The Crypts of Pure Judgment
Deep within the mountains of Osyra, in a crevice sealed by centuries of black stone and dead prayers, slumbered a temple that appeared on no web, codex, or spirit map: Grymphal , the last bastion of Pure Judgment.
Founded by the first judges who rejected the fall of the Tree, Grymphal became a living cemetery where the most fanatical followers of judgment buried not only their dead, but also their will to adapt. There, the echoes of the ancient judgment were kept alive through a unique rite: the Absolute Silence of Remembrance.
And although no one entered or left, a subtle vibration began to filter through the cracks: a white root that dared to cross the seals.
The Guardian of the Vertical Shadow
Inside the temple, between obsidian columns and ritual ashes, someone woke up.
His name was Serak Vael , former High Judge, sentenced to eternal immobility after the trial's end. His body was covered in slabs of spirit salt, and his tongue had been sealed with a holy mark. But his mind never shut off. He had waited. Watched. Remembered every failure, every betrayal, every act of compassion he called weakness.
When he felt the root cross the stone, he didn't reject it. He understood it.
But their understanding wasn't acceptance. It was strategy.
III. The New Inquisition
Serak did not rise as a prophet. He rose as an operator. He visited the catacombs and unearthed the still-breathing, mummified bodies still thrumming with residual judgment. Their names were lost, but their titles survived: the Examiner of the End , the Bearer of the Severed Word , the Son of Righteous Chains .
Together, they formed the New Inquisition , not to restore the Tree, but to replace it with absolute and ruthless judgment.
Because, in Serak's words:
"The error wasn't the judgment. It was allowing the exception to flourish."
The First Purge
The New Inquisition descended from Grymphal without warning. They didn't attack cities. They didn't march in armies. They infiltrated places where the flourishing had begun to cause hope.
In the newly planted squares of Medora, the roots began to bleed. In Shinkairo, a jamming net caused floating flowers to wither within minutes. In Kalen-Oz, Kiru's whispers were replaced by alien voices repeating phrases from the ancient judgment.
Serak understood blossoming better than anyone. And because of that, he knew how to infect it with the exact memory of punishment.
The meeting with the new bearers
Akihiko, sensing the sudden loss of resonance in three regions, traveled with Kazun to the edges of Nym Valley, where a network of roots was being devoured from within.
There they found a young man named Lior , an empathic channeler who had helped awaken the roots with emotional chants. Lior was trembling, his eyes filled with dried roots.
—"They didn't burn them… they convinced them they were wrong."
It was a new kind of attack. A trial without trial. An echo of fear turned into doctrine.
Kazun asked to fight. But Akihiko stopped him.
—"This is not answered with power. It is answered with presence ."
And he placed his hand on the ground. The root in his arm responded with a vibration that didn't heal… but it reminded him of the flower.
A single leaf sprouted between the dead roots. And it was enough for Lior to speak again.
Serak observes and writes
From a domeless tower, Serak watched everything. Not with anger. With calculation. He wrote in ash on stone paper:
"If it blooms, I repress it. If it sings, I silence it. If it hesitates… I convince it."
He wasn't Akihiko's enemy. He was his negative mirror.
And the world began to divide not between those who believed in the judgment or not, but between those who wanted to remember… and those who demanded that forgetting be the law.
END OF CHAPTER 117