The rain poured down like a deluge. Thunder rumbled rhythmically in the sky. It left the top of Judgement Rock submerged in a gloomy atmosphere. The pair's hurried footsteps splashed the water running down the stone staircase.

Feruzi and Mashal arrived at the desired location. Two figures revealed themselves to the invaders. One was on his knees. His arms were tied to heavy chains like a Promethean figure. The second was standing with his back to the newcomers. He didn't seem interested in them.

The ex-sages stopped. Lightning cracked the sky with a yellowish light. Adisa's face appeared pale. Weakened as he was, he didn't react at all when he saw the elders.

Feruzi was horrified by the situation of Ilu Nla's great scientist.

“Adisa, is it really you?”

Azekel's son looked at him with a trickle of drool running from the corner of his mouth.

“For Fante Obataiye! What have you done to him, Ekundayo?”

The leader of the Circle of Sages turned to the elderly duo. His face was a stony mask. An immense aura of Axé enveloped him.

“I didn't do anything he didn't deserve.”

Feruzi took a couple of steps forward. He waved the sleeve of his robe and shouted:

“You weren't that kind of person, Ekundayo. What's the difference between the Circle of Sages and the Phalanx?”

“Don't lecture me! The Masters of Suspicion abandoned Ilu Nla when the nation needed them most.”

“Ilu Nla was already steeped in corruption, turned its back on its elders, and forgot its ancestors. We had no chance!”

“There would have been if they hadn't chickened out. A life was lost because of you.”

Mashal put a hand on Feruzi's shoulder. He shook his head. The old medium considered the exchange of accusations pointless. Everyone has a conviction and several contradictions. Nyatui, Mashal and Feruzi had been discredited by Ojwang. All the evidence they had was in the hands of one person, and that person was dead.

Feruzi bit his lips hard. The words of the Sage of Justice were like a guilty sentence for the old medium.

“Feruzi, don't fall for that snake's words. We can't waste time, we have to save Adisa.”

After hearing his friend's words, Feruzi regained consciousness. Together with him, he prepared an attack.

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However, before they could hit him, his opponent raised both arms in the air and recited:

“Hall of Expiation.”

A mass of darkness appeared behind the sage. Like a curtain, it covered the top of the Judgement Stone like a vault of shadows. After the dense darkness subsided, Feruzi and his partner saw where they were.

It was like an Egyptian temple from the Ancient Empire, almost 2700 BC, with slate walls, and high-relief images in colors of jade, lapis lazuli, ivory, ruby and other precious stones. The figures represented cosmogony, the process of colonization of the lands of Ilu Nla and their wars of conquest. All fourteen Entities were represented.

Surrounding the room were kemetic columns with sacred writings engraved in bas-relief. The inscriptions revolved on their surface as if they were alive. At the back was a polished stone altar with a huge silver scale on top. Behind the altar was Adisa, suspended in the air, his arms and legs attached to chains that bound him to the wall. His head hung to one side and his eyes had closed.

Ekundayo appeared in front of the altar. In his right hand was a falcon feather.

“Feather of Truth!”

He blew the feather into his hand. It floated into the air and landed on one of the scales. The balance tipped with a metallic clang. The birch where the feather lay gave way.

“May you masters of suspicion be blamed for everything you've done to Ilu Nla. Come to me, Sword of Life and Death.”

The leader of the Circle of Sages raised a hand in the air, and a great concentration of Axé gathered in the palm of his hand. The accumulated essence took the shape of an ankh. The ansata cross was a golden sword, but instead of a handle, there was an oval loop. This loop was adorned with mystical runes.

Feruzi shivered, he had never seen that Ofó before. Even with his vast experience in mediumship, the existence of this ability had frightened him. The Hall of Expiation was an area-of-effect Ofó, used exclusively by the Justice Clan, created in the early years of its formation.

Difficult to master, it required a CAPR-type mediumistic profile, capable of concentrating one's own Axé and attracting the Axé present in nature to carry out effects.

“I never imagined that before I died I would see the Sword of Life and Death.”

“Don't admire the enemy, Feruzi. We must finish him off or Adisa will die.”

“Right! The trinity is one and perfect, complementary in its vastness. I serve three wise infants, who fill my days with knowledge and fortune. Ekon, Iregi and Suluhu, who investigate everything with their curiosity, give me your knowledge. Firm spirits.”

“Ewansiha, you lazy man, I need you! Ewansiha, the observer of plenitude. The one who sought knowledge for the realization of Evolution, may your power shake the structures of the earth on which I stand. Make your enemy know the truth. Firm the spirit.”

Ekundayo laughed. Feruzi and Mashal, no matter how correctly they had recited Oriki and distended the vibration of their inner portals, had not managed to steady the ancestral spirits.

The ex-sage of Evolution looked around, disconcerted. He couldn't feel Ewansiha's Axé anywhere.

“Damn it, what's going on? My Ori Guardian has ignored me.”

Ekundayo walked a few steps towards him, evolving the Sword of Life and Death. His movements produced a sound like an ominous moan.

Feruzi and Mashal took a few steps back. Their respective Ori Guardians would be at a great disadvantage against a sage.

“In the Hall of Expiation, you cannot establish a spirit. Here, I am the lord of life and death. This is the liminal space between the world of the living and the world of the dead.”

“Well, if that's so...”

Mashal put one knee on the ground and drummed his fingers on the floor. He would try to attract as much Axé as possible from the environment to perform his Ofó. He would have a numerical advantage.

“It's not working, how can it?”

“The walls of the Hall Expiation don't allow the Axé present here to be attracted to the medium. On the contrary, it absorbs the Axé of the judged. No matter how hard you fight, you will die by my hands or from exhaustion.”

Feruzi rolled up the sleeves of his turquoise tunic and revealed his forearms with zimbas scarred into his skin. Before he could act, Ekundayo turned into a dark cloud, dissolved into thin air, and came up behind the ex-sage and hit him with a cross sword from below.

Mashal tried to attack him from behind, but he used the same trick and dodged. The old medium noticed that there was no bleeding on his companion's body.

Feruzi groped around for his body; he hadn't received any damage. Then he bulged his eyes and spat blood on the floor.

If he didn't hurt my body, then he did…