13 Mink Street

Given a choice, the Psyen would not stay here. It would flee. Even though it knew full well that the consequence of refusing to cooperate with this selection would cause the ward embedded inside its body to activate, causing it to instantly collapse.

All of the illusion demons that had appeared earlier had actually had wards embedded within them as well. These wards were connected to arrays in the square, and each barrier isolating a squad had an individual array master responsible for it. An illusion demon that defeated a squad could win its freedom. An illusion demon that refused to cooperate would be executed on the spot. Each array master was allowed to judge on their own whether the squad within the barrier they were responsible for had lost all chances of winning, and end things early. The illusion demon would then be restrained by the array to avoid even further casualties.

In principle, the Psyen’s spiritual domain, which was to say its soul blessing, caused the soul to “boil,” thereby strengthening the target’s soul wall in an extremely realistic manner within a “false” state. The creature itself did not transmit any soul energy, but merely served as a catalyst. However, this particular catalyst had been firmly imprisoned within the reaction it had triggered.

The Psyen would rather die right now than continue. There were some things in this world that were more terrifying than death. Especially the scene that it was currently witnessing. Was this something it could be allowed to see?

Damn it! I entered this trial and helped your Church of Order to conduct this selection exam because I wanted to obtain freedom. But, do you people yourselves even know who you are examining? No, do you even need to select him?

***

“These are all fake. Fake. This is... an illusion.” Karon gradually emerged from his initial panic. He had far too much experience dealing with illusions, and also had enough means that he could rely on when facing attacks that targeted the soul. However, when Karon gradually regained clarity and his self-awareness returned, the illusion did not dissipate, nor did he wake up. Instead, the environment that surrounded him proceeded to expand farther and farther while growing even more detailed.

Was the illusion being strengthened? That was the only thing that Karon could guess, because Ashley had provided very little information about Psyens. On top of that, the organizers had used a nearly shameless method in allowing the Psyens to ambush every squad the moment the illusion demons had appeared. There had been no process of establishing contact or growing familiar with the creatures at all. Therefore, Karon had not yet realized that the illusion he found himself in was actually a prison that he had built for himself. The noose was already looped around his neck, yet it was his own hands gripping the rope. The clearer his mind became, the tighter the noose drew around his neck.

The world began to tilt before his eyes. Karon instinctively tried to maintain his balance, only to discover that it was simply impossible. The tilting world forcibly shifted his center of gravity, and he fell backward.

Bang! Only when the back of his head smashed against the ground did Karon finally understand. It was not the world that had tilted, but rather, in his own perception, everything had flipped over. It had been a very, very long time since he had felt so weak. Even when he had overdrawn his spirituality, he had never been this feeble.

“Karon, Karon?”

Hmm? Karon opened his eyes and discovered that he was lying on a bed. Beside the bed, there were many people both sitting and standing.

“Oh, thank heavens! Karon, you finally woke up!” Aunt Winnie wept with joy.

Aunt Mary smiled, only for her expression to fall once again. But she very quickly forced the smile back.

Mason patted his own chest and said, “My nephew has woken up, haha.”

“Karon?” Mina, Lent, and Clarice stared at Karon curiously.

“Uncle... Aunt... Auntie...” Karon sat up on the bed. The expressions of the people surrounding him were all so genuine. This warm sense of family was also so delicate. But... it seemed like something was missing.

What is missing? Karon could not resist placing a hand to his head. Just what is missing?

“Karon, you’re worrying me. Are you still feeling unwell?” Mason asked with concern.

Karon endured the tearing sensation inside his own head and laboriously lifted it. His eyes swept over the faces of everyone beside his bed once more. They’re all here. Who is missing?

“Karon, you’ve only just recovered from your illness. Come, lie down and rest a bit more.” Aunt Winnie reached over and placed a hand on Karon’s shoulder, gently pressing him back down. His body slowly relaxed, and he laid back. Yes, I just recovered from my illness. I need to rest.

“Be good, Karon. Rest a little more. Sleep a little longer, and you’ll feel much better,” Mason said.

That’s right. I’ll be fine after I sleep.

The back of his head rested against the soft pillow, and a comfortable, pleasant feeling immediately surged forth. But just as Karon was about to close his eyes, his expression suddenly turned solemn, and his eyes snapped completely open. “Someone’s missing.”

He pressed his hands to the bed and tried to force himself back up into a sitting position.

“Karon, you need to rest,” Mason protested.

“That’s right. Sleep a little more. It’s good for your body,” Aunt Mary said.

“Listen to us, Karon. Be good,” Aunt Winnie coaxed.

“Karon, rest properly. Once you’ve rested enough, you can play with us again,” his younger cousins also began persuading him.

“Someone’s missing!” Karon glared as he squeezed the words out his throat once more. At that moment, Mason, Aunt Mary, Aunt Winnie, and his younger cousins all reached out and pressed their hands against Karon, trying to push him back onto the bed.

“Someone’s missing!!!” Karon let out a low roar, then forcefully shoved away the hands on his body. He rolled off the bed, then crawled and scrambled toward the bedroom door. The instant he stood up, Karon shut the door, pressed his back against it, lowered his head, and began panting heavily.

“This is a dream. It’s not real...” The voice started rising in his heart, and Karon began repeating it quietly. There was no longer any sound from the bedroom behind him. It had gone completely silent.

Karon looked down at the floor and gritted his teeth, confusion showing in his eyes. Was this illusion really that powerful? All his past experience and composure with soul-type attacks failed him this time. He was clearly still resolute, so why did he feel more and more like a white mouse trapped in a glass tank, scurrying about in panic?

Karon raised his head and looked over at the ledge of the third-floor window in front of him. There was someone lying there, someone who looked exactly the same as him. His face was haggard and his expression was numb. He just lay there, sunlight streaming in and shining down on him. It did not bring him the slightest vitality. Instead, it looked more like it was draping a pallor of death over him. His eyes dully stared upward. On the ceiling above lay two figures; one man and one woman. Darkness continuously flowed out from their bodies, as if they were still bleeding.

“Why am I seeing you?” Karon reached out and pressed his forehead. The groggy, heavy sensation he had just dispersed assaulted him once more.

The person lying on the window ledge turned his head to look at Karon. He smiled, revealing a row of white teeth. At the same time, a terrifying wound appeared on his chest, where his heart should have been. It revealed emptiness.

“I’m useless. I’m trash. I’m useless. I’m trash...” He repeated these words. Karon took a deep breath and maintained his balance. An illusion. It’s still an illusion! The best way to break an illusion is to look straight at it, face it, and conquer it!

Karon walked toward the window ledge. The person lying there stopped the murmuring he had been repeating and shouted, “So he killed me, emptied out my body, and made room for you so that you could move in!”

Karon’s footsteps froze.

“That is why I died! This is the reason I died! Because he wanted you to come, so I died. He’s the one who killed me, and I was killed because of your arrival!”

“No... it wasn’t like that.” Karon’s heart abruptly jolted. He could not let himself be drawn into this rhythm. “He loves you. He loves your parents. He...”

Karon continued somewhat blankly, “Who is ‘he’?”

The person on the window ledge began laughing again. The laughter irritated Karon. At this moment, the window opened. He stood on the ledge, facing the open window with his back to Karon as he said, “Push me down! Push me out of this home, and this home will be yours.”

Karon stretched out both hands and walked towards the window, but just as his hands were about to touch the back of the person on the window ledge, Karon stopped. He took a deep breath and slapped his own forehead, hard. He then turned around and walked away.

When he reached the door to the study, Karon stopped. This room gave him a special feeling, as if as long as he pushed the door open, all of his questions would be resolved. Karon reached for the doorknob, turned it, and pushed the door open. Behind the desk in the room sat an old man. The old man sat there properly, looking at Karon.

“Grandpa...” At this moment, Karon finally realized who had been missing from beside the bed earlier. It was Tiz. Tiz had not been beside the bed!

“I’m tired,” Tiz stated. “I will find a reason to sleep for a while. Once you have truly matured, I will wake again and take what I want from your hands.”

Hearing this, Karon inhaled sharply. The grogginess returned to his head, though it was several times stronger than before.

“Don’t worry. I will always be watching you. Your every move is under my gaze. If you don’t believe me, look behind you.”

Karon turned around and saw Tiz’s phantom behind him. It was his family faith system.

Tiz continued, “See? In order to keep watch over you, I performed the blood sacrifice ritual.”

“It wasn’t like that...” Karon clenched his fists and began striking his own head. He wanted to make himself clear-headed again. He hated this illusion to the core.

“How could there possibly be love without reason in this world? Who are you? You know very well in your heart. How could I be loving toward you simply because you occupied my grandson’s body? Heh, so it turns out that you are this naive and childish?”

As Karon continued hitting his own head, he growled, “If you create this kind of illusion for me, I will kill you. I will kill you! Psyen, I will kill you!

“You should face your own heart. Have you truly never doubted some things? Have you never thought about them?”

Karon raised his head. His expression was savage, yet his gaze had once again become clear. “Do you know something? If Tiz really wants it, I am willing to give it to him myself. Even if this is a dream, I am willing to keep dreaming.”

“See? You have doubted it, haven’t you? It is just that your emotions overpowered your rationality.” Tiz stood up and looked at Karon. “You should face your own heart.”

“Heh...” Karon laughed out loud. He backed out of the study and shut the study door with a bang. Staggering to the staircase, he saw a black cat sitting on the handrail.

The black cat said, “Karon, do you know something? The Allen family’s plan never actually failed. I, Poelle, am the one who has truly been carrying it out. How could those fools possibly understand how to use this finger? I will find the most suitable master for it. No, what master could be more suitable than its original owner? When the time comes, I will have a reason to form a symbiosis with you. I will transcend the limits of Progenitor Allen’s lineage faith system, this damned lineage faith system that has kept a genius like me in chains! I will choose the woman with the finest bloodline talent among my clansmen and have her marry you, then bear your bloodline. That way, the Allens will receive your gift in both flesh and soul. What is a brief silence worth? Under my arrangement, the Allen family will eventually achieve true glory. The Allens of the future will have the right to stand as equals even before the church!”

Karon began to flee. That groggy feeling had returned again. But at this moment, a cat’s tail jabbed toward him. Immediately after that, a pure white finger pressed against his forehead.

“Order... Show yourself!”

Bang! Karon instantly fell into dizziness, and his entire body rolled down the stairs.

Before he could crawl back up, a golden retriever came over and licked his hand. “I have already waited for you for so long according to our agreement. This time, you absolutely must not abandon me again. I still need you to help me bring my Mios back. You won’t deceive me again, will you?”

Karon instinctively raised his foot, wanting to kick the dog away, but he again stopped himself halfway. He climbed up, holding the railing of the stairs with both hands. Struggling, he continued downwards. He wanted to leave this place. He had to leave this place! This place was filled with absurdity and oppression.

Yet what tormented Karon the most was that he could regain clarity again and again, but was still unable to exert any influence over his surroundings. Meanwhile, his surroundings could always deliver the most direct impact to him. When Karon reached the first-floor stairwell, he saw an old man sitting beside the coffee table. The old man was drinking tea.

“Mr. Hoffe- Grandpa Hoffen?”

Mr. Hoffen looked at Karon and smiled. “My dear friend Tiz is such an outstanding man. He should not have spent his life in such quiet frustration. In my eyes, he should be standing at the brightest height. That is why I summoned you for him. You need to work hard. Hurry up and mature, then become the stepping stone for his ascension to godhood. Hehehe...”

That heavy, muddled sensation swept over him again. Karon could only cling tightly to the railing to hold on to the last shreds of his balance, only to fail. He lost control of his body and slid down. Once his back landed on the carpet, he struggled to turn his head. There, on the mortuary platform that had originally stood in the mourning hall on the first floor of the Immers’ home, there was no coffin. Instead, there was the Throne of Order.

“Come here. Come here. This is the seat you should occupy. This place has always belonged to you, Karon. You are me, and I am you. I must return before they do. I must block their road back. I must create a world where I am the only god. I must make Order the sole standard by which this world is measured! Forget those memories. Give up those struggles. They are only a little dust this gem gathered after being left too long. Blow on it, and it will be clean again. Perhaps it was because I fell asleep and had a few dreams. I dreamed many stories and many identities, and the identity you remember is nothing more than the last small dream I had before waking. Yet you, laughably, took that dream for reality. Karon, you are me. You are Order. You are the one worshiped by the Church of Order... the God of Order!”

Karon clutched his head with both hands as a powerful urge to give up surged up within him. This damned illusion was so base! Yet it was precisely this baseness that ran him over again and again, crushing him until he lost the strength to fight back. It crushed him until despair began to take hold, crushed him until he wanted to lower his head. The carpet was so soft... He wanted so badly to just lie there forever.

Karon knew very clearly that the Mason and the others he had encountered earlier, “Karon,” Tiz, Pu’er, Kevin, Mr. Hoffen, and the throne were all fake. Yet the more aware of that truth he was, the clearer that everything became, and the more intense the pain he suffered. This was not simple pain. It was as though he were gripping his own neck with all his strength. The clearer his mind became, the harder he choked himself. This paradoxical tearing and distortion plunged Karon into a bottomless despair.

Sleep.

He would stop resisting.

At this moment, a faint sound came from the basement. Karon slowly opened his eyes. He wanted to pretend that he had not heard it, but that sound continued. It was still faint and indistinct, yet it made his consciousness buzz, which prevented him from falling asleep. Slowly, Karon turned over. He wanted to stand, only to discover it was currently impossible for him to do so. Having no other choice, he could only crawl, crawl to the basement. He wanted to go turn off that sound, just like turning off the light in the basement.

Finally, Karon crawled to the corner. His body tipped to one side, and he rolled down the slope leading to the basement. After stumbling and dragging himself along for he knew not how long, Karon finally reached the basement corridor. The voice was coming from Aunt Mary’s workroom, and the door was closed.

“Stop. I’m tired. Stop it. Stop. Don’t disturb me anymore. Don’t you dare disturb me again...” Karon crawled toward it, shouting in a hoarse voice. “Stop it. Please, stop. Your voice is making me uncomfortable.”

Karon slowly pushed himself into a crouch. “I don’t want to hear your voice. I want quiet. I need quiet!”

Karon slowly stood up. “What are you saying?”

Karon reached the workroom door. From inside came the sound of prayer. “You are the great god, the embodiment of the highest truth in this world;

“Permit me to praise you, for you lit a lamp for me in the darkness;

“Permit me to sing of you, for you washed away all the dust upon me;

“Permit me to follow you, for you deliberately left footprints behind for me;

“I shall forever bathe in your radiance. I shall forever bear your will. I shall forever keep your oath;

“Praise be to you, my god, my lord, my heaven and earth, my... Young Master.”

Karon pushed the door open. “Alfred...”