The crowd erupted.
A roar of absolute confusion and fury swept across the field like a wildfire. Thousands of voices overlapped, a chaotic storm demanding answers.
"What does this mean? The golden boy has papers too!"
"But the snake Lobo also has papers!"
"Who is lying? Who is trying to steal the land?!"
At the defense podium, Lobo Ner was not listening to the crowd. His long, gloved fingers moved like spiders across Soren's documents—flipping, scanning, analyzing every stroke of ink and drop of wax. His eyes darted back and forth, his silver monocle catching the harsh sunlight with every rapid movement. He was searching for a flaw. A crack. A single loose thread he could pull to unravel Soren's entire trap.
Then, his fingers froze.
His eyes narrowed to razor slits. A slow, deeply dangerous smile crept across his thin lips.
"Yes," Lobo murmured to himself, the sound barely audible over the roaring crowd. "Yes... I see the brush strokes now."
He looked up at Soren, his dark eyes gleaming with absolute, predatory confidence.
"These papers are not legal contracts," Lobo announced, his voice slicing through the noise of the mob. "They are fakes. Brilliant forgeries, I admit, but imitations nonetheless." He held them up high, shaking them mockingly for the Judge and the crowd to see. "So this is how you intended to break me, boy? With parlor tricks and fake ink? The contracts I forge are on an entirely different level than this amateur artwork!"
Lobo took a breath, opening his mouth to deliver the final, killing legal blow—
"Lord Soren is a liar!"
The voice boomed from right behind the lawyer. It was Varnek. Loud, desperate, and shaking with mindless rage.
"We never gave any contracts to the villagers!" Varnek roared, his massive, armored body trembling as he pointed a thick finger at Soren. "We never signed a single piece of paper with those filthy peasants! Your Honor, the boy is showing false evidence that does not exist!"
Keldric instantly joined in, his voice pitching high with blind panic. "Yes! Exactly! We never signed anything! The boy is lying! Those papers are entirely worthless!"
The massive field went dead silent.
Ten thousand people stopped breathing.
Soren's smile returned. It was wider now. Brighter. It was the terrifying, patient smile of a hunter who had just watched his prey unlock the cage, walk inside, and lock the door behind them.
Supreme Judge Nasir leaned forward over his heavy oak podium, his ancient eyes glinting with lethal amusement.
"Let me understand this perfectly," Nasir said, his voice dropping to a dangerous rumble. "Lord Varnek. Baron Keldric. You are both stating, under the Oath of the Dragon, that you never gave any contracts to the villagers? That you never signed any legal agreements regarding their lands?"
"That is absolute truth, Your Honor!" Varnek declared, puffing out his chest, believing he had just won the argument.
"Then how," Judge Nasir asked, enunciating every syllable with crushing weight, "did Lord Lobo Ner come to possess contracts that bear your signatures? If you never signed anything for the villagers... then the massive stack of contracts your own lawyer presented earlier must also be forgeries. Is that what you are confessing to this court?"
Varnek and Keldric froze.
Their mouths hung open. No sound came out. The blood completely drained from their faces, leaving them looking like hollow corpses.
Behind them, Lobo Ner's face went the color of ash. His monocle actually fogged over. His long fingers tightened around his black law book until the leather creaked and his knuckles turned white.
You absolute, brainless idiots, Lobo thought, his mind racing to salvage the burning ship. Why did you open your mouths?! This is exactly what the boy wanted! He knew he couldn't beat my legal defense directly, so he baited you into a panic. And you walked right into the blade.
Soren calmly watched the destruction unfold. He watched Varnek and Keldric slowly raise their trembling hands to their mouths, realizing seconds too late the sheer enormity of their blunder.
The crowd felt it too. The scent of blood was in the air.
"Guilty!" a single, harsh voice screamed from the front row.
"Guilty! Guilty! GUILTY!"
The chant swelled like a tidal wave crashing against a cliff. Ten thousand voices, united and completely unstoppable, demanding death.
Soren's golden eyes remained fixed entirely on Lobo. Inside, his thoughts were perfectly cold, perfectly clear:
Lobo Ner. Your castle is unbreakable. Your walls are structurally flawless. But every castle has weak stones. And these two arrogant fools were the exact stones I needed to strike. On the battlefield of the law, I could never defeat you. But if your own clients destroy themselves with their own stupidity... even a grandmaster cannot save them.
Lobo Ner closed his black law book with a sharp, definitive snap.
His face was calm again—utterly controlled, dead to emotion. But as he looked across the platform at the teenage boy in the white tunic, his dark eyes betrayed a flicker of something he rarely felt.
Absolute, genuine respect.
Lobo turned elegantly toward Judge Nasir.
"Your Honor," Lobo said, his voice as smooth as silk, totally unaffected by the roaring crowd. "I must formally state that my clients have committed an unforgivable offense. They presented me with forged documents. They weaponized my reputation to tell a lie in this sacred court. This is a profound insult to my profession. I am therefore withdrawing as their legal counsel, effective immediately."
"What?!" Varnek screamed, his voice cracking. "You bastard! You are abandoning us?!"
"Traitor!" Keldric shrieked, grabbing at the lawyer's black coat. "You signed a soul contract! You cannot do this!"
Lobo casually slapped the baron's hand away without even looking at him. He straightened his silk lapels, adjusted his monocle, and turned to face Soren one last time.
"Before I depart, Lord Soren," Lobo said softly, his voice meant only for the boy. "I must remind the court that presenting false evidence under the Laws of the Dragon carries a severe, physical penalty. The one who creates false evidence loses both of their eyes. So tell me, golden boy—are you prepared to be blinded?"
Soren tilted his head, his expression a mask of pure innocence. "False evidence? What false evidence, Lord Lobo?"
Lobo's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Do not play games with me. The papers you brought. They are forgeries."
Soren's smile widened just a fraction. "I never stated they were evidence. I simply said I had 'papers.' Didn't I, Your Honor?"
Judge Nasir stroked his white beard, hiding a smirk. "The court's memory is perfectly clear. Lord Soren stated he had 'papers.' He did not once claim they were legal contracts. He simply held them. Lord Lobo, your former clients' sudden outburst has legally confirmed that the contracts you presented were forgeries. It seems both sets of papers on this platform are completely worthless. But only one party in this court has verbally admitted to the crime."
Lobo stood perfectly still. Outplayed. Outmaneuvered.
Judge Nasir chuckled—a dry, ancient sound that rattled in his chest. "Lobo, this is the very first time in my long life I have seen you abandon a client. I never thought I would live to witness the phantom retreat."
Lobo bowed stiffly from the waist, his pride slightly bruised but his life entirely intact. "I am a lawyer for men who possess the intelligence to keep their mouths shut while I work. These two animals could not manage that incredibly simple task."
Without another word, Lobo Ner turned and walked away, his black-and-white robes trailing behind him like the wings of a crow. The crowd parted for him in absolute silence. He did not look back.
Soren watched him disappear into the sea of people, his golden eyes thoughtful and wary.
This was a great victory, Soren thought. But an incredibly fragile one. A total gamble. If those two fools had possessed the discipline to stay silent for just ten more seconds, Lobo would have won the city.
Death by Water
Judge Nasir slammed his heavy wooden gavel against the podium. The sound cracked like thunder, silencing the ten thousand people instantly.
"The court has heard the final testimony!" Nasir boomed. "Lord Varnek Dhal and Baron Keldric Marr have admitted, under the sound of their own voices, that they possess no legal claim to the lands of the western district. Therefore, their violent seizure of those lands and their hoarding of the public wells was entirely illegal. They are absolutely guilty of mass theft, high fraud, and the direct manslaughter of three thousand imperial citizens."
The Judge turned his ancient eyes to the golden-haired boy. "Lord Soren. You represent the prosecution. What is your demand?"
Soren stood. The midday sun caught his hair, crowning him in blinding light.
"I request absolutely nothing for myself, Your Honor," Soren said, his voice echoing with absolute authority. "But the people who lost their ancestral lands—the villagers, the farmers, the starving workers—they demand their properties returned. They demand restitution for the families who starved. And they demand one full year of income from the nobles' private estates, to be distributed immediately among the survivors."
Judge Nasir nodded slowly, closing the heavy law ledger.
"By the name of the God of Judgment, and by the unforgiving Laws of the Black Dragon, this tribunal is concluded. Lord Varnek Dhal and Baron Keldric Marr are hereby stripped of all titles. Their lands will be returned. Their estates will be heavily taxed."
Nasir paused, his eyes narrowing into cold slits.
"And for the crime of mass murder by deprivation... they are sentenced to Death by Water."
The crowd exploded.
It was not a roar of anger this time. It was an eruption of pure, unadulterated joy.
Grown men wept openly into the dirt. Starving women collapsed to their knees in exhausted prayer. Children who had never known the feeling of hope danced in the dry grass. Old, scarred veterans raised their trembling fists to the bright sky. A mother holding her severely malnourished daughter sobbed with a relief so deep it shook her bones.
"Justice!" a man screamed, tears streaming down his face.
"Soren the Merciful!"
"Long live the Sun Family! Long live the Golden Boy!"
Heavily armored imperial soldiers instantly seized Varnek and Keldric. The two former nobles screamed, thrashing wildly like captured boars, but the soldiers were battle-hardened, their iron grips totally unbreakable.
"Let me go! I will kill you all! I am a Lord of the Empire!" Varnek roared, spit flying from his lips.
"Don't do this! Please!" Keldric shrieked, his expensive boots dragging through the dirt. "I will pay you! I will pay you anything! Ten thousand silver!"
No one listened.
They were dragged violently through the gates and back into the center of the city, right into the massive square where Soren's iron water pumps stood gleaming in the afternoon sun.
A massive, heavy glass container—used for measuring grain—was dragged forward and placed beneath one of the pumps. A soldier pulled the iron lever. Crystal clear, freezing water poured into the glass until it overflowed, spilling onto the cobblestones.
The soldiers kicked the backs of the nobles' knees, forcing them brutally to the ground. Their hands were bound tightly behind their backs with thick hemp rope. They were positioned directly in front of the overflowing glass basin.
Soren walked slowly to the edge of the basin and looked down at the massive, trembling warlord.
"The last time I politely offered you a glass of water, Lord Varnek, you refused," Soren said. His voice was not angry. It was calm, chillingly gentle, and totally devoid of mercy. "You slapped the glass from my hand. You told me you would kill me."
Varnek's eyes bulged with primal, suffocating terror. He looked at the water. "No! No, please! Lord Soren, please! I will give you anything! My remaining lands! My hidden gold! My own daughter! Take anything you want!"
Soren slowly shook his head, his golden eyes glowing with a terrifying, absolute judgment.
"I do not want your gold, Varnek," Soren whispered. "I want justice for the blood."
Soren gave a single, slight nod to the commander.
The soldiers grabbed the back of the nobles' necks and violently forced their heads down into the freezing water.
The two men thrashed wildly. Their heavy boots kicked against the cobblestones, scraping the stone. Their bound hands strained uselessly against the thick ropes, the friction tearing the skin from their wrists. Massive, panicked bubbles rose rapidly to the surface of the glass container as they screamed underwater. Their bodies convulsed, desperate for the air they had denied so many others.
The thousands of citizens gathered in the square watched in absolute, unbroken silence.
One minute passed.
Then two.
The violent thrashing slowly turned into weak, pathetic twitches.
The bubbles stopped rising.
Lord Varnek Dhal and Baron Keldric Marr finally hung entirely limp, their faces pressed deep into the perfectly clear water that had once been their ultimate weapon against the poor.
The soldiers pulled them up by their hair and dropped them heavily onto the wet cobblestones. Their lifeless eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the sky. Their mouths were frozen in silent, watery screams.
They were dead.
For a long, heavy moment, the entire city of Kohrnes was silent. The only sound was the steady splash of the iron pumps continuing to pull life from the earth.
Then, near the front of the crowd, a woman began to quietly weep.
Then another.
Then, a child laughed.
The sound grew, spreading through the square like a healing wave—not the sound of mourning, but of total, spiritual release. It was the sound of a crushing weight being lifted off the chest of the city. It was the sound of a nightmare finally ending.