Chapter 463: Unable to Retrace

Jiang Yuan moved.

Thirty‑seven Shadow Soldiers simultaneously charged from twelve directions, their black silhouettes merging into an impenetrable torrent that pierced the courtroom's green light and cries, and trampled Zhang Yuanqing, who was hovering on the judgment platform.

The speed was extreme.

From activation to contact took only 0.4 seconds.

The front‑row Shadow Soldiers first touched Zhang Yuanqing's law bone armor. The moment the black blade tip touched the armor's surface—

It shattered.

Not the armor that was cut, but the soldiers.

The black silhouette, the instant it contacted the law patterns, was as if an invisible hand seized its spine and tore it from within into fragments, turning into black dust that drifted everywhere.

The second batch. The third batch. The fourth batch.

All shattered.

Not even a scratch remained on the armor's surface.

On those white bone plates formed from law articles, crimson blood veins flowed, each vein emitting low‑frequency vibrations. The essence of a Shadow Soldier is an embodiment of Anomalous Power, and Zhang Yuanqing's armor— is a judgment document.

Thirty‑seven Shadow Soldiers, eight seconds to zero.

The backlash came without any warning.

Jiang Yuan's chest felt as if kicked from inside, a sweet‑savory hot flow rose to his throat. He slid three meters backward, the soles of his shoes scorching two marks on the blood‑red floor tiles, barely stabilizing himself.

He lowered his head to glance at his own hand.

It was trembling.

Jiang Yuan lifted his head and stared at Zhang Yuanqing on the judgment platform.

Those pale‑green eyes were looking down at him, a hint of satisfaction at the corner of the mouth. It was as if the thirty‑seven Shadow Soldiers just annihilated were merely a submitted verification sample.

"Dominate Anomalous Power." Zhang Yuanqing's hoarse voice drifted down from above, "Not bad. Can bring it to the surface. But far from the divine standard..."

He tilted his head down.

"Far from it."

Jiang Yuan clenched his teeth and said nothing.

On the south side of the court, Qin Zhixia was already moving.

She burst out from the Federation Special Forces front with an extremely violent posture. The joints of her mechanical prosthetic arm emitted sharp electric whines under high‑speed drive, the alloy armor plates on the arm unfolded in sequence, revealing the anomalous Core embedded deep in the skeleton—

Ignorance.

Burning lifespan to exchange for ultimate destructive power.

The moment the Core activated, Qin Zhixia's whole body simultaneously erupted with white light patterns. From the ankles, along the calves, thighs, waist and abdomen, spine, the blaze rose up to the top of her head.

Her black long hair lost all color within two seconds.

Crystal‑clear snow‑white.

The high ponytail wildly danced with light in the courtroom's airflow.

Her eyes also turned white.

Not a rolled eye. The irises themselves lost color, becoming pure white without pupils, like two mirrors reflecting the densely packed human‑bone arches of the courtroom dome.

"Team Leader Qin!" Liang Wen shouted from behind.

She did not turn around.

She raised the mechanical prosthetic arm over her head. Within the alloy frame from fingertip to elbow, the energy released by Ignorance converged into an ultra‑concentrated white Light Blade. Narrow. Thin. So dense that even the court's green lights are repelled.

Three steps.

First step crushed the blood‑colored floor tiles. Second step dragged the whole body's silhouette through the air. Third step leapt into the air.

Directly slashing Zhang Yuanqing's face.

The white blade light split all the green light leaking from the courtroom dome, and the cries of 213 resentful souls were turned into a shrill wail by the aftershock of this slash.

The entire courtroom trembled.

The crimson chains on the ground thrashed violently, and the law inscriptions on the rock pillars shattered with a crackle.

Su Ming's ears buzzed. He instinctively stepped back two steps, looked up—

Then he saw the most absurd scene he might ever have witnessed in his life.

Zhang Yuanqing raised one hand.

Left hand.

He casually lifted it upward, five fingers spread, palm up.

When the white Light Blade struck his palm, all the law patterns throughout the courtroom lit up. The floor, walls, dome, rock pillars—every surface etched with statutes simultaneously emitted crimson light.

From the foundation beneath the judgment platform came a deep voice.

It wasn't a roar. It was a reading.

All 213 resentful souls spoke at once, each with different tones and accents, reciting the same word.

Justified defense.

Qin Zhixia's Light Blade halted.

It wasn't she who stopped it.

It was the white destructive power itself that was "frozen" five centimeters above Zhang Yuanqing's palm, like an invisible barrier, isolating all energy outside.

Then—

Rebound.

The blade returned along its original path.

Three times faster than on its way out.

Qin Zhixia's pupils contracted sharply. She twisted her waist midair, the mechanical prosthetic arm blocking in front. The rebounded Light Blade collided head‑on with the alloy frame of the arm, and in less than 0.1 seconds—

The prosthetic arm's knuckles shattered into pieces.

The palm exploded.

The alloy frame of the forearm snapped at three joints like a broken biscuit, the fragments flashing white as they flew out; one piece brushed Liang Wen's cheek, cutting a gash of blood.

Qin Zhixia's body was flung backward.

She spun twice in the air, shattering a rock pillar; her back lodged into the pillar's bony base. Her mouth opened, spitting a spray of blood mixed with white‑light fragments.

Sparks flew from the broken mechanical remnants, and residual current crackled on the exposed cables.

Her white hair clung to her blood‑stained face. The white fissures across her body dimmed rapidly.

But her eyes remained open.

She stared fixedly at Zhang Yuanqing on the judgment platform, whose palm bore no red mark.

"Enhanced system is Weird," Zhang Yuanqing said from above, looking down at the Qin Zhixia embedded in the wall, as if reciting a cause of death from an autopsy report.

"Trading lifespan for damage, indeed fierce. But legally it counts as 'active attack.' I am the 'defendant.'"

He flipped his palm.

"Self‑defense, no criminal liability. All the destructive power attached to your blade is judged at the conceptual level as 'improper violent output' and will be returned unchanged."

His tone was overly calm as he spoke.

The calm was such that everyone's spine in the courtroom went cold at once.

Because it meant that the lethal methods of the Unenlightened tier were ineffective against him.

It wasn't that he endured it. It wasn't that he swallowed it.

It was deemed ineffective by the Rules.

"What the—..." Liang Wen's eyes reddened; he tried to charge forward, but Su Ming grabbed his collar.

"Don't send him." Su Ming's nail dug into the back of Liang Wen's collar.

Chen Shao moved.

From the moment he stepped into the courtroom, he had been gathering power. The crimson Demon Eye in his right socket now spun at its limit, blood threads spilling from the corner of his eye down along his temple.

The Psychic Force Shield suddenly fluctuated.

It shrank instantly from a 400‑meter radius to a fifteen‑meter circle.

Fifteen meters—yet the entire pressure bore down on Zhang Yuanqing alone.

The air around the judgment platform was pressed into visible folds. The gothic arches of the dome, built from rib‑like beams, creaked under the abnormal gravity.

Zhang Yuanqing's stature shrank by two centimeters.

Only two centimeters. But indeed he became shorter.

At the same moment, Xu An moved.

The barefoot youth stepped over a field of broken bones, silently edging toward the judgment platform. His sutured lips glimmered a ghastly white in the green light. He held the Red Wood Ruler level over his shoulder.

The Correction Place's domain unfolded again.

A translucent Gray Space spread from beneath Xu An's feet, a phantom of a dilapidated classroom—desks, blackboard, podium—all stained with blood. The classroom walls tried to overlay Zhang Yuanqing's judgment platform, pulling it into the Silent One's Rules field.

Chen Shao pressed. Xu An sealed.

Both attacks proceeded simultaneously.

The green flame in Zhang Yuanqing's eye sockets flickered twice.

Then he smiled.

It wasn't the satisfied, forensic‑style grin before. This smile showed teeth—so white under the green light they were blinding, like the fangs of a nocturnal creature caught in a flashlight.

"To be honest—"

His voice suddenly grew louder.

So loud that the four bone walls of the courtroom resonated.

"—I've been waiting for this kick for a long time."

He lifted his right foot.

He stepped down.

The courtroom's foundation roared like an earthquake. From Zhang Yuanqing's foot, a massive surge of crimson Karma erupted outward along the floor like a volcanic blast.

The Karma's temperature was so high that even the air burned, and the green light was completely devoured by the crimson.

Under Xu An's Correction Place, this kick—

—broke.

It wasn't shattered; the translucent Gray classroom, like a flattened cardboard box, first warped and folded under the Karma shockwave, then burst outward from the center into gray debris.

Three of the sutured black lines at the corners of his mouth tore in the backlash; black blood spurted from Xu An's mouth as his body flew horizontally, stopping only when his back slammed into a rock pillar.

He slid down the pillar, sat in a pool of blood, his hollow eyes trembling, while the Red Wood Ruler fell three steps away.

After the Psychic Force Shield shattered, Chen Shao could no longer hold on.

The Psychic Force Shield, compressed to a fifteen‑meter radius and bearing entirely on Zhang Yuanqing, cracked its first fissure under the Karma impact.

Then a second. A third.

Chen Shao's right eye no longer bled. The crimson Demon Eye sprouted radiating cracks like shattered porcelain, bleeding and oozing a luminous fluid that seared his cheekbone.

Pain.

But he didn't retreat. The blast scattered his back hair, damp black strands flinging onto his forehead; his right hand's five fingers formed claws aimed at Zhang Yuanqing—still holding.

He held for about one and a half seconds.

Then the Psychic Force Shield was completely pulverized.

The cracking sound was unlike glass; it resembled the dull thud of bone being crushed, brief and heavy, making one's teeth ache.

When the shockwave swept over, the hem of Chen Shao's coat was lifted, and his body slid back several meters. His soles gouged two grooves in the floor tiles, and finally his knees knelt into a pool of blood mixed with broken bones.

He braced on the ground trying to stand up. His right arm twitched twice. Then that arm, unresponsive, drooped down.

The court fell silent.

The wailing of the two hundred thirteen resentful spirits also stopped.

Green light. Crimson. Shattered bone. Blood.

In this silence, only Zhang Yuanqing's breath and the occasional sound of debris falling from the court's dome.

Su Ming stood behind the ruins of the defense line.

His tongue pressed against the upper palate. His molars ground with a click-click sound.

The Time Marrow Worm inside his body—he had already tried to awaken it three seconds earlier.

Rewind. Even just ten minutes.

As long as he rewinds ten minutes, he can change this outcome.

The Time Marrow Worm indeed moved.

It writhed once along his blood vessel wall.

Then——it jammed.

Su Ming's pupils contracted.

It wasn't jammed. It was locked.

Among the scarlet legal chains on the court floor, one——extremely thin, thin to the point of being nearly invisible to the naked eye——snaked up from a crack under his foot, along the sole, against the sock, against the skin, and crawled into his pulse.

What was locked was not his body.

It was time.

"Right."

Zhang Yuanqing's voice came down from the judge's bench, his tone unhurried, like a forensic examiner adding testimony during trial.

"During the trial, any form of evidence rewinding and temporal tampering is prohibited."

His green flame swept over Su Ming's position.

"This is procedural justice."

Su Ming's lips turned white.

His fingers bent inside the tactical glove, knuckles' veins bulging, he could feel the Time Marrow Worm straining desperately against his blood vessel wall—but that chain compressed its wriggling space to zero.

Not even a second could be rewound.

Not even a single second could be rewound.