The entire court remained silent, waiting for the king to speak.
And when he spoke, his voice was quiet:
"Where is uncle Oswald?"
Alariv remained silent for a moment, then spoke:
"He's currently outside the city, escorting an envoy from beyond the wilderness. If he isn't late, he should be arriving by tomorrow."
Eldrin didn't respond, instead he turned his eyes to the old farmer.
"Sadly, your wrong doer isn't present here at the moment. But don't worry, you will not be forsaken. Justice will still be held. Come back next week, when the next court hearing will be held, and i will make sure no crime goes unpunished."
Damn, he even speaks like a king already. I don't know whatever the hell you were talking about naivety, mister prince! The boy's already talking like an adult.
Following Eldrin's lead, Alariv began, "Till then, to compensate for my brother's ungraceful acts," He walked down the stairs leading to the throne, producing a leather pouch out of only Gods knew where and handing it to the old farmer, "take this. It's around 130 gold coins and should suffice till the end of the year." Tears once again flowed from the farmer's eyes as Alariv whispered those words into his ears.
And with that, the case was dismissed and the farmer joined the crowd with his 17 year old son, who Ashoka hadn't even noticed till now.
This case wasn't the last, and numerous people came and went. But Ashoka didn't pay much attention to them, as he had something more interesting to focus on.
From where he currently stood, he was just an arms length away from the massive brass pillar. Being this close, he could also make out the various, almost indiscernible symbols and lines of text engraved upon its surface.
So...is this the uniqueness of justiciar?
Taking a half step back, he reached his hand towards the brass surface of the pillar behind him, moving till he made contact.
Then, Ashoka closed his eyes and directed his perception within, exploring himself for the first time since entering the nightmare. He felt the beating of his heart, the steady rising of his chest, and the softness of his clothes. And beneath it all, he felt something new.
It was like a pressure point, like a button of sorts which could be pressed to perform a specific action. This was his innate ability.
Innate Ability– [Conduit of Power(Sealed)].
Ability Descriptions– The Nation of Disorder holds the authority of Power, and as its Pseudo proxy, you can use various methods to channel power greater than your own.
The uniqueness was also a power "Greater than his own", so he wanted to see if he could access the law making power of the supposed uniqueness using his powers. And so he activated his ability.
And now, for the moment of truth...
Something akin to a spark travelled down his arm and into the brass pillar, then returning back in the form of a feedback.
And then, his world exploded in a burst of golden colours. His vision shifted as he found himself observing the court from high above, watching the various human figures below moving around slowly. He also saw something he hadn't previously been able to see. Illusory brass coloured ropes extended from within the pillar, branching out like the limbs of a massive tree. The endpoint of each of the rope was connected to almost every person present in the court.
The keyword here being "almost", since, out of the many people present, a few figures were without any ropes corresponding to them. This included Ashoka, prince Alariv and Gaius, and the many traders and merchants who had arrived from outside the city. The king meanwhile had a unique shadowy-black rope exclusively for himself.
Ashoka watched as his consciousness ascended further, crossing the ceiling of the palace and overlooking the entire land of Casamir. Once again, he saw a similar scene. A massive brass-coloured tree like protrusion extended from within the white palace. Countless branch-like ropes extended out from that structure, connected to nearly every single person inside the kingdom, looking like the most intricate of root systems in the world.
Holy hell... Ashoka remained mesmerized by the magnificent scene in front of him, feeling insignificant under the weight of the colossal mega-structure around him. After a while, he looked down, towards the epicenter of this colossal body. There, at the heart of the massive brass pillar—which now looked like a twig in front of the massive 300 kilometre wide mega-structure—was a tightly clenched, human-sized brass 'fist' with clearly defined knuckles.
Hand of Order. The words simultaneously appeared in his mind, and as he tried to observe closer, he finally received the full brunt of the feedback from his ability. That was of course, in the form of massive amounts of information, instructions, rules and regulations being directly injected into his brain.
Ah— He screamed, screamed from a mouth he didn't have.
> First king- Casamir- 1395 instructions given
Status- dead- instructions overriden/deleted.
Second king- Eldrin- 58 instructions given
Status - Alive - instructions active
> Danger alert system
-Gaius (type– king(low potential))
-Oswald (type- kingdom)
-Defiled ichor of the first sin-bearer (type- king & kingdom (status -high priority))
-Ashoka paarish (type- king(mild potential))...
.
.
.
Priority sequence-
1. Defiled ichor of the first sin-bearer (high alert priority)
2. Ashoka paarish
3. Gaius
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.
.
>King's favorability Status - mild to favourable
- Awakened level status- Normal human(distorted to Dormant with essence control through the crown)
-Allowed sequence - ... briber, baron of corruption, mentor of disorder.
.
.
.
> Succession instructions (concealed)...
> Succession interference safeguard instructions...
> Rejection apparatus...
.
.
.
—Ahh!
The large amount of information continued to invade his mind, breaking it apart inch by inch with its sheer volume. Some information he processed, while some slipped away in a matter of seconds. His mind was being overwhelmed, and he felt like it would only take a few more seconds before his brain exploded outward like the juiciest of watermelons.
Survival instincts finally kicked in and he put a stop to his innate ability, terminating the feedback connection and returning to his body. Alariv, with his enhanced ascended observation, was quick enough to make out Ashoka's hand flinching away from the brass surface as if he had touched a burning hot kettle.
Finally coming to his senses, Ashoka was glad that he wasn't rolling around on the floor like a mentally ill patient. Sadly, he could not hide his laboured and uneven breathing from the piercing gaze of prince Gaius from within the crowd. Even he had noticed the abnormality by now. Feeling the gazes of the two prince, Ashoka's body stiffened.
Fuck fuck fuck, what the fuck was that?! The image of the massive brass structure was still vivid in his mind. Damn it! All that suffering and I still couldn't interact with the power of the hand of order within. From the feedback he had received from his ability, he realized that the massive brass pillar and the brass fist shaped characteristics he saw inside it were two different entity. The former being an artifact used to channel the hand of order's incredible power to create a pseudo domain.
The pillar was like a super computer, processing and giving commands to the hand of order characteristic within it. That's why Ashoka hadn't been able to interact with the characteristic, but instead just got the equivalent of a sage's knowledge infusion attack from the artifact.
He called that structure a false domain, because as massive as it was, he did not for a second thought that what he saw was a complete supreme domain. From what was described in the novel, a real domain could encompass an entire realm. This domain in comparison was nothing.
If he had to guess, the brass pillar artifact was only able to utilize the jurisdiction powers at the level of a sequence 3 chaos hunter. But still...
Am I really in my first nightmare? This shit looks more like a second or a third nightmare. Let's see... I have to deal with at least 2 ascended, 3 if prince Oswald also turns out to be another ascended like his brothers, then, I also have to work around the rules set by a pseudo domain which is at least at sequence 3 level, rebel against the crown and remain unnoticed and somehow steal the uniqueness of my pathway.
Seriously? Am I being overestimated by my sefirah? Sigh... Come on, I was only a regular 17 year old before I came into this world, spare me some slack!
His situation really wasn't looking good. He still wanted to process the information he had received from the knowledge infusion in peace, as they had provided him more details on the intricacies and steps related to the various rules of the crown. This was what he was supposed to be good at, finding loopholes in overly intricate and complicated rules.
He was just itching to get out of this damned court. Fortunately, he didn't had to wait for long as the assembly ended in just a few minutes. As he was preparing to leave with Eldrin, he was stopped by Alariv.
"Gaius and I will be having some private talk. It's related to those "Unforseen circumstances" I talked about."
Sigh. It seemed like Ashoka would have to escort Eldrin to his room alone.
Before Alariv could disappear into the crowd with his brother, Ashoka stopped him, and asked the question he had been dreading over;
"Um... so, where is my room supposed to be?" As he hadn't recieved the memories of the original body, he didn't even knew where he was supposed to sleep at night.
For a moment, Alariv had a confused look on his face, then it turned into one of sudden realisation.
"Ah, I almost forgot. Since you're going to be attending to the king now, your bearing would be changed. It should be the room left of Eldrin's personal chamber."
And with those words, Alariv disappeared into the crowd with Gaius. Following the queue, Ashoka and Eldrin also prepared to make their exit.
And as they were about to reach it, Ashoka remembered something he had forgotten.
Ah! I forgot to ask him about my acting! He had been planning on asking Alariv if he could work as something like a lawyer for the old farmer's case as a cover to digest his potion.
Damn it! How could I have forgotten!? And with those thoughts swirling in his mind, he exited the court.
[A/N: hello there. By now, you might've noticed how short this chapter was, well that is because I've decided to prioritize a faster upload schedule over longer chapters.
I also realised I had been using the wrong title for the story, I know I know, I am a genius, don't shower me with praises. The name will be changed to [Shadow Slave: Cursed] when the next chapter drops.
Well that's it for today I guess. ]