The sun hung high, yet a strange chill settled across the training platform.
Lucien Graves moved with calm precision, blade whistling as it clashed against his sparring partner's staff. He wasn't trying. He didn't need to. His strikes were measured, his footwork slow enough to teach—but sharp enough to kill.
The gathered disciples watched him with mingled awe and wariness. The boy who arrived a season ago now bested instructors with polished grace. No cultivation surges ever followed his duels. No golden aura. Just cold efficiency.
That's when the wind stopped.
The air warped like silk folding inward. A heavy spiritual pressure slammed down like a judge's gavel. A pulse of qi parted the clouds above the platform.
Then he landed.
A silver-robed elder stepped into the clearing with the weight of mountains behind him. His face was lean and hawkish, framed by strands of black hair silvering at the ends. His eyes were the color of polished bronze—ancient, unblinking.
Gasps whispered like reeds in the wind.
"Elder Mencius…"
Lucien lowered his blade slowly. His stance didn't change.
Mencius stepped forward, voice sharp and unnerving in its clarity.
"Lucien Graves... You shouldn't exist."
All movement halted.
Lucien blinked, playing at confusion. "Elder... do you mistake me for someone else?"
Mencius's voice rang louder, deeper now, tinged with fury. "Even in ashes, your karma stinks. I remember you. Your trial... your sentence. You carry the mark of judgment. You should've burned."
The System pulsed behind Lucien's eyes.
[Target Identified: Elder Mencius]
[Karma Reading: -990]
[Charge: Soul Trade with Infernal Reapers | Concealment via Heaven-grade Artifacts]
[Verdict Level: Divine Medium]
Lucien's inner breath hitched—but he kept his face blank. This man had been there. At the old world's trial. And worse—he was a mass soul trafficker. A hidden butcher wearing celestial robes.
Lucien straightened and sheathed his blade.
"Then perhaps, Elder," he said, "it is time for karma to settle accounts."
A dozen elders assembled within moments, drawn by the summoned spiritual storm. They gathered at the edge of the training courtyard, eyes flicking between Lucien and Mencius. Murmurs hissed like snakes in the grass.
"This boy bypassed the purification rites."
"He appeared with no sect lineage."
"Rumors said his karma thread was blank—impossible."
Lucien stood still, eyes cast downward. "If I've committed crimes, then let Heaven judge me."
Some snorted.
"Arrogance."
"He plays at virtue now."
But Lucien didn't flinch.
[System Skill Activated: Heaven's Scale]
[Cost: 3 Karma Fragments]
[Effect: Reveal karma ledger of selected target. Public Verdict will trigger if corruption threshold is exceeded.]
[Verdict Tier: Divine Medium]
[Cooldown: 48 Hours]
A soundless tremor pulsed outward.
The air thickened.
A glowing balance scale unfurled in the air above them, thirty feet across. One side bore Mencius's name, etched in spectral gold. The other—blank.
The scale tilted violently.
Motes of light burst from Mencius's form, forming ledger-scrolls in the sky. They unraveled in divine script, each line burning like holy fire.
"Facilitated thirty-three soul trades to Infernal Reapers in exchange for demonic enlightenment elixirs."
"Sacrificed outer disciples under false 'elevation rites' to prolong life."
"Silenced inner court investigators through memory sigils and blood-binding."
The scrolls multiplied. By the tenth, disciples began screaming.
"No... no, I trained under him—!"
"He touched my soul core—said it was a test!"
Mencius snarled. "You think you can judge me, boy?! You think this little trick proves anything?!"
He reached into his sleeve, pulling out a glowing talisman inscribed in shifting dragon script.
Lucien's eyes narrowed.
[Heaven-Grade Concealment Talisman Detected]
[System Override: Nullified under Divine Judgment]
[Skill Activated: Verdict Chains]
[Cooldown: 12 Hours]
Chains of blazing golden light erupted from the ground. They wrapped around Mencius's limbs, chest, throat—binding him in place.
The elder screamed. "No! I serve the heavens! I did what was necessary! There's balance in sacrifice!"
Lucien stepped forward and summoned the spectral blade—blackened steel forged from karma fragments, pulsing with divine resonance.
No flourish. No ceremony.
He plunged the blade into Mencius's heart.
The elder's body convulsed. A blinding sigil seared itself into his chest and exploded into a burst of ash and flame. His robes burned to nothing. His soul shattered mid-air—devoured by unseen law.
[Execution Complete: Elder Mencius]
+600 EP
+3 Karma Fragments
[System Alert: Sect Status – High Alert]
[Rumor Unlocked: The Hidden Judge]
That night, the Radiant Lotus Temple did not sleep.
In the scroll archives, a pair of junior scribes whispered between shelving carts.
"He summoned a divine scale. Like the ones in the old tales."
"No one stopped him. No elders, no talismans. It was like... Heaven wanted him to."
In the kitchens, cooks passed dried lotus root across their bowls and traded news faster than steam could rise.
"They say the elder screamed as if his soul was being peeled. No blood. Just light."
"He's not cultivating," one said. "There's no spiritual bloom around him. Yet he kills like he's reading from the Book of Judgment."
In the dormitories, silence fell over prayer circles. The term re-emerged.
The Hidden Judge.
A story, once myth—used to frighten disobedient disciples.
A divine executor born when the sect's rot outweighed its virtue.
And now?
Now, he walked among them.
High above the chaos, Rein Aldric stood alone at the Observation Pavilion, eyes locked on the courtyard below.
Mencius's death had left a burn mark in the floor that even spiritual cleansing couldn't erase.
Rein tapped a sealed scroll on the railing. His voice was soft.
"He did it in public. That wasn't judgment. That was a declaration of war."
His fingers traced the glyphs forming across his private sect ledger.
Lucien Graves: Unregistered Karma Source. Immune to normal detection. Executes through divine systems.
No sect technique could create such a thing.
No known artifact could bind karma so precisely.
He was beginning to realize: Lucien wasn't just dangerous. He was systemic.
A walking verdict. A living tribunal.
Rein set his brush to paper.
"To the Sect Master:
Graves is no rogue cultivator. He is a system unto himself.
Assimilation or elimination are our only options. Delay invites collapse.
– Rein Aldric"
Night in Lucien's quarters was quiet—but heavy with the weight of purpose.
He sat before a simple altar of smooth stone. Three prayer stones rested in silence:
Wren.
Bail.
Mencius.
He lit no incense. There was no comfort in what he did. These were not tributes to the dead. They were acknowledgments of the process. Of necessity.
[Trial Phase Complete: 3 of 3 Targets Executed]
[New Trial Slot Unlocked]
[Paranoia Index: High]
[Sect Instability: Moderate]
[New Skill Available: Karma Sight (Passive)]
[Accept Upgrade? – Y/N]
Lucien accepted.
A soft shimmer passed over his eyes, and the world sharpened.
Now, faint threads of colored light floated near every living being in his vicinity. Red for guilt. Blue for clarity. Purple for sealed crimes.
He stared at the floor for a long time.
"One rot removed. One truth revealed. How many more?"
Outside his window, the lotus pond stirred, though no wind touched the leaves. Petals floated upward as if drawn by some unseen current, orbiting the moonlit temple.
A reckoning had begun.