The Grand Basilica felt less like a courtroom and more like a powder keg. As Kael and Mikaela marched toward the center, the clinking of their anti-mana chains was the only sound in the vast hall.
Kael held his head high, his gaze sweeping over the tiered balconies. He didn't look for mercy; he looked for the fear and admiration he knew was there.
Beside him, Mikaela was a pillar of frost-tempered steel. Her eyes, though no longer glowing with the Elemental void, held a sharp, predatory clarity. They stopped at the central dais, standing directly beneath the shadow of Harold's throne.
"Kael of Forgemire," the High Arbiter's voice boomed. "You stand accused of unauthorized military expansion, the use of forbidden magical states in a sovereign territory, and the mass execution of Osoroshi's standing forces. How do you plead?"
Kael didn't wait for a lawyer. He stepped forward, the obsidian chains rattling. "I plead... guilty."
A collective gasp rippled through the chamber. Even Harold leaned forward, his brow furrowed.
"I am guilty of doing what this council has lacked the spine to do for a century," Kael's voice rose, vibrating with a natural authority that didn't need mana to be felt. "I am guilty of reclaiming a land of rot and turning it into a land of industry. I am guilty of ending the lineage of the very man who almost turned our world into a graveyard. If that is a crime, then why is the Fifth Nation already asking me for trade routes through the Osoroshi pass?"
He turned, addressing the balconies of the Nine. "You call it 'unauthorized.' I call it an overdue cleaning. You call it 'mass execution.' I call it the dismantling of bio-weapons. Every Grave-Walker I burned was a person Osoroshi stole from your villages. I didn't kill them; I set them free."
The applause began in the upper tiers—small at first, then swelling into a thunderous roar. Harold slammed his hand onto the arm of his chair, a pulse of golden light silencing the room.
"Enough theater," Harold growled. "You broke the Alliance Covenant, Kael. You acted as a rogue to catch a rogue. That makes you a danger to the very order we—"
The heavy oak doors at the rear of the Basilica burst open with such force that the stone hinges groaned. A messenger, draped in the tattered, black-and-purple colors of the Rogue Six, stumbled into the light. He wasn't walking; he was being propelled by a dark, swirling energy.
He reached the center of the court and collapsed. From his throat, a voice that was not his own erupted—a chorus of five distinct, distorted tones speaking in unison.
"Sovereigns of the 'Allied' Nations," the voice hissed, echoing off the marble. "You have allowed the dog of Forgemire to bite the hand of the shadows. Osoroshi was our laboratory. Its fall is your declaration."
The messenger's body began to bloat, dark veins bulging against his skin. "The remaining Five have ended their feuds. We are no longer rogue; we are the Syndicate of Ash. If you do not deliver the heads of Kael and the Frost-Witch to the borders of the Black Peaks by sunset tomorrow, we will unleash the Pestis-Mana—the Great Blight—upon every city in the Sixteen Kingdoms."
The Unintended Consequence
A projection manifested from the messenger's dying mana, showing a terrifying sight: massive, organic silos hidden within the mountain ranges of the Rogue Six, vibrating with a sickly green light.
"The war you started, Kael," Harold whispered, his God State flickering into existence as he stood up, "has just become the end of the world."
Kael looked at the dying messenger, then at the terrified Commanders. He didn't look afraid. He looked at Mikaela, and then back at Harold.
"They were going to do it anyway, Harold," Kael said, his voice cold and steady. "Noelle was just the first phase. Now we know where they are. The trial is over, isn't it? You can either keep us in these chains and watch your people melt, or you can let the 'Hero' finish what he started."
The Nine Commanders were already standing, their voices a cacophony of panicked support for Kael. Harold looked at Neith. She simply shrugged, a small, knowing smile on her lips.
The Supreme Commander raised his hand. With a thought, the obsidian chains on Kael and Mikaela's wrists shattered into dust.
"The trial is suspended," Harold announced, his golden light filling the chamber. "The Sixteen Nations are now under a state of Total War. Kael, Mikaela... you wanted your liberation. Now you have a world to save. Don't make me regret this."