Order is a mask.
Put it on when you need it; take it off when you don't.
Purr saw Karen's hands trembling slightly. At first, it thought he was in pain, but gradually realized that wasn't it. Purr noticed tears slipping from the corners of Karen's eyes, dripping down from the rim of the deathly gray mask on his face.
The sight made Purr's heart ache.
It hopped onto Karen, climbed onto his shoulder, and reached out a soft paw to gently wipe away the tear tracks on his cheek.
"Why cry? Diss has already arranged everything for you. You ought to be happy."
Saying so, Purr shifted to his other shoulder and reached out its paw again to wipe his tears.
"Actually, over all these years, I could feel his suffering. The more brilliant of a genius he was, the more agonizing it was. He advanced too quickly, so by the time he realized this path was wrong, there was no longer any chance to turn back.
"That is the sorrow of a genius."
Purr dropped onto Karen's lap, resting its two front paws against Karen's chest.
"Every elder holds expectations for the younger generation. It doesn't matter how open-minded they are—even if they never say it aloud, in their hearts they hope that when the next generation walks the same path, they might take fewer detours, avoid the mistakes they once made, and walk better, walk further.
"I used to wonder why Diss favored you so much—a fondness that even went beyond ordinary blood relations.
"Now I seem to understand a little.
"Diss saw in you the chance to make up for his own regrets.
"This is a legacy being passed down, Karen.
"Diss won't leave you. He will simply stand at the doorway, watching with far-reaching eyes as you head into the distance with your pack on your back."
Purr tried to comfort him, but soon realized its words had little effect. The tears it had just wiped away were already replaced by new ones.
It hopped onto Karen's shoulder once more, but as it moved to wipe his tears again, it paused.
No one knew how to console others—or himself—better than Karen. He didn't actually need these comforting words.
He could cry right now because he was wearing a mask.
Even so, Purr reminded him, "The mask has served its purpose. If you want, you can take it off."
Karen spoke, "I will keep it on and wait for Diss to return."
A moment later,
Karen added, "Diss promised me. He will come back."
...
The church.
Having completed the blood sacrifice ritual, Diss stood in the center of the dais, his face growing paler.
Rasma leaned against a pew. Right now, he was actually the most relaxed of them all, because events had long spiraled out of his control. In fact, he even felt a faint trace of petty satisfaction.
Because things were almost certainly beyond the control of the three standing behind him as well.
Just look at them.
Three sacred Temple Elders—what had they looked like just moments ago?
Tugging at one another,
arguing with one another,
blocking one another,
and in the end,
each of them utterly dumbfounded.
It was like a God's Servant preaching in some remote rural village, where the locals went from contempt to confusion and finally to sheer, slack-jawed astonishment.
Rasma took a deep breath, trying his best to maintain a solemn expression; otherwise, he was genuinely terrified he might burst out laughing.
In the past, he had always wondered why, every time he became entangled in matters involving Diss, he needed to readjust his state of mind. He knew the reason wasn't merely that they had once been rivals in their youth.
Perhaps,
deep down, there was actually a degree of reverence for Diss.
He still remembered when they were young, standing side by side as they were granted an audience with Elder Geller.
He had witnessed with his own eyes as Diss, right in front of the Temple Elder, compared Order to a mask.
Was he influenced by him?
No, because he had gradually realized that he could never catch up to Diss's footsteps. In the past, he had merely thought there was a gap between them, but now he realized Diss wasn't even walking on the same ground.
What he resented, perhaps, was merely that spontaneous feeling of reverence.
Rasma, after all, was not Old Hoffen. Hoffen was an old pedant who had spent his entire life in academia, passing his days in repression and monotony. So when he first heard of Diss's deeds, he had possessed virtually no defense against them, and later had unreservedly proclaimed that Diss was the man he admired most in this life.
But Rasma was different. He had once been a favored prodigy himself. His humble beginnings combined with exceptional talent had once earned him the title of a rising star within the Church. To truly revere a peer was still somewhat humiliating for him.
However,
now it was fine.
Rasma felt completely refreshed. In any case, both the Code of Order and Light of Order had been tossed aside onto the floor by him. At this moment, he was simply Rasma, bearing no other identity.
Stripped of the various shackles imposed by his station, he was now able to appreciate the Diss of this moment from the perspective of a "free" soul.
Finally,
accompanied by another flash from the crude teleportation array below the dais, middle-aged Diss returned. The teleportation array beneath his feet shattered right after; after all, it had only been built for two uses.
Moreover, teleporting across various arrays with such high frequency in a short period had placed an immense burden on middle-aged Diss. His body had already turned semi-translucent, leaving only the godhead fragment at his chest still glowing with a clear luster.
It acted like an alternative form of a "heart," sustaining middle-aged Diss's current structure.
Immediately after,
middle-aged Diss's body began to dissipate, turning into glittering dust that drifted away.
In the end, only that black godhead fragment remained, resting in Diss's hand.
Diss examined it and spoke, "Want it?"
His tone was like someone pulling spare change from their pocket while strolling down the street to tease a roadside beggar.
Yet Sidi gritted her teeth and walked forward anyway.
The losses suffered by the Temple of Order had already occurred. Therefore, what should truly be seized now was the harvest currently within reach.
Sidi walked up to Diss, looked at him, and opened her palm.
Diss cast one last glance at the godhead fragment in his hand, looked at Sidi, and then, with utter nonchalance,
tossed the godhead fragment onto the floor.
A godhead fragment was not so easily broken. After hitting the ground, it remained protected by a faint black halo. But the blatant contempt conveyed by that gesture was unmistakable.
Sidi spoke, "Diss, sometimes it is truly unnecessary to utterly infuriate someone."
Diss shook his head. "I don't like placing my hopes on whether or not someone has been provoked by me. Besides, you misunderstand. It is not you I hold in contempt, but these three so-called godhead fragments that have tortured me all along."
Sidi turned her hand, and the godhead fragment flew up, landing in her palm.
By this point,
blue veins bulged on Diss's face.
Splitting himself into three earlier and performing the blood sacrifice ritual had both taken a massive toll on him.
Furthermore,
there was another tremendous toll, one that neither the three Elders nor Rasma knew about.
And that was...
Outside the church, most of the members of the Whip of Order were propping themselves up against the ground with their hands, recovering from the backlash caused by hastily withdrawing their spell earlier.
Simon panted heavily, cold sweat dripping down him.
In his mind,
a passage echoed ceaselessly:
"Our God of Order is not a true god at all. Everything he did was solely to achieve godhood!"
Within the Church, hearing such ravings meant one's faith was wavering and becoming "tainted."
Simon knew very well where the source of his contamination lay—right inside the church before him.
He moistened his dry lips. Beside him were his subordinates and colleagues, all panting for breath. Yet Simon had no idea how many among them had heard this "whisper" just as he had.
Or even further out,
among those red-robed clergy setting up the arrays, had any of them heard those words as well?
Just how vast was the contamination this time?
In truth, none of this was what terrified Simon the most. Such incidents of spiritual pollution were not unprecedented; they were nothing new among the major orthodox churches. What truly frightened him was that
he was actually hesitating over whether to report it.
...
"What comes next, Diss?"
Geller looked at Diss and asked.
For a single person to condense three godhead fragments was practically unheard of, yet Diss had accomplished it.
Still, no matter how great a genius was, he had his limitations.
A genius often belonged only to his single era, whereas the heritage of the Church spanned entire epochs.
This was also why Geller believed Diss had chosen to negotiate.
Diss knew full well that he could never single-handedly take on the entire Church of Order. He couldn't do it.
A saying had long circulated within the Church of Order: Order rests solely upon fist and might.
Diss's fists were not hard enough. Beyond that, he had a massive vulnerability—he had a family, and he cared about them.
Geller felt that if Diss chose to enter the Temple of Order, leveraging his three godhead fragments, his status within the Temple would rise rapidly.
Surpassing himself, Niven, and Sidi would be an inevitability. Years later, it wouldn't even be impossible for him to become the next figure to ascend the Throne of Order within the Church.
That meant becoming the foremost authority beneath the God of Order.
Yet he had chosen to refuse, and to refuse unequivocally.
Was it because... he feared being devoured?
What am I thinking?!
Geller jolted to his senses, a shudder running through the depths of his soul.
As a Temple Elder, why had he conceived such an utterly blasphemous thought?
Was it because this true genius of the Church before him had chosen to abandon the God of Order?
You could argue that a genius was fleeting, but you could not deny that a true genius inevitably possessed perceptions ordinary "mediocrities" lacked. Perhaps with a simple lower or tilt of the head, he could witness sights others would never see in an entire lifetime.
Geller began to steady his emotions, resolving in secret that once he returned, he would find a way to break the oath while purifying his divine nature of today's impressions as much as possible.
He closed his eyes and opened them again.
"Diss, what do you intend to do next?"
You detonated one godhead fragment, handed over another, and performed a blood sacrifice ritual. You are already thoroughly depleted, and this weakness is irreversible.
Most importantly,
even though you have handed one over, you still have one left inside you.
For a moment, Geller felt a pang of concern for Diss. He genuinely admired this young man who had once stood before him, brimming with vigor and confidence.
Back then, when Rasma—who had steadily risen through the Church school system to its very core, hailed everywhere as a rising star of Order—stood beside Diss, Geller had felt that Rasma appeared thoroughly mediocre by comparison.
And even when that young man uttered treasonous words, Geller had still chosen not to punish him, unwilling even to be angry with him in his heart.
Perhaps, even back then, he had felt that this junior would before long be sipping black tea alongside him in the Temple of Order, discussing the true essence of Order.
Because once you viewed someone as your "peer" or of the "same tier," certain jokes could be tolerated.
Whether a joke went too far depended largely on the standing of the person making it.
Yet Geller soon felt relieved. Did the man before him truly need his concern?
Everything that had happened in the church today had far exceeded what he had envisioned before arriving. Diss had surely arranged everything in advance.
Diss pointed to the godhead fragment in Sidi's hand, the one he had previously "bestowed."
He said, "The past affects the present, but one can choose to forget the past. Yet once the future is lost, the past loses the very foundation of its existence."
This was a warning, and all four present understood it.
This godhead fragment had come from middle-aged Diss—the Diss of the past. Which meant that even though the fragment was now in Sidi's hands, the one truly in control of it remained the Diss of the present.
The godhead fragment Sidi held could be detonated by Diss at will.
In fact, even if it were brought into the Temple, this connection could not be severed, because severing its link to Diss would be equivalent to negating its existence.
Diss's face continued to pale.
"I am very weak now. Both my body and soul have entered an irreversible state of decline.
"Therefore,
"I will choose to return home, complete a self-seal on my bed, and enter slumber.
"I will retain only the faintest wisp of consciousness—perhaps just enough for a single awakening.
"I want to 'watch' over my family, seeing them live safely and happily.
"If they are denied peace, if they are denied happiness, if they suffer retaliation...
"the godhead fragment of mine you carry back will detonate instantly.
"And I will sit up from my bed, step through the Door of Order, and arrive at the Temple of Order."
"The Church of Order does not stoop to such petty acts," Niven said. "We would not direct retaliation at ordinary people, especially when your family's spirituality has been drained by you both now and for the future, cutting off any possibility of entering the Church."
Diss shifted his gaze. "As I said, I don't like placing my future upon so-called promises. Therefore, I choose to 'watch' over them myself."
"The time limit?" Geller asked.
"Until this body of mine completely rots away, losing all life—until my death.
"If my family continues to live safely and happily until then, the godhead fragment currently within me will likewise be collected by the Church of Order, by you, after I die.
"Unlike you, I have no interest in prolonging my life by relying on the Temple of Order. In fact, for a very long time, the length of my lifespan has been a source of distress for me.
"If I could have died young, or died in middle age, perhaps things would have been far easier to resolve.
"So,
"judging by the age and deterioration of this body, how long can I lie in bed? Ten years?
"Ten years, twenty years, thirty years—none of that holds any great significance to you, does it?
"What I resent is the God of Order, but I have never resented the Church of Order."
"Very well. I believe you, Diss," Geller replied.
Niven nodded in agreement.
Sidi showed no reaction.
Rasma felt a quiet sigh in his heart.
Under the reality that the Temple of Order's damage was already an established fact, being able to bring back one godhead fragment now and retrieve another decades later was already an excellent outcome.
After all, back when everyone thought Diss had only a single godhead fragment, they had been unwilling to tear down all pretense—let alone now, when Diss still held two.
Diss bent slightly, leaning one hand against the pulpit where he usually preached to the faithful to steady his balance. He spoke:
"So now, two questions remain."
Sidi snapped, "Why do you have so many questions?!"
Diss nodded. "Fine, now it's just one."
Geller said, "Speak. Whatever the Church of Order can do, it will."
"No, it's not a question for you; it's a question for me.
"Originally, my first question was: although my soul and flesh are very weak, if I return now to seal myself and sleep, there's still a bit too much left over.
"Originally, my second question was: today was a grand scene with many visitors and a tremendous impact, yet we never had a true fight, which felt rather regrettable.
"Now, neither of the earlier questions needs asking. Only one remains..."
Diss raised his finger and pointed directly at Sidi.
"You talk far too much today."
The moment his words fell,
Diss's figure vanished from where he stood, reappearing right before Sidi.
Sidi's eyes narrowed. A barrier of Order instantly materialized in front of her to block Diss, while other spells began gathering. At their level, casting spells no longer required tedious incantations or preparations.
However, the godhead fragment belonging to middle-aged Diss in Sidi's hand suddenly flashed, abruptly disrupting Sidi's casting and to some extent sealing the divinity within her body.
Even if it lasted only an instant, Diss was right in front of her.
Most crucially, the three Temple Elders were consciousness projections, meaning the bodies they occupied were not their true forms. Emergency defensive measures or personal sacred relics that their original bodies possessed were absent here.
At this moment, Sidi was completely defenseless.
Diss's left hand clamped directly around Sidi's throat, his form rocketing toward the church exterior.
Sidi's body was slammed to the ground by Diss, plowing along as he shoved her forward, carving a long trench straight through the floor tiles down the center of the church.
Throughout the process, Sidi continuously deployed spells to resist, while Diss matched her move for move, constantly neutralizing and unraveling them. At such close quarters, the two engaged in a dense clash that ordinary people—and even Rasma—could barely comprehend.
A dazzling collision of divinity, an incredible unraveling of spells, and the deep, profound friction of rules!
Yet in the end,
Diss succeeded in dragging Sidi out of the church.
Atop the church stood a towering cross structure.
Diss lifted Sidi and soared upward, hurling her straight toward the cross. The sharp tip of the cross pierced through Sidi's chest, leaving her impaled upon it.
"Order — Cage!"
Sidi was sealed upon the cross. Though her eyes were wide open, burning with fury to the absolute limit, she was unable to move a muscle.
Diss ignored her gaze.
Dropping back to the ground,
under the watchful eyes of the numerous high-ranking Church of Order clergy gathered around,
Diss dusted off his hands
and said,
"I'm tired. Going home to sleep."
Chapter 76