Chapter 679: The Seventh Judgment

"That person you said you wanted to serve after graduation... who exactly is it?"

Noah paused for a moment and then smiled.

"Still curious?"

"A little."

Lian looked behind him.

"Is she someone famous?"

"I don’t know... Maybe? Probably." He then continued in a calmer tone.

"You might know her too, I think you’ve at least heard that lady’s name before."

"So it’s a lady." Lian smiled.

Noah laughed.

"Of course! She’s my goddess."

Rindo, who had heard the conversation, turned his head.

"Goddess? Really?"

The young Frenchman placed his hand on his chest with a completely serious expression.

"That’s the best possible description."

"She seems very important to you." Alicia gave a small smile.

"More than you think."

This time, his tone became serious for a moment, but a few seconds later, he laughed again.

"Well, I hope that when I finally graduate, I can prove to her that I’m worth hiring."

Lian looked at him for a moment.

He did not know who that person was, but from the way Noah spoke, it was clear that he did not intend to share more information for now.

So he did not push him.

"Well, I hope you reach your goal."

"Thanks."

Then he adjusted his umbrella on his shoulder.

"Of course, first we have to get out of here alive."

"I think we can all agree on that part." Rindo let out a short sigh.

Lian smiled, but a few moments later, his gaze moved toward the sky.

The rings of the Hollow Sun had slowed down slightly, and this caught his attention.

Is it time?

He had been keeping track of the passing hours since the sixth judgment, and based on the time between the previous judgments, the next one should be approaching.

He looked at the sun for several seconds and then said.

"Everyone, get ready."

Noah looked at him.

"For what?"

"The next judgment."

The young Frenchman’s smile immediately disappeared.

Rindo also raised his head.

At that moment, the golden rings of the Hollow Sun slowly stopped moving.

A strange silence covered the land.

Until a few moments ago, warm wind had been passing between the broken pillars, and the sound of flowing lava could be heard from the depths of the cracks.

But now, it was as if all the sounds of the environment had become silent before the Judge’s presence.

Lian immediately raised his right hand.

[ Hive Dominion ]

Before the judgment process fully began, One and Two disappeared among streams of light and returned to the Colony House.

The four of them remained on the stone platform.

Rindo gripped his spear tightly, Alicia stared at the sky, and Noah did not say a single word.

The black pupil of the Hollow Sun slowly expanded.

But this time, something was different.

During the previous judgments, the Judge had examined different parts of the land for a few moments before choosing the prisoners.

The golden rings would turn, the huge pupil would change direction, and after that, threads of light would move toward the prisoners.

But this time, there were none of those pauses.

The sun remained completely still, and its black pupil stared directly at the land without the slightest extra movement.

The golden light around it had also changed, it no longer had the warm and grand glow of the past.

Its light seemed colder, more lifeless, as if all that remained was a will to carry out judgment.

Lian narrowed his eyes.

Strange.

Then, from among the huge rings, ten thin columns of light descended.

Noah stared at the sky.

"Ten..."

But before he could finish his sentence, each column split into ten separate threads.

The golden lights spread across the sky.

Ten threads.

Twenty threads.

Fifty threads.

And then one hundred golden threads!

No announcement was made about the number of prisoners, the Judge did not even see a need to explain anything, and the hundred threads of light remained in the sky for only a moment.

Then each one moved in a different direction, some went toward the distant forests, some disappeared among the broken pillars, and others went directly into the depths of the cracks in the ground.

But several threads remained near the group.

Lian looked at one of them, about a hundred meters away, a Withered with half-severed legs was crawling on the ground.

The creature could not even stand properly, but it was still trying to reach the center, and at that moment, a golden thread stopped above its head.

The Withered raised its head, and when it saw the light, its body began to shake.

"No... No..."

It tried to pull itself toward the nearby crack with its long hands, but the golden thread followed it without any hurry.

As if the result had already been decided.

The creature reached the edge of the crack, grabbed the stone with its hand, and at that exact moment, the light formed a ring around its neck.

For a fraction of a second, its body became completely still.

Then it turned into a cloud of ash.

No scream was heard, and there was no chance to resist, instead, it disappeared in an instant, and every trace of its existence was erased.

On another platform, a huge Withered tried to create a defensive layer of mana around itself.

The golden thread reached it and passed through the defense without even slowing down, the creature had not even had time to raise its hand when a light passed through its body.

A moment later, its body collapsed.

The same thing happened in more distant areas, short screams rose from among the pillars and then fell silent one after another.

Lian did not move, it seemed that the Hollow Sun had decided to work overtime today.

"One hundred..." Noah said in a low voice.

Rindo did not take his eyes off the sky.

"Before, there were about ten."

Alicia tightened her fingers around the handle of her sword.

"Why has the number increased so much?"

No one had an answer, the Judge remained still, indifferent to the screams, indifferent to the prisoners’ attempts to escape, and even after the final judgment ended, it showed not the slightest sign of hesitation.

The golden threads disappeared one after another, the huge rings began turning again, and the black pupil returned to its previous size.

However, before the light completely disappeared, its deep voice was heard once again.

"The Seventh Judgment Has Ended."

"100 Criminals Have Been Executed."

"Next Judgment: 24 Hours Later."

The seventh judgment had ended, but this time, one hundred prisoners had been executed.

Lian stared at the sun for several seconds.

From ten to one hundred, that was a tenfold increase, and it happened just when the system had warned that the Hollow Sun was facing death.

Things are getting worse.

But the problem was not just the number of executions, he still did not know why the Judge had changed like this.

Had more prisoners become subject to punishment?

Had the prison reached a critical stage?

Or had the Judge increased the speed of executions for some unknown reason?

None of these were certain yet, but one thing was clear, if this continued, there would not be much time left to explore the land calmly and safely.

Any one of them could also be executed at any moment.

Now that he thought about it, on the first day of judgment, one person had been executed.

After that, the number increased to ten.

And now one hundred!

Were all the increases tenfold? Was there a pattern? Or was it a coincidence? If there really was a pattern, then another tenfold increase might happen soon.

And at that time, the number of executions would reach 1,000 per day, and the chance of them being among the prisoners would become very high.

At that moment, Lian noticed an unusual flow of mana beneath his feet.

The golden energy that remained in the sky after the judgments, instead of disappearing, was moving toward the ground.

He immediately activated True Sequence.

[ True Sequence ]

The world around him changed, the mana threads that had been hidden inside the stone until a few moments ago became visible to his perception.

But this time, the amount of energy was much greater than before, the white roots beneath the ground lit up one after another.

Golden flows entered them from the surface and were carried through complicated paths into the depths.

He followed the movement of the energy for a few moments.

So it’s happening again.

He had seen this before, but the amount of energy produced by the seventh judgment was so great that it lit up deeper parts of the network.

In the distance, one of the white roots extended out from a cliff wall.

Lian approached it.

Its white surface looked like a plant root, but when he examined it carefully, he noticed an important difference, there was no natural tissue inside it.

Instead, compressed threads of mana moved through a bright and hard material.

’This isn’t a root at all.’

Young Vorhelm brought his hand close to its surface.

The energy inside the structure moved in a clear order; it entered through one path, split into several branches, and then continued through deeper channels.

It looked more like a transport network than a living creature, but the main question still remained, where was all this energy going?

He looked into the depths.

At first, the threads simply disappeared into the darkness, but a few moments later, more golden light passed through the network, and this time, some of the buried structures also lit up.

Huge rings deep underground.

Lines that stretched between stone pillars, and structures that appeared to have been damaged for a very long time.

Lian noticed that when the energy arrived, one of the cracked rings lit up again, the glowing cracks around it closed, and the mana threads that had previously been unstable became more organized again.

Young Vorhelm looked at the scene for several seconds and then gave a faint smile.

Finally.

The connection was now clear to him.

He finally understood what was happening and why the mana was going underground.