Within every soul, there is a thirst for justice. This thirst is killing my empire.

The Heavens have struck against the Lion kingdom, but the damage resonates across the empire. Suspicions swirl, whispers of those who'll help them strike again. Brother turned against brother, sects torn apart, for no place is safe against the rot of accusation. The only ones who benefit are the demonic cultivators, hiding in the shadows.

My people seek retribution. They seek justice, but true justice connotes a judgement. Whose judgement?

Clans of great strength mete out their justice as they see fit, yet what of their own transgressions? What of sects ruined, of cities razed? They claim their way is justice. All I see are lakes of blood.

A judgement of the sword is worth no more than the stink of corpses. Yet without it, justice is but empty talk.

The judgement of the sword is worthless, and yet it is all that there is. The only answer is to seek out a perfect hand to wield it, one that could see through lies and mischief - yet who could ever be trusted with such a heavy burden?

I do not wish for it. I've raised my sword against the heavens. I've raised it against Qin Wei. But this rot is ever-present; it needs a healer's scalpel, not a sword. It is beyond my power.

I've asked my scholars. I've walked the length and width of my empire. I've seen the justice of a hundred peoples. The judgement of the elders, of the mob, of the family, of judges, of tradition and of honor. All fell short. Traitors lie and walk away quite free. The innocent speak truth and are simply not believed. Worse still, some seek to pervert all justice, twist it into yet another weapon.

Justice without truth is farcical, yet truth is ever fickle, for every cultivator seeks their dao - the path to their own truth. What hope can there be for justice?

Perhaps there is a way. The truth is fickle, yet if two cultivators look up towards the sun, will they not feel the sunlight on their faces? On that, at least, they could agree. They could stake their lives on what they saw.

Conviction. This shall be the foundation. The absolute, unshakeable conviction, freed from the doubt that will fill the head of every lesser liar.

Henceforth, let all the empire hear. I, emperor Qin Yixing, have carved my edict onto the world itself.

Let it bring an end to this time of suspicion and distrust.

Beneath the baleful crimson light, the cracks in Lei Kou's ancient skin stood out like slithering, venomous snakes. His muscles bulged, spiritual energy surging, and millimeter by agonising millimeter, his back straightened out.

The force of the tribunal on him must have been as great as the weight of an entire mountain, but so what? He was golden core, an existence beyond all measure. How could he claim to reach for the peak of cultivation if he could not lift a mere mountain?

His furious face turned towards Svarggam Xiaochun, and the young woman shrunk back, for all that he could surely do nothing. "Mercy?!" he roared, "you pathetic dogs dare -"

The light above pulsed, and the force doubled once more. With a crunch that sounded like a crack of lightning, something in Lei Kou broke, and he smashed back down into the shattered wooden floor, sending splinters flying.

The tribunal had many more mountains to spare. Even a nascent soul would struggle to resist its wrath.

The floor, already cracked and sliced away from the outside world, had finally given in. It collapsed beneath Lei Kou and bulged at the edges, turning their small space into a bowl - and sent the three young cultivators sliding towards the monster.

Qian Shanyi just about had another heart attack, but forced herself to stay still. The tribunal did not recognise her yet, it would retaliate if she so much as moved -

Svarggam Xiaochun let out an undignified scream, and scrambled backwards. Her blood had touched the formation, and she was free to move - but Linghui Mei was not so fortunate, nor cool-headed like Qian Shanyi to stay still. She tried to scramble back as well, and was immediately smashed down into the floor by the force of the tribunal.

She did not get up again. Her chest still moved, so at least she was still alive.

Qian Shanyi swore in her heart, eyes glued to the side of Lei Kou's body that inched ever closer. If Linghui Mei had lost her consciousness, they'd all fucking die as she could not make her testimony. The tribunal was merciless - any deviation from the procedure meant pain at first, then death.

Her own slide was slow and uneven, robes snagging on the broken boards here and there, and yet it was not stopping. At this rate, she'd slide right up along Lei Kou's side in less than a minute. Could he kill her with a mere touch, even despite the tribunal?

He very well might. There were limits to every form of protection. The tribunal would slaughter him for it, of course, which would be something of a consolation, but she would still be dead.

Svarggam Xiaochun, eight hundred tribulations upon the head of your goat of a mother, speak the words and let me move already!

The target of her curses had remained blissfully ignorant of them. Svarggam Xiaochun was swaying on her feet as she stepped to the edge of the void surrounding them, and not merely because the floor was warped and shattered. Carefully, she sat down with her back up against the edge on a bit of the floor that seemed mostly stable, then hugged her knees.

"I - I am Svarggam Xiaochun," she said with agonizing slowness, a little hiccup escaping her breath. Her voice, shocked into flat grayness, began to fill with barely suppressed fury once again. "I am a righteous and honorable cultivator of the Silvery Mycelium sect! Never in my life have I violated a single edict! I shall serve as the -" she hiccuped again, swallowing whatever she was about to say. "- s-second witness, and nominate fellow cultivator Xing Qiaoli to serve as the first."

With a trembling finger, Svarggam Xiaochun pointed towards Qian Shanyi.

"I accept the nomination!" Qian Shanyi snapped out, and finally the force upon her shoulders lifted. She dug her nails into the boards at her feet, pushing her spiritual energy into them to keep herself anchored, and came to a stop just a few centimeters away from Lei Kou.

From this close, she could feel the heat coming off his body - as if standing right in front of a furnace. His constitution was wood, so it must have been the sheer exertion of his muscles that heated him up to such an outrageous extent.

And yet golden core or not, you will still perish.

Being extremely careful not to stumble and fall, Qian Shanyi inched her way backwards, and then slowly rose to her feet. From up above, she could see a single hateful eye of Lei Kou, boring holes in her from where his body was buried underneath the ruined floor. She smirked at him -

The attack happened too fast for her to follow.

Something bright and golden flickered in the air just in front of her, and in a single blink, Lei Kou vanished in an explosion of sawdust and splinters. There was a sound like a gong, and Qian Shanyi stumbled backwards, amazed that she was still alive.

The dust swirled for but a brief moment before every particle in the entire space slammed down into the ground, all at the exact same time, carried on the currents of invisible force. Qian Shanyi's eyes snapped around the room, looking for the source of what happened -

There was a severed arm, hanging frozen in the air. Lei Kou's arm. Judging by where it was…

Qian Shanyi swallowed. He had almost killed her. If she had been but a single step closer, or if the ritual had been any slower to react, she'd be dead for sure.

I should have known a golden core would have plenty of tricks hidden up his cosmos ring.

The tribunal was never meant to be used as a trap. How could it? Any cultivator worth trapping would easily sense the formation and destroy it. It was a tool of justice, not of war. The accused - and the witnesses - should have naturally been searched before the ritual. It was only emperor Qin's uncompromising nature that meant it could still deal with whatever talisman Lei Kou had just used to escape the ritual's influence for a brief moment.

The man himself was buried back in the floor. With any hope, his cosmos ring was on the arm he had lost, perhaps implanted under the skin, for Qian Shanyi never saw it on any of his fingers. The air directly above him shimmered strangely, his severed arm refusing to fall to the ground - frozen in place by whatever the ritual did to counter the talisman.

Enough. The man is far too clever to leave to his own devices. We need to hurry, before he finds another way to escape.

Qian Shanyi confidently stepped over to the edge of their little circle of wood, her robes sweeping after her, and sat down within easy reach of Linghui Mei.

"I am -" she began confidently, but her own words caught in her mouth.

She was about to say Xing Qiaoli, but that was not her name. She felt it catch, the baleful crimson light that shone down upon them invading her mind and raking across it with the rawest sense of wrongness. It would not settle for anything but the perfect conviction, and for all that she was an incredible liar, she couldn't quite manage that.

She glanced up at the three inhuman eyes that stared down at them, unblinking. Whatever ancient spirit emperor Qin had bound to service this ritual was certainly making a nuisance of things.

And right in between them, she saw two small crystal chips. The ritual would leave a record of whatever they said here.

In the back of her mind, a thought had formed - could she fool this baleful light? She couldn't help herself, the ideas simply flooding in. By now, it was too late - but if she could stage some performance for herself, then get Linghui Mei to eat her memories of ever organizing it -

She forcibly cut off that dangerous line of thinking. The light within her mind did not react, but it was not the time to risk things.

"I am Qian Shanyi," she continued, every word cut precisely, as if from the most precious jade. The procedure had to be followed to the letter - she'd deal with the fallout once Lei Kou was dead. "Also known as Xing Qiaoli, a righteous and honorable cultivator of the Thirteen-Leaved Lotus Empire. Throughout all my life, I have followed the edicts of the empire without a single fault! I nominate my disciple to serve as the third witness."

She reached out towards Linghui Mei, and tried to shake her disciple awake. To her immense relief, Linghui Mei raised her head, looking up at Qian Shanyi with eyes the size of saucers.

<Say your name, who you are, and that you accept the nomination,> Qian Shanyi signed to her, in case she forgot. The ritual prohibited her from speaking, but thankfully, only with her mouth. <With conviction. Do not dare lie.>

"I am Linghui Mei," she immediately said, slowly sitting up and scooting over to Qian Shanyi's side. "I am the faithful mother of my children and the most loyal disciple of my master on the path of cultivation. I have obeyed all the edicts that I know, and I accept the nomination."

Qian Shanyi raised an eyebrow at that, but let it pass. If the ritual did not react, then clearly she believed herself, and she was not foolish enough to introduce any doubt into Linghui Mei's head. "The witnesses are named," she said instead, turning back towards the center of their little world. "We swear to speak the truth, or let our souls be forever shattered."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"So I swear," Svarggam Xiaochun whispered, joined only a heartbeat later by Linghui Mei. Something imperceptible in the air had changed once more, as the ritual had advanced into the next stage, and Qian Shanyi had breathed out a bit of tension. They didn't make a mistake, so they should be safe from the tribunal for a while longer.

She focused her attention back on the hole Lei Kou was buried in. From her vantage point, she could just about meet his eyes.

The next step in the procedure was to explain the charges to the accused, and as the first witness, it fell to her to do so. The procedure made some allowance for the accused being ignorant - she could have explained to Lei Kou his options, the consequences of his words. She could have told him of the many acceptable justifications for violating the fourth edict, and perhaps, just perhaps, he might find one that fit his madness, find enough conviction to assert his innocence and survive the tribunal.

It was probably why Svarggam Xiaochun deferred to her - ordinarily, this step was done by reading from a book. Only… this step was optional. Few people knew this, but it was up to the first witness to decide how to proceed.

Qian Shanyi did not see a need to waste her time.

"So-called Lei Kou," she began. With how small their space was, she didn't need to speak very loud at all. "You stand accused of violating the fourth imperial edict. With my own two eyes, I have beheld your bloody hands after you have slaughtered my fellow righteous and honorable cultivator Zhang Xiaogang, a man of the refinement realm and a faithful servant of the Ministry of Cooperation. You, yourself, stand no lower than the golden core realm. With my own two ears, I have heard you say you killed him merely to prove a point. Your guilt is as obvious as that there are more suns in our entire world than there are fingers upon my hand. What do you have to say in your defense? Speak now, or be forever silenced."

"Defense?!" Lei Kou roared. His words came out strangely resonant, the sound warped by the shimmering air above him. "Defense?! You treacherous snake, I nestle you against my teat, nurse you up, and this is how you repay my gratitude?! I took you into my own house!"

She knew this would incense him. She wanted him angry, and so she picked those exact words deliberately. Blind anger was better than cold fury - the more it filled his mind, the less space he would have to think of a way out. And now, the tribunal could surely sense his certainty, his own conviction that he did in fact kill Zhang Xiaogang. His only escape hatch, locked shut.

"The house of murderers and brigands like yourself?" Qian Shanyi replied. "With how worthless its name is, this can hardly even be considered a bribe. Now speak! How do you justify your crimes?!"

"If I decide a weed needs plucking, who are you to disagree? A snake has no right to judge a lion!"

"A lion?!" Qian Shanyi sneered incredulously. Even if she already knew which direction the man's words would take, it still felt incredibly pathetic. "We are not lions, we are human beings. But very well. If you insist on comparing yourself to a mindless beast, then die like one. First witness rests."

She gestured towards Svarggam Xiaochun, and leaned back a bit, her eyes closing on their own. As soon as they did, she felt herself drifting, ready to fall asleep. The contrast between the horrifying tension of the entire last day and knowing that they were almost done had been absurd.

The back of her head hit something hard. Reaching out, she felt an extremely familiar sensation. Perfectly smooth, like polished stone, and completely unyielding - the edge of the world. They must have been enclosed in a world fragment, though one far smaller than that of Wang Yonghao, and surrounded by darkness instead of light.

Glancing around the space, and sliding her hand around the wall, she couldn't help but note that it was clearly a sphere. Were all world fragments? It seemed too much to be a mere coincidence, yet she still knew so little.

Qian Shanyi gently slapped herself on the cheeks, bringing her attention back into focus, and forcing her tired eyes to stay open. The most dangerous time to relax was just before the job was done, and things were already going off-script. It was Svarggam Xiaochun's turn to speak, yet she remained silent.

Svarggam Xiaochun was, in fact, curled up with her face buried in her knees. Did Lei Kou's brief escape terrify her into silence? Qian Shanyi reached out, but when she touched the other woman's shoulder, her hand snapped out and grabbed Qian Shanyi by the wrist.

Annoyed eyes met hers. Svarggam Xiaochun pushed her hand away, and as she shifted around, Qian Shanyi saw blood dripping down her lips. She must have bit straight through them.

"Duke Lei Kou," Svarggam Xiaochun finally said, taking a breath to steady herself. She was shaking again, with clear rage, not terror. "I've held my brother's lifeless body after you slaughtered him. I've carried him back to our cabin. I have prayed for vengeance while covered in his blood! Every member of the Zhang clan is in our rights to seek a blood debt from all of your descendants!"

She bit her lips again, pushing a closed fist up against her forehead. "So tell me this!" she continued, "Have the Zhangs wronged you?! Have you sought a blood debt from us?! Was this why you've killed my sweet brother?!"

Qian Shanyi's eyebrow lifted slightly. She had only a broad idea of what this "blood debt" could refer to - it was not, in fact, one of the legitimate exceptions to the fourth imperial edict. But every witness asked whatever questions would grant them the conviction to make their verdict, whatever that may be, and it seemed that Svarggam Xiaochun still sought some kind of explanation for Lei Kou's madness.

She would find none. "Blood debt?" came Lei Kou's scratchy voice out of his hole. If she hadn't talked to the man for as long as she did, Qian Shanyi would have missed a faint tint of incredulity coloring his words. "I have no interest in your pathetic squabbles."

"Pathetic squabbles?! Pathetic squabbles?!" Svarggam Xiaochun actually screamed, making Qian Shanyi wince. Her voice trailed off into whispers Qian Shanyi couldn't quite make out. "The second witness rests."

Qian Shanyi smirked slightly. This was exactly the kind of mistake she was counting on Lei Kou making. She never had any real doubt that Svarggam Xiaochun would have the unshakable conviction required for a verdict - but Linghui Mei was another matter. She never saw the murder, and though she knew who was at fault, there would always be that little piece of doubt - and in the tribunal, that was unacceptable.

The more he raged, the more he struggled… The closer he would step toward his own death.

"Cultivator trash Kou," Linghui Mei spoke next. Her upper lip twitched, as if she was about to spit on him. "I have not met you before this tribunal. I have not seen you slaughter Zhang Xiaogang. I cannot testify about your crime."

She briefly glanced at Qian Shanyi, but immediately looked away when Qian Shanyi caught her looking, and coughed awkwardly. "But I have seen my master tremble from your terror," she continued, her lips splitting in a snarl. "For the first time since I've known her, she almost fell to despair. Even for a cultivator, your evil is beyond all measure! There isn't a single doubt in my mind that you are a murderer. I have no questions for you. I simply want you dead. The third witness rests."

Qian Shanyi's eyebrows climbed up her forehead by the time Linghui Mei finished her speech. She hoped that absolute confidence was not merely a front - or they would all be dead. Still. Now that she had rested, the time for questions was over.

Lei Kou did not reply. Even his eyes, that had gazed so fiercely at Qian Shanyi just moments ago, now closed. Perhaps he could already tell where this was heading.

"All witnesses have spoken," Qian Shanyi said, looking up, toward the three scarlet eyes that oversaw the whole procedure, and the crystal chips that would be left behind. It was surely unnecessary - speaking the words should have been enough - but she wanted to give some face. "It's time for verdicts. As the first witness, my verdict is one of death."

Something in the air had changed imperceptively once more, and Qian Shanyi felt the light dig into the edges of her mind, searching for her absolute conviction. She offered it freely, and a quiet tinkle resounded across their tiny world fragment.

"Death," Svarggam Xiaochun echoed her, with such plain hatred she sounded ready to be the executioner. Another tinkle, a louder one.

"Death," Linghui Mei concluded.

Qian Shanyi tensed, expecting the ritual to object - but the moment passed, and yet they still lived. No lies have been spoken.

"Unanimous," she said, grinning openly, and bowed slightly towards the eyes above. "This here cultivator humbly requests the imperial palace to execute our verdict!"

She needn't have bothered to ask. The ritual did not waste time. With the same ease that it crushed abominable Lei Kou into the ground, it lifted him up, until he hovered in the exact center of the world fragment. And then, it began to squeeze. There was no sound but for the pop of Lei Kou's joints, no light, merely force, only evident by the way Lei Kou's remaining limbs began to bend and crack, a man slowly reduced to a pastry, masticated by the jaws of justice.

He resisted, of course he did. He was golden core, and even the might of the tribunal could not completely overpower the strength of his body and soul. His muscles bulged, and he curled in on himself, his hands covering his stomach. But even if he could lift a mountain, the force that crushed him was far beyond that.

Svarggam Xiaochun looked away, gagging at the sight. Qian Shanyi kept watching. For the last time, she stared into the old man's face. She wanted to feel… Something. A sense of justice, of a job well done.

Instead, she felt dread.

Something is wrong.

Lei Kou's face was… almost peaceful, but that was impossible. Lei Kou was far too proud to face his death so quietly.

He was plotting something. One last surprise, one last trap -

"Careful -" Qian Shanyi started to say. Her hand went to her side, in search of the pommel of her sword that was no longer there. Habits died hard.

A mad grin spread out on Lei Kou's ugly, ancient face, even as one of his eyes popped like an overripe cherry. His other eye snapped open, staring hate towards Qian Shanyi. "You wish me death?" he said, "Well then. Since I'm going to die, I might as well take you all with me!"

He moved his hands away from his stomach - and then there was light.

It was as if a sun appeared right in front of them. The light was overwhelming, blinding, and the heat scorched Qian Shanyi's skin, even as she turned away and shielded her face from it. Someone screamed, and then something tackled her from behind, and at least some of the heat had vanished from her back.

There was a sound like a bell, and the ground vanished from underneath them. They fell, and Qian Shanyi blindly outstretched her hands, trying to brace her landing. Something sharp had hit her in the stomach, and her left arm caught, but she forced herself to roll to the side, to drain away the force of the impact.

At least the fall was short.

Lei Kou's sun was still hanging somewhere above them - she could feel its boiling heat on her back, her skin popping like bubbles - and she crawled away in whatever direction felt colder. There was sand beneath her fingers, stinging her inflamed skin.

The world fragment must have spat them out. The tribunal was over.

Belatedly, Qian Shanyi restored her spiritual shield. She didn't dare do it during the tribunal - only the emperor knew how it would take it. Slowly, she stumbled onto her feet, and pulled a bottle of her healing pills out of her picket. The Ministration of the Dying Serpent worked quickly, and the relief was as palpable as it was immediate.

Not that the speed of it would matter. If Lei Kou was dead, they had plenty of time to lick their wounds. If he wasn't, he would slaughter them easily.

Did he damage the tribunal? Surely not.

He was far from the first golden core to go through it, but the mysteries between Heaven and Earth were truly without number. Perhaps he had something the ritual could not account for.

Her sight came back to her slowly, the afterimage of the new sun fading from her corneas with every blink. She turned around, taking stock of the situation around her. She ended up only fifteen meters away from the rails, the pile of wood and steel on them the last remnant of the tribunal, where the severed fragment of the floor had been let out. It smoked, the scorching light having set fire to it.

Lei Kou's dying sun had hung directly above it, a few meters above the ground, perfectly spherical. Its light was slowly fading. If she squinted, and covered her eyes, Qian Shanyi could see some sort of texture to it - scales, or cracks on the shell of a tortoise.

The shell cracked. It was a narrow crack, passing through the very top, and the energy within had spewed forth in an enormous column of light and power that cut straight through the night sky, scattering what few clouds were to be found in this desert and briefly turning night to day for a hundred kilometers around them. From where Qian Shanyi stood, the heat from it had scorched her skin anew, and she threw herself to the ground to save herself.

Sweet mercy. The ritual must have protected us from the worst of it, and it was still barely enough.

The wave of spiritual energy came next, and her soul shook from its sheer awe-inspiring power, the current pulling the cilia of her soul away and narrowing her senses. She felt the fragments of Lei Kou's abominable soul rush past, torn to shreds and quickly coming apart at the seams.

She stayed down until the flow had stopped, until the light had faded, the cool night air sweeping away the heat of this brief cataclysm. When she raised her head up a second time - she saw the shell that housed the dead sun vanish into no more than dust. What remained of Lei Kou's mangled body - just scorched flesh and blackened bones - fell down on top of the wooden pile, his cracked skull rolling off until it came to rest down in the sand, facing Qian Shanyi with its empty sockets.

And all around, the desert had transformed. Where once was naught but sand, dust and stone, now stood a green oasis five hundred meters wide, of grass and moss and bush. The last act of a gardener's soul, before it perished entirely.

He was well and truly dead - not even a ghost would remain. The justice had been done.

Qian Shanyi dusted off her robes and headed off to search for her compatriots, whistling a little happy tune.

She killed a golden core powerhouse, and yet survived. Only a rare few cultivators could ever lay claim to such a feat. And if her luck was truly heaven-shattering… Perhaps she could snatch up that cosmos ring, if it had survived this apocalypse.

Above her, the moons slowly moved across the sky, like eyes of a kind deity. And in her mind, Qian Shanyi could not help but feel they smiled upon her.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.