Madness... everything had gone mad.
Chernosly was hurled outward by the berserk force, smashing through the doors and rolling out of the High Pavilion.
Dense Chaos aura coiled around him like chains—head to toe, layer upon layer. Discordant, maddened screams shredded his ears while kaleidoscopic, hallucinatory visions erupted behind his eyes.
His consciousness was torn apart, his mories scrambled, his reason devoured. Before long, he was writhing and wailing on the ground, bloodshot eyes locked on the direction of the Howling Iron Prison, his lips muttering disordered fantasies.
"They despised my teacher's justice, envied his reputation, feared his devotion—it was them! These filthy political factions, these disgusting power-hungry opportunists—they frad my teacher!
They don't want
to succeed as Supre Inquisitor. They're afraid I'll uphold justice like my teacher and hold them accountable, so now they're coming after
too!
All of this is their fault—it's the Grand Tribunal that has a problem!
Order—oh, Benefactor—open your eyes! Right under your nose, on the very judgnt seat of this Supre Court, a pack of freeloading blasphers is tearing out the foundations of universal order!"
Unlike Chernosly's total descent, the Dragon King and Big Cat rely experienced ntal disorientation.
Li Jingming discovered his mories were dissolving—evaporating. In a burst of panic he channeled every shred of mory power into an ironclad spell shield around himself. But it only slowed the collapse; it couldn't dispel the hallucinations now filling his vision.
Yes—he was hallucinating.
He saw the countless people from his collected mories shambling around him like the walking dead, their familiar silhouettes blurring as they staggered and faded. He tried to reach out and stop them, only to find himself trapped inside his own shield—unable to break free, unable to help.
Big Cat fared the sa, though her world was considerably more... colorful. And bloodier.
She'd shifted forms again—back into the bear spirit—and was roaring, pounding her chest, then grappling with the flowers, grass, flagstones, and dirt at her feet.
She didn't realize she was rolling on the ground. In her eyes, the terrain was a blood-soaked battlefield, and everything beneath her fists was an enemy being ground into the earth.
As for Cheng Shi...
He hadn't gone mad. But he was getting close.
He saw no illusions. He suffered no hallucinations. He simply heard endless curses roaring in his ears—every person he'd ever deceived seed to be viciously cursing him, swearing that soday he'd be swindled out of everything just the sa.
Cold sweat soaked through his clothes. His soul trembled faintly. Listening to the invective and watching the madness, Cheng Shi felt as if he'd been transported back to the seemingly endless Chaos Steps. Only this ti, the protagonist wasn't him—it was everyone else.
Perhaps because he'd already climbed those steps once and built up a resistance, Cheng Shi realized the "tier" he occupied was far lower than the others'. He hadn't fully sunk into this carnival of chaos. He stood alone—a straggling, helpless bystander.
But even a bystander could feel fear. What was frightening was never the difference in roles between perforr and audience—it was the play itself, and the spiritual core it conveyed.
The scene before him was an unmistakable revelation of a terrifying truth: here in the Grand Tribunal, within this site of worship for countless Order faithful, the Iron Law that had usurped Order's Divine Throne was not an artifact of Order at all. Its true nature was Chaos—pure, undiluted Chaos!
And what was even more horrifying: under Chaos's interference, dream and reality were beginning to rge.
No—"rge" wasn't the right word. It was more like... confusion!
He could clearly see the Dragon King and Big Cat gradually shedding their spectral states, acquiring physical bodies, and beginning to alter the dream's environnt!
"!!!"
If the dream was no longer a dream, then which tiline governed—the dream's internal clock, or the trial's?
Or worse still: under Chaos's influence, was there any coherent tiline left at all? Would everyone ultimately drown in this divine maelstrom, reduced to blaspher ash beneath "Order's" judgnt?
No! He couldn't let this continue!
Cheng Shi gritted his teeth and decided to act.
Not to save this dream—but to save himself and his friend Big Cat.
He couldn't be certain his immunity would last. What stood before him wasn't so triggered Chaos trap—it was an actual god!
What that god intended, no one could say.
But how had it beco the Iron Law?!
Was that why it had tried to recruit him—and kept having Kataro impersonate him? To find soone who could manage the Chaos Temple in its stead, freeing it to devote itself to taking over the Grand Tribunal?
'Hss—'
'Does that an... I'm going to beco the Lord of the Chaos Temple?'
'No, no, no! Cheng Shi, get a grip—this isn't the ti for that!'
'Focus on what's happening to it and what you should do!'
He already had the faintest inkling of a theory. If the Iron Law were truly an artifact of Order—even a damaged one—then this situation would be catastrophic. But if the entity was actually Chaos... well, this was just the most on-brand episode imaginable.
After all, Chaos was inherently without pattern.
The real question was: why wasn't it as lucid as it had been inside the Chaos Temple?
Could this be a side effect of suppressing Order?
Quite possibly.
The only insight Cheng Shi had gleaned from the Fun God was this: a follower of Deceit must see through appearances to the essence. Therefore, to stop a Chaos event, one couldn't rely on Order—one had to...
Beco Chaos. Resonate with it!
Order couldn't approach disorder. Only disorder could understand disorder.
Only by becoming disorder himself would he have any chance of seeing what lay hidden beneath this sudden onslaught of Chaos—sothing that struck at the very essence of Order!
His gaze hardened. He shook off the noise in his ears, then—right in front of the god—tore the mask from his face. Standing in the moonlight, he looked down at his own shadow, reached out without hesitation, and touched fingertips together. He switched faiths.
And the instant he returned to Deceit's embrace, this veteran of the stage shed his earlier solemnity. The corners of his mouth curled upward, his grin brimming with confidence and madness.
He bowed with theatrical elegance toward the deity still raging inside the High Pavilion. Behind his back, one hand had already seized a single die shimring with Fate's iridescence. And he raised his voice in praise.
Though the praise was not for the Chaos before him—but for Void's surface, Deceit, whether or not it was watching this grand performance.
"Lies of yesterday; mockery of today.
Yesterday I deceived Chaos's followers. Therefore, today...
I am a follower of Chaos."
He straightened up—and in that instant, the Clown underwent a magnificent tamorphosis into a Sanity Eroder drunk on madness.
The mont Chaos's power settled over him, he felt himself dissolve into the carnival of disorder. The Sanity Eroder, brimming with perfect sanity, gazed at the "Order" beyond the doors, his smile growing wilder by the second.
"Praise be to my Lord. Your devoted follower has co to share your burden."
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