Chapter 569: Karen Has Gone Home

Chapter 569: Karen Has Returned Home

Kevin spoke.

Karen was not surprised.

In truth, long ago, Karen had harbored doubts—if the cat of his household could speak, why was it that the dog could never manage to do so?

It was understandable if it were impossible at the very beginning, but why, even after two layers of its seals were undone, was it still unable to speak?

This was an evil god after all!

Even if it hadn't been sealed inside the body of a dog, but rather within a maggot, Karen felt that such a maggot would still be capable of speech.

If one reversed the thinking, perhaps the desired answer could be more easily obtained.

Had it spoken, maintaining the image of an "innocent and harmless animal" would have become exceedingly difficult.

Because it knew all too well that its very existence would inevitably keep Karen on his guard, and Alfred's single eye would forever be fixed upon it.

Only by rendering itself seemingly less of a threat would it stand a greater chance of having Karen continue to undo its seals.

In any case, during regular communication, Purr and Alfred could always translate on its behalf, so whether it spoke or not had never truly mattered.

But this time, it spoke.

Because Purr had been captured, and Alfred remained unconscious; no suitable translator could be found here, and the matter of rescuing Purr brooked absolutely no delay.

In reality, Kevin could have gambled. It could have gambled that every time it finished barking, Karen would ask Purr and Alfred what Kevin had said. Yet on many occasions, Kevin harbored a suspicion that even before hearing the translation, Karen seemed to already comprehend its meaning.

There was no reason Alfred could understand its words while his adherent—a genius who had inherited the family belief system of that man named Dis—could fail to grasp the meaning within its barks for so long.

Originally, this tacit understanding might have continued to persist, and none could say for how long, but now, due to this sudden turn of events, it was directly shattered.

Once shattered, everyone remained calm, at least regarding this particular matter.

Karen nodded, wasting no words. Closing his eyes, he began to draw upon the symbiotic contract within his body. Soon, a faint sense of resonance drifted back, which ought to be Purr's current location.

This was a relationship that could not be severed, for the lives of Karen and Purr were bound together; were it not for Purr's current lack of strength, the two sides could virtually be viewed as "each other's clones."

Of course, from a contemporary perspective, the weak Purr had almost become a flaw for Karen, even a fatal weakness.

Yet standing from the perspective of family, none of this was an issue. Moreover, the reason Karen, as a mere divine servant in the early days, had been able to receive the inheritance of Light was precisely due to the transition provided by Purr.

Ogie's figure materialized in the courtyard, her gaze falling upon the golden retriever before her, a look of curiosity surfacing on her face.

She naturally possessed a habit of touching things impulsively; she had previously pinched Philomena's face and touched Karen's cheek, so she very simply bent down and scooped Kevin up into her arms.

The golden retriever, by all accounts a large breed, felt as light and delicate as a teacup dog in her hands.

"Oh, I can feel it. This dog is very interesting, exceptionally interesting, isn't it?"

Ogie extended a single finger to lightly poke Kevin's nose.

Previously, when facing the false Karen, Kevin had cowered because it could not afford to die—it had to survive to pass on the message.

Now, already resting upon a hot pan of raw emotion, how could Kevin possess the frame of mind to engage in flattering, pet-like interactions with someone else?

It bared its teeth directly at Ogie.

A slight smile played upon the corner of Ogie's lips. Exuding a trace of her own aura, she whispered:

"Be good for me."

As she spoke, her finger continued forward.

"Woof!"

Kevin's canine jaws clamped directly onto Ogie's finger, causing her eyes to widen. Naturally, her finger was perfectly fine—far from breaking the skin, not even a mark was left behind.

However, this golden retriever actually remained entirely unaffected beneath the pressure of her aura!

Deep within its heart, Kevin sneered in mockery:

Stupid frost dragon matriarch, I drank no small amount of dragon blood back in my day!

Having finally broken its silence, Kevin's temper had flared up as well.

People were prone to impulse when emotional, and an evil god was no exception. Furthermore, as a former deity, controlling one's emotions had never been a mandatory course—after all, not every god he encountered was the God of Order.

"Lady Ogie, an assassin has taken one of my family members. I have now localized my family member's position. I request your assistance in pursuing and capturing the assassin!"

This was not a request, but rather an official demand for cooperation.

For Karen knew that Ogie would not refuse. She was a noble frost dragon, yet she was, after all, a dragon under the banner of the Church of Order. To be more precise, she was a dragon within the system of the Whip of Order itself.

Ogie loosened her grip, leaving Kevin dangling there, his teeth still clamped tightly onto her finger.

"Kevin!"

Kevin instantly snapped back to awareness, releasing its jaws to drop to the ground before speaking:

"Karen, I have only one requirement of you, and that is that you must bring Purr back safely."

Ignoring Kevin's words, Karen stepped before Ogie.

"Is it far?" Ogie inquired.

"In a corner of the urban district."

"He will flee," Ogie said, pointing toward Philomena. "You should not join us. Your body cannot withstand my frost."

Philomena froze for a moment, but did not argue.

Her style of combat resembled that of an assassin; she did not possess the warrior physique of someone like Muri Ventura.

When they had landed earlier, Karen's body had grown somewhat stiff from the cold, while Philomena had required quite a while to recover her mobility.

Subsequently, Ogie looked at Karen: "My frost seems unable to freeze into your bones?"

Karen offered no explanation, but instead drew out some spell paper, preparing to fold a crow to send word.

Ogie directly reached out and gripped Karen's shoulder: "You point the way, and I will take you to pursue them. Sending word can be done in a much simpler fashion."

The next instant,

A layer of frost once more enveloped Karen, and his entire person soared into the sky.

In midair, Ogie's long hair fluttered wildly. Opening her jaws, she unleashed a low roar!

"Roar!"

This roar could not be perceived by ordinary people, nor would it cause any physical tremors, yet those endowed with spiritual perception could instantly sense it. She believed that following this silent roar, the High Priest's side would certainly receive the message she wished to convey.

The message possessed only two meanings:

Either her skin was itching and she was barking aimlessly, asking to be struck by the whip,

Or she had discovered the tracks of the assassin, and the Whip of Order would surely mobilize the forces of the Church of Order to immediately follow the trail she left behind.

"How about that, isn't it much simpler?" Ogie asked Karen rather triumphantly.

Yet Karen perceived that Purr's position, which had originally come to a halt, began to move rapidly following Ogie's roar, the localization suddenly turning vague.

"Your roar has also alerted the assassin!"

Ogie: "..."

At this moment, Karen finally realized that when Ogie had previously introduced herself as being rather foolish, she truly hadn't been practicing humility.

Then, to make amends, Augie immediately swept Karen away into a desperate, high-speed pursuit.

Karen’s lips were already trembling from the biting cold, yet he never ceased guiding Augie forward.

Though time had been too brief for Kevin to recount the entire ordeal in detail, Karen possessed an underlying intuition that Purr had allowed herself to be captured, entirely certain that he would locate and rescue her.

Indeed, for the young lady who once captained the expeditionary force, she had harbored a thirst for vengeance from the very outset, willingly rendering herself a hostage in the enemy's hands.

Even on the brink of death, Bernard had feared that Purr might uncover the truth and descend upon Dark Moon Island to tear it apart, which clearly illustrated that beneath her slightly chubby, innocent face lay a deeply ruthless and ferocious temperament.

Beneath the vast shroud of the night sky, the curtain rose on this relentless chase.

Augie moved with terrifying swiftness, but the assassin was no laggard either, and Augie faced a critical disadvantage: a pursuer typically concealed their presence to lull the prey into false complacency.

Yet, as Augie cut through the heavens, she resembled a blazing meteor, save for the fact that she burned not with fire, but with a trail of white, crystalline frost.

This effectively heralded her exact coordinates to the fleeing assassin.

The assassin seemed to employ numerous evasive maneuvers, but the profound connection between Karen and Purr remained severed by nothing, rendering all obstructive tactics utterly futile.

Realizing this inevitability, the assassin appeared to abandon all guile, concentrating solely on outright flight.

The two forces engaged in a contest of absolute, near-limit speed, which exponentially compounded the difficulty for any reinforcements trailing behind.

Gradually, they left the confines of York City behind, charting a course toward Sampur.

But the assassin, seemingly aware that maintaining a path between major cities invited a high probability of encirclement, abruptly veered toward the coastline mid-journey.

"His speed has increased again," Karen noted. "He must be using some secret technique to bolster himself. Lord Augie, can you go any faster?"

"Unlikely," Augie replied with characteristic bluntness. "This is the absolute limit of my human form."

"Can you not assume your dragon form?"

"That requires the Whipper-in himself to break my seal. Shall we halt and await him?"

"No, press on."

"Heh, can you even endure this?"

"I won't freeze to death."

"Very well."

"Oh no..." Karen uttered a low groan. "The aura of a formation is fluctuating. He has a teleportation array waiting on the sea!"

"Ah, that complicates things."

Soon, an island—or more accurately, a mere cluster of jagged reefs—loomed within Karen’s sight; the teleportation array had already been triggered, and from afar, Karen witnessed a silhouette vanish into the light.

Augie descended rapidly, just as the single-use array began its inevitable collapse; such escape mechanisms were rarely constructed for permanence, designed to self-destruct to deny enemies any chance of pursuit.

It was over...

Just as Karen watched the array fracture into oblivion, Augie parted her lips and exhaled a dense plume of white mist, instantly freezing the collapsing formation in its tracks.

It was like a crumbling tower miraculously caught and held suspended right before its final impact.

Augie sliced her palm with a sharp fingernail, allowing her white blood to spill onto the runes, and the violently arrested array miraculously flared back to life.

"It will be a turbulent ride. Mind you don't die from the shock!"

With those words, Augie shifted her grip from Karen’s shoulder to a firm, single-handed embrace around his torso, plunging directly into the shimmering vortex.

The teleportation commenced.

It was indisputably the most violent transit Karen had ever endured; his flesh and soul felt as though they were being subjected to a horrific, tearing force.

It mirrored the destabilizing light screens deployed by array ships during the naval battles between the Samsara and the Lunar Deities, where only the reinforced hulls of warships could survive, and any subaquatic beasts had to cling to the vessels to avoid being pulverized.

At this moment, this forcibly sustained, makeshift array was entirely hostile to ordinary human transit.

Possessing a terrifying constitution, Augie naturally withstood the pressure, but

Facing a fixed, entrenched power, the Church of Order was undoubtedly an existence that bred absolute despair—the foot of an elephant, capable of grinding everything beneath it directly into dust. Yet, if the opponent was merely a fly, the room for maneuver became vastly greater.

"No, no, no, it is impossible! I, Valotti, could absolutely never die here!"

Valotti reached out and tore the mask straight from his face, revealing his true features—he was a highly effeminate man, possessed of a mane of flowing, amber-orange hair.

"In truth, my mission is already complete. I have already ignited a spark between the Desert and Order; I could have already gone back to report my success.

I shouldn't have been so greedy. Now, there is a very real chance I might actually throw my own life into the bargain!"

Enfolded within Valotti's embrace, the sand sealing Purr began to unravel step by step. The grains commenced their fall, and Purr regained a fleeting moment of "freedom."

Purr’s eyes flicked to either side, and very quickly, the cat grasped the situation, speaking in a tone laced with mockery:

"What is it? Didn't you say that a work unblessed by the passion of life is not an exceptional one? As expected, when an actual threat to life is felt, the artwork and all the rest cease to matter, and one's own life becomes paramount.

People like you, I have truly seen far too many."

"You are quite right, lovely little kitty. I do not know the reason, but the cause must surely lie with you. Because I am carrying you, that dragon has been able to pinpoint my location with absolute clarity!

I cannot stop, nor can I delay, or else the forces of the Church of Order will surround me in an instant.

Fortunately, going by previous intelligence, though this kingdom falls within the traditional sphere of influence of the Church of Order, it happens to be a vacuum under their control. I can still maintain a fraction of composure."

"A vacuum of power? Where is this place?"

"Rheinland."

"Rheinland???"

Purr lifted its head, gazing up at the starry sky. Having left Vienne, the weather had cleared, revealing a brilliant firmament. Judging by its orientation, the direction they were currently moving toward pointed precisely to...

Meow!!!

"Do you still have the mind to ask about our location? Oh, quite so, you must have realized what I intend to do. Only by killing you can I rid myself of that dragon's pursuit."

As he spoke,

Valotti raised a hand, and a spike of sand coalesced, aiming directly at Purr.

...

Inside an ordinary bedroom,

an old man who had been bedridden for half a year,

slowly lifted a single finger.

---

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