The bolt split the air and struck true, burying itself squarely in Keinlaur's chest.
The Supre Inquisitor didn't move a muscle. He simply let Lid Yara's hatred and fury pin him to the chair.
He was truly dead. Both Cheng Shi and Sun Miao were certain that the Keinlaur before them had lost every trace of vitality. But...
Since he still lived in the history outside this dream, it ant the scene was far from over.
Sure enough. While the two players studied their surroundings, another Keinlaur materialized silently behind Lid Yara. He gently reached out, took the crossbow from her hand, and began examining it with interest.
Lid Yara had evidently anticipated this. She showed no alarm — in fact, she gave a cold, mocking laugh.
"So this is the confidence and the ans by which you killed Lord Esa Res.
What — does our esteed Supre Inquisitor intend to fill every seat on Katouting's supre bench with identical copies of himself?"
Despite the venom in her words, Keinlaur showed no anger. He only smiled as he inspected the crossbow, pacing idly beside her.
"Look — this crossbow is a crystallization of civilization.
From throwing, to bowstrings, to chanisms — people have refined their craft across countless ages to produce a weapon this lethal.
And yet this culmination of untold years of collective wisdom... is being used to kill the very creators who made it.
What does that tell us?"
"Don't try to change the subject and obscure your cri!" Lid Yara's sharp gaze tracked Keinlaur's every step. Another compact crossbow had already appeared from her sleeve.
"No. I bear no guilt."
Keinlaur smiled, handed the crossbow back to a stunned Lid Yara, then said with grave sincerity:
"Esa Res's killer was not . It was a fra-up."
Lid Yara's pupils contracted. Of course she knew it was a fra job — she just believed Keinlaur was framing Artair, hoping to pit herself and the Grand Executioner against each other while he achieved his hidden agenda.
But now Keinlaur was denying it?
A man holding all the cards had no reason to deny. And Lid Yara hadn't co here expecting to survive and expose the truth. She'd long been prepared to die. Against Keinlaur, who commanded the entire Iron Law Knight corps, she had no chance. All she wanted was, under Order's final gaze, not to die ignorant of the truth.
"You're lying!
Keinlaur — we've worked together for years. I always looked up to you as a senior, a role model, an exemplar. And you — you won't even give
an answer, a truth, before I die!?"
Lid Yara's voice trembled with bitter fury. She seed utterly convinced of her righteousness. But Master of Deception told Cheng Shi: Keinlaur was not lying.
'He didn't kill the man.'
Now that was interesting. It ant Grand Executioner Artair — the sole guardian left in Katouting — was no pushover either. At minimum, he'd seen through Keinlaur's intentions and used Lid Yara as the tool to eliminate his "last remaining rival."
His perspective sat a level above the Grand Investigator's.
Keinlaur smiled, circled back behind the table, pushed his other self's corpse off the chair, and sat down again. Elbows on the desk, he shook his head.
"I gave you the answer. You simply don't believe it.
It's a pity the Sword of Judgnt wasn't brought along. Otherwise, you could take it up and ask
yourself whether I lied.
Still, you weren't entirely wrong either. Perhaps there truly is no such thing as absolute truth in this world. Right now, I want an answer just as badly as you do.
But who can give
one?"
Lid Yara froze. Keinlaur's sincerity didn't look feigned. Yet she still couldn't believe that the diligent, honest, ever-devoted Lord Artair was so political power-scher who manipulated hearts.
'Could he really have predicted this confrontation?'
Lid Yara fell silent. After a long while, she stowed her crossbow and spoke in a heavy, conflicted tone:
"Why did you betray Order!"
Keinlaur shook his head once more. "Lid Yara, don't make yourself appear so naive. It's Order who betrayed us — not the other way around."
"But you knew He had a problem, and your first reaction was to run! How is that not blasphemy!?
Why didn't you help Him?
Why didn't you warn us?
Why let it fester until the point of no return — watching with your own eyes as the Order kingdom that generations of tribunals painstakingly built into teeters on collapse!?
Supre Inquisitor — answer ! Give
your defense!"
Keinlaur looked at the red-eyed Lid Yara and sighed.
"I'm sorry, Grand Investigator. I don't believe I need to defend myself. Because I have never betrayed Order.
However glorious the Grand Tribunal's past, however devout you, I, and followers everywhere have been — we must face one fact: all of this was mortal devotion to Order's will in practice.
But now, the one who has ceased to practice Order's will... is Him.
So — an Order that is no longer orderly — by what right does it still call itself Order!?"
"Keinlaur, you—!!??"
This was no longer re blasphemy. This was dragging Order to the ground and trampling on it.
On the Land of Hope — where fervor for the gods ran rampant — the sheer audacity of this registered on the sa scale as Cheng Shi shooting fireworks point-blank into Oblivion's face.
Even Cheng Shi hadn't expected this Supre Inquisitor to be a kindred spirit. Only — how did he dare?
'Do you also have a Benefactor called Deceit shielding you?'
Obviously not.
Keinlaur had said it himself: his willingness to blasphe Order wasn't born of abandoning Order but from the conviction that his own devotion had never wavered.
"Since Order is no more, then why don't we — the ones left adrift — unite and create a new... Order?"
"You... have lost your mind..." Lid Yara was shocked speechless by the blasphemous argunt. "He is a god. A Benefactor. The foundation of civilization. Do you think He's like that infinitely rotatable Supre Inquisitor seat you're sitting on!!?"
"If the followers who practice Order's will can be replaced — then why can't the vessel of that will itself be replaced?"
"And you still say you're not blaspheming!"
"The one blaspheming faith was never us — it's Him!
Order Himself desecrated the devotion of hundreds of millions. Now, all that devotion flows toward the wrong direction. If we simply correct it, then the entire continent's accumulated faith could just as well birth a new Order.
This is what I'm doing right now.
I have never betrayed Order. I'm simply trying to save faith itself.
On this, my conscience is clear."
"..."
The room hung in wordless silence. Even both spectators were swept up in the tension, holding their peace. After a long ti, Lid Yara erged from her initial shock and suddenly let out a cold, sardonic laugh.
"Why 'create' sothing new instead of correcting what exists?
Heh — Keinlaur, don't tell
the 'new Order' you want to build... is yourself."
"..."
Keinlaur went silent. He didn't answer the Grand Investigator's challenge. Instead, he quietly pulled a broken branch from the desk drawer and laid it on the table.
Every gaze in the room locked onto that branch. And when both players saw it, their pupils shrank to pinpoints. They spoke simultaneously:
"The Mother Tree of Fear?"
"Le Le'er..."
Cheng Shi's expression shifted. He discreetly closed his fingers around the Bone Servant Redeer's Ring.
...
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