Chapter 518: Verdict

When the Gavel hit the ground, there was no sound.

But the entire floor of the church seemed to be covered by an invisible layer of water pressure.

The air grew heavy.

Liang Wen's step forward caused his knee to emit a sharp snap, like a dry branch being broken. He sank down, half his body shortening by a span.

Beside him, Xu An swayed as well. The boy's knee buckled, his gray silhouette halted in place, unable to move forward any further.

"Absolute Court."

Yan Ming stood on the high platform, still holding the bone‑white Gavel, not lowering it.

A Balance floated out of thin air beneath his feet.

Entirely white, it hovered mid‑air, its left and right pans swaying slowly. Each sway added a layer of pressure.

"Two defendants," Yan Ming's tone was as flat as a procedural, "Now, the court is in session."

Liang Wen gritted his teeth and lifted his head; the teasing glint in his peach‑blossom eyes was squeezed into something else: "Well, buddy... this thing is much tougher than the report said."

He tried to charge forward, but his legs wouldn't obey.

The Balance rotated half a turn, and the left pan slowly illuminated two characters.

Guilty.

"This court adopts—guilty inference," Yan Ming began, enunciating the words clearly, "Before you prove your innocence, all charges stand."

Yan Ming's courtroom grew stronger, allowing him to pre‑assume guilt.

As his words fell, the Balance tipped sharply to one side.

Xu An was the first to be affected.

The boy's sewn‑mouth face remained blank, expressionless, yet his skin and flesh suddenly tore open without warning.

Not a single line.

But dozens of lines.

From shoulder to back, arm to thigh, a gash deep enough to see bone split the flesh, blood streaming down the gray hem, instantly soaking the small patch of ground at his feet.

The scent of blood rose.

Liang Wen's eye flickered: "Hey! Mute!"

Xu An gave no response.

He simply couldn't respond.

His hollow eyes drooped, staring at his own bleeding body as if observing something unrelated to himself.

"Correction Place... those who have harbored resentment, those who betrayed your parents..." Yan Ming's gaze fell on him, the empty sleeve tube that was sprouting granulation moving lightly, "The accounts are all recorded."

The Balance continued to tilt.

Xu An's knee gave way, nearly causing him to kneel.

But at the moment he was half‑kneeling, the mouth sewn with a black line oozed a gush of black blood from the needle stitches.

He didn't fall.

He was using his own domain to stubbornly resist.

The Correction Place's rules spread out from beneath his feet, a gray haze, clashing deadlocked with the white Balance's judgment power. The two rule forces collided, the air crackling with fine explosions, as if something was being repeatedly tugged.

Xu An's body trembled violently.

Each extra second he endured, the bloodied wound on his body widened a bit.

But his gaze remained empty, not uttering a sound, merely forcing the collapsing Balance back.

Yan Ming watched him, his eyebrows subtly knitting.

"Hard‑mouthed criminals, I've seen plenty."

He turned his head, slowly pointing the bone‑white Gavel toward Liang Wen on the other side.

"Your turn now."

The Gavel pointed, and the opposite pan of the Balance lit up.

An invisible force pressed from his fingertip, drilling straight into Liang Wen's mind.

The judgment rules began to sift his heart for evidence.

To pull out the guilty deeds he's done in his life, the murderous thoughts he's entertained, the tiny fear hidden deepest, shake them out and place them on the defendant's stand.

"Anyone who stands in my courtroom," Yan Ming's tone remained flat, "none of them are clean."

The Balance began to swing wildly.

It sought to convict Liang Wen.

But while swinging—

It jammed.

The left "Guilty" was about to press down when the right pan suddenly tipped up, the two sides tugging back and forth, as if something blocked the gears of the Rules, preventing them from meshing.

Yan Ming's hand holding the Gavel paused for the first time.

He stared at the out‑of‑control Balance, the crease between his brows deepening.

"... What's happening?"

He had never encountered this situation.

The judgment rules probed Liang Wen's mind, supposed to uncover countless unsavory things.

What it actually uncovered was what?

It was a man in his thirties, his mind looping, "I am the Dark-Blooded King, embodiment of darkness, wielding this black‑flame blade to guard this shattered world."

It was a second‑rate, chūnibyō inner monologue that would embarrass anyone to the point of digging out a three‑room, one‑hall apartment.

Dig deeper.

Dig to the bottom.

Apart from wanting to protect his daughter and everyone, there's nothing else below.

Only a heart so pure it's absurd—this guy is genuine, wholeheartedly wanting to save people.

Not a speck of impurity.

Not the slightest hesitation.

That pure-to-the-point-of-being-unreasonable righteousness completely blocked the "guilt and fear" required by the judgment rules.

The Balance gave a "click" shake.

The verdict appeared.

Not guilty.

Pfft—

Liang Wen pressed his leg, hearing those two words, his whole face first froze, then split into a grin.

"Huh?" He lowered his head to look at himself, then lifted his head to look at the stuck Balance, his peach-blossom eyes wide round, "No, not guilty?"

He laughed.

"I told you so!" He laughed while panting, straightening his back with a jerk, "I, Liang Wen, walk upright and sit straight; the most despicable thing I've done in my life was stealing and eating the last popsicle from the team's fridge last week!"

"You broken court still want to pin a crime on me? No way!"

Yan Ming's complexion sank.

That Balance, which always succeeds, is now stuck dead above Liang Wen's head, neither advancing nor retreating, the rules as if rusted.

The pressure of the entire domain appeared a crack here.

Liang Wen felt it.

The invisible mountain pressing on his knee loosened for that instant.

Just that instant.

Enough.

"Do you feel the Abyss's wrath? —"

He suddenly straightened up, the mischief in his peach-blossom eyes gone, replaced by battle intent burning to the extreme.

"Boring mortal!"

His black windcoat was lifted by a surge of qi from within, the strange patterns on his fingerless gloves all lighting up.

He raised his hand.

A black flame longsword appeared in his palm, blue flames on the blade rising, burning higher and higher, instantly becoming a sky‑supporting pillar of fire.

It doesn't burn people; it burns the rules themselves.

The whole church was lit in light and shadow by that black fire pillar; the white Balance on Yan Ming's high platform was made illusory by the firelight.

"My black flame—"

Liang Wen gripped the sword with both hands, taking advantage of the slight gap in the domain's shell, he leapt into the air, blade pointing up.

He had practiced this draw countless times in his life; now it finally wasn't awkward.

"I'll burn to ashes this hypocritical—judgment!"

He swung the blade down.

Not aimed at Yan Ming.

It was aimed at the dome of the "Absolute Court" that shrouds everything overhead.

The black flame blade's energy, carrying that fire pillar, shot up from the ground and struck the canopy constructed by the rules.

A long tearing sound.

That invisible yet breath‑crushing dome was split open a gap by this blade from the middle.

The blue flame light poured out from the crack; the red of the blood moon outside and the white of the church's rules inside were all cut off by this black fissure.

The Balance under Xu An's feet, which was about to crush him, suddenly lightened.

The youth's knee sprang, he straightened again, the stitched corner of his mouth tugged up, and the oozing black blood dripped down his chin.

On the high platform.

Yan Ming's hand holding the gavel halted in midair.

He gazed at his own domain torn open a gap; on his usually unchanging face, a hint of gravity appeared for the first time.

"...... One, a person who cannot be judged."

He whispered, the bone‑white gavel slowly withdrawn, then set upright before him.

"Interesting."

He raised his eyes, his gaze sweeping past the cracked firelight to land on Liang Wen descending from the air.

"Then this court will change the charge."

The gavel was raised again.

This time, the stuck Balance shuddered violently and forced itself to turn again.

New words slowly appeared on the pan. Those two characters showed up on the Balance with a single stroke.

Contempt of court.

"Anyone who enters this court and shows disrespect to judgment—same crime."

The Balance slammed down hard toward the guilty side.

This time, the spearhead made no distinction between Liang Wen and Xu An.

The weight of the entire domain, together with that split crack, pressed back onto both of them.

Liang Wen had just landed when his knee sank again.

Whoa— He forced himself up, planting his knife in the ground. "Nice partner, still hanging on? If you can't dig up evidence, you just invent charges—you're a blacker judge than a corrupt lawyer!"

"Looks like you're really much stronger than in the previous report!"

Yan Ming didn't respond to his words.

"In my court." He raised the gavel, looking down. "The defendant has no right to defend himself."

Xu An moved.

He didn't wait for the flesh threads to wrap around him.

A gray silhouette flickered, his whole body shooting low along the ground, the Red Wood Ruler held across his chest. The domain of the Correction Place around him suddenly contracted, then burst outward, a gray haze slamming straight into the platform.

Two strands of Rules locked in midair.

The Balance beneath Yan Ming's feet shook violently; he furrowed his brow and pressed the gavel down.

The wounds on Xu An that had just burst open all split another inch deeper.

He lowered his head and forged ahead, black blood gushing from the stitched seam of his mouth, yet he didn't stop a single step.

"Mute, left!"

Liang Wen bellowed, already lunging in from the other side.

The Black Flame Knife dragged a ghostly blue flame; wherever it passed, the pink flesh threads caught fire, scorched, and curled into black ash that fell away.

One black, one gray—two figures approached the platform from opposite directions.

Yan Ming stood at the center of the judge's bench, not retreating.

He lowered his head to look at the Balance, which the two were straining to keep from collapsing, then lifted his eyes to scan the two approaching figures; on his cold face, a hint of something almost like pity appeared.

"Obstinate and unenlightened."

He sighed, as if regretting two convicts who refused to plead guilty.

The ivory gavel was slowly raised over his head.

This time, he raised it especially high.

The flesh buds of the whole church, together with the Balance and the domain that had been torn apart and stitched back together, all trembled violently as he lifted his hand.

"This court."

"Sentence—death."

The gavel, imbued with the full court's Rule Power, came down crashing.