Chapter 464: Total Defeat

The courtroom's dome continues to collapse.

Broken bones and ore slag, mixed with crimson Karma dust, flutter down, striking Jiang Yuan's shoulder, striking his hair, striking the bodies beside him that can no longer move.

Twenty‑three bodies lie on the ground.

Federation special forces seven. Eden Garden elite nine. The rest are those dragged into the ground by crimson chains before they could even shout, left with only half an arm or a tuft of hair protruding from the blood‑stained floor tiles, like some Weird funerary relief.

No one is dead—at least not yet. Yet the line between life and death in Zhang Yuanqing's courtroom is so thin that even a breath sounds noisy.

Jiang Yuan kneels amid the pile of broken bones.

His knee grinds a molar of unknown owner, digging into his bone with a painful ache. He tries to summon the power of the Shadow Ghost, but the dark domain within him that belongs to the Shadow Legion has shrunk to the size of a fist, like a clump of wet cloth squeezed tight, unable to wring out a single drop of water.

He is suppressed by the domain.

His internal organs feel as if filled with scalding molten lead; each heartbeat pushes that searing pain from his chest to the tips of his limbs. His fingers are numb. The Poker Card hanging quietly in the Card Bag at his waist has its metallic edge's cold glint dimmed, though he does not know when.

The courtroom's Rules are too overbearing.

It is not a crushing of force—but a negation of concept.

In this domain built from legal statutes, every offensive act is automatically classified as a "violent crime" and triggers the "self‑defense" clause. The greater the force you strike with, the harsher the rebound.

Trying to break through it with force?

It's like smashing the courthouse doors with your own fist; the harder you swing, the more completely your hand bones shatter.

"Damn it." Liang Wen's voice comes from two meters away, as thin as a wisp of breath.

Half his body is buried beneath the rubble; the hem of his black Windcoat is fastened by a crimson chain into a crack in the floor tile, impossible to pull free. The long sword—a Containment Object— he holds is barely held upright before him; the dark flame has burned out almost entirely, leaving only a trembling glimmer at the base of the hilt.

At the base of the bone wall on the courtroom's west side, Qin Zhixia leans against a shattered rock pillar.

Her left arm—the mechanical prosthetic that was shattered by a rebound in the previous battle—has been completely destroyed. The wreckage at the break hangs limp, and occasional sparks of electricity leap from the exposed cables, producing a faint crackle.

White strands of hair cling to her face, glued together by blood and sweat into clumps.

The obscure energy has receded. White fissures on her skin fade one by one, like the patterns formed as ice melts.

Su Ming sits behind the ruins, five steps away from her.

His sitting posture is awkward. His back leans against a slanted fragment of a rock pillar, his legs stretched out flat on the ground, mudwater soaking his trousers. His right hand grips the Containment Object pistol, the barrel hanging at his side, lacking the strength to lift it.

His left wrist flips upward.

He stares at the faint writhing trace beneath the skin of his wrist—the Time Marrow Worm.

It is still struggling. Under the restraint of a crimson chain so thin it is almost invisible to the naked eye, it writhes desperately, yet cannot carve out even a millimeter of space.

Su Ming watches his own wrist, and the wolf‑like cold light deep in his pupils disperses for the first time.

He suddenly feels like laughing.

Lei Yu.

When you traded your life for my survival, did you ever think—this treasure you wagered might just snap here?

Courtroom east side.

Chen Shao lies in the mudwater.

His posture is unsightly. His coat has long been ruined, torn into strips by the Karma shockwave, the fabric soaked with blood clinging to his body. His hair is disheveled, wet black strands hanging over his forehead, covering half his face.

The Demon Eye still rotates, but its speed has dropped to the minimum. Radiating fissures spread from the center of the eyeball across the entire socket, causing the skin around the temples and cheekbones to split, oozing blood mixed with luminous fluid.

He tries to brace himself against the ground.

His right arm is completely useless. Three ribs are broken—he can feel the jagged ends grinding against his lung tissue. He flexes the knuckles of his left hand in the mudwater twice, just enough to barely support his upper body.

Then he falls again.

Chen Shao's face presses against the cold blood‑stained water.

The briny stench floods his nostrils, choking him into two coughs. What he coughs up is tinged dark‑red.

He closes his eyes for a second.

What flashes through his mind is not tactics. Not a counter‑move. Not the Eden Garden schemes so precise they mesh like gears.

It's Chen Yao.

The little girl should now be in the dormitory of the Qiu Ce Yuan.

Is the light out?

Did the foot that stuck out from outside the blanket kick the quilt off again?

The last time he visited her, a math workbook lay on her desk. The front page held a photograph—of him and her as children taken at the orphanage gate. The photo had been folded, then taped back together with clear adhesive.

The photo is very old.

If he dies here.

That photo would be the only thing left in Chen Yao's hands.

"...... Yao Yao."

A hoarse breath hisses from his throat. It's so faint that even Xu An a few meters away does not hear it.

But his left hand, clenched into a fist in the mudwater,

his nails embedded into the flesh of his palm.

—I cannot die here.

—I promised.

Above the judgment platform, Zhang Yuanqing slowly descends.

His movement is extremely slow. The law's bone armor glows with a leech‑like metallic sheen in the green light, and the height of his feet above the ground drops from half a meter to twenty centimeters, then to ten centimeters.

He does not rush to touch the ground.

Those eyes, burning with a faint green flame, sweep the courtroom once. Very slowly. Like a forensic examiner's gaze during an initial survey of a crime scene—calm, precise, cataloguing the condition of each "corpse".

Then he speaks.

His voice is soft, yet every bone wall of the courtroom conducts and amplifies it, causing the sound to surge from all directions at once.

"Defendant No. 1, codename Shadow Lord." When he uttered Jiang Yuan's name, the green flame flickered, "Manipulating Weird damage against the innocent, serving as a violent organization's lackey—"

He paused.

"Death penalty."

"Defendant No. 2, codename Abyss Walker. Assisting violent suppression, inflicting irreversible Weird harm on victims—death penalty."

"Number three, Qin Zhixia. Number four, Su Ming. Number five, number six…… number nineteen……"

He read them out one by one.

Each time a name was spoken, a scarlet chain at the corresponding spot on the courtroom floor tightened a loop. The named person's body began to sink uncontrollably, as if caught by a mire.

When he reached Chen Shao, he stopped.

"Defendant No. 7." Zhang Yuanqing looked down at Chen Shao, who was lying in the mud, "Eden Garden leader, founded an illegal armed group, possessed prohibited weapons, abused supernatural power, caused twenty‑six deaths—"

The corner of his mouth curved.

"Death penalty. Sentencing recommendation: aggravate execution."

All names were read.

The courtroom temperature dropped again.

Then Zhang Yuanqing raised his right hand.

The floating fragments of ore, broken bones, and coagulated blood in the air began to converge unnaturally. They swirled, collided, and fused around the palm of his right hand—metal grinding and bone snapping intertwined, making every present person's teeth ache.

Three seconds.

A saw appeared in his hand.

Bone saw.

The blade was assembled from hundreds of polished human bone fragments, the teeth were mineral crystals, the edges so thin they were indistinguishable. The whole saw measured over three meters, its body engulfed in a faint green flame, and the gaps between the teeth were embedded with dense legal script—entirely death‑sentence verdicts.

A forensic tool.

Magnified to a divine scale.

Zhang Yuanqing gripped the handle of the bone saw. The weight of the blade made his arm dip slightly, but it was steadied instantly by surging Karma.

"Execute."

His voice was excessively calm.

As if in a morgue, telling an assistant, "Hand me the scalpel."

He lifted the bone saw above his head.

The green flame spread along each tooth's curve on the blade, turning the entire courtroom dome a phosphorescent green. Two hundred thirteen resentful spirits emitted a low‑frequency hum simultaneously—not a wail, but the solemn background when a tribunal reads a death sentence.

Su Ming's pupils reflected the bone saw's image.

He closed his eyes.

Before closing his eyes, his final action was to point the Containment Object pistol upward.

It wasn't surrender.

It was to fire a shot into his own temple the instant the bone saw fell.

Even in death, he must die cleanly. That is Su Ming's principle—always has been.

Jiang Yuan did not close his eyes.

His teeth bit his lower lip until skin split and flesh bled. The taste of rust filled his mouth.

He stared at the bone saw gathering power.

Then, using the last ounce of strength in his body, he drew the only Poker Card in the Card Bag that still retained a metallic sheen, clutching it in his palm.

Useless.

He knew it was useless.

But his hand could not be empty.

The bone saw came down.

The three‑meter blade traced a faint green arc through the air, the high‑frequency vibration of the teeth shredding the air within a ten‑meter radius. The gust overturned the remaining rubble in the ruins, pressing Liang Wen's half‑supported body back down.

The wind pressure hit his face.

The green light illuminated everyone's faces. It lit Su Ming's tightly shut eyes and the flipped muzzle. It lit the blood at Jiang Yuan's mouth corner and the Poker Card in his palm. It lit Qin Zhixia's ashen pupils. It lit Chen Shao's clenched fist in the mud.

From Su Ming's head—

Ten meters.

Five meters.

Three meters.

Everyone's ears suddenly fell silent.

It wasn't silence.

It was as if some force had sucked the sound away.

Like the entire courtroom was suddenly sealed inside a vacuum jar.

The hum of the two hundred thirteen resentful spirits ceased. The high‑frequency vibration of the bone saw stopped. Heartbeats vanished. Even breathing could not be heard.

Then—

The courtroom dome exploded.

No, it didn't explode.

It was torn open.

From directly above, outward to inward. A jet‑black fissure, like a zipper, ripped from the highest rib arch of the dome along the structural line down to the lower edge.

The sound of metal tearing—no, the sound of bone, ore, legal script and solidified Karma being shredded simultaneously—pierced the courtroom's acoustic barrier, like a red‑hot file dragging across each person's cochlea.

The bone saw stopped.

Distance from Su Ming's head—

Two meters.

Zhang Yuanqing lifted his head and looked toward the dome.

An emerald‑green flame flickered violently in his eye sockets. It was not anger.

It was confusion.

What seeped through the crack was not rain, not light, not anything belonging to the outside world.

It was darkness.

Pure, thick, tangible darkness.

It poured down like mercury from that crack, landing on the court's bone walls, rock pillars, and judgment platform. Any surface it drenched saw the inscribed legal characters extinguish one by one.

The crimson light was receding.