Aaron had ordered Bymor to contact him to administer the first punishment for a grave offense, to make an example out of it. That many different people together for a long time should've brought issues, especially so when they were theoretically aggressive people who had come for war. The sooner he curbed their lack of discipline, the better.

However, the first day of the march passed by with no incident, much to his surprise. When they stopped to camp for the night — a mere four-hour pause, more to relax the mind than anything, since they were all cultivators — Bymor explained why that was so.

"The Arcane Circle is experienced in making people from a variety of backgrounds work together with little trouble. No, not experienced; we made an art out of it. The headquarters have people from all over the empire working in perfect harmony. And the Priests of Light are helping to calm the nerves too. I can tell them to make a bad job if you want to have someone do something stupid sooner."

Aaron shook his head. "No. I take no pleasure in punishing the weak. It's also best for morale if they keep order without the need for fear of punishment."

He solved minor issues after that — what to do about the trash the crusade was creating and throwing on the environment, minor skirmishes with beasts, promotions — and was given a large tent. He brought Lana there and told her to train in meditation.

She complied but was terrible at it. She still couldn't detect ambient Time Energy, and she was in a rush to do so, which was working against her. She claimed to have already felt Time Energy inside a Mouth-Man, but that was highly concentrated high-level energy. Now she had to relax to be able to feel it around her.

There was no point in telling someone to relax though, not when they were so anxious about it as her. He could induce her into it, but that would be counterproductive. Learning to cultivate by herself would help her immensely later on, while any shortcuts would just end up with her picking up bad habits.

Just like the bad habit of not meditating, really. It wasn't completely her fault she couldn't cultivate. Level-ups in Holy Energy were made by the god it came from. She had never cultivated in her life, and just sitting still for hours required a lot of training and experience, which she hadn't learned in the Temple of Light. Certainly, that was done on purpose. They wanted excommunicated Priests to be kept as weak and inept in cultivating as possible, both to prevent other Priests from having any ideas about cultivating without the deity's say-so, and to prevent the excommunicated from getting too powerful and seeking revenge.

As she kept trying and failing to think about nothing — despite his instructions — he turned to the newcomer in his tent, Alys.

Well, she was still outside, and Lun had stopped her. Aaron made a gesture with his hand and Lun recognized it using his detection skill. Alys entered carrying her sleeping beast, accompanied by a Three Star Psychic, an old woman in a stylish healer robe.

"Patriarch," Alys said, "I'm here to apologize. You gave me an order, and I didn't comply. This is Tari Salast, the Mind Healer who is treating me."

Tari bowed low. "May you bring glory to the Light."

Aaron frowned as he looked at her. There was something about her that was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He knew better than to doubt his instincts honed through many life-and-death situations though.

He nodded back at her. "Rise," he ordered, and she obeyed. "As a Mind Healer, you certainly have dealt with all kinds of people, so I won't hold myself back; I'm a straightforward person. Something about you troubles me, but I don't know what. You feel off. I could investigate you to find out, but I don't do that without permission unless I'm dealing with an enemy. Would you let me use a skill on you? Or would you rather tell me what it is?"

She smiled. "You are perceptive, herald. I'm not the original inhabitant of this soul. I'm a soul parasite."

Alys widened her eyes in shock while Aaron focused on what he felt from Tari with his active perception. She was lying. Oh, she knew how to fake the feeling of a hijacked soul, but his experience let him see through it. "It would be okay if you denied both my requests; you would merely be ordered to leave my crusade. Instead, you lied to me. Trying to deceive me in a time of war is an act of aggression. You are one question away from becoming my enemy. So, I repeat myself: would you rather let me use a skill on you or tell me what is off about you? Leaving is still an option. For now."

Her smiled died, and she kept silent for a few seconds. "Not just a soul parasite. I'm not the original soul of this body."

Yes, that was it. Her soul felt old, yet her body age didn't match. The few instinctual essences Aaron could feel on the outer perimeter of her soul were either too subdued or too powerful. That was a sign of an experienced person: her heart had been properly strengthened by cultivation and battered by time. He gave her at least tens of thousands of years old. "I see. I assure you I'll not reveal this information to anyone. I have no doubt your lies were required for you to protect yourself in the past, but I'll have none of it in here. This is your first and only warning: lie to me or mine again, and you shall become my enemy. The same holds for using your skills on them, except to heal Alys, I suppose."

She frowned. "Who do you consider 'yours'?"

"My clan and the people you even think might be close to me. I don't care about your business elsewhere."

Tari visibly relaxed. She had expected worse. "Very well."

Alys had a confused expression. She didn't understand the implications of what had been said. Souls could only inhabit new bodies in two ways: by finding a living body with no soul — those were extremely rare, even in a universal scale — or by replacing the original soul in a way that killed the original mind.

Tari was killing people and hijacking their bodies for herself. She had a slight death aura to prove it, though she hid it well. It was weak enough to prove she likely did that only to survive, not to pursue eternal youth or something of the kind. That she was currently an old lady also pointed that direction.

Aaron didn't care about it. Not only couldn't he care about every death in the world, but also who knew whether the old inhabitant of that body deserved to die? There were plenty of people who would be better off gone and none would miss, and a well-intentioned body snatcher could keep living without bringing greater harm to everyone else. His rules didn't forbid killing those who deserved it.

He could feel Lana twitching though. As a Priestess, she probably had been trained to deal with such people, especially if the woman had a class specialized in that and it wasn't a rare one.

"I accept your apologies in light of your struggles," Aaron told Alys to change the subject. "Is that all?"

She looked uncomfortable and said nothing. Tari spoke for her. "Are you aware of how mind healing works?"

"Unless it's different from where I come from, it involves a lot of talking to identify the issues, then a few skills to fix them."

Tari nodded. "It's mostly correct. I have also been using subtle mood and hormonal balance skills on Alys to help with the therapy. We came because I have to see for myself whether some things she said about the people surrounding her are correct. If they aren't, I also need to heal her perception of the world. It would be better to have a discussion with you and Lana Seccos over dinner if you don't mind."

He waved his hand, causing a table and four chairs to appear. "Lana, would you care to join us?" He pulled a chair for her.

She didn't even pretend to be deep in meditation. She stood up in a jump and sat. "Thank you," she smiled at his gesture.

The others sat, and Aaron also produced food from his ring. They had a pleasant dinner.

She listened to her master's troubles while having her back scratched. Head scratches were better, but her master wasn't focused on the glorious task of patting her. Bella would let it go. This time.

She was feeling... different. The annoying old man in a youth body and soul had said she wouldn't be able to absorb the essences of the carnifex. He had been right. Yet, something had changed inside her.

Maybe it had something to do with the old woman her master was talking to. The woman talked in a cadenced, pleasant voice. Her aura was nice too. She Bella felt as her master's mind was changed ever so slightly the more she talked. As if talking was a balm to the mind.

Yes, that theory sounded correct. Bella's own thoughts were... longer now. More focused. She felt less capricious. She had woken up at dinner, and the hateful man had been explaining to the old woman how the Master-Slave Soul Contract worked. Her master's stability affected her own. Bella felt more grounded now.

The only reason she didn't kill the woman for messing with her mind was that she liked the effect. Being able to focus for longer on things she wanted to focus on was pleasant. Her brother would benefit from it too — maybe she should suggest it.

Really, the old woman was skilled. Even the man had looked at her with admiration as she kept using skills on Bella's master throughout the dinner. She should become a permanent servant in the household.

And Bella did suggest that to her master. "Good slave," she sent through their connection. "Keep her."

Her master froze and looked at her in awe of her wisdom and foresight.

Finally, on the morning of the second day, an almost lethal fight broke out. Aaron ordered the march to stop and had a two-layer stage built where he sat on a large wooden chair resembling a throne at the top layer.

The involved parties were brought to him in suppressive chains Bymor had brought with him. Each chain could suppress a single energy up to a certain level. He had a lot of them, for all different energies and levels up to Five Star. The parties were forced to kneel at the lower layer, which was still raised compared to the ground. Mostly everyone from the crusade had come to witnesses the judgment.

Lun stood to Aaron's side, behind the throne. Bymor and Jil sat on simple chairs on the lateral of the stage. Lana had no business there though and was left to join the officers on the first rows on the ground.

Aaron raised his hand.

Arcane Sound Arts: Silence!

Half the Arcane Energy in his active perception exploded invisibly in a drizzle of sound suppression in the area. Silence descended upon the world.

"Let this judgment commence. I was told the both of you fought a duel, which is against the rules. You only failed to kill each other because officers intervened. I was also told both of you did it willingly, for a bet, which is also against the rules — not the bet, doing it willingly for no good reason. I have already investigated and concluded you are both guilty. The punishment is death to be administered at once."

They didn't even have the time to widen their eyes before Arcane blades cut their heads off. Their bodies fell. Aaron stood up and looked at the crowd, who looked mostly confused.

"That concludes today's matters. If you won't obey the rules, rest assured that at least the punishment part of the rules shall be forced upon you. I don't care who you are or how powerful you are. May the march continue." He canceled his silence spell and left the stage.

People didn't move for a long time, most of them failing to assimilate that two Five Star cultivators had been executed as simply as that.