The scene before them was as though the gates of hell had swung wide open, unleashing an endless torrent of undead creatures plunging downward.
Undead were ceaselessly vaporized into black mist that drifted upward, forming a thick layer of soot across the sky.
The layer of ash expanded continuously until, finally overburdened, real black rain began to drizzle down.
The entire central expanse of the Newnas Subcontinent was draped in this dark deluge. If left untreated after the war, this fertile land—once a vibrant symbol of life and vitality—would degenerate into a gloomy, festering wilderness of creeping darkness.
Raindrops struck the knights' armor and bounced off in an instant, the protective arrays inscribed on the plating automatically shielding their bodies from being tainted by these negative attributes.
Yet the black pools gathering beneath their feet grew ever more prominent.
Whether vestments or armor, the Church of Order favored shades of black, which happened to match the present atmosphere remarkably well.
Mobiten held an umbrella out toward Karen.
It was a gesture of goodwill, a courtesy extended for Muri's sake.
Karen did not take it, however. With a slight shake of his head, he rested his hands behind his back and remained standing behind the High Priest.
Romir continued to channel the Gate of Samsara, while Xifusi stifled a light yawn. Looking at Karen, he asked with a chuckle, "What, fond of this spectacle?"
Karen brought his hands back to his sides and bowed his head in reply. "Yes."
Xifusi remarked, "Indeed, a scene like this suits the aesthetic of you Order priests quite well."
Pausing, Xifusi glanced at the High Priest's back before adding:
"That pleasure of devastation, venting, and ferocity—of crushing refinement and tradition to pieces."
Those words were aimed less at Karen than as a teasing jab at the High Priest.
Karen responded, "To whom is the refinement you speak of considered refined? To whom is the tradition you speak of considered tradition?"
"Oh?"
"Would a slave in chains genuinely praise a wonder built upon the bones of their own kin?"
"Regardless, an objective reality remains an objective reality, does it not?"
Karen smiled and countered:
"Then please tell me, where are they... right now?"
Xifusi fell silent.
"Hahaha!"
The High Priest, with his back still turned to everyone, let out a chuckle. Turning his head toward Xifusi, he said, "I once asked my old partner a question, and now I can ask you the very same one.
"Xifusi,
"after all the research the Church of Principles conducts, why do you leave the most interesting part completely untouched?"
Xifusi answered, "The progress of certain research projects depends on the right opportunity."
"Yet we of Order have no such need. We do not know what the right opportunity is, nor do we know what the future looks like, but none of that prevents us from taking our stride toward the future we desire."
*Rumble!*
The rainbow framing the Garden of Life began to collapse, and the vines of the Tree of Life reinforcing its outer defenses began to wither and withdraw.
Xifusi had noted earlier that the people within were foolish—foolish enough to cling when they should have let go, and now, to surrender when they should have held the line.
At times, it was perhaps not that the Church of Order was so overwhelmingly powerful or invincible, but simply that many of these orthodox churches serving as their adversaries were truly pathetic, unworthy of even being their opponent.
Romir began guiding the engorged undead back through the threshold. She was on edge.
She knew all too well that the High Priest of Order could tear up his promise on the spot, ordering the Knights of Order to trample straight over those undead.
Or the Order priests maintaining the teleportation array could merely allow their focus to lapse slightly, cutting off any chance of the undead returning and leaving them to scatter and dissolve here.
However, the High Priest did no such thing. The array masters led by Ukonga continued to sustain the Gate of Samsara, allowing Romir to successfully reclaim the undead laden with vast reserves of life force.
Having finished, Romir bent her waist and let out a long breath.
She was exhausted, but deeply gratified. In a soft voice, she murmured:
"Thank you."
As the Gatekeeper, she had maintained this humble posture since their arrival.
Yet there was no other choice. The hierarchy among Hierarchs was determined entirely by the strength of their churches.
She could have preserved her own pride and dignity, of course, but she preferred to trade them away for tangible benefits that could replenish her church.
Karen pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to Romir. With no attendant officer at the High Priest's side and Mobiten and the others standing at a distance, such attentive service could only fall to him.
Romir took the handkerchief and wiped the purulent liquid from her face. Having poured her entire focus into channeling the Gate of Samsara, she had neglected to suppress her physical condition, resulting in a rather unsightly, disheveled state.
"When you have the chance in the future, come visit Samsara Valley as my guest."
"Thank you for the invitation."
The High Priest raised his right hand and gave a gentle wave forward.
The commanders of each corps of knights instantly issued the march orders. Imposing, solemn formations began advancing into the Garden of Life from multiple directions.
*Hum!*
The ground beneath the red carpet began to heave.
A sea turtle of colossal proportions slowly emerged, and Karen and the others found themselves standing atop its shell.
Xifusi said in mild surprise, "Basse?"
He immediately turned toward the High Priest. "Didn't you tell me it was already dead?"
This was one of the Church of Order's faith-guarding sacred beasts, master of the mysteries of wisdom—equivalent to the highest-level encyclopedia in the Church of Order.
Such a creature was naturally beloved by the Church of Principles.
The High Priest asked, "I recall I once asked you about the personal notes of the God of Principles."
Xifusi replied at once, "Those were lost long ago!"
The High Priest nodded. "Indeed. The same applies."
Xifusi countered, "Then what is this beast beneath our feet?"
The High Priest answered, "It was separated, and only recently found."
Xifusi chuckled dryly. "Entirely logical."
Karen had never seen such a gigantic creature in reality. Compared to it, Augie's frost dragon form looked like a full-grown adult beside a tiny earthworm.
It began crawling forward, its terrifying pressure bearing down upon the land.
Unfortunately, the advance of the knights had already purged all unstable factors ahead of time, leaving the beast no opportunity to display its might.
The scenery inside the Garden of Life took Karen by surprise. He had expected lush, thriving greenery teeming with life, but the soil within was utterly barren, with severe stretches showing signs of extensive desertification.
As Basse moved forward, it looked as though it were swimming across a sea of sand.
Only that massive tree standing at the distant horizon remained verdant and green.
Karen longed to understand why, so he turned his gaze toward Xifusi.
The chance to stand here was exceptionally rare; there was no telling when another such occasion might arise. By the same token, the opportunity to stand alongside the Hierarch of the Church of Principles was rarer still.
Karen was confident that Xifusi could read his intention.
Sure enough, Xifusi said, "This is the true nature of how the Church of Life operates. The environment here is not the result of this war; this is how the Garden of Life, praised in countless fairy tales and legends across endless eras, has always looked.
"Beside the Tree of Life, except for specially planted species nurtured under the protection of barriers and arrays, no other vegetation is deemed worthy of receiving the slightest drop of nourishment.
"The priests of the Church of Life conduct themselves in the exact same manner. They are not sowers of life, but its plunderers."
Karen remarked with feeling, "I have found that many churches are like this."
"Oh?"
"The descriptions are all exquisite, even poetic, but once you come into close contact and peel back the glamorous exterior, nothing remains inside but ugliness."
"Hahaha." Xifusi chuckled, glancing toward Romir beside him. The old Hierarch stirred the pot with playful mischief. "Did you hear that? The kid is taking a jab at you."
Romir paid him no mind.
Xifusi turned back to ask, "And what about your Church of Order? Is it not ugly?"
Karen replied, "Beauty and ugliness have never had exact numerical standards of measurement. They are defined entirely by contrast."
In the beginning, Karen had maintained a critical view of the Church of Order as well. But after seeing what sort of wretched scum the other churches were... even though the Church of Order harbored plenty of vermin of its own, the more he looked at it, the more endearing it seemed by comparison.
Xifusi pointed at Karen and said to the High Priest, "Hey, Norton, is he an avatar of yours? Why do I feel like I'm conversing with you whenever I speak to him?"
The High Priest gave no response, for Mobiten had stepped forward to report:
"High Priest, the enemy is preparing a surprise attack."
"Let them in to have a look. Otherwise, things would be too dull."
"Yes, High Priest."
A considerable number of Life priests remained within the Garden of Life, but with the knights advancing along every front, they were powerless to organize any decent defense.
Rather than an assault, the present spectacle looked more like a triumphal military parade.
Xifusi slipped behind Norton, tucking both hands into the sleeves of his vestments and hunching his shoulders slightly.
Seeing this, the corner of Karen's mouth curved upward in a smile.
Xifusi snapped petulantly, "Hey, what are you grinning at? This is tradition!"
In partnerships between Order and Principles, Order priests generally handled combat while Principles priests handled research.
When danger arose, it was only natural for the Hierarch of Principles to hide behind the High Priest of Order.
"Hey, Norton, I'm warning you—don't push your luck and botch this."
The High Priest still ignored him.
Beside them, Romir took a step in front of Karen, clearly intending to shield him behind her.
Though she knew nothing serious would come of it since the enemy's ambush had been anticipated, allowing the assailants to draw near meant unforeseen accidents could never be completely ruled out.
Xifusi called out to Romir, "Romir, if it meant you and he suffered an accident and died together here, would you take that trade?"
Romir replied, "After I die, the Church of Samsara remains the Church of Samsara. After he dies, the same holds true. What is there to trade?"
"It's not the same. If you die, at worst they simply pick another gatekeeper. But if he dies, the Church of Order truly won't be able to find another him. Surely they can't just let this kid take the seat right away.
"Hey, brat, do you want to be High Priest?"
Karen understood full well that while the Hierarch of Principles appeared to be a lively, witty old man, he was deeply calculating. The relationship between Principles and Order was far from as harmonious as it seemed on the surface.
The investigative report on The Mink Street Incident explicitly documented traces of the Church of Principles operating behind the scenes.
Even so, faced with such a question, Karen had the courage to answer. He also knew his response would not anger the broad-minded High Priest.
Karen's reply was straightforward:
"I do."
"Did you hear that, Norton? The youth is hoping you drop dead early to vacate the seat for him."
The High Priest remained silent, seemingly tolerating the Hierarch's lively antics for the time being.
Xifusi wrinkled his nose at Karen and chuckled. "Unfortunately, that seat isn't something just anyone can sit in. If you ever took it, I'm afraid you would merely become a puppet of various factions, living your days like a marionette on strings."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than two beams of golden light flared before Basse.
Ukonga descended from above, single-handedly turning both beams back.
Yet at that very moment, another figure materialized atop Basse's head—a woman in a red gown trimmed with gold embroidery, cleaving straight downward with a greatsword!
Mobiten stepped forward, raising his round shield.
*Boom!*
The blow was withstood by sheer brute force.
One had to realize that this was a strike delivered by a Temple Elder wielding a divine artifact!
To Karen's knowledge, Mobiten had not condensed a godhead fragment, yet the Benda family had not held the hereditary position of head of the High Priest's guard through nepotism or personal sentiment.
The Benda family's greatest specialty was defense. Not only was the round shield built for it, but even the standard-issue short sword was meant to assist in defense rather than attack.
The High Priest stood in place without moving a muscle, as though savoring this rare display of untamed novelty.
Xifusi poked his head out beside the High Priest with a bewildered expression, eyeing him suspiciously as if he had realized something.
This time, however, he refrained from making any frivolous remarks, merely sniffing and cursing three times in succession:
"Damn it, damn it, damn it all."
Once Mobiten blocked that strike, the ambush mounted by the three Life elders was effectively doomed to failure.
Knights swept in from both flanks with howling momentum, sealing off the three elders' retreat.
What followed was a classic hunt before Karen's eyes.
After his initial intervention, Ukonga took no further part, leaving the work entirely to the corps of knights.
The knights split into several detachments and adopted a pure war of attrition under the blessings of their formation.
Every offensive unleashed by the Temple Elders was absorbed and neutralized by the supporting army array in the rear, leaving the front-line knights feeling virtually no pressure.
Such high caliber was something the legions Karen had previously commanded could hardly replicate. It required every individual unit to be exceptional, team coordination to be honed to perfection, and top-tier equipment and tools across the board.
Possessing a godhead fragment was equivalent to wielding a portion of divine power. Individually, an elder had transcended mortal limits, yet through tight, coordinated organization, mere mortals forcibly dragged them back down.
No wonder the elders of the Temple of Order were only qualified to accompany the army... because the knights' true combat prowess never relied on them in the first place.
Once the three ambushing Life elders were cut off from one another, they were trapped in a relentless, high-frequency grinder. They fought desperately, but like beasts caught in wire netting, the more they struggled, the tighter they were bound.
When the wire cut into flesh, the iron hooves trampled past, and the three elders fell one by one.
One of them self-detonated her godhead fragment just before dying, but prepared interception arrays enveloped the area ring after ring in an instant, severely constraining the blast radius.
From Karen's observation, the detonation of that godhead fragment only caused a contingent of array masters in the adjacent formation to sway slightly back and forth, and nothing more.
In the previous era, this was precisely how they hunted deities. Diknuo's mind was filled with countless combat records of god-hunting campaigns.
Xifusi muttered under his breath, "Delegating divine power only dims the divine light."
Churches, as the executors of divine will, were deployed en masse into the divine wars of the previous era, which secured their subsequent standing among faiths.
Deities delegated power down to enlighten their believers, allowing them to grow formidable by leaning on divine might. Yet this also rendered the gods less awe-inspiring and inviolable, for mortals, too, could now partake in the slaughter of deities.
And the one who carried this principle to its absolute extreme was the God of Order.
The original purpose behind founding the Twelve Knight Corps of Order was never to serve as guardians of the church, but to hunt gods.
A vivid crimson flower sprouted ahead, and a human face manifested within its petals:
"High Priest, Hierarch, Gatekeeper, long time no see."
Romir nodded to her; Xifusi gave a wave; while the High Priest looked upon her with serene composure.
She was the Church of Life's... Gardener.
Pruning and maintaining the Garden of Life for the God of Life.
The Gardener looked toward the High Priest and spoke:
"The Church of Life requests to surrender."
Following the precedent of Order's previous war against Samsara, when Samsara sued for peace, the Church of Order halted its offensive accordingly and secured greater interests across the negotiating table.
Karen's eligibility to enter the trial within the Gate of Samsara had been nothing more than a minor concession granted under that peace treaty.
Before the Garden of Life fell, the Church of Life might have harbored some lingering hope, wishing that the holy grounds would come to their senses and send aid to the Holy See, or praying that the allied church forces would intervene.
Yet when the Garden of Life was overwhelmed by the boundless undead of Samsara, all hope was thoroughly extinguished.
If the fighting continued, the iron hooves of Order would crush the very foundations of Life.
The High Priest spread his hands, and archaic command tokens appeared before him, each one part of a pair whose counterpart was held by a corps commander.
These tokens symbolized the High Priest's authority to direct the knights, though because past High Priests rarely had occasion to visit the front lines in person, they were generally treated as badges of a commander's status.
Now, through them, the High Priest issued an order to every commander on this battlefield:
"I want no life left visible within this Garden of Life."
In the next instant,
the synchronized reply of every corps commander echoed from within the tokens:
"We obey your decree!"
The Gardener looked at the High Priest with a desolate expression. She sighed and said, "Doing this will cause Order to be completely besieged by the entire ecclesiastic sphere."
The High Priest smiled faintly.
"It doesn't matter. In any case, you won't be alive to see it."
"When our Lords return, they will surely hold the Church of Order accountable for today's deeds."
The High Priest lifted his head and looked up at the sky.
"Your Lords... will not be coming back."
Chapter 880