why?"
Karen didn't believe that an unfamiliar artifact spirit would suddenly be so kind to him. In this world, love never came without a reason.
Michios merely smiled and didn't answer.
Once Karen stepped past the crack in the ground and his figure vanished completely,
Michios suddenly burst into loud laughter. All around, blue halos of light surged violently:
"God of Order, you never imagined this, did you? That which you banished has fallen into the grasp of someone else in the future! He is retracing the path you once walked. When he attains godhood, will that mean your own godhead will slip from its throne?
"Heheheh...
"Fascinating.
"Truly fascinating.
"The era locked away by the previous God of Order...
"will be personally unsealed by the next God of Order!"
Chapter 735