Chapter 167: 165 – Tian Meng

Another salvo rang out. Alcerys walked through it, even as the power of the Halo waned and a bullet ripped past her face. The appearance of invincibility did as much as the real thing against the common footsoldier.

She could do naught but smile to herself, knowing that even Pateirians recognized the words, the cadence, the meaning behind the incantation she had stolen from the Estoras family. It worked, after all, effectively evoking the mental imagery of what she was trying to do - that was all that mattered.

“...They are the Calamity Sword, and with its might the craven things of this world shall be brought to heel!”

Planting her feet only a few meters from the barricade, as the soldiers holding it down already panicked and a few tried to break away, she dragged her blade across the stairs into an upwards swing.

Its fire flared, and from its mass a conical burst of flaming metal briars erupted, consuming the buildup of mass in a single moment, carrying it away in a bulldozing burst that annihilated the barricade and swept away the soldiers. The mass writhed and enveloped all in its path, burrowing into the flesh of the guilty and merely immobilizing the innocent, even if it mercilessly burned everything it touched, it somehow seemed to spare the not-guilty even in this aspect to some degree.

After a moment to catch her breath, Alcerys separated the Eye from Emberthorn and prayed, reinvigorating her halo before it could fade and taking the time to reinvoke the First Arm as she strode into the lighthouse. Screaming, panicking bodies suspended up against the walls, writhing within thorned constraints, some impotently reaching for their weapons whilst others pleaded for their lives.

“Snow Devil! It’s a Snow Devil!” one man cried. He wasn’t wrong. 

More soldiers and more barricades awaited within, some charging headlong wielding spears whilst others popped up over knocked-over tables with their guns. Reaching out with the First Arm she ripped the spear, with a surge of Ignis set its length ablaze, and with only the subtlest of arm movements impelled the phantom limb to throw it through the skull of a gunman.

With an upward swing of Emberthorn’s edge did she send showers of quills raining down, with the First Arm she pulled down barricades and ripped the weapons out of men’s hands, and with the whole armor of god did she render herself unto an inexorable force of judgment.

In her unstoppable march through the midst of her foe, Alcerys proclaimed in Pateirian, the academic manner in which she had learned the language causing her speech to sound noble and lofty. 

“Cao Hu has wrongfully violated the peoples of this land thinking himself in possession of the Mandate of Heaven. I am here to correct his misunderstanding!” she began, recalling every name of a judgment deity she’d learned in her training. In acting within foreign lands, it was in the Inquisition’s best interest to know the names of appropriate analogues to the Omniudex. 

“I am Alcerys, the Charred Judge. I act with the authority of Hedan, Omniudex, He Who Judges All, the Black Dragon of the Ninth Wind. All those among you who would oppose me, stand and deliver!”

None dared… And so she made her way to the elevators, leaving alone even the guilty soldiers who had chosen to stay out of her way. Among those caged machines, one was already on the ground floor, and so it was the one she used. Having visited Rigport once before, she knew how it worked - these went to a hub floor halfway up the tower, from where she could get to the mayor’s office proper.

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The holding-down of a spring loaded lever, the spin of a floor selection dial. Its mechanical winding-back, the torturous seconds before the machine’s doors slid shut and its workings lurched into upward motion. Slowly it raised her far above the rest of the city, reaching that vaunted hub floor, where she was awaited by a Pateirian man of unassuming build, wearing dark-coloured martial artist’s vestments. 

He held himself in a calm, collected manner, looking back at her without hatred or animosity, bearing no guilt from abuse of authority for the Eye to latch onto. His hair, face, demeanor, it was all… Normal.

So normal it stood out. 

This man belonged in the court of a martial arts sect in the western heartland, amidst ten-dozen nigh-identical compatriots - not here, in the midst of a clandestine counter-coup. Perhaps the only standout feature of him was the nearly impeccable youthfulness of his skin, but that was far from extraordinary among well-to-do westerners.

He scanned her up and down, his gaze hanging on portions of her armor and on her halo… Then, he spoke to her in perfect Grekurian: “Do you happen to be an associate of the self-proclaimed war criminal currently bulldozing his way through the city in a walking tank, blaring nationalistic theme music?”

Alcerys nodded, asking her own question in turn, “Do you intend to stand in my path to the mayor’s office?”

“That depends on why you wish to reach it,” he answered plainly.

She answered back just as plainly, “I intend to contribute to correcting this misbegotten detour in the history of Rigport’s rulership… And punish Cao Hu for his uncountable crimes in the process.”

“Well you’ve gotten this far, so you’re more likely to just cut me down where I stand than I am to land a single blow on you…” conceded the man, turning as if to leave before stopping himself and looking back. “Ah, but I can’t help myself. Tell me, if you are at liberty to do so, who are you?”

“If you tell me the same in turn,” she said. He nodded agreement.

“I am Alcerys, the Charred Judge.”

“Alcerys… I will be sure to spread your name far and wide. I am Tian Meng, a broker of sorts… And a mediocre martial artist, or I suppose a rather good one, by today’s lessened standards,” he smiled, entering the very same elevator Alcerys was in just as she exited it. He then pulled down the lever and dialed a floor other than ground, but stopped with his finger still in the dial as he looked up.

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