“Order, show yourself!”

The moment the voice fell, everything seemed to be pressed by an invisible pause.

The golden retriever beneath the chair froze in place, its eyes growing dull, its expression weak and helpless. At this moment, there was no longer any need to distinguish whether it was Kevin or Rhanedar, because it made no difference if it was a dog or a heretical god.

Pu’er was also frozen, though a faint hint of life still circulated in her eyes. However, the truth was that her inner world was already erupting in violent turmoil.

Meow!!! This has gone completely out of control!!!

Pu’er had long prepared herself mentally, or else she would never have decided to take out the finger of the God of Light she had sealed with her own body, yet what she was seeing happen completely failed to match any scenario she had imagined.

In her original plan, Karon would merely be a young noble sitting quietly at home, while the stupid dog would be nothing more than a punching bag, wearing a red flower, picking its nose, swaying its body while shouting, “Come hit me! Come hit me!”

Honestly, the mere presence of the stupid dog was already an extravagant luxury, as not even direct heirs the orthodox churches purified, nor even those who had been practically confirmed to be reincarnations of gods would ever place a sealed heretical god beside them to serve as a decorative trinket during purification.

And yet, Pu’er had felt that not even this was enough, because she had the conditions to do even better. She was fully aware of how terrifying this thing was and the dreadful chain reactions it might trigger. If not, she would never have taken it away from her family in the first place, especially since the Church of Light had already been destroyed.

Every major orthodox church and even every mid-tier church still in existence had played some role in the fall of the Church of Light. Almost none had remained innocent.

As a result, all holy relics related to the God of Light, as well as any person or matter that could potentially lead to the Church of Light’s revival, were considered taboo throughout the entire ecclesiastical sphere.

No church would ever permit the revival of the Church of Light, as the revival of a faith often also led to the return of a god.

There were rumors that the fall of the God of Light and the destruction of the Church of Light had not merely been the result of decisions made by the human churches, but also the result of a tacit consensus between gods.

The God of Light, who had left behind abundant deeds spanning three epochs, had once been a pillar of the divine system, and only a thoroughly fallen God of Light was a God of Light worthy of respect.

That was why, when Pu’er had discovered that her family was actually attempting to use the god’s finger to transform the family’s belief system, she had been so shocked and terrified that she had been frozen in place for a long time.

Tiz had once mentioned that Pu’er was the finest holy relic in all of Swillen, and that was because he knew exactly what she had removed from the Allen family.

A holy relic, as the name implied, was an object tainted with holy aura, or directly imbued with a god’s aura. The question then became how many holy relics could surpass a piece of a god’s own body in terms of the holy aura it could possess.

Karon’s body had been modified by a heretical god, and after the blood sacrifice ritual, he had become the sole heir of the Immers family’s spiritual bloodline.

His mysterious descent, which made him an even greater enigma than a heretical god, was yet another objective factor.

However, what truly incited Pu’er’s decision to proceed in the manner she had chosen was primarily due to a subjective factor: Tiz’s choice.

Tiz himself had not said no, which meant that it was acceptable.

Trusting Tiz’s judgment, Pu’er’s heart steadied. She believed that what she was about to attempt was something truly unprecedented. She intended to create, within the history of the Church of Order, no, within the entire history of the churches, a Divine Servant with an unprecedented foundation, leading to an unprecedented terror.

Even so, what she saw at this moment made her hesitate. Tiz, something is wrong.

If Rhanedar had only been meant as an attraction at the door, then the fragment of the God of Light, which should have remained as nothing more than a bit of pastry on a platter, had just been elevated to the main course, directly summoning the God of Order.

Great Church of Principle, supreme Church of Principle, your research and judgments must be correct. Pu’er could only repeat this to herself, because she was genuinely afraid that, given the extreme stimulation, the God of Order, who should normally be operating in an unconscious, gear-like state, might truly awaken.

If a god truly cast their gaze upon someone, what secrets would they be able to keep?

Pu’er suddenly recalled a passage she had once seen in the archives of the Church of Principle while borrowing Sithe’s identity.

Record of Principle, Divine Exposition, Volume Three, Chapter of Divine Examination: When a god deliberately turns Their gaze upon you, you are like a piece of sugarcane that has already been chewed.

Outside of the performance hall, Alfred stood at the edge of the steps. He silently lit a cigarette, as though he had just sent a relative’s child into an examination hall at a turning point in their life.

However, Alfred felt no nervousness. Even the worst possible outcome for the Young Master would still amount to a perfect score. Besides that, he had not even gone into this examination with the goal of perfection in the first place.

Facing the curtain of rain, Alfred exhaled a smoke ring and felt a quiet sense of anticipation settle in. Instinctively, he turned back to look at the performance hall, only to suddenly go bug-eyed.

The rain was still falling, yet the droplets that should have been falling from the eaves of the building were trapped in a perfect stillness. It was a phenomenon that was only visible from extremely close range, and nothing would appear amiss with even a little bit of distance.

“So... exaggerated?” Alfred muttered, his mouth hanging open. Even after imagining countless possible outcomes for the Young Master’s purification, he had never considered that such a stillness could occur.

No. What he was seeing was likely not even space, but time.

Alfred raised a hand to cover his right eye, yet his Succubus Eye did not activate. His hand trembled. His body followed along. He crouched down as the convulsions overtook him. The umbrella slipped from his grasp as the rain hammered down without pause.

It was a familiar sensation, matching with what he had felt in Oakwood Cemetery in Swillen’s Roja City. It had been the day that Sir Tiz had condensed a godhead fragment. That time, Alfred had knelt by instinct.

This time was different. The immediate pressure was weaker than before, yet the trembling that rose from deep within his soul was far more terrifying.

Unseeable. Unapproachable. Forbidden to see. A certainty took form in Alfred’s mind: If he dared to use his Succubus Eye to look ahead, he would fall into eternal damnation.

Struggling to lift his head, Alfred once more gazed at the performance hall, catching sight of the motionless droplets again. Their inner sheen remained unchanged even as the sun continued to move.

This meant that he could not even approach. If he had been standing a few steps farther back earlier, he might have had a part of him trapped within that frozen moment, while the rest of him continued forward.

Mr. Hoffen had left Karon many books, which he had barely read due to not yet undergoing purification. On the other hand, Alfred had been studying them relentlessly. He had personally witnessed the power of knowledge with Mr. Hoffen’s demonstration.

The thinnest notebook recorded numerous forbidden-level ritual arrays from a number of churches, proof that Mr. Hoffen had been an erudite and versatile man who had been clever enough to break past the barriers that separated the different churches in his quest to acquire vast amounts of knowledge for his research.

Of course, how could a scholar’s actions be called stealing? What kind of knowledge fascinated seekers of truth the most? Forbidden knowledge.

The Church of Light, which had fallen a thousand years ago, was taboo in its entirety, and within Hoffen’s notes were records that Alfred had only recently read for the first time.

What he was seeing play out before him perfectly matched a line from those records.

Light Epoch, Mythical Overview, Volume Two, Chapter One: When god speaks, the world falls silent to listen.

Within the purification space, Karon continued following the white dot, as Pu’er had instructed. The tiny light continued to drift forward, while he followed it through an endless darkness.

He felt no panic or tension, believing himself thoroughly prepared and that nothing could go wrong. After all, it did not matter where he stood, nor where his faith lay. It did not even matter whether what he saw was illusion or reality.

All of this was merely a form.

With that mindset, the world became exceptionally clear.

When the white dot finally stopped, Karon did as well, sensing that he had reached the approximate position. Next, he would hear the question from Pu’er, asking him which faith he sought. He was supposed to call out from the depths of his heart to receive a response from his god.

That response, he believed, would be far stronger than what any other purified of the Church of Order had ever received. He was ready and unafraid, even if a storm followed.

He heard Pu’er’s voice sounded. Alright, here it comes. “Karon, you—”

The voice stopped.

Could there be a problem with Pu’er, or had something gone wrong with the procedure? Could she just have been testing the mic?

As Karon tried to figure out what had happened, the white dot before him abruptly exploded.

Calling it an explosion felt insufficient, because the dot instantly transformed directly into a blazing sun that dispersed the darkness and filled his entire conscious space with light.

Within the pure white world, Karon even began to doubt his own existence, wondering whether his presence itself might be a blasphemy to such purity.

There was a profound sense of self-abasement, coupled with an impulse rising from the depths of his soul toward self-annihilation.

Is this purification? His struggle felt insignificant as his will to live collapsed like an avalanche. It was as though annihilation was the price required to restore the world to pristine white.

No one had mentioned that purification had a high mortality rate. Is this really purification, or is it erasure?

Just as his consciousness was about to be obliterated, a supremely majestic voice resounded, “Order, show yourself.”

Within the pure white world, a black figure appeared.

Ordinary purification allowed for only a vague glimpse of a god sweeping past in darkness. It was like a moth brushing against a lampshade. This was the usual manner of divine response that believers were expected to worship with gratitude.

But Karon saw the figure of Order himself.

The God of Order walked within an unrestrained flow, his hands occasionally swaying as countless rays of divine radiance scattered about. They were responses to the prayers of true believers across the world, both now and in moments yet to come.

Only properly initiated believers were worthy of receiving even a single thread of such radiance, while ordinary believers could never attract the god’s attention.

Karon could see the god’s face, movements, and steps clearly, yet could form no memory of them, because anything related to a god was not permitted to exist within mortal memory.

That, too, was forbidden.

However, Karon was also able to sense that the God of Order before him was essentially an emotionless puppet. It was responding without any sort of will or awareness, just as the Church of Principles had described.

The God of Order Karon saw was not an awakened god, but a response without will or awareness.

He had received the call, and so he had come.

This was an epoch in which gods did not descend, an epoch where even grand divine descent rituals were forbidden, and where an orthodox church securing a single oracle through the highest rite was already considered extraordinary.

In truth, a divine oracle obtained by a pope through such means might mean no more to a god than a casual stroke of a pen, torn from a page and discarded.

Yet the God of Order had arrived in person, because the one who summoned him was the God of Light.

The God of Order was proud. Tiz had once described him as being famished during the previous epoch, when he had slaughtered other gods and splashed the rules of order across existence with divine blood.

That pride had shaped the Church of Order, allowing it to accumulate power faster than other orthodox churches and had, in this epoch, forced all of the other churches to retreat half a step due to sheer strength.

Perhaps not even other gods could summon the God of Order in person, but the God of Light was different.

The next moment, the God of Order vanished, and the world Karon saw changed. The pure white beneath his feet turned black.

Turning around in astonishment, Karon understood. The God of Order stood behind him, and he was standing in the shadow cast by that god.

Inside the performance hall, Pu’er saw black mist gather behind Karon, radiating a supreme aura that compelled instinctive worship. She knew that if she were not immobilized, she would already be kneeling.

Despite being a cat, her soul had reached Tier-9 in her family faith system, meaning that even if the family founder, Allen himself, was resurrected and stood here, he would also have to kneel before this mist.

The mist anchored itself to Karon’s body.

Pu’er realized then that the pool of holy water no longer mattered at all, because when a god descends beside you, the god is personally performing the purification.

Who could ever receive such treatment? It was simply unimaginable.

When Pu’er saw an eye beginning to condense within the black mist, her heart leapt to her throat. The Eye of Order!

The black mist around the eye churned slightly, as though it was beginning to boil. Everything happening signaled that the Eye of Order was about to open.

Heavens! Heavens! Heavens! Pu’er knew it then; This time, she had truly lost control, because the God of Order was about to open his eye. He was about to awaken from some form of slumber, or from a state of indifferent suspension.

Once that eye opened, it would not stop at just the performance hall. It would not stop at Allen Manor. It would not even stop at York City. Anything that did not conform to Order would be erased, and a catastrophe countless times more terrifying than any forbidden Art would be unleashed.

Yet right before the Eye of Order was opened, the finger of the God of Light that was pressed against Karon’s brow suddenly lost all radiance. It was once again sealed within crystal that returned to Pu’er’s tail as that tail fell limp.

A low hum was heard. All stillness was restored to movement.

The Eye of Order forming behind Karon calmed. The black mist thinned and faded before finally vanishing completely.

Karon opened his eyes. Deep within them was nothing but pure, clear black. It was a long while before that black slowly receded.

Feeling utterly exhausted, Karon raised a hand to his forehead, still believing that everything that had occurred had been part of Pu’er’s deliberate orchestrations and that she had retained full control throughout.

For that reason, he weakly asked, “Is the purification... finished?”

Light of Order, Mythic Overview: The God of Light awakened the God of Order.