Chapter 284 - Chamber of Divine Judgement

In the last millennia thousands of oji-sen had gone through the Trial of Requirement, yet only a handful had passed to become full oji.

What had happened to the rest of them?

They had been sacrificed.

Yuzu felt a chill down her spine as she suddenly understood the dark secret hidden within the Trial’s tiny, secluded world.

The nagging feeling in Yuzu’s gut returned as she reflected on Nilya’s peaceful journey through the shadowed valley. The tug on the string of the mouse that she received from the entity within the mountain.

There was a hesitation in Somm’s tone, a twinge of guilt— or perhaps, worry— in his morbid story.

Yuzu quickly understood why he had waited so long to divulge this information— He wasn’t sure whether he had sent his oji-sen to his salvation or death.

“Tell me about the ruler.” Yuzu said plainly, dividing her attention between Nilya’s exploration of the cave and her conversation with Somm. Fate cycling wasn’t an option at this time; she didn’t dare take her eyes off of Nilya.

“There is not much to tell. It is a mystery which we guru-chi have also tried to unravel this whole time.” Somm said with a muted tune, “The origins of the trial itself is a mystery, but we know that it was not created by Lord Shuma. The trial world is small, but it is ancient beyond ancient. Therefore, there is only one logical guess… the entity who set up the trial is the same one that created the prophecy in the first place, the one behind the visions of Aliza, our sacred prophet.”

“Akahi, the Goddess of Fate.”

Yuzu’s lips tensed as she mumbled under her breath, “The dead Goddess behind the Kismet Order…”

That organization which Argus had warned her about had come up yet again.

“Even in my lifetime, Akahi had already perished for a millenia. Yet her influence remains…” Somm reflected quietly, touching his fingers to his heart in solemn prayer.

“A pocket world must be sustained by its owner, and we discovered the ruler of the Trial space is even older than the previous Gods and Demons Era.” Somm paused, then said in a low tone,

“Hu Dao bows in the River of Absolution,

Jun Yi Kong kneels in Ying Zhen.

Qing Han prostrates before Heaven’s Palace.

Do you know this poem?”

Yuzu shook her head.

“It is a folktale that was popular in my youth. The Three Evils in the Era of Monsters. Ancient unkillable demons that rampaged across the land until the heavens themselves executed judgement upon them. Each of the three were sentenced to eternal punishment, banished forever to secluded realms of the world.” Somm said, “Ying Zhen was a famous monastery in Ying Chu, whose history dates back to antiquity that famously disappeared into the spirit realm…”

Somm’s eyes wandered upward to the moon as he lost himself in thought. After a moment he shook his head with a wry smile, “Like I said, there is not much to tell. If the ruler of the Trial world is the Demon King Jun Yi Kong… No, it is too ridiculous. Forgive this old man’s ramblings.”

He chuckled softly to himself as he stood up, excusing himself as if he were embarrassed by his own words.

Yuzu frowned as she watched Somm leave out of the corner of her peripheral vision. He exited the building, taking some time to tend to the ox, giving her space to do her work.

Somm had spoken with a casual tone as if making small talk, but Yuzu didn’t believe for a minute that his words were anything but deliberate. The timing too was suspect; he was likely waiting for Nilya to get closer to the ruler before divulging this information.

On the one hand, he likely didn’t trust Yuzu completely, so there was no point to give away valuable information ahead of time. On the other hand, there was a clear and unavoidable danger in sending Nilya to find the ruler… He was essentially sending another oji-sen to be sacrificed!

And he’s essentially telling me that dealing with the ruler is my problem now. Yuzu’s lips twitched in mild annoyance. Somm hadn’t even given her any information she could use to help Nilya. Demon King, Unkillable immortal, did he say it just to intimidate her or something?

Yuzu had never heard of these figures, nor had she heard of the Era of Monsters.

Furthermore, did he really believe that his silly little trial was being supported by an ‘unkillable evil demon of a long lost era’? Even if such a being did exist, why would they babysit the trial of a dead god?

Actually, considering how fanatic and devoted he is to his cause… perhaps he would believe that. Though it doesn’t mean it’s true. Yuzu considered. A light flashed in her eye as she thought with amusement: In fact, he’s being quite sly, hasn’t he? If he’s wrong, he just shrugs his words off as ramblings. But if he’s right, he’s essentially washed his hands of guilt since he’s given me ‘ample warning’.

Ramblings aside there was one detail that stood out in Somm’s information— He’d said the way to find the ruler was through the cliffside monastery. However when Nilya had gone through the ruins Yuzu remembered quite specifically that none of the monastery rooms had interior hallways. Nilya had traveled nearly the entire breadth of the ruins, Yuzu most certainly would have noticed an inner hallway…

Thinking about this conundrum, Yuzu remembered that she’d been in a pocket space before. Multiple times, even.

This was obviously the basement of the import shop, the small hallway of connected rooms which Argus used to facilitate meetings for Exalted members of society. The most notable characteristic of this space was that Argus had control over the layout of the hallway and the places that each door in the space connected to.

If I remember right, Argus didn’t have full control over the space… The rooms still followed certain restrictions and logic.Yuzu pondered to herself. Then, is this mountain the same?

Yuzu had a sudden thought as she touched Nilya’s string, sending him a message.

“Try going back.” She said.

Nilya had been traversing the cave for a while now but had not come across any notable features or life forms. It was simply a wide cavern that slowly descended deeper into the mountain.

Yuzu had been watching closely but hadn’t noticed anything particularly strange during this time. Due to the limited range of vision she had through Nilya’s strings she couldn’t see too far behind him. However once Nilya turned around and started to climb back, she realized that her suspicion was correct.

After a few turns even Nilya noticed that something was off. He paused, frowning as he whispered softly, “The cave looks different now… I don’t remember turning left here.”

Yuzu was about to respond when her spiritual intuition went off.

A thick silver string suddenly emerged from Nilya’s string — not inside the cave, but in the physical world where Yuzu was connected to him!

She instinctively jerked her hand backward, trying to release her connection to Nilya, but even as she did she realized that her own white string of fate had already been entwined by the thick silver string.

She blinked and the world changed before her.

~

Yuzu found herself in the center of a circular chamber, illuminated in a faint silver light.

She was kneeling in the same position that she had been in in the physical world. Her cloak was draped over body, her deep hood was low over her eyes. Her black hair hung down elegantly over her shoulders.

Though she was alarmed, she had enough presence of mind not to panic. She quickly checked the state of her white fate thread and found that it had been split into two. She hovered her fingers over the two threads and saw that in the physical world her body was still kneeling in front of Nilya with her eyes closed as if in a meditative trance.

As for the other thread, her consciousness and other planar bodies were clearly now here in this isolated pocket space of the spiritual plane.

She tried to will herself to return to her physical body but found that she was being restricted by an unseen force.

Reaching out to the limits of her awareness she discovered that the energies of this space were very familiar to her. Indeed, she had been brought into the Trial of Requirement’s pocket world, and was deep within the mountain.

It was indeed a trap… Yuzu’s lips pressed into a thin line. Though she knew that the ruler of the world was aware of her, she didn’t think there was a way to pull her into the space through the strings. Furthermore, to do so without her being able to predict it on the strings…

The smell of dust and rock lingered in the hazy air. The smooth stone beneath her knees was grey, but shimmered subtly in her vision with saturated blues and reds, the tell-tale characteristic of the spiritual plane.

She looked up, casting her eyes around the chamber. Her eyes widened and she instinctively pulled off her hood in awe as she looked up at the hallowed place that she had arrived in.

Intricately carved columns broke up the circle into twelve vertical sections, extending eight floors up to an open ceiling where a circle of night sky twinkled with starlight above.

It was like she was in a well gazing up at a small portion of the sky. However the interior of this well was exquisitely carved. On each floor framed between the columns was a shallow alcove, and in each of these alcove a life-sized statue held the center position.

These full-body statues were beautifully carved with elegant flowing fabric and rich, lifelike expressions. There were men with thick beards and powerful postures, scholars holding brushes and parchment, women with bountiful curves and elegant dresses. Some of them were standing, some sitting on thrones or stone daises. Some of them were alone in the frame, some had vases or spears or other items on either side of them, all of it was wrought with beautifully marbled stone.

The statues glittered subtly in the starlight, filling the chamber with a holy radiance.

What’s more, each of these statues were connected with dozens of interweaved fate threads, forming an incredibly intricate tapestry of fate that extended outward from the chamber in a magnificent sphere that radiated with the energies of fate.

Yuzu stood up, turning around to gaze at the alcoves, each one unique and full of details that made her feel that each statue represented a real person that had lived and been immortalized in stone.

At this point she realized that she was not at the base of the ‘well’, but on a circular platform elevated above the floor. Below the platform were four more floors of alcoves.

Twelve floors, twelve columns of alcoves. One hundred and fourty-four statues.

There were no stairs to descend to the base, but Yuzu had ample experience in the spiritual world after her time with Li Ru.

She stepped off the dais, using her spirituality to descend slowly to the ground below. Her cloak fluttered gently around her as she fell.

Her feet landed gently on the ground as she turned to look at the platform that she had just stepped off from.

The platform was suspended by a single monstrous carving, four storeys tall and carved out of black obsidian. It was of a man— or a giant— huge, with bulging muscles over his entire body. He was being crushed by the platform that Yuzu had arrived on, which itself was half a storey thick and carved with intricate runes.

The circular platform supported by the carving was wider than the carving itself. A circular ring was carved in the stone floor directly below the platform edges, with the outer wall of the room being twice the radius of the platform. The area under the platform was blanketed in shadow. Yuzu stood on the floor outside of the ring, making sure not to step under the shadow of the platform.

She examined the statue with a solemn expression.

The monstrous man carved into the obsidian had four heads and eight arms. His limbs were convoluted, his many hands were spread out around the carving. Some were struggling to hold up the platform, some were on the ground resisting being crushed. One of his knees were on the ground, the other leg was struggling to stand. His four heads had bulging eyes and thick, swollen tongues. One was catatonic with its eyes rolled into the back of its skull. One was tense with bulging veins and an expression of extreme exertion. One was laughing maniacally. One was roaring in fury.

Blades, arrows and other weapons were stabbed throughout the monster’s body.

Though the statue was incredibly vibrant and lifelike, like the statues in the alcove it had many elements that showed that it was carved by hand and not a monster that had been petrified into stone.

The stark contrast between the demonic, monstrous giant in the center of the room and the holy army of sages and saints gave Yuzu the feeling of an evil demon receiving judgement by the forces of righteousness. Even the light from the starlit sky above seemed to only touch the walls and the outer perimeter.

Yuzu observed the statue from her spot as if she were a tourist taking in a piece of art. The golden tapestry of fate reflected quietly in the depths of her grey eyes.

“Ah.” She said softly after a moment, “So that’s how you tricked me.”