Chapter 245: Concealing Reality in Illusion

Through the corridor echoing with bell sounds, Green saw the man who had specifically come to find him before the massive mural.

Just minutes earlier, he had been enjoying a precious midday nap near the prayer hall. The quiet scent of incense lingered, and chanting drifted from the adjacent room, soothing the fatigue and irritation left by sleepless nights.

As always, they seeped into the deepest corners of dreams, piercing through unconscious fears, doubts, and confusion.

Only now did those descriptive things become tangible spiritual support, solid arms, the heavy safety of church walls. The omnipresent power of the Heavenly Father sheltered him, keeping him undisturbed.

His agitated spirit settled, gaining restful peace.

This was, in a sense, a safehouse—just like a child's secret base, and in truth, it was much the same.

Many privately admitted they didn't like it here, because the solemn atmosphere forbidding casual conversation always felt oppressive. But Green liked staying nearby; it helped him recover distant memories, as if returning to the small church near his home, where he thought of nothing but the Heavenly Father's mercy.

Only those who knew Green well understood the special moments when they could find him in a small alcove near the prayer room.

Of course, this included Brother Wading. It was he who opened the alcove's door and informed him that someone had passed on a message: "An unknown seminary visitor is asking for Father Green."

Members of the Tribunal held no dual posts in other departments and rarely had extra personal connections; anyone who came specifically seeking him by name was unlikely to be here for trivial matters.

So, unfortunately, Green's midday nap had been interrupted. Wading understood this perfectly, yet he still did it, because he knew even better that the priest disliked delegating reception duties to subordinates—it would seem casual and arrogant.

When Green arrived at the meeting spot, he saw a figure with golden hair.

He wore a plain scholar's robe with no distinguishing features, no attendants, and held a holy scripture in his clean palms, gazing up intently at the mural before him.

The priest circled uncertainly beside him and spotted on the man's chest a leaf-shaped golden badge steeped in seminary style—nothing else adorned him. Perhaps this was why the messenger had mistaken him for some old-fashioned seminary figure who disliked showing off.

"Forgive me for asking, but do you have a younger brother in the medical college?"

"You're disappointed—I only have a cousin who's bad at cultural studies." The visitor tossed the scripture from one hand to the other.

This gesture immediately shattered the rare air of faith he carried, exposing a family-heritage, ingrained irreverence toward the divine.

Of course, it also confirmed to Green that the man before him was not some professor's twin brother—he was the man himself.

"What brought you here to play priest? The university's drama club?"

"Do I look like I have time for that?" Kraft tossed the scripture again, then tucked it under his arm. "If anyone misinterprets my appearance, that's purely their problem for judging by appearances."

"But the main reason is, I discovered our communication channel is one-way. Can you imagine a medical college student walking into a church demanding to see the Tribunal? To turn himself in? Or to report an accomplice?"

"Thanks. First time I've met someone from the medical college who knows what he does is illegal."

"Alright, enough small talk—I'm here to tell you I've handled that hand. The black particles in the vessels were filtered and bottled, the stone locked in a box. You can inspect it anytime."

"What about the rest?"

"Burned thoroughly. If you did the same, when he goes to hell, even the devils won't catch him without a sack."

Green stood shoulder to shoulder with Kraft, as if wanting to sigh. "It'll take some time. From past experience, there won't be a clear reply within three days."

He also looked up at the mural. He had seen this corridor's paintings many times; when he first arrived, he deliberately took detours to admire them daily. Now he was numb to them—truly couldn't see what was worth looking at.

"So I have to wait three more days?"

"If fast, three days from now they might call a few parties back to recount the events again. Further steps would take longer. And this time… their stance seems unusually vague. I suspect something wasn't cleaned up properly."

Green held a pessimistic view on how efficiently the bishops who could decide this matter's direction would act.

Even if the shock of a mutated corpse was strong enough, it didn't mean decision-makers long removed from the front lines—or who had never dealt with such matters—would grasp the true severity.

Those who had never faced those things could never empathize with unspeakable experiences, and found it hard to fully believe.

Without the physical evidence brought back, this would almost certainly have been a fatal blow to Green's career.

"So today you came here just to tell me you dissected a hand?"

"What do you mean 'just'? I worked overtime to finish its anatomical examination." His darkened eye circles and inverted circadian rhythm received severe disapproval.

"Don't medical college people consume an entire corpse in one night? By the next day, there's nothing left to check."

"I suppose you mean—the ghoul family dinner." Kraft remarked sharply; stereotypes were everywhere. "Alright, I didn't come here only for the hand."

"Though I did gain significant findings from it. It may be the least mutated part of the original body—nearly normal in overall structure. Perhaps those black substances were indeed used to suppress transformation—at least they must have that function."

"Next, we need to run some tests."

Green caught his implication. "What do you need?"

"Of course, someone to test on… well, obviously joking. I need a sufficiently safe location—for us and for others—and some animals."

"That will take time."

"I know. And I can wait. The stone won't rot." Having said all he needed to, the professor continued staring at the mural, unusually captivated by the mythological content.

Just as Green thought the conversation was over and prepared to leave Wading's contact information behind, he was called back:

"There's a third matter."

"Hmm?"

The book returned to the professor's hands. His pale, slender fingers danced skillfully across the pages, arriving precisely at the desired spot without visual aid. "I want to ask: how do you view the stories in the holy scripture?"

"Records of the Heavenly Father's traces on earth, exemplars for teaching and guiding humanity toward goodness and righteousness, standards for conduct." The priest answered without hesitation—any pause would have disrespected his own competence. "All virtue and wisdom stem from it."

"I don't deny that. In fact, if more people followed the principles laid out in the scripture, the world would be far better." Kraft quickly cut himself off—he wasn't here to debate theology with Green. Even without formal training in argumentation, Green's philosophical and theological depth could easily crush him.

"I mean—do you believe the stories inside are true? For example, at some time and place in the past, did a certain Saint something actually walk on fire or vanish into thin air?"

"It doesn't prevent us from acting according to the teachings. We need these stories to make more people willing to accept universal moral standards."

"So you believe they never happened."

"..."

The priest stared at him, suspicious this fellow had come today solely to provoke, choosing a quiet spot to avoid being beaten to death by a mob.

"But I think some part of it—at least the parts closer to our time—likely contains truth." The professor kept his gaze fixed on the mural, as if trying to crawl through the cracks in the wall paint into the scene itself.

The colors across the mural varied in age: some faded, others repainted, thickly layered, even altered to match changing aesthetics. Yet the oldest portions were far older than the corridor itself.

Beneath deeper layers of paint lay irretrievable original drafts—the same theme repeatedly iterated on the same wall, reenacted in different yet similar ways.

Weapon colors had been whitewashed then yellowed; knights and servants added or removed; headgear alternated between practical durability and ornate decoration; scales and armor shattered into meaningless texture.

He opened the page he'd turned and handed it to Green. "Here. I'd like to hear the interpretation from an outstanding seminary graduate. It's too hard to find a relevant specialist in a doctor's network."

"Didn't expect you went to the trouble of buying a holy scripture just to play dress-up."

"Borrowed. Should be returned in a few days." Kraft's attitude toward religion was never perfunctory except when being perfunctory. The book's owner seemed particularly fond of this section, opening it with unusual frequency, so much so that the spine had loosened slightly, allowing one to flip directly to it by touch.

"Do you think this relates to what we encountered?" Green glanced over; the contents were all memorizable. He still recalled that this passage primarily embodied "spirituality" among knightly virtues, namely, comprehending the will of God.

"Thus the Heavenly Father granted him the authority to draw that sword... attendants then offered bricks, refined steel, and dragon scales, cutting them no differently than a blade grazing the tips of grain stalks." The professor recited a passage effortlessly, then asked, "Doesn't it seem so?"

"A bit of a stretch."

"This book was borrowed from the Mo Lisen household. His daughter said that before, she often saw her father suddenly take an interest in the scriptures, frequently flipping through them."

"When?!" Borrowing a book directly from Professor Mo Lisen's home was unexpected. "But that won't convince anyone."

"Quite early, back when we first arrived in Dunling." Kraft tilted his head back, his gaze rising upward, past the smooth-cut stumps and cardboard armor piled at the bottom of the mural. The mural's protagonist's opponents were fleeing in panic or prostrating themselves on the ground begging for submission; even some winged, lizard-like monsters had lost parts of their bodies.

"Think about it, Green, think. A sword so famous, has anyone ever told you what it looked like? Single-handed or two-handed? What scabbard held it? What was the guard like, and what was it forged from? Did the royal family ever display it?"

"Gold coins, murals, reliefs—depictions of it never show a fixed form. We only know that 'cutting iron like mud' fails to describe its sharpness. Good heavens, what is this thing?"

"Could it be that we misunderstood? Perhaps such a weapon truly exists, but it isn't a specific 'sword'; rather, it is a particular, very difficult-to-master 'method of swordsmanship' that the royal family briefly mastered and used."

"Then why did they stop using it?"

"You've seen it too; look at what things associated with this are like." With the logic now coherent, including the explanation for the humanly damaged and collapsed waterway branches, "Exactly. Those are traces of destruction from the kingdom's early days. They tried to seal that place off."

"So I want you to investigate all church records from that period that you can find."