Moyo stood stoically, observing the eight members of the trial council that would preside over his matter. Arms folded, he watched as the man with the staff who to his irritation was simply a diamond ranker went around him, hovering as if trying to intimidate him,

“Ascender Moyosore titan blade, you stand accused before this great council for conniving with the ascender known as ajax omega blade, how do you plead?” the man asked,

“Not guilty” Moyo replied simply,

“oh?, perhaps you can explain to our honourable council just what your ties to the omega blade is” the man said,

“Ajax death blade as I knew him then, was the first ascender to train me, tutored me in the methods of the archailect as well as all the things I need to know” Moyo said,

“so you admit that you were a disciple of the omega blade?” the man asked,

Moyo raised one finger,

“Again, he was known as the death blade then, and yes, I was his disciple” Moyo replied,

The man raised his staff up,

“so you see great harbingers and judges!” he shouted, pointing one finger to the titan blade accusingly,

“Ascender titan blade willingly admits that he was a disciple and possibly still a disciple of the omega blade!” he shouted,

Moyo shook his head, glancing between Kairos, Altair and a woman with flaming hair, Raye Garuda herself. The rest were the four harbingers he was familiar with, Eisnar with her quiet look, Tixuhl with her smouldering glass of pure disdain for him, Grimswolf, the huge bulky figure sat like an unmovable wall staring with dead eyes at him also while Ernesh the half machine half humanoid creation seemed to will her very being to press into him. Moyo turned his gaze back to the inquisitor, controlling his breath and posture,

“And yet” the man continued,

“He would have us believe that he wasn’t privy to the deadliest of plans the omega blade had been hatching secretly, isn’t that right titan blade?” he said,

“yes” Moyo replied,

“And why should we believe you?” Tixuhl asked,

Moyo turned his eyes to the harbinger,

“Because for the duration of time I spent with him, ajax only showed me the path that I’d be forever grateful to him for, he protected me, he taught me just how to survive in the archailect and his loyalty to his friends was unquestionable, all good signs of a true master” he started,

“so if you’re asking me if I knew of his alter ego so to speak, or his simmering rage for the archailect, no, however, his rage was directed to one house only, Dracon, and it was always his goal to see the house brought low, I simply and I’m sure not even the venerable Thousandblades himself could ever imagine that ajax would fall so low and become something I nor his other former allies could had ever had imagined” he finished

“And yet, word came to us that even right now, ajax is searching for a way to reunite with you, have you heard’ a blue skinned woman said,

No doubt, the ruler and ancient of house Tidebreaker, Moyo inclined his head towards her,

“I have not been privy to such information, but I assure you, the last time we parted ways, it was less than amicably, whatever reasons he comes for me, instincts tell me it isn’t for the pleasure of checking up on me” Moyo replied,

“Moyo, right now the Dracon empire is tearing itself apart as ajax is leading a crusade of vengeance towards their home world, no doubt in part to take out what remains of the empire to also release his father who by now, we all know is locked up there, if it came down to a battle between you and your master, what would you do?” Eisnar asked,

“Do?” Moyo asked,

“She means what side would you fight for?” Kairos asked,

Moyo glanced at the council,

“Quick question, what’s to stop me from lying?” he asked curiously,

“The archailect itself” a voice rang out as Moyo turned, spotting its owner,

Teisha, avatar of fire floated serenely down, her hands folded behind her and a golden robe of burning fire on her body, hair alight with white and gold flames, she held a large broad sword in one hand, the council nodding towards her the inquisitor went to his knees,

“All pay respect to the blessed avatar of Lotes herself, Teisha!” he shouted,

Moyo felt pulses of power build up within the shrouded glass rooms, pure power molded into humanoid shapes of light that knelt in submission to the avatar. Moyo stood his ground though, not with pride but due to the small nature of the cage he was in, Teisha paused in front of him, eyes searching his as she whispered,

“What are you?” she said softly,

Moyo gave no reply, what was he to say to that?, he simply gave a light shrug, Teisha staring at him for a few more seconds before the inquisitor coughed to draw her attention. She raised the blade up effortlessly with one hand,

“This is the blade pyre, forged by the true messenger of Lotes herself, bestowed upon me and now I use to judge you, grip the blade if you dare titan blade, but know that from the moment the blade touches your hand, no lie shall escape your mouth” she said,

Moyo grabbed it almost immediately, feeling a rush of burning power pour through his body, rather than holding him in a burning sensation as he suspected, it simply gave him a feeling of warmth, Moyo nodding to Teisha who quickly hid her look of surprise. She turned to the inquisitor,

“You may continue” she said,

“By your will, great avatar” the inquisitor said,

Turning to Moyo, he spoke again,

“What side are you really on?” he asked,

Moyo felt the question echo through his very body and soul, pushing his true thoughts to the surface as he spoke softly,

“The side of the people” he replied,

The inquisitor narrowed his eyes,

“I do not understand, explain” he demanded,

Moyo turned his eyes to the inquisitor who took a few steps backwards in fright,

“I have come to realize that majority of the powers that rule the archailect only care about themselves” he started,

“Survival of the fittest you always say, and yet you forget just what those words mean” he said,

“Do enlighten us” Tixuhl said with a stiff tone,

“It means that the archailect would push you to get stronger or be left at the side, and yet, all I’ve ever seen at the top are a bunch of powerful monsters fine with throwing untold billions into the meat grinder with no real chance for survival” he bit out more forcefully than he had wanted to,

“oh?, you consider yourself one of the powerful in the archailect, don’t you?” Tixuhl asked,

“I did entirely annihilate a lord of the abyss and his sub aspect together, didn’t i?” he retorted as Tixuhl boiled with rage, not like she could do anything to him,

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

“Watch your words, titan blade” Kairos said softly,

Biting back his remaining words, Moyo nodded softly, matching eyes with the harbinger,

“If and when that fight eventually comes, the archailect’s strongest warriors would do what they know how to do best, fight with reckless abandon, battle like there were no lives at stake, and thank the supreme beings for the Nethervoid, else we’d be picking the frozen corpses of untold billions through the cold expanse of space itself” he finished forcefully,

“you question my loyalty, your hairs hackle in fright because you realize for once, you’ve met a person who isn’t growing stronger off the deaths of those they pass, my rise to strength wasn’t fuelled by some misguided notion of greed” Moyo said,

“And yet, you wanted to get stronger to take revenge on the powers that be of the archailect for your world, it sounds similar to your master” Grimswolf said,

Moyo nodded,

“True, at one point, the only thing fuelling me to get stronger was the thought of avenging the untold billions that died during the arrival of the archailect, but then I met Martha, I met Annika, I met my clan and suddenly, I had people to protect, to fight for” he replied,

“And then I realized the system was broken, that no matter how much I took out my frustrations on those at the top, I’d only be creating more broken souls” he said,

“ajax” Altair said,

“ajax” Moyo confirmed,

“Contrary to your expectations, I know the value of life, my very path was built around protecting those around me, my very mandate is to ensure the continuation of life” he said,

“And where did such mandate come from?” Eisnar asked,

“it’s a self-made mandate, I intend to break this cycle of survival of the fittest by all means necessary, you want to build up powerful ascenders?, fine, just stop doing it at the expense of lives and creating ascenders hell bent on destruction, and then you wouldn’t have a case of ajax reoccurring again” he finished,

“May I remind you, that you are the one on tr- “the inquisitor said before Moyo turned his gaze to him, the diamond wilting under the intensity of his gaze,

“Ascender titan blade, may I remind you just where you are?” Tixuhl said, her voice battering at him with her authority dripping from every syllable,

Moyo shrugged it off softly, making a show of staggering and inhaling to put up the pretence that it had locked him down for a moment as it should had done, however, from the concealed look of surprise that had etched the harbinger’s face, she knew well enough that it hadn’t worked. He nodded and turned away from the diamond who visibly looked relieved,

“Again, I ask, how did you kill the mutator?” Ernesh asked,

Moyo sighed,

“If you could check my archailect stat table, the answer presents itself there” he replied,

The harbingers and council members blinked, Kairos stifling a laugh and Altair’s eyebrow’s raising in surprise. It seemed that the harbingers hadn’t bothered to do so, Kairos on the other hand, was having the time of his life.

***********************************

Within one of the shrouded platforms that oversaw the trials, a woman in midnight cloak with shimmering smoky tails behind her. Adorning a midnight onyx mask made of precious crystals, her golden lupine eyes stared at the vid showing the trial of the titan blade, kneeling with her legs folded behind her, her tapped one black perfectly manicured finger on her lap thoughtfully, a pathway opening up behind her as a man stepped through and fell to his knees, bowing his head,

“I have returned mother” he said,

The woman paused, her head turning a bit to acknowledge the man behind her,

“Speak Hisada” she said softly,

The elderly man gathered himself as he sat up, eyes still bowed,

“The overseer interrupted” he said plainly, knowing better than to try and soften the truth to the woman in front of him,

Matriarch Rizuki of house shadow fox clan, ancient and deadly ruler of the crescent moon empire was one of the higher noble houses of the archailect, her empire of systems held together on the far fringes of archailect space, it was as mysterious as it was protected by the shadow fox clan itself, and the fact that it had no overseer, something that raised the hackles of the brigade when dealing with them.

Hisada watched his mother’s reaction as she turned back to the screen,

“What do you make of him?” matriarch Rizuki asked with a sigh,

“Strong…. very strong” Hisada said with a shiver,

He remembered the moment he had tried probing the defences of the titan blade, just to get a taste of just what made the master the object of attention. He had felt but a whisper of the titan’s power and felt his entire world rocked, the power was not something he could explain, his very aspect had shuddered under what was barely a grain of the titan’s power and his very path had threatened to crack. He had managed to keep his facial expression cheery as to draw the attention of the overseer and the titan blade himself would had been disastrous to their meeting, but that was the thing,

Hisada was pretty sure the titan hadn’t even felt his probe not because he was lax, but because on some fundamental level, he knew the shadow fox simply wasn’t good enough threat to him. It had riled Hisada a bit, but common sense told him to be grateful to not be considered such, after all, word was the titan blade was secretly on the same level as the primordials themselves, a master as a primordial. The sheer ludicrousness of those words had seemed like a joke to him then,

But now?,

Now, he dreaded just what his mother had planned, for what in the archailect’s name would interest her in an ascender such as this?. Hisada loved the status quo, something this titan blade was vehemently against, the status quo brought stability in his opinion. Everyone had a part to play in the status quo, and to be honest, it had been the way things had been, the shadow fox clan had in all truth been running their house and its empire with all fairness and with a sense of justice. What the titan blade was proposing was a total haul in the powers of the archailect, and Hisada wasn’t so sure he wanted such.

Rizuki sighed as she waved her hand, the live video of the proceedings winking out of existence,

‘I wonder why they push for such a show of power” she said, as if musing to herself, Hisada staring on,

“The noble houses have been baying for blood” he said as an afterthought,

She nodded,

“No doubt those idiots thought they would be the ones to produce the next best thing, which is foolish seeing as they’ve been under the yoke of the great houses for as long as I can remember” she replied,

“House Ironash is pushing for the censuring of the titan blade the most” Hisada said,

The once great house had fallen from the moment their patriarch had gone on a rampage, wiping out most of the powers of the house before defecting to join Rohan's brotherhood. The brigade had immediately moved for a complete overhaul of the entire house, picking them apart with bone clean precision to verify just if their former patriarch had left a sleeper cell in place. Left to Xerxes, the house would be nothing but a memory, but power was delicate in the archailect and the sudden removal of a great house could see a full-blown galaxy wide war in the empire they once ruled over, untold billions dying in the rivers of bloodshed.

And so the house was censored, leaving them with a bunch of masters in charge to stabilize things, and the title of a house in name only. Of course, Altair thousand blades had taken over the position of the great house, pushing them out, but a house that had been a great one for more than five centuries had a lot of wealth to throw around. One of their masters had just recently ascended to the rank of ruler, cementing their position back as a noble house, and then, like all noble house, they looked for who to point fingers at. The titan had reportedly been on one of their vassal worlds whose master had also defected to the brotherhood of Rohan as well, and as such, they categorized him as the source of their woes.

Hisada was amused by the coincidence and assumption that a mere diamond at that time had been able to have effects that rippled straight up to a then great house, it seemed the titan blade after all was an agent of change, just not the change the powers that be liked,

Then again, what sort of change did they like?,

Rizuki turned fully to her son who sat rigidly,

“We cannot fail in our mandate, whatever we do, we need to ensure the titan blade doesn’t leave for the last war front without that knowledge” she said,

Hisada paused,

“speak” she said, her voice as soft as it was deceptive,

“Forgive me mother” he started,

“but are you sure he’s the one?, we are yet to verify, the ten eyed clan have yet to ascertain he’s the one” he protested,

“do you see anyone else being the one?, all signs point to him” Rizuki said,

“While that may be true mother, and I would never question your judgement great queen” he said,

“But that thing, is too risky to give out on a whim, should the brigade or…well, any of them realize just what we have been keeping, we could be drawn into the great game” he whispered furiously,

“And then, we’d have the protection of the titan blade who in turn has the protection of three great houses, two which boast of ancients and the last three sets of primordials” she replied,

Hisada’s eyes widened,

“you would have us be vassals to a master?, granted, one supposedly on the cusp of being a ruler” he said, not believing his ears,

Just what did his mother see in the titan blade,

Rizuki shadow fox smiled, her white pearly canines gleaming,

“The ten eyed clan might have the power to get glimpses of the future my son, but never forget who wields the mists of fate itself” she replied as the entire room became shrouded in shadow and mists, the aura of the shadow fox path suffusing the entire room,

Hisada, despite wielding the same path shivered at the potency of the power that was fuelled by veneration as well. Shapes began to form from the mists themselves, images that seared themselves into his head, groaning under the weight of the visions, he turned to his mother,

“So much carnage” he whispered,

The queen and matriarch of house shadow fox and all its powers nodded,

“Yes, my son” she simply said.

***********************

“Ascender titan blade” the voice of harbinger Tixuhl said,

“By deliberation of this trial council and by the votes of the great houses and noble houses, you have been cleared of all charges and free to go, however, we are watching” she said,

Moyo drew himself up as he nodded to her, for in a surprising turn of events, out of the five hundred noble houses that had come to watch the proceedings, over three hundred had voted in his favour, something he knew, came from his ties with Kairos and Altair, still though, he relished the look of barely concealed fury in the eyes of Tixuhl.

As the platform he stood on floated downwards, he was met by Idris and Atreus waiting for him,

“My lord” Idris said in greeting,

“again, you go Scot free” Atreus said with a hint of a smile,

“What now?” he asked,

“Now, you go for your celebration banquet” Atreus said,

“banquet?” Moyo asked,

“Yes, Xerxes and Eses are throwing one for you” the overseer replied,

Moyo sighed as he felt the beginnings of a superficial headache forming.