[ Thou art dissatisfied ]
The ancient golden inscriptions burned directly into the void, hovering before Hans's eyes.
Hans let out a self-deprecating laugh and set down his grease-stained wrench. "Dissatisfied is hardly the word. It's simply that any lawyer who has prepared a full set of dossiers feels a sense of frustration when he finds his professional skills are utterly useless."
[ Thy dissatisfaction springeth not from this ]
Hans's movements froze. Before this Scale that could peer into the very soul, any psychological defense was as flimsy as paper. He remarked bitterly to himself: To be saddled with a superior who can see through your hidden hand is a disaster for any advocate.
He took a deep breath, looking directly for the first time at the Scale radiating a cold, silver light. "I want to know... how are 'they'?" He paused for less than a second before becoming specific. "How is he?"
The light of the Scale flickered violently for several seconds. In the void, golden inscriptions slowly emerged:
[ Currently tracing, all spiritual entities ]
Hans gripped the wrench, his knuckles turning white from the excessive force. He understood: until every single wronged soul was accounted for, the final reckoning would not begin. Those blurred, blood-stained silhouettes flashed through his mind.
"How much longer?" Hans's voice was hoarse; this was an inquiry that bordered on overstepping.
The Scale dropped only one word: [ Soon ]
Hans turned and walked toward the depths of the void.
Halfway there, he suddenly stopped and looked back, throwing out the paradox that had troubled him for so long: "Hans does not understand. Since The Great One possesses the power to restart civilization, why 'deal' with humanity at all?"
Yes, dealing. In his eyes, the Beast God could have simply rained down heavenly fire, erased all this sin, and departed with the living creatures.
Yet now, the Goddess was patiently playing a game of power called "Judgment". This methodical sense of rules could not possibly be some "moral bottom line."
He wondered if, above the Beast God, there existed some higher-order power capable of constraining a deity...
BOOM—!
The silver light exploded without warning. A violent vacuum gale surged from the ground; before Hans could even assume a defensive posture, he was tossed like a withered leaf. His spine slammed heavily against the Wall of Rules, producing a sickening thud.
A gargantuan beast, pure white and stripped of all mortal impurities, suddenly manifested.
Divine Listener.
Its massive head loomed close to Hans, Its icy breath buffeting his face, seemingly capable of freezing his very nerves.
"Human." The voice did not enter through his ears but thundered directly against his cerebral cortex. "Do thy duty. As for the rest—think not, crave not, ask not."
Under the gaze of those pupils that pierced the karma of the three realms, Hans's thoughts were violently severed, and his brain instantly fell into a total blank.
"Pfft—!"
Hans tilted his head and spat out a mouthful of thick blood. The agonizing pain of fractured ribs made breathing difficult. Yet, under that devastating pressure, his lips curled into a distorted and arrogant arc.
"So..." Hans gasped with difficulty, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth onto his collar, yet he maintained that mocking curve. "This is what you look like."
This was not merely the mad rambling of a survivor; it was his only true thought at that moment. Before the Divine Listener, a Divine Beast capable of hearing the hearts of all in the heavens, Hans's mind was currently like a smooth mirror—void of schemes, void of fear, containing only this naked exclamation.
It was precisely because there were no stray thoughts that the Divine Listener felt a faint trace of wariness.
Hans slumped on the ground, his palm pressed hard against his burning chest. He watched as this high-dimensional beast looked down at him once more, delivering no further punishment, but silently retracting its limbs to sit like an insurmountable mountain of snow.
Hans laughed at himself. His years of fitness had saved his life. He gritted his teeth, veins bulging in his arms as he forced his heavy torso up from the hard floor, leaning against the cold wall to gasp for air.
The deity had not answered his "paradox", but the searing pain from that strike was the most direct answer: The weak are not entitled to ask 'why'.
The Divine Listener watched Hans's departing back in silence, feeling a hint of confusion. Since It had taken over the supervision of Hans, most of the heart-voices it heard were about "endless overtime" and "unfixable coffee machines". That intense desire for revenge that had originally sustained him had vanished without a trace.
Or rather, after learning that his heart could be heard, he had hidden it within an abyss so deep even the Divine Listener could not reach it.
—It seems The Great One knew this man's mind was profound; that is why She tasked Me to watch him personally.
Hans limped toward a patch of grass. The sunlight was beautiful, yet in his eyes, it was nothing more than color blocks simulated by the Rules.
On the lawn, a large group of animals sat in a circle. Before them, a former legal professional—now a "Ablator" serving his penal labor—was patiently teaching them how to precisely express their needs to the system, how to describe their pain, and how to convey their will.
It was an utterly absurd sight: the man who once held the supreme power to interpret human law was now teaching a group of victims how to indict their own kind.
Hans leaned against a tree trunk, the piercing, dull ache keeping him sharp.
His thoughts pierced through time, returning to the moment he faced those two glowing orbs of red and green. While everyone else trembled between survival and destruction, he had only whispered: "Time to gamble."
He hadn't hesitated like the others. With a sudden, heavy drop of his arms, he thrust both hands into the red and green lights simultaneously. In that moment, he surrendered his right to choose; he was demanding a dialogue.
"Thou harbourest obsession; seekest thou fulfillment?"
That voice exploded within the ruins of Hans's consciousness, the high-dimensional pressure causing his retinas to flicker with afterimages.
"I know of an organization," Hans gritted out, maintaining the final shred of professional decorum—on a negotiating table, leverage always outweighs a plea. "With Your current logic of clearance, they're a tumor that must be excised. And I'm the only 'scalpel' that holds their physical coordinates."
A brief, deathly silence filled the void, followed by a derisive laugh that looked down upon the eons: "Thou shouldst know that all phenomena flow; naught is hidden from My sight."
Hans, enduring a weight that threatened to crush his ribs, pulled his lips into a crazed arc: "If You truly were 'all-knowing,' You wouldn't be standing here listening to my nonsense. 'Curiosity'... is the only glitch in Your perfect set of rules."
Before the words could fully land, a more terrifying pressure slammed Hans into the ground.
"Divine Listener."
When the ethereal voice uttered that name, it was as if a switch had been flipped; the pressure vanished instantly.
"It is indeed as thou sayest," the deity's voice revealed a trace of tangible coldness for the first time. "Doth thy insolence spring truly from thy heart?"
"I wouldn't dare. I'm just happy knowing You'll leave me with a life," Hans forced his body up, wiping blood from his lips.
"On what grounds assertest thou that I must grant thee a path to life?"
"Because I don't want to live either. If I can use this one life of mine to ensure that person falls into the bottomless abyss, then the deal is worth it."
The deity fell silent. Then, a frigid image was implanted directly into Hans's mind.
In the vision, the plaintiff's dog—raised from a pup—was hacked to death; Hans had just helped the defendant, the slaughterer, win an acquittal.
In a flash, Hans anonymously mailed a letter stuffed with thick stacks of cash: "This money is enough to see you through. There is a pack of abandoned dogs under the eastern bridge; if you are interested, go take a look."
The final image: the woman who lost her beloved dog was playing with a new pack of puppies in her new home. She saw Hans passing by and closed her door in disgust. But the lead puppy wagged its tail at Hans's retreating back.
"Dost thou truly believe this minute act of kindness will move Me to grant thee mercy?"
Hans spat out another mouthful of blood, his eyes shining with an alarming intensity: "TheGreat Beast God, You are repairing this planet, and I'm the fastest scalpel in Your hand. The price is that You let me personally clear those... filth. Once the deed is done, my soul is Yours to dispose of."
Silence. The entire void fell into a deathly stillness. After a long while, the oracle descended again, devoid of emotion, carrying only the sense of a cold, programmed entry: "Granted."
"Hans, the covenant is struck. Thou art the 'Ablator', and thou art the 'Executioner's Blade'. Should the edge stray, thy soul shall fall eternally into the Avici Hell."
The memory was violently severed. Hans leaned against the tree and stood up, every breath tasting of rust due to the dull pain in his lungs.
In the distance, the redeemed animals were learning how to "precisely express" themselves to the system.
He knew very well that the one thousand, one hundred and zero four wronged souls behind Mrs. Zhu were merely a lead. The truly "big fish" were still hidden in the shadows that even the deity found "dirty".
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his gaze as impenetrable as an abyss. He hadn't lost this gamble yet.
Beside him, a giant screen hovering a meter off the ground was broadcasting the trial in real-time. It was teaching material for the animals "in training".
On the screen, WenXuehua was pinned to the plaintiff's stand by a thousand pairs of glittering animal eyes. Every time she attempted a lie, the Ring of Truth above her head exploded with a blinding red light, followed by an electric shock that made her soul tremble.
What sent the most bone-chilling shiver down the spines of the global audience was the sight of Wen Xuehua'sneck, where the ghostly green collar representing punishment had fully solidified.
Extending from the back of the collar were three blood-red chains—they did not merely lock her neck, but were wound tightly around her wrists and ankles.
While a common Guardian possessed only a single invisible chain, she, as the primary culprit tied to this karma, was bound thrice over.
"I didn't know it would turn out like this... I had my own difficulties... she is my daughter after all..." Wen Xuehua's eyes were vacant, mechanically repeating those same pale defenses.
But her voice was less than dust before the combined wails of the one thousand, one hundred, and four victims.
THUD—!
The Old Yellow Dog Judge slammed the gavel down, the sound exploding directly within the brainstems of all humanity.
"'Don't know'? This place doesn't recognize those two words!"
The Old Yellow Dog's eyes were filled with cold malice. "Life is not a game you play to gloss over. Are your difficulties comparable to the suffering of those 1104 lives? As a mother, you haven't taught, only indulged. Your 'love' is moldy poison; you are the executioner who pushed your daughter into the abyss!"
"Wen Xuehua!"
The Old Yellow Dog struck the gavel again. Wen Xuehua shuddered violently, collapsing like a pile of rotting mud.
"Your crime is called 'Abandonment'. You disregarded life and indulged evil thoughts. Today, in the name of the Beast God, this court pronounces: you are stripped of your qualification as a 'human mother'. From this moment on, the rest of your life will enter the 'Corridor of Cause and Effect', where you will personally experience the despair that you ignored 1,104 times."
As the judgment fell, a grey, invisible force instantly enveloped Wen Xuehua. She let out a high-pitched, distorted scream as her silhouette vanished into thin air from the Hall of Judgment, cast into the infinite purgatory prepared specifically for her kind.
The animal representatives retreated in silence. In their eyes sat the satisfaction of revenge, but more so a profound desolation unique to their species.
Within the Scale Space, Hans looked at the empty defendant's stand, a cold smile rippling across his lips.
"It seems my thick stack of dossiers wasn't entirely waste paper after all." He leaned against the wall, his breathing ragged and self-deprecating. "Though... only the beginning and the end were used, as long as the conclusion is correct, the process is irrelevant."