Chapter 518: Papa! (Large Chapter!)

Chapter 518: Father! (A Mega Chapter!)

Kalen took a step back, placed his left arm across his chest, and dropped to one knee before Loya:

"Thank you for still remembering me, Princess Loya."

Loya's expression did not alter in the slightest; indeed, this perfectly matched the prevailing perception of an artifact spirit as cold and noble.

In reality, however, Loya was utterly stunned.

She had thought that by suppressing any sign of joy upon her arrival and deliberately putting on a frosty facade, she would give Brother Kalen a grand surprise; she had never expected that Brother Kalen would present her with a far greater "surprise" in return.

Oh, he had actually kneeled to her.

For a fleeting moment, she felt an impulse to kneel right down with him.

Fortunately, she mastered herself and suppressed the urge.

Yet, she began to wonder if the "performance" she had previously deemed so clever was perhaps a bit too much, and if it had somehow made Brother Kalen feel uneasy?

Ah, was her acting truly that terrible?

But when she performed plays with "them," they always said she possessed a natural talent for acting; could they have been humoring her all along?

In truth, Loya’s active cooperation seemed perfectly flawless to Kalen; it was simply that, given his disposition, he preferred to control the rhythm of what would follow.

Furthermore, his relationship with Loya had to be handled in a way that appeared "normal," or rather, he needed to provide a suitable justification to dispel any impending suspicion from anyone who might detect an "abnormality."

Thus, Kalen quickly spoke once more:

"That I was unable to thank you in person that night for saving my life has always been a profound regret for both myself and Inquisitor Pavaro;

When we encountered you last time in the Augurev Fortress, because you were the examiner, there was no way to speak to you. When I returned and mentioned it to Inquisitor Pavaro, he also expressed great regret.

This time, the opportunity has finally come. Please accept my deepest gratitude, Princess Loya."

At the sausage factory in the Qihe case, he had met Loya once;

During the selection process at the Augurev Fortress, he had met Loya once;

Counting this instance, it made three times.

Though they had met in between, those visits were connected to the silver mask his grandfather had left him and constituted an "illegal prison visitation."

Under normal circumstances, if someone wished to investigate, there was a high probability they would overlook that "meeting" at the Augurev Fortress. After all, a resume generally only recorded that so-and-so took an exam in such-and-such a month of such-and-such a year and achieved a certain rank; it would hardly list the exam questions as well.

Yet Kalen dared not gamble. To be precise, he refused to bear that risk. He dared not assume those who wished to investigate this matter were too foolish; one could not naively hope that all future adversaries would be as inept as Vicole.

In fact... someone like Bishop Burne would probably go so far as to inspect the exam questions.

Therefore, it was far better to bring the matter to light openly and generously; the finest way to keep a secret was to place it under the sun.

Before being transported here, Loya had received an official document that roughly informed her of why she was summoned.

At this moment, Loya proved very astute. She instantly grasped the underlying meaning in Kalen’s words, for she had met Inquisitor Pavaro and knew clearly that he had been in an "awakened" state at that time—which meant he was a "dead man."

Logically speaking, after that night concluded, Inquisitor Pavaro should have died; how could he have survived until the time Kalen met her again at the Augurev Fortress?

Thus, Loya immediately inquired:

"Where is Inquisitor Pavaro? He was an upright and excellent believer of Order. In him, I beheld the true Light of Order. Is he not here?"

Kalen’s countenance darkened as he closed his eyes, replying:

"He is dead."

"Dead?"

Kalen turned his head, looking toward Vicole who stood inside the cage, and raised his hand to point at him once more, saying:

"While Inquisitor Pavaro was investigating his criminal acts, he silenced him."

Loya’s gaze fell upon Vicole, and this time, a biting frost manifested within the eyes of the artifact spirit.

This was neither pretense nor acting. She held a genuine reverence for Inquisitor Pavaro; had it not been for his persistent investigation, her elder sisters would likely still be suffering in that pigsty-like place, or perhaps several generations of sisters would have already been replaced.

"Did you kill Inquisitor Pavaro?"

Vicole’s face was entirely blank. He truly could not conceive that Kalen had actually summoned a divine artifact into the tribunal!

By now, he had begun to sense an emotion known as despair. He was foolish, but he was not an idiot.

An idiot would still hop and skip happily while being consumed by fire; a fool, though walking into the ring of fire of his own accord, would still wail in agony when scorched.

He had already perceived that an immense crisis was grinding down upon him, and in the face of this peril, his family lineage could no longer shield him as it once had.

"No, no, no! He is framing me, he is framing me! I didn't kill Pavaro, I didn't kill him, I really didn't kill him!"

With matters progressing to this stage, the situation had become starkly clear.

It could even be said that the moment the spirit of the Source of Sin appeared and spoke directly to Kalen to acknowledge their acquaintance, Vicole had already lost.

Because Kalen had previously claimed that he and Inquisitor Pavaro were at that sausage factory that night, and Vicole had also claimed he was there as well, both sides denied each other's presence. When one side obtained ironclad proof, the other side was inevitably lying.

And once proven to be lying, it meant the charge of "stealing Pavaro’s credit" was established.

The consequence of this first point being established meant that the third charge—murdering Pavaro to silence him—now possessed a natural motive.

Then the second charge, wedged in the middle, initiated by Pavaro's investigation and verified by his suicide note, became truer than truth itself.

In reality, the second charge was the only one entirely true, without a single drop of falsehood.

The third charge was completely fabricated;

The first charge, because what Vicole had encountered was someone wearing Pavaro’s mask, was half-true and half-false.

Yet the issue was that the truest charge was the hardest to substantiate, which was the ultimate irony.

To put it plainly, the essence of this trial had departed from the realm of judicial process from the very beginning. Therefore, even if Kalen possessed a moral fetishism and insisted on clinging blindly to procedural justice, he would have been doomed to lose this trial.

Or rather, he would never have been appointed to this position by the authorities in the first place.

Kalen harbored no psychological burden regarding his own design, for in his view: the purpose of procedural justice was to avoid wronging a good person as much as possible, not to stand helpless before an explicitly wicked one.

Nevertheless, Kalen proceeded to guide Loya further; he could not allow Loya to improvise freely just to help him. He needed to signal to her that it was time to conclude.

"Princess Loya, he claims that on that night, he was there, fighting against Qihe and thwarting Qihe’s conspiracy.

Permit me to ask, Your Highness,

Do you know him?"

"I do not know him."

"Have you ever seen him?"

"I have never seen him."

"Do you validate the words he has spoken?"

"I do not."

Very well. Kalen stood up and adjusted his divine robes.

This was enough; one could not overdo it, for overdoing it invited complications. This juncture was the finest.

Even if someone came to suspect his relationship with Loya, they would uncover nothing based on this sliver of suspicion alone.

Chief Inquisitor Gaspolet cleared her throat, and manipulating her leather whip, let it crack softly.

Then, she spoke and asked: "The Source of Evil."

Loya turned her head, looked at the Chief Inquisitor, and said:

"My name is Loya."

Brother Karen had told her that she was the purest existence in this world, so she thoroughly disliked her name, "The Source of Evil";

it felt exactly like blaming a girl for being too beautiful when an assault occurred.

The Chief Inquisitor took a deep breath; well, she was not angry, for who could complain when this artifact spirit was currently standing on her side?

She possessed extensive judicial experience, yet this was the first time she enjoyed the privilege of inviting a divine artifact to serve as physical evidence, and she even found this artifact spirit to be somewhat endearing.

"Loya, in the name of the Tribunal, I ask you: can you hold yourself accountable for the testimony you have just provided?"

Loya raised her hand and declared solemnly:

"I swear in the name of the God of Lachesis that everything I said previously is the absolute truth."

To have the spirit of a divine artifact swear in the name of its own master god—this was a standard of immense weight.

Jaspor looked toward Bishop Bourne and asked: "Does the defense counsel for the accused wish to challenge this physical evidence?"

The word "challenge" here meant to raise objections.

Bishop Bourne shook his head and replied quite decisively: "Our side accepts this physical evidence."

When a divine artifact itself had appeared to testify in person, how could one possibly argue further?

Even if one wanted to steer the narrative or sway public opinion, forcing it would be futile and would only turn oneself into a laughingstock.

"Does the defense counsel for the accused continue to harbor doubts regarding the first charge: 'The accused stole Inquisitor Pavaro's credit in the Cich case'?"

Bishop Bourne shook his head and continued to reply very decisively: "No doubts."

This was not a secular trial, but a trial within the Holy Church; while it was true that Bishop Bourne was Vicolai's defense counsel, he was not a lawyer bound by professional ethics.

Jaspor continued to question:

"Does the defense counsel for the accused harbor doubts regarding the third charge: 'The accused murdered Inquisitor Pavaro to silence him'?"

Bishop Bourne hesitated slightly; he genuinely felt that this particular charge did not quite seem like the truth.

After Karen moved into Pavaro's home, Pavaro was frequently away, and although the reason given by Karen was that Pavaro was too upright to owe anyone favors and thus went everywhere accepting missions to repay Karen's points... if he truly wished to show gratitude, there were clearly more sensible ways to do so.

As Karen's status and position gradually elevated, wouldn't it have been better to just help Karen run errands and accept tasks directly from him, rather than constantly taking missions from strangers outside and never returning home?

Furthermore, as for this silencing... the corpse had also been disposed of altogether too "cleanly."

Was that truly necessary? After killing someone, wouldn't it suffice to perform an "Order Purification" on the corpse so that he could never be "Awakened"?

Therefore, it was highly probable that the body simply could not be allowed to appear.

This inevitably sparked another conjecture in Bishop Bourne's mind; he suspected that Pavaro had actually been gone for a long time.

As for the "Pavaro" who appeared afterward, it was highly likely not the real Inquisitor Pavaro, as there were far too many ways to realistically "impersonate" a person.

This hypothesis had already crossed his mind while reviewing the case files before the trial, but he had not mentioned it to the other bishops, keeping it solely to himself.