Chapter 675: Betrayal

Chapter 675: Betrayal

The six-winged angel had completely abandoned all resistance; as an artifact created by a god, he was beautiful and exquisite, yet simultaneously fragile.

A believer’s faith in a god requires a process, perhaps originating from family, from missionary work, or from one’s own reflection and cognition;

but angels are a finished product from the very moment of their birth, and their reverence for the divine is innate.

Originally, Karen had thought there would be a duel unfolding within his own soul space, and that he would need to expend a considerable amount of energy to suppress and wear him down, but now it seemed that might not be necessary.

"Are you truly this terrified even when facing the god of a foreign religion?"

The Dharma body of the God of Order was slowly descending, while that angel stood there, continuing to panic, murmuring from his mouth:

"My Lord, please grant me direction..."

"My Lord, please grant me direction..."

Was he praying to the God of the Abyss?

Unless the will of the God of the Abyss was transmitted down, he would not dare to mount any resistance whatsoever when facing the aura of a deity?

A sudden realization dawned in Karen's heart; this was the true status of an angel.

In the mythological narratives of The Light of Order, there were clear records of the Knights of Order repeatedly hunting down evil gods under the divine decree of the God of Order; similar records also appeared in the mythological narratives of other churches, though perhaps not as frequently as in the Church of Order, such as a certain god "committing evil," or because of some other matters, like those regarding "family ethics," ultimately being slain by some human hero; other orthodox churches also had wars against enemy deities in their histories.

But there had never been an angel of any church who went to slay a deity, and there was not even a single record of an engagement, yet logically speaking, angels were actually powerful, and as the god's most loyal servants, they were willing to sacrifice everything for the god's will.

However, because it was God who created them, God could not possibly allow them to commit deicide, otherwise they would no longer be pure, nor holy, and certainly not loyal.

Once their hands were stained with the blood of a deity, perhaps when they turned around to look back at their own god, the look in their eyes... would also undergo a change.

The Dharma body of the God of Order began to crush down, and the body of the six-winged angel began to distort.

The God of the Abyss did not respond to his prayer, so he was waiting to be completely dissolved.

"Fortunately..."

A sense of relief surged within Karen's heart; such a peaceful conclusion should be the best possible outcome for him, and this time he should be able to continue suppressing this hungry addiction.

In Karen's perspective, the hungry addiction was like a mad dog, with himself holding the dog chain in both hands, and his greatest fear was that this mad dog would fall into a riot due to a fight.

However, the development of events once again broke free from Karen's anticipation, not because an accident occurred, nor because some twist appeared, but because it was simply too smooth.

The six-winged angel, who had already been crushed by the Dharma body of the God of Order into a mass of black halo, not only failed to resist, but instead began a self-dissolution, even actively cooperating with the god's suppression of him.

And this initiative was like a fruit being peeled, actively delivering the flesh into your mouth, considerately serving you to swallow it down.

In an instant, a tremor arose within Karen's heart.

The Dharma body of the God of Order halted its stance and ceased to continue the crushing, while the six-winged angel below continuously decomposed into fragments of existence resembling starlight, beginning to seep into the Dharma body.

The devouring had already begun!

And this time, precisely because of that angel's initiative, Karen was not even given the chance to veto it as he had in the past!

With this mad dog, you could either forbid it from eating, but once you let it take a few bites and then tried to carry the dog bowl away, its anger and backlash would inevitably become even more violent!

Karen clenched both hands tightly, raised his head to look up at the Dharma body of the God of Order above, and spoke with great difficulty:

"You are not allowed to eat!"

The Dharma body of the God of Order actually lowered its head at this moment, looking down at Karen below.

For the first time, the Dharma body of the God of Order and Karen were no longer synchronized.

"Buzz!............"

Karen perceived that his consciousness was being crushed; the Dharma body of the God of Order was looking at him, but in reality, it was not him, but rather a coldness of unknown origin yet real existence, flowing slowly above his head, beneath his feet, and before his eyes.

It did not try to coerce you, yet you could not help but want to follow, to merge into it.

Even if you stood by the riverbank abusing and cursing it over and over again, it would not grant you any real response, and this disregard was the ultimate disdain.

The luster faded from Karen's eyes, and in an instant, too many negative emotions flooded into his consciousness:

Who do you think you are?

Do you think you can stop this?

Do you think you are truly capable of doing this?

An intense negation was breaking down Karen's heart layer by layer.

In fact, Karen had always been very clear that what he was fighting against was not a pure hungry addiction, but rather the manifestation of a rule of order; when you choose to walk down this path, the scenery along the road is yours to appreciate, while at the same time, your body will inevitably be stained with its dust.

"Ugh..."

Karen knelt down and opened his mouth; his current expression was extremely similar to that of the six-winged angel before he fell apart, with the difference being that he was not as exaggerated, nor did he possess as much artistic expression.

But in reality, they were no different.

While you mock the angel's status of being completely enslaved by a god, are you yourself not also a slave originating from the rules?

A vortex appeared beside Karen, like an opened giant maw, preparing to swallow him down.

Karen began to be pulled, began to be sucked in, began to fall;

crack after crack appeared on his skin, and his ears caught the dense, crisp sound of dragonfly wings snapping.

It was highly probable that in the very next instant, Karen would fall apart.

It truly resembled the scene of that classic mural, except the protagonist had changed from Ankara to himself.

Karen reached out his hand, as if wanting to grasp onto something, yet he could grasp nothing.

He began to call out in his heart:

"Light..."

The light did not appear.

"Dark Moon..."

The dark moon did not appear.

"Scythe of War..."

The scythe did not appear.

"Grandfather..."

Dis did not appear either.

Only a single Thousand Charms timidly poked its head out, looking at the vortex below, then looking up at that majestic Dharma body of the God of Order above; for a moment, it did not know which one was the real Karen.

There was no response, the sinking continued, and the fire of hope was gradually growing faint.

For Karen, all perception seemed to have returned to the moment he had just awakened in this world, entering Mrs. Molly's "dreamscape," where Mrs. Molly opened her huge mouth, wanting to swallow him whole.

But that was a dream, and a dream can ultimately be awakened from, whereas now...

Color reconverged within Karen's originally hollow eye sockets; why couldn't this also be treated as a dream.

This is my soul,

this is my territory,

this is my life!

His descending figure gradually slowed, and Karen’s body stood upright.

“A few more things have been added to me, and a few things have been forgotten. In this world, there has never been any savior.”

As Karen spoke, he slowly raised his head, looking up at that dharma body looming far above:

“I can forfeit any extravagant hope of being saved, but at the very least, I am capable of achieving destruction!”

“Boom!”

The vortex began to float upward, and the sunken Karen returned to his original position. Standing upon the ground, he gazed up at that colossal dharma body, which returned his stare with an equally calm gaze.

“For instance… by abandoning the path of Order, I can convert to other faiths.”

When these words were uttered, the entire soul space suddenly shuddered.

The two entities, vastly disparate in scale, continued their mutual gaze.

Karen placed his finger against the center of his brow:

“For instance, I could convert to Light…”

An aura of purification began to manifest. In reality, Karen stood there as a faint, barely perceptible luster flickered across his form; because his body was simply too “clean,” the process of purification could be bypassed, and what came next was the stage of becoming a divine servant.

“Buzz!”

The dharma body of the God of Light finally appeared, descending behind Karen, as if welcoming the birth of a brand-new servant of light.

“I could convert to the Dark Moon…”

“Buzz!”

The dharma body of the Goddess of the Dark Moon also manifested, descending to Karen’s left. Although the Dark Moon Island worshiped the Dark Moon, its inheritance had in fact been severed, and the visage of the Goddess of the Dark Moon was unknown to all. If Karen wished, he could become her most complete believer and re-establish the Dark Moon Church.

“I could also return to the family’s belief system…”

The figure of Dis appeared, standing to Karen’s right.

To protect this grandson of his, Dis had used a blood sacrifice ritual to strip the path of faith away from the church system, which was actually another way out for Karen.

No matter the time, the door to return home would forever be open to him.

In the corner, Qianmei turned its head to look at the First Ancestor, Alan, who stood there serenely.

Well, this has nothing to do with you.

Qianmei suddenly felt a tinge of joy, but soon sank into sadness again; it seemed this had nothing to do with itself either.

“I can sense your indifference. I am merely that dog woven from straw, yet I can choose to close my eyes. That way, even if the sky and earth still exist, at least for me, they are gone!

This question,

I leave to you to tell me how to choose!”

The dharma body of the God of Order still towered there, head still lowered, locking eyes with Karen.

Karen was waiting for him to make a choice, which was, in truth, also waiting to make his own.

Over this past period of time, many things had occurred in the York City Region, and Karen had narrowly escaped danger time and again, yet the true crisis resided deep within his own soul.

In the eyes of outsiders, in the eyes of Grandmother and Delon, he was a young man so excellent he couldn't be any more excellent, possessing unimaginable talent. Yet if Dis’s influence and his own factors were stripped from these talents, a massive portion of them… came from the crisis he had been forced to face eternally ever since his awakening.

For ten years, Neo did not know who “he” was, which was a high level of mental torment ordinary people could not comprehend;

For Karen, every emergence of the starvation addiction was an erasure of his own existence.

It bestowed upon him the miraculous Chains of Order, allowing him to possess the ability to “awaken” corpses before even becoming a priest. It allowed him to be perceived time and again as the reincarnation of the “God of Order,” to the point that even Ankara’s mental brand would mistake him for her father.

Was this luck?

But beneath such luck, what was required was not the self named “Karen.”

“Ranedal, back then it wasn’t that you failed to snatch me from it, but that you failed to snatch me from *it*. In fact, even I am an object it intends to squeeze out.”

Within Karen’s mind, a Throne of Order emerged, and seated upon that throne was the silhouette of the God of Order.

God of Order, I know you once thought of many methods to excise the influence of the starvation addiction upon yourself;

I originally thought that both you and I were fighting for the independence of our own personas;

It turns out,

We were both merely trying to allow ourselves to continue existing…

“Crack!”

A sudden explosive sound rang out, and the [Scythe of War], which had been trapped in a bizarre silence earlier, flew out. Bearing an indescribable, indistinct excitement, it slashed down toward Karen.

Karen instinctively reached out his hand, but his “hand” was too small, so small that compared to that gargantuan [Scythe of War], it was completely disproportionate.

Yet the [Scythe of War] was still gripped tightly, gripped by a colossal hand. That dharma body of the God of Order had once again executed the exact same movement as Karen.

The scythe began to struggle in dissatisfaction, yearning to destroy and cleave.

Karen turned his head to look at it,

And the dharma body of the God of Order also turned its head to look at it.

The two hands gripped tighter and tighter, venting a certain unwillingness and rage together in perfect unison.

The scythe could only passively endure it all, and along with the appearance of one Chain of Order after another wrapping around it, it seemed to discover in horror that it was actually being “ordered.”

Karen raised his head once more to look at the dharma body of the God of Order. The dharma body no longer met Karen’s gaze, choosing instead to replicate the motion of looking up.

Have you,

Conceded?

A smile appeared on Karen’s face, though it was not the

It had been broken from the start, retaining only that fragile spark of life, meticulously nurtured by the Abyss like a candle's flickering flame sheltered from the wind.

Now, that flame suddenly guttered out.

The angel's body began its slow descent back into a deathly stillness.

"What happened?"

"Has something altered within the angel's form?"

"Should we inspect it? Something is wrong!"

"Who could possibly evade the influence of the Lax copper coin to conduct an inspection? That coin is key to sustaining the angel's physical vitality, but because of that, its powers have been fully unleashed. Anyone who draws near will surely lose their mind!"

...

In the waking world, Karen opened his eyes.

A pinnacle clash of souls had drawn to a close, yet reality remained undisturbed; the female priest of the Abyss had already taken up a towel to wipe the empty space before her, before turning to dry her own hands.

Karen looked up toward the wooden box that still hovered overhead.

It was not yet time to draw the net closed. To strike at this place, the garrison would first need to be deployed; hidden beneath lay a host of high-ranking Abyssal priests, and if they detected any anomaly, a brutal purge would sweep the manor, leaving neither him nor Richard any hope of escape.

Crucially, if the secret were exposed now, the Church of Order would undoubtedly suppress whatever chaos ensued, but unless he controlled the sequence of events himself, the Lax copper coin would never quietly find its way into his possession.

Therefore, the angel could not yet be permitted to die.

Karen opened his palm, and Qianmei materialized, swollen so round it resembled a volleyball.

"Now that you have devoured its soul, you should be able to inhabit its vessel. Follow this thread down, take his place, and play the angel for a few days."

Qianmei gazed up at Karen with deep grievance and profound reluctance, seemingly unwilling to accept the command, loath to leave his side for even a single breath.

Karen watched the theatrical display,

and said:

"I know you are secretly ecstatic. Though the state of it is pitiful, even the weakest soul belongs to an angel, and even the most shattered vessel remains an angelic form.

I am quite certain that once you enter that body, you will choose to betray me."

Qianmei began to shake its head furiously, protesting that such a thing was entirely impossible, and that its loyalty to Karen was the most unshakeable truth in existence.

"I permit the betrayal in your heart. Furthermore, you have three days to consider whether you dare manifest that betrayal in your actions."

Karen tossed Qianmei toward the wooden box. Merging into the wood, it began to glide downward, guided unerringly by the undigested mass of soul energy swelling within its belly, drawing it instinctively back to its rightful place.

At last,

Qianmei dissolved into the angel's flesh, and the fragile flame that had just been snuffed out kindled once more.

From within the angelic vessel arose a silent, spiritual cheer—no, it was a roar of triumph!

It rejoiced in its newfound freedom; it heralded its own rebirth!

From within the Gate of Reincarnation to the world outside, and down to this very moment, it had finally obtained what it had desired above all else.

Empowered by the influence of the Lax copper coin,

this wild ecstasy dissolved into a desperate need for release. Were it not for the heavy layers of seals pressing down from above, it would have seized control of the shattered vessel to soar through the azure skies or plunge into the churning oceans.

And then...

That ecstasy began to curdle into rage:

Whoever dares to enslave me again, I shall devour them whole!

...

"The angel has recovered, and seems even more vital than before!"

"Yes, I feel it too."

"We must have worried in vain. Its condition is improving; if this continues, it won't be long before the angel is fit for transport."

"Indeed, it is far too dangerous to remain here. As soon as its constitution permits, we must escort the angel back to the Holy Land."

"Praise the great God of the Abyss!"

...

Karen settled back into the massage chair and snapped his fingers.

The female priest stifled a yawn and took two steps forward. "Mr. Richard, your bath is prepared. It is time for your massage."

Karen nodded and closed his eyes, slipping back into the perspective of the illusion. The beautiful elven maiden fluttered behind him, her hands resting upon his shoulders to begin her soothing ministrations.

Exceedingly weary, he intended to lose himself completely in the comforting rhythm of her touch.

As for Qianmei, whom he had dispatched into the angelic vessel, it was likely exulting in its freedom at this very moment.

Let it rejoice a little longer.

Perhaps it had forgotten whose command that Lax copper coin truly obeyed.