Lucien felt weightless as the Source Flame consumed him not with heat, but with memory.
Time unraveled. The courtroom vanished.
He stood in a place beyond sight and sound: a void of infinite echoes, where law was not written but felt each statute, each decree, vibrating like ancient chords across the unseen loom of reality.
Here, the laws of Heaven were alive.
And they remembered everything.
Judgment of the Law Itself
A shape emerged before Lucien: vast, formless, and composed of intertwining golden threads each one a law, a precedent, a forgotten verdict.
The Voice of the Law spoke not with words, but with resonance:
"You who would question us… must answer in kind. Not to the Thrones. Not to the Tribunal. But to us Law incarnate."
Lucien's breath caught. This was no longer about politics or court theatrics. He had entered the crucible of divine judgment's origin.
"Very well," he whispered. "Then judge me."
Echoes of His Past
The Source Flame tore open his memories.
He relived his greatest failures:
The mortal child he could not save.
The angel he once betrayed by choosing order over love.
The mortal trial he manipulated to protect a guilty soul out of pity.
Each vision struck like thunderclaps. Not to punish but to remind.
The Voice asked:
"Why should a flawed soul rewrite the law?"
Lucien didn't flinch.
"Because I know what it means to live with the consequences."
He raised his hand, and the memories steadied.
"Perfection breeds blindness. I've lived the cracks in your walls. And I choose to repair them, not ignore them."
The Verdict From Within
The golden threads pulsed.
Then, the vast shape began to weave itself into a cloak. A new mantle.
The Voice responded:
"Then you shall carry the burden of truth. But know this every law you reveal will come with a cost. Every corruption you cleanse will leave a scar."
Lucien stepped forward.
"So be it."
The cloak settled around him. Light flowed from its seams not blinding, but clear.
Lucien wasn't just Advocate-General anymore.
He was now Bearer of the Law's Memory.
Return to the Courtroom
As the Source Flame dimmed, Lucien descended once more into the courtroom changed.
The judges gasped. His eyes no longer glowed with mortal fire or divine justice but with layered memory, as though he saw the weight of every verdict ever passed.
Even Metatron stepped back.
Uriel dropped his staff.
Seraphiel fell to one knee not out of submission, but awe.
Lucien spoke:
"The Law has spoken. Not to damn you. Not to spare you. But to demand reckoning."
He turned to the Thrones.
"The next phase begins now the rejudging of judgment itself."
The Rejudging of Judgment
The silence in the courtroom was no longer hollow. It was heavy pregnant with the weight of eras, of unspoken truths clawing their way from beneath polished rulings and sealed decrees. The Tribunal, once proud and unassailable, now stood diminished before a single man draped in memory's fire.
Lucien stood tall in the center, the cloak of the Law's Memory glimmering like stitched starlight across his shoulders. His eyes no longer held mortal doubt or even righteous fury. They held clarity. And clarity was the most terrifying force of all in a place built on unquestioned belief.
Across the dais, the Seven Thrones pulsed. Each one flickered in response not in resistance, but in recognition. It was the Law itself that had chosen him. Not by birthright. Not by celestial lineage. But by trial. By truth.
The courtroom shifted again.
The walls peeled back into endless chambers of echoing light. Every case, every ruling, every whispered dissent from the Court's eternal history flowed like rivers across the ceiling. It was no longer a trial it was a reckoning.
The Tribunal's Resistance
Metatron was the first to speak, his voice still iron, but cracked.
"You dare presume to override the will of Heaven itself?"
Lucien didn't blink. "I don't override it. I listen to it. Something you ceased doing eons ago."
Uriel's fingers gripped the Judgment Staff until his knuckles turned white. "The people angels and mortals alike need order. They need absolutes."
Lucien stepped forward. "Then why are they breaking beneath the weight of those absolutes? Why are innocents condemned because your system doesn't allow for questions?"
He raised a hand, and a glowing sigil formed in the air: a record from five centuries prior an angel named Caeliel sentenced for 'emotional interference' after choosing to spare a war-torn village during the Mortal Uprising.
"You called this mercy a violation. I call it a miracle. And I'm not alone anymore."
The Voice of the Thrones
The Thrones themselves began to stir each speaking not as rulers, but as echoes of divine aspects.
Truth: He seeks no rebellion. Only correction.
Balance: The scales have tilted for too long.
Sacrifice: One voice that carries the weight of countless silences must be heard.
Only Wrath remained still, pulsing red.
Lucien turned to it. "And you? Will you remain silent while injustice festers under your gaze?"
Wrath pulsed once violently.
Then, it spoke: Even fury must be tempered by wisdom. Proceed, Advocate.
Seraphiel's Stand
At the foot of the Tribunal's platform, Seraphiel stood. Her wings, once broken, now shimmered with fractured light. They had not yet healed, but they no longer hid. She stepped forward, standing beside Lucien.
"I, Seraphiel, once named traitor, now speak as witness."
She looked not to the Tribunal, but to the court itself to the celestial scribes, to the watchers above, to the chained witnesses long kept in silence.
"I did not rebel. I remembered."
Her voice deepened.
"I remembered that justice without compassion is only cruelty in finer robes."
Her words rippled outward, and the Black Witness recorded every syllable this time not in hidden archives, but in public script.
The Archive of Dissonance Opens
Lucien raised the staff gifted by the Law now fully merged with the ancient sigils of Forgotten Truth.
"By authority of the Law's Memory, I demand the unsealing of the Archive of Dissonance."
Gasps erupted.
The Archive was sealed for a reason: it housed every dissenting voice silenced by the Tribunal. Every plea ignored. Every evidence struck from record to preserve the illusion of harmony.
The courtroom split apart once more revealing a vault suspended in pure stasis. Chains made of paradox, denial, and holy silence cracked open.
And then… it sang.
Voices poured out not screams, not cries but memories. Songs of truth, grief, and courage long buried.
Metatron staggered.
Uriel fell to his knees.
Even Raphael turned away, tears forming along his ancient features.
Lucien's Charge
Lucien pointed to the Tribunal. "This is what you feared. Not chaos but truth. Not rebellion but reflection."
He turned, addressing not just the court, but all of Heaven because the echoes of this trial now reached the farthest dominions, down to the mortal realm.
"Let every angel, every soul hear this now: Law is not a hammer. It is a scale. And it must be weighed not by the hands of the powerful alone, but by the cries of those it governs."
"Let justice be reborn not through domination, but through discernment."
The Verdict Deferred
The Pale Chorus, long silent, finally spoke:
"Inquiry proceeding. Verdict of Tribunal deferred."
"Lucien of the Mortal Flame and Celestial Memory designated Interim Arbiter."
Shock rippled.
Lucien had not only changed the course of the trial he had been named interim ruler of the courtroom itself.
And it was only Chapter 63.
The fight was far from over.
But now, the halls of judgment trembled not with fear.
But with the possibility of truth.