Chapter 314: Accurate Prediction

Meriel froze for a moment when she heard this. In truth, from the expressions of Archbishop Wolfram and the district’s other higher-ups, she had already been able to tell that this was definitely not something pre-arranged. When Karon and the others had stepped out of the hearse, she had paid particular attention to the reactions of the three young people behind Karon. There was definitely some kind of misunderstanding here. However, her goal was only to grab a bit of news to deal with the approaching submission deadline. Now, it seemed she had caught hold of something decent. Order Weekly was an internal church publication, so positive news was naturally more welcome.

Meriel asked, “But do you think your approach is somewhat too extreme? Or has the district placed too much pressure on you?”

“Extreme? I don’t think so.” A suitable smile appeared on Karon’s face. “Coffins have another special meaning within our Church of Order. My friend Bart here, his grandfather serves in the First Knight Regiment. We came here in a hearse not only to express our determination to pursue victory, but also to pay tribute to the predecessors of the First Regiment. They have always served as our example. We will draw inspiration from them, so that we may face the final selection that is about to take place, as well as difficulties we may face in the future, with a more positive and fearless attitude.”

Hearing his grandfather mentioned, Bart noticeably straightened, puffing out his chest and adopting a solemn expression.

“But isn’t this a little too heavy? Creating too strong a burden of a sort of twilight gloom which people your age shouldn’t possess?”

“No, it’s quite the opposite. It is precisely because we have their protection that my friends, I, and others in the great Church of Order can truly behave like young people, like the morning sun at seven or eight.”

At this moment, it happened to be seven-thirty in the morning. Meriel glanced at her two assistants. One was holding the camera, while the other held a notebook. She was very satisfied with this interview. Even if some lines had been drafted in advance, they probably would not have been able to be as eloquent as this young man before her. Of course, if he did end up among the twelve candidates selected with this exam, her interview would absolutely deserve half a page, and might even have a chance to compete for the cover. That was because what this young man had said, as well as his own appearance, were far too suitable for the cover page.

“May I ask your name?”

“Karon Silva.”

“Alright, Karon. I’d like to take a group photo of you and your friends. Would that be alright?”

“We’d be happy to cooperate.” Karon, Bart, Ashley, and Vintral stood in a row beside the hearse, and the reporter snapped a photograph. Karon thought he had managed to muddle his way through the matter, only for Meriel to step forward again and pull him aside. She then had him pose for a few individual shots, and even went so far as to step forward and pose with Karon for two photographs.

When the interview ended, Meriel shook Karon’s hand. “I believe you will successfully enter the selection.”

“Thank you for your blessing, Miss Reporter.”

With that, the interview ended, and Philomena appeared. Her arrival was almost exactly on time. She looked as though she had still not woken up, and everyone else consciously kept their distance from her.

Archbishop Wolfram, whose speech time had been cut severely short, no longer looked the slightest bit dissatisfied. He walked forward and led the young people to the teleportation array in the basement. Because Karon walked in front of the others, he was the closest to Archbishop Wolfram.

“You spoke very well.”

“Thank you for your praise. This was rather presumptuous of me.”

“Do you know, even my secretary would find it difficult to write such good lines in such a short time.”

Writing pleasant and ceremonial words was not difficult. What was difficult was incorporating political weight and sensitivity to such words. Archbishop Wolfram smiled. “Perhaps you can consider a civil post. I think that on the path of civil service, you have already displayed sufficient talent.”

“Your Grace, I am still young.”

“Yes, you are still young.” Archbishop Wolfram stopped and pointed at the teleportation array ahead that was already activating. He called out, “Go, young people of the York City district! Let the people from the other districts see the excellence of our York City! The great God of Order is with you!”

The group of high-ranking priests behind him shouted in unison, “The God of Order is with you!”

Karon and the other four walked into the teleportation array and placed both hands before their chests. “The God of Order is with me!”

“Order is with me.”

***

When the light of the teleportation array disappeared, Karon found himself standing in a plaza. At the front of the plaza was a magnificent sculpture, a hundred meters tall. The sculpture was of a bald man. His arms were behind his back, and he looked like a sage, gazing into the empty distance as though deep in thought.

Bart observed, “Ogureth, one of the God of Order’s four attendants.”

This was the Hall of Ogureth. In Light of Order, Ogureth was praised as the attendant responsible for wisdom and experience. He was the shadow behind the God of Order. In the early records of the God of Order, the unabridged version of the Light of Order said the God of Light had awakened the God of Order. However, the God of Order had not immediately joined the camp of Light the moment he had awakened. There was a stretch of time between those two, which formed the indispensable experience of tempering that every god went through before becoming a god.

That stretch of time was very long, long enough for a family to produce for several generations. Yet that experience was also often overlooked, because when compared to the time a High God existed, which was often measured in epochs, that experience seemed far too brief. In the mythological narrative of the Light of Order, Ogureth had followed the God of Order very early on, using his experience and wisdom to help the God of Order complete his transformation and rise.

There were even speculations that Ogureth was himself a deity who had recognized the God of Order and willingly become an attendant as a deity, submitting himself to the radiance of Order. On the surface, this seemed like a losing bargain. Instead of being a god, Ogureth had served as an attendant. But when one considered the frequency at which divine wars had erupted during the previous epoch, how ordinary deities had fallen in swathes, and how the God of Order had slaughtered deities on a massive scale at the end of the epoch, it was also hard to say that Ogureth’s choice had been wrong. It was like the difference between being the secretary of the president of the Veyn Empire and being the next mayor of York City.

Ashley said, “The Hall of Ogureth is not in Veyn. It does not even exist within reality itself, but upon an island suspended within the void. According to legend, Ogureth entered the void under the divine will of the God of Order, standing guard against the monstrous beasts that might one day be born there.”

Bart said, “There’s another version that says that Ogureth was exiled here by the God of Order.”

Karon looked up. There was no sun in the sky above, nor any stars or moon. It looked as though the sky had been dyed with various colors of ink splashed across it. Looking around again, he could see a forest of array flags in the distance. Farther away in the air, hawks soared. Clearly, there was a garrison here. It seemed more like an outpost.

At this moment, several dozen young people appeared in the plaza, and more candidates were continuously appearing from arrays, all in batches of five. So far, no examiner had appeared to organize them. The candidates who had already arrived were all observing the environment.

“Want some pastries?” Vintral took out the pastries his grandmother had made by hand and distributed them to everyone nearby. Karon, Bart, and Ashley all accepted them, but when Vintral approached Philomena and offered one to her, she did not move at all.

“Something to replenish your energy?” Vintral said, but Philomena still ignored him, even though everyone knew that she could hear him.

“Let’s rest.” As Karon spoke, he sat down. Bart walked over to a team of soldiers patrolling in the distance and returned with two water skins from them, which he distributed for everyone to drink.

Ashley said, “The void can easily cause derangement. The beings born here are all very skilled with illusions. It’s said that the illusion demon Corvasini was born here. I suspect the final selection will make use of this environment.”

Karon used his right hand to place the last bit of pastry in his mouth, then picked up a water skin with the same hand and took a sip. His left hand remained hidden in his sleeve the whole time, the Cube Key constantly in operation. He looked up at the magnificent sculpture once more, and said, “This island itself is a gigantic magic array. The statue of Ogureth is the array’s core, and the plaza we’re currently standing in is the central zone. I guess that for the final selection, they’ll temporarily withdraw the defenses from this area and use the void’s unique characteristics to guide us into an array for the selection.”

Bart and Ashley observed the surroundings after hearing that, but neither of them was skilled in arrays, so they did not fully understand what he had said. Even so, they both felt that Karon’s words made a great deal of sense.

Vintral asked, “What’s the purpose of doing that? To increase the difficulty of the selection?”

Karon answered, “My guess is that it could be for realism. The church wants us to experience the environment beyond the Reincarnation Gate before going there, even if only something relatively similar. I’ve heard that even for people of the Church of Reincarnation itself, each batch that enters the Reincarnation Gate has a fairly high probability of encountering accidents. That’s going to be even more true of outsiders like us.”

Bart said, “That’s what my father thinks as well, but he also said that after the final twelve are decided, there should still be an independent, short-term training before leaving for the Reincarnation Gate. He suspects that our church has long since prepared a plan for the training in the Reincarnation Gate. This plan may have been prepared before the negotiations with the Church of Reincarnation. No, it might have been even before the war began.”

Karon nodded. If that was true, then the Church of Order had a clear target, either some specific existence or some specific force within the Reincarnation Gate. The so-called training was not really about dispatching twelve young people from the Church of Order to try their luck. It was more like... logistics?

Ashley agreed, “My father shared similar conjectures, so he thinks there must be something past the Reincarnation Gate that requires a focused team . Therefore, there is a very high chance that this final selection will also be more of a team format.”

Vintral listened in with great interest while eating pastries beside the others.

Karon could not help feeling that the children of high-ranking officials truly possessed an enormous advantage in terms of information they had access to. His own dog had once dumped garbage in the Reincarnation Gate, but if he was asked about the current situation there, he would not know anything.

At this moment, a flock of hawks flew overhead. They seemed to be wearing robes, priest’s robes for birds.

Bart explained, “Those are defensive robes with specific attributes. They’re worn because they’re worried the hawks might be affected by void and fall into derangement. Under normal circumstances, however, the Knight Regiments’ hawks wear armor. When at war, depending on the different battlefield conditions that are encountered, array masters and Arts casters in the army will place specialized temporary enhancements on the armor.”

There were roughly sixty hawks in the sky. At this moment, a massive three-headed hawk descended. When landing, it stirred up a wave of air. From the broad back of the three-headed hawk, an officer and a squad of guards stepped down.

When the officer spoke, his voice rang across the entire plaza, “Hello, everyone. I am Varg, garrison commander of this place. I will personally oversee your final selection. I hope you will obey my rules and enjoy your time here.”

It was a very stiff opening.

At this moment, Karon noticed two formations of people approaching the plaza in orderly lines. One formation consisted of three hundred soldiers in black armor, while the other consisted of a variety of priests. The soldiers immediately dispersed around the outer perimeter of the plaza, while the priest formation split into two groups. One half seemed to be preparing to conduct inspections, while the other group began warming up the array.

“Next, there are two things I need to explain. The first is the inspection. You should all be familiar with this already. I know quite a few of you come from powerful families, but unfortunately, once you enter the Reincarnation Gate, those backgrounds will be completely useless. Although we only just beat the Church of Reincarnation into the ground, that only leaves them even more concerned with saving face now. The security personnel under my command are not like the ones you encountered during your district selections. Every one of them has been on the battlefield. If you want to cheat, I will allow it, but the premise is that my inspectors fail to catch you.

“After passing the security check, you will receive your own number tag.

“The second matter is that the danger level of this selection is extremely high. I cannot guarantee that I’ll be able to rescue each of you in time, should something go wrong midway through. I hope none of you will stubbornly push on when it’s time for you to give up. Your soul could be truly erased, or you might simply end up as an idiot. Once the selection begins, there’s very little I’ll be able to interfere with. You will each have to judge your limits for yourselves. You’re all still young. You still have bright futures ahead of you. If you can’t succeed, if your strength falls short, then don’t force it.

“If too many of you turn into idiots, the pressure that will fall upon me will be enormous. I don’t want to become enemies with your parents and teachers, so please, have mercy on me.”

After these words were spoken, smiles appeared on many of the candidates’ faces. However, all of those smiles were essentially polite ones. For Varg to be qualified to serve as the chief examiner and commander of this fortress of the church in the void, his own status was beyond any doubt. The fact that he was speaking of such matters in such a direct and plain manner was only proof that the danger of this exam was extreme.

Karon said, “From the looks of it, I boasted too much during the interview earlier.”

Ashley shrugged, and Bart declined to comment. Vintral said, “I thought you spoke very well.”

“Your own safety is still the most important thing,” Karon said. “I’m not trying to dampen your enthusiasm, but it’s best if all of us keep that clear in our hearts. Alright, that’s all I’ll say.”

Everyone nodded, indicating their agreement with Karon’s words.

Varg’s gaze swept around the surroundings as he continued, “The third matter. There are a total of one hundred and twenty participants in this selection. After passing the security check, you are free to form teams using the tags you will be given. Six people are required for each team, and each team will jointly submit their numbered tags for review before receiving a team number. The final selection will be conducted in squad format. The two squads that persist to the end of the exam will be the final twelve.”

In other words, the twelve representatives would not be chosen according to individual slots, but in two squads. In reality, there were only two slots.

After hearing Varg’s words, Ashley and Bart immediately grew excited. Ashley nearly cried out, while Bart clenched both fists tightly. Their parents’ prediction was right.

That was why they had gone to Karon’s funeral home so early to wait for him and go with him to the Church Affairs Building, as well as why they had been willing to follow Karon’s arrangements and ride a hearse across the city. It was also why Ashley’s parents had gone to personally inspect Karon’s pets.

What they had correctly predicted was the format of the final selection. With this sort of format, having someone on the team whose strength far surpassed everyone else’s was the most important factor of all.

In addition, there was another factor here that could not be ignored, which was the fact that Karon had carried Richard up the mountain. That had indirectly proven that he was a very reliable person, someone willing to shoulder responsibility for the sake of a friend. It could be said that although Richard had ultimately failed to pass the district selection, the role he had played continued to influence things even now. Hmm, Richard’s role always seems to be displayed passively.

Vintral looked at Karon and carefully examined him. Vintral was somewhat nervously clutching the bag in his hand, which held the remaining pastries his grandmother had personally made. He had no impressive family to support him, and was growing worried that Karon would not want him, because Vintral knew that as the strongest person present, Karon had the right to choose the other members of his squad. Under normal circumstances, people would definitely prioritize choosing the strongest teammates, or those with the best family backgrounds.

What Vintral did not know was that in terms of relationship, he was actually the closest to Karon. More than that, Karon had long since mentally included Vintral in his future Whip of Order squad.

Karon did not keep the others in suspense. His eyes immediately swept across Vintral, Ashley, and Bart, and Karon then announced, “The four of us will stay together.”

At this moment, it had to be said that Vintral, Ashley, and Bart were all very moved.

With a thud, the sleepy girl Philomena’s body tipped sideways in the direction of where Karon and the others were sitting. As though talking in her sleep, she said, “Let’s grab one more.”

Karon said, “No. We’re getting two more people.”

Hearing this, Philomena opened her eyes to look at Karon. She very calmly asked, “What did you say?”

Karon met her gaze and answered with the same calm tone, “Piss off.”