Chapter 554: Master of Deception

Chapter 554: Master of Deception

Cullen touched the sandy wall imprisoning him with both hands, his fingertips easily pressing indentations into it; it felt like low-grade seaweed mud.

When he moved his hands away, the indentations vanished; it was dynamic and cyclical, making it somewhat unrealistic to break through by sheer brute force.

Cullen began to ponder other methods, whether it might be a magic array or finding a breach by utilizing the effects produced by alternating multiple elemental attributes.

Spreading his palm, a Rubik's cube appeared and began to spin rapidly, helping Cullen analyze the current situation and search for a way to break the deadlock; this was where the advantage of running a "grocery store" on one's person became apparent—with more attachments, there were more possibilities for combined use.

Torisa's voice had ceased, and silence fell outside the sandy wall.

Judging by his reaction after waking up, he was likely lonely.

This point was very similar to the feeling he had not long ago when he visited Old Saman and Count Recar, and compared to Torisa, how long had those two been "lying down"?

The deduction of the Key of the Cube required more information; whether it was correct or incorrect, it could be deduced either way, but the greatest worry was a lack of information, so after absorbing the previous intelligence, Cullen now prepared to take the initiative in dialogue:

"Have you ever regretted it?" Silence still reigned outside.

Cullen lowered his head, glancing at the rapidly spinning Rubik's cube; it had just deduced twelve methods that could be attempted to break the imprisonment, and was now simulating those twelve methods.

At this moment, Torisa's voice came from outside: "I have regretted it, including now."

Cullen did not rush to take up the conversation; he knew Torisa would continue speaking, as he could not help himself—when it came to manipulating human psychology, Cullen was a professional.

"My Lord, I originally thought that constantly reminiscing and pondering whether a past event was worth it was a very foolish thing; I naively believed I could resist the invasion of all this, but reality slapped me in the face—no, it was many slaps.

"I have no way to deceive myself, and I cannot suppress recalling the past years over and over again; if I hadn't chosen to do that, I should be dead by now—no, I would have died long ago.

"Even if I hadn't died in the mission, my life should have reached its end.

"But at least I could have had a relatively complete experience.

"At first, my eyes held only purposes and results; now, I increasingly realize the preciousness of the process.

"Of course, My Lord, you can regard these words of mine as the complaints of a loser; I believe that with your level and status within the Church, you will not experience the same outcome as me."

Up until now, Cullen actually did not know what Torisa's purpose was in doing this, but he could hear it now—Torisa had likely failed, or at least, it was not the success he had wanted.

"What caused you to fail?"

No, that manner of questioning was too soft; it did not fit his identity and was unfavorable for the subsequent unfolding, as it would place him at a disadvantage.

"Do you know the reason why you failed?"

Still no; although Torisa had been lying there for nearly three hundred years, lying to the point of being somewhat "neurasthenic," it was a pity that he had not been driven mad by imprisonment—a hook that was too straight would not catch him.

Neo's "nonsense" had won him a rather good "identity ambiguity," and Cullen felt he should make the most of this point, so Cullen said:

"You were too greedy."

Outside, Torisa responded with a long sigh:

"Yes, I was too greedy; in fact, at the very beginning, my progress was immense—after all, I was not comprehending alone, I was not cultivating alone; almost the entire team was serving me..."

Hearing this, Cullen's eyes suddenly widened, because he finally understood what Torisa's purpose was in doing this.

The pollution after the death of the Sand Evil Spirit had created the current sand pool, which was equivalent to an independent barrier, providing long-term preservation for bodies and souls;

After the death of the Phantom Beast Compacini, Torisa had extracted the origin from his skull, using it to achieve mental control over his subordinates;

The reason why his team members exhibited signs of suppressed thinking was because Torisa, lying inside, had requisitioned their thoughts.

They had spent nearly three hundred years in a muddle, constantly circling around that single loop, and during this time, Torisa had been lying right here, equivalent to one person aggregating the wisdom of the entire team to cultivate.

Those ten people—no, adding his wife Luna, it should be eleven people—were all his sacrificial offerings.

It was truly an unimaginably bizarre method; Cullen thought of it the instant Torisa spoke, but after thinking of it, Cullen's first reaction was: could this possibly succeed?

Intuition told Cullen that it was impossible to succeed.

Because within the Church circles, a law called conservation was also practiced.

Whether it was Dalice or Madam Felser, their method of using curses to concentrate the family's talent upon themselves was actually an internal gathering using blood relations as a bond;

For his own sake, Allen had sacrificed the path of faith of the Inmeris descendants, while also stripping family faith from the Church faith; all of this was the price of paving his own way.

Pu'er, a genius of the Allen family within the family faith system, had been stuck her whole life at the hurdle between the ninth and tenth levels of the family faith system; although she had always been dedicated to horizontal development to broaden her other means, making her strength no longer something that a ninth-level family faith could measure, that hurdle had actually always been limiting her—this was the restriction from the ancestor's realm.

As it stood now, Cullen had truly never seen anyone who could detach from blood relations to perform this kind of transfer and condensation; if he absolutely had to cite an example... then it could only be the Church.

This also well explained why Church faith was higher than family faith.

But what kind of Church faith did Torisa's count as? Moreover, it had nothing to do with family faith; on what basis could he lie here and directly extract his subordinates' "wisdom" to supply himself alone?

Lying there to practice with the wisdom of eleven subordinates would certainly yield many times the result with half the effort, but if this could work, wouldn't geniuses be a bit too worthless?

Had that bunch of lunatics from the Principle Deity Religion never tried a similar method? Couldn't other orthodox deity religions forcibly stack up geniuses like this?

Impossible, absolutely impossible!

Yet Torisa had believed it, and had put it into action; he didn't even feel he had failed, he merely thought he hadn't achieved the best desired effect.

Was it that Torisa was mad?

Cullen began to rethink the current situation; the spinning of the Rubik's cube in his palm had paused for a moment during Cullen's thoughts, and then began to spin again.

"The heart of my faith took root and sprouted; I watched it grow continuously, growing roots and stems, and then branching out—in the past, how difficult a realm that would have been to cross, yet I continuously reached it at a very rapid pace.

"I was already fantasizing about what kind of status I would obtain within the Church when I went out.

"Although I needed to find a way to properly explain the disappearance of myself and my subordinates back then, I felt those were not major problems; the Deity Religion would forgive me when they saw my growth and my current power."

This sentence of Torisa's was correct, because Cullen had "witnessed with his own eyes" in the memory images that the ancestor of the Naton family, relying on an evil path to stretch his lifespan, had finally succeeded in condensing a not-so-healthy fragment of a godhead before the arrival of his life's limit, while simultaneously drawing forth the appearance of the Temple gates to receive him.

If it weren't for his own grandfather appearing to slay him on the spot for revenge, there might now be a Temple Elder surnamed Naton inside the Order Temple.

If Torisa could truly reach that step, then the things he had done before would, in all probability, also be concealed by the Deity Religion.

However, even the evil path taken by that ancestor of the Naton family only extended lifespan, and was not about forcibly stacking realms through devouring and plundering, which meant he believed it was impossible to succeed.

The pollution of the Sand Evil Spirit, the origin of the Phantom Beast Compacini—Cullen admitted these were all very precious, but for the heritage of an orthodox deity religion, they could actually only be considered fair; after all, the number of divine artifacts stored within the sealed spaces of the Order Deity Religion was large enough that they could frequently hold social gatherings.

Therefore, how could you, Torisa, possibly succeed, unless...

When Cullen thought up to this point, the Key of the Cube stopped once more, and then began to spin rapidly in another direction.

"But I soon fell into a bottleneck; no matter how many branches were formed, it delayed in shedding leaves—in truth, I shouldn't have been anxious, because my speed of progress was already astonishing, but humans never know satisfaction.

"I began to grow irritable, I began to grow anxious, I began to lose my composure.

"Then, I made a decision that caused me regret: since the faith of Order delayed in shedding leaves, why shouldn't I try to practice other faiths?

"That should have been an impossible thing; how could a person possess two faiths?

"But when I had this idea, I found I very quickly received feedback; the power of the desert actually appeared within my body—I think this must be the reason why my body and soul were also being imbued by the power of the desert while lying in the sand pool.

"I obtained this opportunity, I possessed such a chance; I was pleasantly surprised, I felt I was a person chosen by heaven!

"Immediately afterward, I almost could not help but begin trying to practice the power of the desert; the speed was fast, very fast—I nearly forgot time, immersed in the pleasure of climbing into this new realm.

"The heart of my desert faith took root, it sprouted, it grew roots and stems, it began to grow rapidly, and finally, it began to branch out!

"I felt I was a genius; I thought there would never again be another person in this world who could master two faith systems like me!

"But,

"The subsequent development made me regret."

As a man who had walked that road, as a humble shopkeeper, Dis spoke:

"They conflicted."

"Yes, your eminence is wise.

One day, out of nowhere, I discovered that the branches of the two plants within me—Order and Desert—had tangled together. They locked and strangled each other, and even their roots became hopelessly entwined.

For a very long time after that, I watched them wither bit by bit, decline step by step, until finally, they slowly succumbed to decay.

I had believed myself a genius capable of forging a new path, and the dual-faith system I took such pride in ended up leading to this very result.

I failed.

I shouldn't have been greedy, your eminence. It was greed that ruined me."

Dis wanted to tell him that greed was not what caused this outcome; the mistake had actually occurred much earlier.

His method was incorrect and unfeasible from the very beginning.

But then another question arose: when Tolisa opened his eyes within the cocoon, he had conducted a mental probe upon him. Though his spiritual shock failed to crush him, and he quickly withdrew due to his misgivings, Dis had indeed felt the immense strength of his spiritual power at that moment—a strength that should far surpass that of Bishop Dolph.

This conflicted with Dis's deduction.

No, that could not be. His deduction should be correct; the man had been wrong from the start.

But why did the previous scene happen then?

Dis lowered his head, and the Key of the Rubik's Cube in his palm stopped once more.

There was no need to keep analyzing how to break the sand wall imprisonment before him. He needed to analyze why the man possessed such immense power when he had clearly been wrong from the very beginning.

As for the method to escape, or even the method to deal with Tolisa, Dis already had it in mind.

The Key of the Rubik's Cube began to rotate again.

"I will not hide it from your eminence... No, I suppose I couldn't anyway. Right now, only two withered branches remain in my body. Over the years, I have tried countless methods to revive them, but all have failed.

I calculated that, for most of the time, I was merely wasting away, completely wasting away.

However, when I wanted to end all of this, I found I had no way to stop the curse here. I had been steeped in it for too long, and I was trapped by the curse of this place.

I originally thought I would be sealed here forever, waiting to completely dissipate one day, but your eminence's arrival has given me new hope.

As long as you are willing to take me in, not only will everything here be yours, but I will also become your most loyal servant. Once outside, I could even search for new methods to try and awaken myself, if any new methods exist..."

Dis pulled his attention back and spoke: "There are."

"Your eminence, you have a method?"

"Yes. A person can indeed possess more than one faith system, just as a holy church can accommodate many sequences, but the premise is that there must be a primary and secondary distinction."

"There must be a primary and secondary distinction..."

"If you want to accommodate other faith systems, then what you must do is regularize it, or them, into Order."

"Regularize them into Order?" Hearing this from Dis, shock immediately washed over Tolisa's face; he was deeply moved.

At that moment, having already harbored no doubts about Dis, he became even more certain of Dis's identity and status. This was because Dis had instantly given a clear pointer to a problem he had pondered for two hundred years, and he had a premonition that Dis's pointer was correct.

The pointer Dis gave was indeed correct, because Dis had succeeded.

Pu'er had warned him long ago that having too many things on him would eventually cause a conflict. But inside the Gate of Reincarnation, when Dis broke through the seal of the Throne of Order, he utilized the Throne's strangulation to complete his own regularization.

Since then, that problem ceased to exist for Dis. Even if he brought in something new in the future, he could personally regularize it.

Yet, what was correct could not be achieved by just anyone, and a mere copy of the experience could not yield the same result. If anyone else tried to penetrate the Throne of Order, they would likely be directly decomposed and absorbed by it. Only Dis, due to his uniqueness, managed to escape with his life, and the success of regularization was a result born of a narrow escape from death.

You, Tolisa, are simply incapable of it. No, you aren't even qualified to speak of it.

"Your eminence, can you teach me?" Thud!

A heavy sound of kneeling came from outside.

This posture served the same purpose as Neo's deliberate, heavy stomping in front of the welcoming corpse earlier—exerting force purposely, terrified that the other party wouldn't hear.

"I will not sign a contract of symbiosis with you. You are not worthy."

"Your eminence..."

"But I can help you recover. I can provide you with specific methods. I can help you... regularize.

Because once you recover, having a slave like you would still be quite valuable to me.

You would be far more useful than that hound of the Light's remnant outside. He truly is a waste."

"Your eminence, are you truly willing to help me?"

"But I have one condition. The condition is not for you to lift the imprisonment now. I admit, this restriction is somewhat interesting, and this clone of mine currently lacks the ability to break it in a short time.

But it is merely a matter of a little more time. Either I send another clone over, or my true deity comes here in person.

My condition is that I must sign a master-servant contract with you, because you, Tolisa, are not qualified to stand on equal footing with me. In fact, signing a master-servant contract with me is an honor for you."

"A master-servant contract..."

Tolisa hesitated. Once the master-servant contract was signed, he would completely become the slave of the great figure inside the sand wall.

He was an ambitious man, an utterly selfish person.

A fellow as selfish and greedy as Neo was never stingy with his teammates, yet this captain could make all his subordinates become his sacrificial burials.

Dis decided to add another spark to him, a truly grand blaze.

"Do you know why I came here? Heh. Though separated by a wall of sand, I know you can see through it from the outside."

Saying this, Dis pressed his left palm against the sand wall, and the Fire of Order appeared, beginning to form traces on the inner side.

Immediately afterward, the power of the Dark Moon manifested, likewise carving its traces on the inner side of the sand wall.

Tolisa's eyes widened instantly, his mouth agape. The great figure inside was demonstrating his success to him!

Dis did not release the power of Light. Instead, he urged the Sea God's Armor and the Gate of Reincarnation from the depths of his soul, pouring in full strength to display the traces of the Sea God's power and the power of Reincarnation.

Tolisa's breathing became incredibly rapid, and his eyes began to turn bloodshot.

A smile touched the corner of Dis's mouth inside. Behind him, the phantom of Karen appeared.

"You must be very curious about my identity. As I said, this is a young clone of mine, which I use to walk and observe the world.

Now, let me show you my true appearance."

Karen's phantom began to move forward, pressing almost flat against the sand wall.

From Tolisa's perspective outside, a human-shaped relief appeared on the sand wall. It was a majestic old man, whose divine robes were revealed with immense clarity, and strands of golden luster could even bleed through the relief.

"You are... an Elder of the Temple!!!"

Dis spoke in an exceedingly calm tone:

"Humble and pitiful Tolisa, become my servant before I change my mind."

To be continued