Display Subcategories with Descriptions on Parent Category Page

This is a tricky one. I’ve been fiddling around with it for quite a while and can’t quite seem to achieve my goal.

I want to have three levels of categories: Ancestor, Parent, Category.

Ancestor Category > Parent Category > Main Category > Post

When someone goes to the ancestor category page, there would get a list of parent categories with descriptions. When they click a parent category they get a list of main categories with descriptions. When they click the main category they get the loop with posts.

The ancestor and parent categories would not have posts attributed to them. Posts would be in the main category. Ideally, I would be able to utilize the Category Meta plugin to also include an image for each category.

I would like to do this without having to make custom template files for each and every category.

If you have any insights or have achieved this in the past, please share your thoughts! Thanks so much!!!