Aldric's hand rose, fingers weaving patterns in the air that left glowing trails like burning thread. His voice resonated with authority that made the very atmosphere tremble.
"Judgement Chamber."
The words hit reality like a hammer striking glass. The world shattered.
White light exploded outward from Aldric's palm, expanding in geometric patterns that consumed everything. The courtyard vanished. The knights disappeared. The morning sun winked out. In the span of a single heartbeat, Blake found himself standing in an entirely different space—a prison constructed from pure, blinding white that hurt to look at directly.
Walls rose on all sides, seamless and featureless, stretching upward into infinity. No ceiling visible above, no floor texture below—just endless white that seemed to exist outside normal space. The air itself felt different here, heavier, charged with something that made the hairs on Blake's arms stand rigid.
What the—?!
Blake stumbled backward, legs tangling as panic overrode coordination. His heel caught on nothing, and he barely kept himself from falling, arms windmilling for balance. His heart hammered against his ribs like a prisoner demanding release.
One second we were in the courtyard, and now—where are we?! What kind of Magic is this—?!
Aldric stood perfectly still several paces away, expression calm, unbothered by the sudden translocation. He looked like a man standing in his own study rather than some otherworldly prison chamber.
Then, with a grinding sound like continents shifting, something emerged from the white wall to their right.
A statue. Massive. Easily twelve feet tall, carved from stone so white it made the surrounding walls look gray by comparison. A goddess—or at least, some divine feminine figure. Her face was serene, beautiful in that untouchable way religious iconography always depicted the sacred. Robes flowed in frozen stone cascades. One hand raised in blessing. The other held a scroll—no, a scripture—pressed against her chest.
But her eyes. The blank stone eyes seemed to see everything, judge everything, weigh everything against some cosmic scale Blake couldn't comprehend.
His breath caught in his throat. The warm mana core below his navel pulsed with sudden anxiety. Deeper still, the demon fragment stirred in its sleep, recoiling from something it instinctively feared.
Aldric moved toward the statue with measured steps. He stopped before it, then dropped to one knee, head bowed in genuine reverence. His voice, when he spoke, carried none of its earlier roughness—only respect bordering on worship.
"Divine Mother, grant us your truth."
He rose, reaching toward the scripture held against the statue's chest. His fingers closed around it, and for a moment Blake expected alarms, divine retribution, something—but the statue permitted the touch. The scripture came free smoothly, as if offering itself.
Aldric turned, holding the scroll in both hands like something precious and dangerous in equal measure. He approached Blake with slow, deliberate steps.
"Take it," he commanded.
Blake's hands trembled as he reached out. Don't think. Don't hesitate. Hesitation looks like guilt.
His fingers closed around the ancient parchment.
Nothing happened.
No burning. No divine lightning. No sudden decapitation. Just the texture of old paper against his palms and the weight of Aldric's scrutiny.
Blake's racing heart slowed fractionally. Okay. That's... good? That's good, right?
But Aldric's face remained stone—impossible to read, giving nothing away. His gray eyes bored into Blake like drills searching for hidden rot.
"Read it," Aldric said simply.
Blake's eyes dropped to the scripture. The text was written in flowing script that should have been incomprehensible—some ancient sacred language—but the system's translation kicked in automatically. Words materialized in his vision, overlaying the foreign characters with meaning.
By the Divine Mother's grace, let truth be spoken and falsehood be judged. Let the innocent be absolved and the guilty be known. In Her presence, no lie shall stand. In Her judgment, no evil shall hide.
Blake read the words aloud, voice shaking slightly but clear enough. Each syllable felt heavy leaving his mouth, like speaking them bound him to some contract he didn't fully understand.
The statue remained motionless. Silent. No reaction.
Aldric's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted—a coiling, like a predator preparing to strike.
"Now," he said quietly, dangerously. "Repeat exactly what I say. Word for word. Do you understand?"
Blake nodded, not trusting his voice. His throat had gone completely dry.
Aldric's eyes never left Blake's face as he spoke. "I vow on my life in your presence, goddess—I am not a heretic."
Blake swallowed hard. The words felt like razor blades in his mouth. "I vow on my life in your presence, goddess—I am not a heretic."
The statue's eyes seemed to bore into his soul, weighing, measuring, judging. Seconds stretched into eternities.
Nothing.
No divine sword manifesting to remove his head. No burning light of condemnation. Just silence and the pounding of his own heartbeat in his ears.
Aldric continued, voice harder now. "I vow on my life in your presence, goddess—I have no connections to the heretics."
"I vow on my life in your presence, goddess—I have no connections to the heretics," Blake repeated, each word carefully enunciated.
Still nothing. The statue remained unmoved, offering neither approval nor condemnation.
Then Aldric delivered the final vow, and Blake's blood turned to ice water.
"I vow on my life in your presence, goddess—I have not participated in the ritual held in Redfront and was nowhere near it."
Blake's mind screamed. But I WAS there! I was in that carriage, I saw the bodies, I—
Wait. Participated. Nowhere near it.
He hadn't participated. He'd been a prisoner, locked in that carriage, helpless. And by the time they arrived, the ritual was already complete, the cultists already gone. He hadn't been near it during its actual execution.
Technically true. On the thinnest technicality imaginable, but true.
"I vow on my life in your presence, goddess—I have not participated in the ritual held in Redfront and was nowhere near it."
The words left his mouth. Blake held his breath, every muscle locked rigid, waiting for divine judgment to fall like an executioner's axe.
One second.
Two.
Three.
The statue remained perfectly still. No reaction. No condemnation. No punishment.
Relief flooded Aldric's face like dawn breaking over dark water. His shoulders relaxed fractionally. The tension that had coiled through his massive frame unwound, and something almost resembling a smile touched the corners of his mouth.
He reached out, taking the scripture back from Blake's trembling hands. "Thank you, Divine Mother," he murmured, returning the scroll to the statue's chest. It melded back into the stone as if it had never been separate.
Aldric waved his hand in a dismissive pattern.
The white walls shattered like glass, fragments dissolving into nothing. Reality snapped back with jarring suddenness. The courtyard reformed around them—horses, knights, morning sun, everything exactly as it had been before the spell.
Several knights had moved closer during their absence, hands on weapons. They relaxed as Aldric emerged unharmed, stepping back to resume their preparations.
"Quite gutsy, you are, kid," Aldric said, and this time his voice carried genuine approval mixed with dark amusement. "Anyway, get yourself ready. Half an hour. We start our journey to the capital then. Only way we'll reach by tomorrow morning for the festival."
Blake stood frozen, mind still catching up with his body's location. "Wait—what was—what did you just—?"
"Hmm?" Aldric glanced back, one eyebrow raised.
"That white place. What was I being tested for?" Blake's voice came out higher than intended, fear making it crack.
Aldric's face split into a grin that was all teeth and absolutely no warmth. "Hahaha! That? That was an execution chamber, boy. The goddess's judgment. If what you spoke had been a lie—if you'd been a heretic, a cultist, a demon wearing human skin—that divine sword would've manifested and removed your head cleaner than any executioner's blade."
Blake's face drained of all color.
"Your head would've been hung at tomorrow's festival," Aldric continued cheerfully, gesturing as if describing pleasant weather. "Right in the city center. Public display. 'Here lies a heretic who dared deceive the Divine Mother.' Would've been quite the spectacle! Hahaha!"
Horror crawled up Blake's spine with icy fingers. His vision swam. The courtyard tilted.
"I—I need to—get ready—journey—yes—" The words tumbled out incoherently as Blake turned and fled.
He ran. Legs pumping, breath coming in panicked gasps, across the courtyard and through the manor's entrance. Up the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping, catching himself on the railing. Down the corridor to his assigned room. Door flung open, then slammed shut behind him with enough force to rattle the frame.
Blake collapsed against it, sliding down to the floor, legs giving out completely.
His hands flew to his throat, fingers pressing against his neck as if checking it was still attached.
What kind of test is that?! I could've died! One wrong word—one wrong EMPHASIS—and that goddess would've—
He couldn't finish the thought. His stomach heaved, threatening rebellion.
The system window flickered helpfully.
[Congratulations! You Survived Divine Judgment!]
[Achievement Unlocked: Technically Didn't Lie]
[Reward: Continued Existence]
[Note: This is why we read the fine print]
"Shut up," Blake wheezed at the glowing text. "Just... shut up."
In the courtyard, Aldric strode toward the manor's side entrance where Ferolina waited, arms crossed, expression expectant.
"Well?" she asked before he'd fully reached her.
"He passed." Aldric's grin faded into something more professional. "Read the divine scripture without burning. Spoke the vows without triggering judgment. If he's possessed, it's by something so skilled at deception that even the Divine Mother can't detect it—and I've never encountered anything with that level of ability."
Ferolina's red eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "The scripture test is absolute. Demons can't even look at divine text without pain, much less touch it. If he held it without reaction..."
"Then he's human. Or human enough." Aldric glanced back toward the manor. "Still something off about him, though. That memory loss claim—it's convenient. Too convenient."
"But not necessarily false," Ferolina countered.
"Perhaps." Aldric didn't sound convinced. "Either way, he's clean enough for the queen's purposes. I'll deliver him to the capital as ordered. What happens after that..." He shrugged. "Above my authority."
"When do you leave?"
"Half an hour. Need to make the capital by dawn tomorrow." Aldric's expression turned grim. "And we'll have company on the road. Every assassin between here and there will know we're moving him."
"Then kill them quickly." Ferolina's voice held no sympathy. "I have my own hunt to continue. Those black mages left trails heading south. By the time you reach the capital with your prophet-boy, I'll have cultist blood on my blade."
They spoke for several more minutes, discussing routes, potential threats, coordination with other inquisitor cells hunting the heretic network. Professional talk between professionals who'd spent careers dealing with horrors most citizens never imagined.
Meanwhile, three floors above, Blake sat with his back against the door, hands still pressed against his throat.
What if Aldric had asked different questions? What if he'd made me say "I am Blake Dunzel" or "I have not been possessed" or—
He couldn't finish the thoughts. Each one led to the same destination: his head separated from his body, hung up like a festival decoration while crowds cheered his execution.
The worst part—the absolute worst part—was that he'd passed by pure accident. By technicality. By the narrowest interpretation of truth that the divine apparently accepted.
He WAS human. Mostly. The demon fragment inside him was dormant, not controlling. He WASN'T a heretic—he'd been thrust into this world against his will. He HADN'T participated in Redfront's ritual—he'd been locked in a prison carriage, helpless.
But if Aldric had phrased the questions differently. If the goddess had probed deeper. If the test had required him to confirm his singular identity rather than just his lack of heretical connection...
Blake's hands trembled against his neck. His fingers found his pulse—still beating, still alive, still attached to a head that could have been removed.
"I need," he whispered to the empty room, "to be so much more careful."
The warm mana core below his navel pulsed in agreement. Deeper still, the demon fragment shifted in its sleep, unknowingly spared from divine detection by whatever strange fusion Hwi-seong's consciousness had created.
Three souls in one body. Human enough to pass divine judgment. Corrupted enough to have survived demon exposure. Foreign enough to explain behavioral inconsistencies.
A walking paradox held together by accident and desperation.
And in half an hour, he'd be traveling to meet a queen who'd prophesied he would either save or destroy an empire.
Blake let his head fall back against the door with a hollow thunk.
"I really," he said to the ceiling, "really need that breakfast I never got."