Chapter XL

Hands of Justice

Zanda had fixed her mistake and saved Adria, but it didn’t justify her error. Two people had nearly died because of her carelessness. She went to Gorbat who was parallel to a virgin beach shore, trapped inside another her second altnoc, stripped of most of his merkabah.

This time, things went as planned. With the ex-leader of Negativus captive, the gevurah scanned the surrounding areas for any tricks, but it seemed to be clean of anomalies. Gorbat awaited, defeated. She read the status of the ventos on her screen: Altnoc at 19%.

He yelled something unintelligible.

“Release me before I kill them,” Zanda heard with auto-generated and read in subtitles that floated in front of her. Was that a trap? She hadn’t scanned Adria and Corven before leaving them. It was tangible too imagine he could have implanted a mortal device on them.

There was one effective way to learn about his plans.

“Hey, if you are near the altnoc you can feed it with your own vis and prevent it from extinguishing, but only if you’re close!”

“Would’ve loved to know that earlier.”

The gevurah used the information and expanded with the ventos, connecting it with her suit.

Gorbat fell to the ground between the ocean and the sand. He would have broken something from such a height if he hadn’t been wearing the leftover nanites from his merkabah. Zanda had destroyed most of them earlier with her axe; every time she smashed it, nanoscopic particles from the armor would fly away, disintegrating.

His white silhouette kneeled on the sphere, defeated.

“Ready to give up, dictadurian?” Zanda walked towards him.

Gorbat ignored her. His head was low, staring at the floor.

With no response, she proceeded with pride.

“On behalf of the Fifth, I, Zanda Effenzi, a gevurah with the right granted to me by The Sephiroh and the Edictum Vitae, take upon the action to arrest you. We will go to Dicterium where you’ll wait to be judged and get a re-evaluation on your sentence. These transgressions speak for themselves.”

“I got them,” Gorbat did not acknowledge her words. “They’re mine.”

She read his vitals. It was hard to know if he was telling the truth or bluffing.

Gia was the one to solve that mystery, sharing live information with her. “They’re on their way to Negativus, safe, he’s cornered.”

“There’s nothing else you do but lie.” The gevurah was done with him.

Her soon to be prisoner laughed.

T.H.I.C. picked up two incoming energy signatures; she moved, avoiding those objects before they hit her, not fast enough to stop them. They collided with Gorbat, who got covered by that material. A second merkabah she didn’t see coming broke the altnoc where Gorbat was captive. When they touched him, the nanites spread like a disease, yet they did the opposite: healing and protecting that dictadurian.

That armor released a sonic explosion that threw Zanda into the woods; it ripped through hundreds of dead trees and wreckage, destroying everything around. Tons of wood, concrete, dirt, and toxic waters covered her view like a tsunami.

She avoided them with elegance, maneuvering through the air. It reminded her of Silidan. Gorbat landed on her with a massive, amber hammer that slammed her left side while the gevurah spun on her axis to face him.

Zanda’s body fell at such speed she collided against a beach with incredible strength, enough to shake the earth. Her impact created a crater, as if a meteorite had just fallen from space.

****

Adria and Corven slid on a crystal surface, slippery enough to keep them going for at least five minutes.

“How long?” he asked.

“A few more minutes. We’re far!”

“I’m feeling dizzy.” His face looked somewhat green.

“Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Inhale and exhale. I’ll let you know when we’re about to get there. There’s nothing else you can do.”

Corven followed her instructions to the letter.

Adria looked at the carvings on the walls. “The binah who made these were real artisans. They told stories through their traces, which always mesmerized me. It’s the first time I take this rouse so this is all new for me!” She was trying to distract him while his thoughts were at the sunken harbor, on Zanda and her crystal merkabbalah.

It was an exciting concept. Adria felt like a child, learning stories from her siblings about The Gevurah, Malkuth’s justice. They were not her cup of tea. She had placed her efforts into the Fourth Sephirot but her dream was cut too short by her exile, not even able to apply for her trials to become a chesedin, trainee of a Chesed, a healer of Malkuth.

The dictadurian remembered her time as a volunteer as if it were yesterday; a day like any other, the gevurah had taken her to the mirrored city suspended in the sky known as Epeculum, the capital of Malkuth. Unlike a regular stagnum, it roamed free with no attachments to the ground. There, superior sephirot told her what she had done. Evidence had proved Adria sabotaged an organ growth laboratory, provoking malfunctions on a number of transplants. After a high viewership trial, the young woman was found guilty. She doesn’t hold an authentic memory of it. Everything was planted, but it didn’t matter; her credibility with friends and family vanished.

Malkuth turned its back on her in a single night. Adria’s life was ripped apart and shut into oblivion as if it never existed. She only found a desire to continue after her path converged with that of a woman called Gidit. Thanks to her she had met Markus, Bostan, Raxae and a number of people that became as important as a family to her. They had experienced a life in Sectum for over a fifteen-hundred nights and days, together.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

One day, years after Adria had joined their group, Bitlan showed up.

No one mentioned him back at her parents’ house while growing up. It was as if he had never existed. Yet, he was the person who gave her a reason to become more of what she was and taught Adria by example how to beat the system.

If they got those alters intact, they were leaving Sectum with brand-new bodies before nightfall, she owed it to him.

The temperature had been dropping since they began sliding. Corven breathed with difficulty, trying to control his nausea, distracting Adria from her thoughts. It didn’t take long before she saw the glow from the under-city.

“Snap out of it. We’re getting there.”

He slowed down as they got closer, with Adria doing the same a few moments later. The slippery surface ended.

Corven’s dizziness was gone once he stepped out of the tunnel, enjoying of a cooling breeze.

They were bathed by artificial sunlight as they entered a netcore covered by life, grass on their feet, greens on the walls. A cylinder with ta map of the structure of that under city was carved at scale in the middle of the room. Other dictadurians arrived at the hall, checked their route, and left soon after; noise all around.

Adria waited a couple of seconds.

“Corven,” she had to push him.

“What?” He was distracted by those carvings.

“Where are we going? How can you be so clueless?”

It still took him a second to react to what Adria required.

“Furka. The alters, I’m sorry,” he closed his only eye, thinking.

“Corven…”

“Wait. Give me a second to remember,” the dictadurian studied the map, going through his memories.

“What are you looking for?”

“Oxen Plaza,” Corven shared right away.

“The web of ways of Negativus can be overwhelming, especially for inexpert eyes. One can become accustomed after a while and the patters will pop out, it’s made with sacred geometry. It can become the best tool to transport oneself between Dictaduria. Let me see…”

“JD4A5, JD4A6… It should be around here.” It was good to refresh her mind with those shortcuts.

Corven paid attention to her fingers, moving through the scale underlevel with familiarity.

“There’s a tunnel shaped like a whale with a hatch to the aqueducts,” he remembered the entrance and the people he found there, Saechi and Glyn.

His eyes opened wide.

“It’s there! Oxen Plaza. How far are we?”

“Seventeen underlevels,” Adria counted.

Aware of it, the pair of dictadurians began their early morning walk through Negativus.

*****

“A tough one, aren’t you?” Gorbat stood at the margin of the crater. “What a joke! You never stood a chance, green as a leaf. Furkan gevurah. You’re a pack of ignorant furkanos who believe everyone needs to be saved. Guess what? Some of us like being bad!”

He went to where the gevurah was, buried under the debris.

“Think you can judge me? I enjoy living my life how I dictate: Under my rules, doing as I please. My umbras and their families do as I say. Look at my life. My power grew while the Sephirot turned a blind eye to what happens here. They let it go my way, arguing they don’t want to alter the course of Sectum’s history! What a massive chunk of furka”

“Your belief is that they’re teaching us a lesson. You might wonder, what have I learned?” Gorbat stepped closer to where she was between laughs, demolishing the wreckage laid in his path with his amber hammer. “That I have limitless reach in Negativus and Dictaduria. Your merkabah is just what I need to become the ruler of this entire continent—all Sectum under my watch.”

“That beautiful skull of yours will serve as proof to the branches that they’ll have to think twice before interfering with my lands. Your Tree and its furkan Sephirot are drowning with liars and sneaky rats. There’s no denying you got into my house to play us like fools wearing that false face, so consider yourself a usurper who stole Elia’s identity, and for that, every single one of my umbras will want to kill her, we’ll print flyers with a price tag on her head. I’m sure someone will turn her in for a couple million gatvits.”

“It’s interesting if you think about it, if he gevurah exile us for our sins, who judges them for theirs?” His sensors kept the reading on her heartbeat, slowing down since she collided on the floor, pushed by the strength of his hammer. It seemed like she was dying.

****

Zanda’s merkabbalah had absorbed most of the impact directed at her body and redirected it towards the earth when Gorbat hit her chest. She appreciated how lucky she was to have such a tool in her possession. A second crater was created under her back, and she didn’t stop it. Debris fell on them once more. She observed through augmented vision what the dictadurian did after that catastrophic smash.

Everything was dusty at the bottom, but she saw with clarity.

After absorbing all that raw energy and transforming it into harmonious Vis, she boosted her merkabbalah with it. The gevurah rose without him noticing. She took a fraction of a second to stand and landed a hypersonic punch on Gorbat’s helmet, right on the chin, shaking each nanite that protected his head, sending him flying at great speed.

Before her left Zanda snatched his hammer and absorbed it, purifying its molecules.

A couple of achievements showed up on her T.H.I.C distracting her for a fraction of a second.

First Steps (Merkabbalah) - Completed! 🥇 / Wapen Finis I - Acquired!🥳

Gorbat flew into the sky and stabilized in mid-flight.

“I heard everything you said!” The gevurah yelled. “I was playing dead using the same diversion you did with a fake broadcast of my heartbeat! I was only harvesting your energy to use it against you,” Zanda took a second to recollect his nonsensical narrative. “You want to rule over all Sectum? How original. It's more of the same furka, power driven imbeciles! Get it into your head, Gorbat. It’s over.”

She flew towards him at hypersonic speed.

He couldn’t shape a stable shield after using most nanites in his hammer’s last blow. The smash reverberated around the bay. Zanda took him by his arm before his body was sent away by the energy wave, dislocating it by accident.

“You are a primitive being; that’s why you’re here. A thirst for power and narcissism brought you to Sectum. You lack of a collective purpose; that’s why I pity you,” she pulled Gorbat by the limb and threw him in to the sky great strength.

The umbra leader flew high by inertia, unable to stop.

She rocketed beyond with Mach 2 and reached the opposite side in moments, waiting for him to get to her. With enough time before she arrived, with a sensation of going in slow motion, a brand-new double-edged amber axe grew from the merkabbalah. It matched her eyes.

With no opposition, she measured Gorbat's body’s incoming angle and velocity to position her blade correctly, so it could cut through his merkabah's nanites with surgical precision. The vis emerging from it created such a disruption in the suit as they made contact, it became unstable, giving enough time for Zanda to rip him from it. She pulled all those overcharged crystaphene particles with pure Vis and hacked them with the help of Gia, absorbing them into her own Armis and purifying them in fractions of a second.

Gorbat fell away into the early morning horizon, defeated, unarmed and powerless.

That's it for Chapter XL

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