V4C59: The Tribunal

They were naturally surprised, but after a moment of hesitation they all performed their appropriate gestures and said the appropriate words to trigger the effect of the ephemeral talisman light floating before her.

All of their words came in at once, causing the tapestry of Law to shimmer and fluctuate, widening the gashes on Wei Yi’s uncovered hand and forcing her to focus upon the chains as to make them shift in just the right ways. Simply creating the state of the ethereal talisman as it currently was insufficient to make it perform exactly as the talisman itself did, and so she had to maintain her focus for long enough to enforce the restrictions of the ephemeral talisman properly.

If she somehow limited herself but failed to limit someone like Luo Long Meng, or any of the others that was against her, then she would have effectively hacked off a foot before she even began.

‘The first thought that came to mind was shooting myself in the foot, but that seems to be one of those otherworldly terms. Nobody around here tends to be able to shoot themselves with planar energy and hit themselves successfully,’ the Ascendant thought to herself once the Law talisman was stabilised, raising her head to address the six in their seats, “So, shall we begin?”

As she spoke, she shifted the Law talisman behind herself, this being far easier than allowing it to remain in the air, although that was eased the moment that six people with a consistent view of how the talisman should work acted upon it. It made use of the principles she had gleaned through the Conqueror’s Eye, and made use of it to enhance the stability of something that she shouldn’t be able to maintain with her Great Stride stage of the Dao of Law. It became far easier the moment that she was acknowledged to have some power, since that empowered her physique ability and resulted in a faint shimmer of blackened crimson to surround the ethereal talisman.

The six guardians didn’t appear to notice, for better or worse, and instead glanced at one another as they considered what they were actually going to question her about, and who would do it first.

Eventually, Luo Huang sat up and tapped the armrest on his seat several times.

“Let us begin with a question that we seem to have had about you prior to the start of this. Some time ago, our district was visited by a woman called Wei Yi, who had a similar garb to your own, with a pair of the same clawed gauntlets. Before we proceed, can you confirm that you are not the same person as her?” he asked, choosing a question that was both valuable and not too significant.

From her own understanding of the situation, as well as the reactions of the other five, while they were also curious about this matter, it would be of much use to any of them, since the most that it would connect her to would be the strange disappearance of the Brotherhood of Power, the name of which most of them likely didn’t even know. If that was all that they could expect, then it didn’t matter whether or not she was truly who she claimed to be, or not be, and so they were mostly paying attention to the talisman than her.

If she lied, and it showed, then that would confirm that it was functioning, whereas the failure for the talisman to light up would not tell them much.

“I and that woman are related, but very different. If anyone is interested, I could prove it quite definitively, but only if any of you happen to know someone that had seen the previous figure called Wei Yi naked.”

Again, the intent of the words changed everything, preventing a blatant lie from making a single change to the talisman hanging before her. She and the other Wei Yi were obviously the same, hence them being related, but she had grown significantly since then, even gaining an additional sex organ, so she was technically speaking the truth.

Aside from disappointing Luo Ru Qiu for whatever reason, and making Luo Jian jump for a moment at the proposition for a reason of his own, it did confirm for a second time that the Imposition of Truth was hardly flawless. When it had been created, however many years ago, it was likely not meant for such occasions, but as the number of high realm items and individuals that could make them dropped with every generation, it had to take up that role. Anyone that didn’t know of its flaws would likely only be able to overcome it by accident, and might even pin their success on luck or on the fault of the aging item without properly comprehending the way in which it worked.

That would make it rather clear why it was a method that seemed to be employed on outsiders that would be less likely to know as much about talismans as the people of the Luo District would.

“No need for that,” Luo Huang shook his head, nervously glancing at the ephemeral talisman behind her for yet another reason that was likely to not be dissimilar to the one that Luo Jian had, “In that case, I shall not bring up any of the matters relating to her. Does anyone have any objections to this, or shall we continue?”

Luo Long Meng frowned as she likely thought of any methods to take advantage of the situation, but her brief contemplation resulted in no results that she seemed to deem suitable, as she spat out, “Proceed.”

She had also glanced at the glowing yet dim talisman, so the effort might already have been paying off.

The others were clearly used to her poor mood since Luo Ru Qiu didn’t wait long to speak, “I think that it will be best for all of us if we get through the most vital points first, then handle anything minor that remains. As such, I would like to ask whether or not you intended any harm to the Luo District during your visit, or if you are present with any malicious intent to a significant beneficiary of the district that might impact us negatively upon your actions.”

His question was broad, attempting to cover as many possibilities as he thought were relevant. There were a lot of ways to harm someone or something, and quite a lot of things could be considered detrimental to the district. Since someone could negatively affect a place or person without being aware of it, nobody could be blamed for doing so without the awareness of it, but if someone attempted to harm the district and still failed, they could certainly be blamed for the mere attempt in the current context. As such, he had worded it specifically to target any intention towards the Luo District at all.

It did also include such factions as the Greats, as they were technically a significant faction that had a major effect on the district, although some did intend to debate the degree to which the Great Families aided the district, if at all.

Given that she was part of a faction that was dedicated to taking out the Great Families and changing the world in a significant way, the only way for her to get out of the question without causing the talisman to indicate her as being untruthful would be to be absolutely certain that her own cause wasn’t harmful to Yi City, the Luo District, and the like.

Hence, she was able to confidently state, “I intended no long-term harm to the Luo District whatsoever, although I may have caused some short-term harm simply due to the way in which taking resources that may have otherwise been obtained by the people of the Luo District can affect it. As for malicious intent towards other groups… You should know that I have plenty of that towards the Great Families, although I would very much call it well deserved. It is also not in any way detrimental to you. In fact, there are only benefits for you to side with me and my Arbiters, whereas the Greats will only lead the world to ruin.”

All eyes naturally turned to the talisman hanging from the railing before them, only to find that there was no reaction from it, as if she did not make use of it in the first place.

There were only two feasible explanations for such a thing: one was that she somehow circumvented it and thus avoided detection, and the only other one was that she had spoken entirely honestly, and purely dedicated to her own purposes and goals. It was amazing, but so far as any of them were able to tell from their own understanding of talismans, it had to be the latter option, as she had done nothing with her energy that might possibly prevent the talisman from being able to pick up on a lie.

“That is what you genuinely believe?” Luo Jian questioned, his eyes flicking to Luo Long Meng a number of times, “All of it?”

“What reason do I have to lie? However, I would like to address the lot of you-” she was interrupted by the talisman lighting up with a significantly stronger red for a moment, forcing her to correct herself, “I would have preferred to do something else, but I shall do this instead as it is more civil and less likely to lead to conflict. I happen to have heard that the lot of you are going through some tough times right now due to the general indecisiveness of your Patriarch, and are pondering whether it might be a better idea to find a replacement as soon as possible. Mind sharing your opinions on who you prefer?”

“What does this have to do with your trial?” Luo Long Meng said.

“What trial? Was the whole point not to confirm that I am not a threat to the district? I have confirmed that I am not, so shouldn’t we make use of the talismans while they are still active?”

“Do you intend to meddle with our internal politics, Wei Yi? Are you absolutely certain that it is wise to do so when you are only in the fifth realm, acting on behalf of a faction that is barely staying within our city?” Luo Jian asked.

“Yes, of course. That being said, I think that you are very much wrong when it comes to our position. The Arbiters shall grow with every moment, and we will defeat the Great Families, and we will ensure that the ancient legacies of Yi City and the times before shall all be shared with the world once more. What is it that you lot want to do? Do you want to let the Greats drag us all into an age of impotence and weakness, where we are all effectively unable to cultivate, or would you rather see Yi City rise into its past form?” Wei Yi questioned, turning to the old man, “You in particular should want the latter.”

The old man was the weakest and oldest of the lot, and he was very keen to speak of power and strength. For that reason, she presumed that he was someone that would be interested in rising up beyond his current limited station. Everyone had some degree of interest in power, as that was only natural, but some would view that power as some goal in itself, whereas most would see it as being something that they require for some other purpose, whether pure convenience or some higher goal.

What she was hoping for happened nearly right away, as he quickly quietened down and seemed to sink into his seat.

His peer and possible ally, Luo Long Meng, did not do the same, sitting up and slamming her hand down onto the armrest as she called out, “Do you really believe that the supporters of Luo Yunzhen are a faction that intends to pull us down? Answer me!”

“Shouldn’t you be the one answering me? You don’t believe that they are a positive force either.”

“I…” the young woman might have said more, but her eyes locked onto the ephemeral talisman floating behind Wei Yi and she couldn’t utter anything definitive. Making theoretical statements was easy enough, but who in their right mind would ever support a group that was genuinely attempting to weaken the world as a whole? Even they were likely only doing because of their ancestry, due to strict upbringings, and the belief that they would ultimately remain the most powerful due to their techniques and methods.

“For this reason, I would like all of you to tell me what you lot think is best, and then we may be able to come to a resolution for the district as a whole. It might be quicker than waiting for Luo Na to win.”

Most of the guardians were noticeably uncomfortable as a result of her proclamation, as one might expect from a group that mostly didn’t wish to side with the candidate that Wei Yi had chosen, but they got over it quickly enough and decided to express their beliefs quickly. They obviously wanted to get it over with, both to avoid her hanging onto the matter and to ensure that the Patriarch wouldn’t be able to listen in and try and dispose of them.

Luo Ling Zan expressed his view first, saying, “I wish for peace and stability, and thus I wish for neutrality. I do not care for the current conflict, and I would rather see it ended than having anything else occur.”

“I would say the same,” Luo Shiling said, “The less conflict, the best.”

“I am forced to admit the same. I like change, but not when it comes at the high risk of the complete loss of stability for the district. A sixth realm expert, even if he or she were to be incredible in their own regard, would be insufficient to maintain the same strength and stability as the seventh realm Patriarch that the rest of the districts have,” Luo Ru Qiu also agreed.

Luo Huang waited for a moment, saw that the other two weren’t yet speaking, then hesitantly said, “In my eyes, the best person to support the district would be Luo Na. We require change, and we require change that she can provide.”

“There’s where the reasonable… where I disagree with you,” Luo Long Meng stopped herself from trying to label herself as honest or reasonable, since neither of those would be entirely true, “Luo Yunzhen would be the far superior choice no matter how you look at it. He is suitable by tradition, by his ability, by his talent and with the contributions that he has made to the Luo District. Meanwhile, Luo Na has befuddled countless people just because they got near her talisman shack.”

“I am of the firm opinion that the Great Families are the best for the Luo District-”

The words of the old man, Luo Jian, were interrupted by the ephemeral talisman flickering to crimson, prompting everyone to look at him in a very unfavourable way.

“I… I mean that I believe that they are the best choice for the Luo family-”

Another flicker of crimson confirmed Wei Yi’s earlier guesses about him, mainly that he was not that concerned about the state of the district itself but only one person within it due to his present weakness and likely inability to proceed much further than his current meagre stage at the bottom third of his current realm.

“… Fine. It would be best for me,” he finally admitted, much to his own shame and the unpleasant looks of the other five, although the Ascendant’s gaze upon him was far more vicious and disappointed than that of all of the guardians combined.

Had he been seeking some group that was a little dubious for that purpose, she might not have minded. Rather, she would have had no right to mind, when her own actions were hardly perfect in any regard. And yet, he decided that he would go to the group that sought the end of Yi City as it currently was, crushing it into something insignificant, ruled over from the shadows by whatever would remain of the Greats at that point while the Patriarchs would likely be only at the second realm, if not lower. That was not just a foolish decision, but an absolutely moronic one, and it was not something that Wei Yi intended to tolerate even if she had felt bad for him – which she did not.

Some people that had no chance to obtain power and suffered as a result had the right to demand a chance after everything they had endured, in her mind, for they had not only been given a bad hand by life but then persisted and attempted to succeed nonetheless. However, from what she was able to tell, Luo Jian was not this kind of person.

He had the realm that many could only ever dream of, he had the position that most wouldn’t even presume to be available to them, and he was living in a district that was one of the stronger and more stable ones within the current Yi City. It wasn’t like he had been born and lived in the Ping District, where he would have needed to pay protection money to fifty different gangs all of the time, so it was difficult to presume him to be someone that had a tough time.

‘Presumption isn’t even necessary when mental scanning is taken into account. From his memories, it seems that his status as one of the relatives of the current Patriarch, Luo Ping Dong, has earned him a rather smooth road to the sixth realm, except that he wasn’t confident with practising a high grade technique and used a weak one the whole way through. As a result, he has the realm, but not the strength to fully back it up. Someone at the ninth stage of the fifth realm could compete with him and likely not lose out too significantly,’ she thought while she waited for the other guardians to make their own judgements.

Regardless of their own opinions, which some of them did express with dissatisfied muttering, she would eventually speak, but it was best to give them some room.

In this case, that room was no longer than a minute since she had an excellent idea very quickly.

“Naturally, some of you may be against my particular pick, so, before I espouse my opinion on the Great Families, I suppose I might as well explain why selecting Luo Yunzhen as your next Patriarch will lead you into the same pit that they will. Have any of you heard of the Blood-tinged Church? I know that Luo Ling Zan is familiar, but how about the rest of you?”

“Out of the bits that we know, I am most familiar with the tale of Chao Jianhong,” Luo Shiling offered helpfully.

“That much should be enough. The Blood-tinged Church is a group of maniacs and madmen intent on experimenting on all of you for the sake of furthering their own understanding of blood and bloodlines, an understanding that might not pale in comparison to my own, considering the things that I’ve seen,” she explained, “There are factions amongst them that have broken off due to the extreme nature of the Church, and I would advise all of you not to even attempt to aid them. They will take advantage of you just as they took advantage of Chao Jianhong’s desire.”

There was no response from the talisman, for it was nothing but her honest opinion. It may have lacked as much evidence as she would have personally liked to make a complete definitive statement, but the talisman was hardly equipped with the function to clarify it, and she wasn’t going to do it herself.

“Luo Yunzhen must be working with the Blood-tinged Church, as a number of warriors making use of techniques that are only available to them have appeared in his service, not to mention the woman that resembles me, Jian Hongchao, who has been experimented on by them. I don’t know their exact reason to be in this district, but I know that it is not one that any of you will like, even if it comes to some benefit to you,” the Ascendant stated, gazing at Luo Jian as she was doing so, “If Luo Yunzhen is in favour of the Church, or if he is some puppet of theirs, then I would advise against selecting him as the Patriarch. Either case is terrible for your district, for your cultivation, for the people, and for the world as a whole.”

In the eyes of the guardians, even those that were essentially on her side, the talisman should have acted by now. It should have done something, reacted to any one of her words, marking them as a lie, and yet all that they witnessed was an oval shaped light manifest above her head, roughly twice as wide as she could stretch her arms and about one and a half that amount tall.

From the way in which it appeared alone, it was clear that this was the memory sharing function of the talisman, and that intrigued them even more. Words were deceptive in many regards. One could say a lot of things, and even if they were blatantly false, so long as the person speaking believed them to be true, the talisman wouldn’t react. This did not extend to memories for the simple reason that the talisman didn’t interpret them, only showed them as clearly as it was able to. All of the sound and visuals that someone experienced would be bared to them, and they could determine what they thought of it themselves.

There was no way to deceive this method without having one’s memories changed, and that was rarely feasible without an extreme mastery in mental manipulation methods. Even then, there would be blatant flaws that the one experiencing the memories would overlook, or fill in on their own, but others would be able to perceive almost right away, making such false memories blatant and not particularly effective in such situations.

Either way, if there was any falsehood in her words, they would be able to tell from this.

The light manifested into a scene of the Luo District, one that Luo Ling Zan recognised with ease as he had been there not long ago. He hadn’t been inside of the building that he now saw, but he was able to recognise some of the walls in the state they were in before they had collapsed.

It showed them how a sixth realm cultivator appeared before her in a building that was clearly being used by Luo Yunzhen’s faction, and as the visual component almost broke down a little, they were also able to get everything that her spiritual perception had taken in. He was two sets of meridians, and a blood-like energy flowed swiftly throughout the second set, supporting energy that resembled it but paled in comparison, if it was to be assessed by how bloody it looked. What was clear was how it supported the planar energy of the cultivator, the two energies collectively pulsing like a heart.

With the conversation that they had been having, they obviously thought to the Blood-tinged Church, and how the cultivation that they were currently seeing would make sense to have been the result of that Church’s research. It might not have been the only possibility, but as the human mind tended to leap to conclusions, finding more and more evidence that assisted them.

That sixth realm cultivator fought with her, making use of blatant blood-type methods, and even commanded the red-haired woman while referring to her as a blood servant, which naturally drew their minds further to the Church. It was clear that certain bits and pieces were skipped from the way in which the memory would suddenly leap forward by a few moments every now and then, but despite them being fully aware that they were facing something specifically intended to provide them with just the information that would influence them the most, they still couldn’t argue that this was all clearly connected.

“I have no doubt that the person I had fought was part of the Blood-tinged Church, whether in the past or at the moment, if he is still alive beneath the rubble. Given that Luo Yunzhen was working with him openly, and Jian Hongchao was being forced to extract blood essence from various items, I don’t think I need to explain who would have benefited from this,” Wei Yi said as she brought out the round object from the hidden tomb and showed it to them.

“That… I do not recognise it, but there should have been something relating to the Luo family blood within it,” Luo Ling Zan said, “That woman extracted it?”

“At the order of Luo Yunzhen or the people he is working with. Possibly both, depending on what they intend to do. However, whatever the exact situation is, she isn’t the one to blame for all of this. If any one of you does encounter her and decides to take her out, I would ask that you incapacitate her rather than killing her, as it will be bad for both of us if she dies,” she didn’t reveal the exact nature of the otherworldly demons, as she knew that some would be all too keen to obtain an azure light for themselves if they could, and instead expressed herself in that way, “Before then, however, I would like to ask any of you if you are willing to endanger the Luo District with the madness that the Blood-tinged Church would bring.”

Luo Long Meng gazed down at the ground; her eyes unfocused as she was deep in thought. From the thoughts passing through her head, which were rather easy to view with a spiritual will thread, Wei Yi was reasonably able to conclude that her decision to side with Luo Yunzhen was not due to his alliance with the Blood-tinged Church, nor the Greats.

In her thoughts, the woman essentially saw a small number of things as being positive and worthy of her attention, but the rest were apparently worthless and insignificant, with the thoughts and memories relating to them being dim and dark while the select few were bright and vibrant. During the brief time that they were silent, the only positive thoughts were in regard to Luo Yunzhen, whereas the rest were mostly dedicated to the personal pleasures of her life and little else. She had apparently heard of the Great Families before, from a source other than the Arbiters, and hadn’t thought of them positively either.

“Luo Jian, do you believe that the Blood-tinged Church can be a positive force?” Wei Yi asked.

Unlike Luo Long Meng, the old man did not appear as obvious in his displeasure, if he was affected at all, hence forcing her to ask him directly.

“I… I do not. However! I, as the guardian of the Luo District, label you as a foe of the Luo family! By my honour and name, I shall eliminate you and rid the world of the threat that you pose to us all!” the old man suddenly leapt into action, jumping onto the railing and manifesting a great deal of planar energy all while ignoring the repeated crimson flashes of the ephemeral talisman behind him.

His peers also didn’t perceive his actions as being particularly wise, for they remembered how the memory shared by Wei Yi had showed her competing and easily damaging the sixth realm cultivation she had fought with by a significant degree. Since he was likely to be someone from a powerful cult like the Blood-tinged Church, that would just mean that Luo Jian wouldn’t stand a single chance against her, unless she couldn’t be bothered to fight back.

There was also the matter of his attempt to label her as a foe. Simply put, he couldn’t do so on his own, so all that he did was proclaim his own intentions.

Intentions that weren’t too popular amongst most in the room.