"Guilty!"
The judge declared, his voice echoing through the courtroom, accompanied by three strikes of his gavel. Hearing the sentence, the courtroom erupted in loud cheers from the spectators' side in the back while the jurors stood up to applaud the verdict.
Surrounded by people celebrating his guilty verdict, the young man standing in the middle of the courtroom only let out a hollow exhale as he expressionlessly awaited his sentencing.
"Order in the court!"
Raising his voice, the judge struck again with his gavel. Once the courtroom fell into silence, the judge continued. "Let us proceed to the sentencing right away."
The young convict simply gazed at the judge with an unchanging blank expression.
Hearing the verdict didn't shock him in the least.
It has been decided a long time ago.
The judge turned his attention to the convict, barely suppressing a smile as he addressed the young man directly.
"You didn't provide the court with your real name, so allow me to use the one we all know…" There was an audible disdain in the judge's tone, but that didn't seem to bother the convict in the least.
"Altair of the Red Mansion, you will be exiled to the edge of the Lawless Abyss." Declared the judge, striking with his gavel for the final time.
There was no one opposing the judge's decision; there was only a unanimous reaction of joy from those present.
"Courtroom dismissed."
With these final words, the months-long trials were now over. And while it was already faster than other recorded cases, to Altair, it was all just a blur.
By the time he broke out of his stupor, the courtroom was empty except for the two guards wearing blue uniforms leading him outside the courthouse, where he was met with a swarm of reporters and civilians.
Countless questions and curses rained down on him; however, he didn't hear them through the constant buzzing of his ears.
Altair paid no mind to the crowd as he let himself be led away by the two uniformed figures, even as they continued to pester him relentlessly with their cameras and microphones shoved into his face.
Because of the swarm of reporters buzzing around Altair, other officers were forced to step in.
They wore the same blue uniforms, but were armed with two-meter-long iron spears with edges gleaming in a deep blue light.
As the crowd divided, a path opened up in front of the convict, yet he stood still, rooted in place.
The buzzing in his ears turned louder, filtering out the barrage of questions and accusations thrown at him. Yet, with everything around him, he could only hear one thing.
The dangling off chains.
In that moment, Altair's hearing cleared up, but he couldn't make out a single word through the cacophony of questions and accusations.
But even though that, the dangling sound of chains remained.
"Altair of the Red Mansion…"
The voice of the man could be heard even through the noise; it was enough to silence the crowd with its presence alone.
All the gathered reporters turned their attention to the man, questioning him instead of the convict.
"Lord Verlice, now that the Aberrant Corps has captured one of the Red Mansion assassins, what will be the next course of action in the Red Mansion murder investigation?"
The man referred to as Lord Verlice turned his attention to the reporter. He was a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with short, neatly combed back black hair and blue eyes with a gentle gaze behind them.
"While we couldn't get anything out of Altair, we still managed to find traces of Andromeda and Celeste…" Lord Verlice turned his attention to Altair while showing him a warm smile.
"… It's only a matter of time until we hunt down the rest of the Red Mansion killers; you will all meet the same fate… eventually. So why not make it easier on all of us? You can still come clear."
For the first time since his capture, Altair felt like his vacant expression could crumble. He looked up at the sky, muttering something barely audible under his breath.
"The clouds seem a bit farther today."
The nobleman in front of him no longer smiled.
"Take him away."
The two guards pushed Altair forward, leading him away from the city square.
Every step he made was scrutinized by the inhabitants of the city, eagerly waiting to see him lowered into the Lawless Abyss.
The closer Altair drew to the edge of the city, the more noticeable the decay became.
Moss growing out of the cracked concrete, thick green vines fully overtaking entire buildings, and an uncomfortable, funky smell lingering in the air.
Yet, even as he was approaching the edge of the city, his eyes were still directed at the clouds.
They really seem a bit farther away today…
The city is sinking.
The buzzing of his ears was yet to cease, while the constant clinging of his chains only seemed to worsen his skull-splitting headache; however, the closer he got to the edge of the city, the less it seemed to bother him.
It's time…
He saw numerous people wearing orange, surrounded by officers wearing blue and black uniforms while holding the same blue-edged spears.
The convicts were lined up at the edge of the city, where the grand lift stood.
One by one, each convict had their chains removed and pushed into the lift, akin to lambs led to slaughter.
The last one to arrive was Altair.
"No, not you." One of the guards called out to him. "Your chains stay on."
With his chains still on, Altair was pushed into the lift, together with the rest of the convicts, most of them staring at him with a mix of conflicting emotions.
Once every convict was in the lift, the officers made way for two other people.
One wore a long red robe, hiding her face behind a thin red veil, while the other was a man in his fifties, wearing a decorated uniform.
The lady clad in red stepped closer to the lift, while the tips of her fingers were slowly overtaken by a red glow that rapidly spread outwards.
Countless strings of red shot out of the tip of her fingers, all of them rapidly making their way towards the convicts.
Gazing at the steadily approaching red string, Altair closed his eyes.
A faint feeling enveloped his left wrist, one that grew rapidly more painful.
"We provide you a chance to repent… to serve the people of Nostra." The man in the decorated uniform almost spat in anger and disgust.
All eyes fell to the red mark burning into their wrists.
"Once you arrive at the edge of the Lawless Abyss, you can try and balance out your blood mark or jump directly into the Dead Waters for all I care."
That was all that the man said before turning his back on the lift packed to the brim with criminals.
His departure was the signal for the guard standing in front of the lever that closed the door of the grand lift shut.
As the lift was getting close to its departure, Altair turned his back to the guards, walking to the end of the lift.
Standing in front of a giant window, he saw nothing but a world of boundless grey.
There was nothing but an endless, thick white fog that shrouded the world below the flying cities.
From the corner of his eye, he saw his reflection staring back at him.
A young adult with rigid, dead eyes whose messy, dark brown hair had partially turned grey, while his listless brown eyes were tainted by a hint of red.
As the lift began its descent, the clouds vanished from sight, overtaken by the suffocating fog.
The descent was deathly silent.
Time passed by while Altair gazed at the window, but he couldn't see anything through the thick fog.
Stopping in its decline, the lift creaked loudly, signaling that it had reached the bottom.
The world around them turned silent, suffocatingly so.
As the doors opened, the convicts cautiously left one by one, grouping outside. Altair was among the last to leave the lift.
Didn't think it would be this close to the dead waters… Even with the visibility obstructed by the thick fog, Altair saw the black water washing the shores.
The water was pitch black, resembling tar more than it did water.
In it, something moved.
None of the convicts dared to speak or even breathe.
Altair, who was the closest to the water, managed to see a silhouette through the thick fog.
It looked… human.
The closer this figure drew, the sooner Altair accepted what was to come.
Climbing out of the Dead Water was a creature that only mimicked the form of a human; its appearance was more like a mockery than a resemblance.
A shade dressed in a black suit with a matching tie, its face was completely blank except for a gaping hole in the center.
Yet it didn't bleed; its body was in a constant state of fading away. It's unnaturally long limbs fading in and out of existence.
"What… what does that thing do—" Someone from the crowd raised a question, but he was cut off by a convict standing behind him, putting his hands in front of his mouth.
The shade slowly raised its fading right hand, pointing in the middle of the group.
Before anyone could even react, a painful yelp escaped the mouth of the man who had previously spoken up in his shock.
The man behind him was desperately attempting to stop him from making another sound, however futile it may have been.
… It doesn't matter now, does it?
Altair could only watch as panic overtook the group around him, and a feeling of resignation washed over him.
We are all dead, after all.
The man behind him let out another painful groan, before it was followed by a gut-wrenching scream from the top of his lungs, biting down on the hand of the man hopelessly trying to stop him from making further noise.
The fog of the Lawless Abyss stirred around them, countless guttural howls and shrieks plunging the area into a state of chaos.
Where the faceless shade pointed, the convict stopped screaming as his screams were replaced by the sound of his bones snapping all at the same time, his body folding in on itself before it started levitating and was dragged into the pitch black water.
Witnessing the gruesome scene, chaos ensued right away as the group split up, fleeing as the creatures of the Lawless Abyss began their hunt.
Only one person remained standing still.
Staring at the fading shade that directly pointed its finger at him.
It really doesn't matter.