Chapter 300
Chapter 300: Has the Goddess of Justice Fallen to Darkness?
At that moment, the Mages within Endymion sensed a terrifying aura drifting in from the distant reaches.
The Twilight Expanse seemed to churn and billow within that chaotic aura.
And within those swirling clouds of chaos, they saw it.
A colossal silhouette—vast enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the far horizon.
Its enormous, pitch-black frame seemed to radiate an aura of dread that made hearts tremble.
From its back extended a pair of black wings, their lustrous black feathers exuding an air of solemn majesty.
It gripped a sharp, dark blade in its hand, as though passing judgment upon the justice within people's hearts.
The Mages were shaken to their core, as though they had touched something invisible, their entire bodies trembling.
The mysterious divine figure was difficult to make out—only its outline could be glimpsed in a blur.
Yet they still saw it.
The hands of that divine being were not merely holding a pitch-black blade.
Its left wrist, supple as flowing silk, lifted a set of scales lightly into the air.
Though the scales, too, were pitch-black—a color that seemed as though it had been tainted.
Yet even so, a brilliant radiance still shone upon them.
Those noble and elegant scales in her hand appeared so perfectly harmonious.
Carrying a mysterious and unfathomable power that left onlookers breathless with wonder.
And behind those clouds of chaos, a terrifying dragon covered head to tail in razor-sharp scales seemed to be radiating its own extreme malevolent power.
The 3rd-Tier Mages of Endymion were, naturally, learned and knowledgeable individuals who had seen much of the world.
When they laid eyes upon that towering silhouette standing proudly in the sky, they recognized it at once.
"That—that's the Goddess of Justice, isn't it!?"
And at the same time.
On the 1st Layer of Endymion, ripples spread outward through the space surrounding the central core.
Within those ripples, the silhouettes of Mage after Mage appeared at the very heart of the 1st Layer.
At this moment, the place was impossibly crowded.
There was no helping it—the speed at which Mages passed information was extraordinary.
So extraordinary that almost the instant the explosion occurred in the Twilight Expanse, word had already spread across the entire City of Mages.
That's right.
They had all heard.
Outside Endymion, on one of the most dangerous floating islands—the Twilight Expanse—a terrifyingly massive explosion had occurred.
Many Mages had come precisely because of this explosion, and naturally, they had gathered en masse at the viewing area nearest to the floating island.
That was to say, the 1st Layer of the City of Mages.
Yet the moment they arrived at this 1st Layer, every single one of them was left dumbstruck.
As the saying goes—Mages were learned and had seen much of the world. But upon seeing that pitch-black silhouette in the sky above, they could only respond with silence.
The existence holding the blade of justice, raising the Divine Scale aloft.
It was exactly as described in the sacred histories—the Goddess of Justice herself.
The Goddess of Justice had actually manifested!
This was nothing short of earth-shattering news.
Simply extraordinary.
Every Mage in the City of Mages knew full well.
The Mage Council was an extraordinarily righteous and morally upright organization.
For from its very founding, the Council's standards had been benchmarked against justice and morality.
And the Mages who had joined the Council understood even more clearly.
To join the Council, one had to be measured by the 【Goddess of Justice's Scale】 for one's moral character and sense of justice.
Only upon meeting the requirement would one be permitted to join the Council.
This standard—whereby only those possessing justice and noble moral character could join the Council—had persisted to this day.
And so, any Mage with even a passing knowledge of the subject would believe that the Mage Council shared a certain connection with the Goddess of Justice.
But now?
When the divine image of the Goddess of Justice appeared above Endymion, who would still think the Council shared only a small connection with the Goddess of Justice?
This was clearly the true lineage of the Goddess of Justice—right here within the Mage Council!
And yet, the Goddess of Justice before their eyes gave them a vague sense of wrongness.
The Goddess of Justice had always been described as a pure and sacred existence.
For a divine being such as this, even without a burst of holy light, shouldn't she at least be glowing in golden radiance?
And yet the Goddess of Justice before them...
Every part of her seemed to be enveloped in pitch-black darkness.
Her armor, and the divine wings at her back that symbolized the divine.
Even the blade she held in her hand, whose edge gleamed with a piercing sharpness, and the scales that symbolized impartiality and fairness—all were a deep and profound black.
The elder Mages wrestled with this in their thoughts for a long while, before ultimately arriving at a collective conclusion.
One that was instantly affirmed by countless Mages in a single moment.
"Forget it—the Goddess of Justice's appearance is definitely genuine."
"Exactly, even if she looks a bit dark, this might just be the Goddess's true form!"
"That's right—it's not like any of us have ever actually seen the real Goddess!"
Hahahahahaha!
Amid a chorus of laughter, the Mages unanimously determined it.
The Goddess of Justice was definitely black!
Sensing a wondrous and extraordinary feeling surging from within, an air of majesty and nobility poured ceaselessly from the Goddess's form.
But no one noticed.
That the Goddess of Justice stood proudly in the sky—yet atop her head stood a black speck no larger than a sesame seed.
It was a Crow.
Pitch-black all over.
One eye bright and sharp.
When the Crow beat its wings, the Goddess with the black wings seemed to be carried along by it, moving in tandem.
This Goddess who represented justice appeared to be completely under the Crow's control.
Ryan's eyes went wide as brass bells, and he dropped onto the cold, hard ground, clearly dealt a tremendous shock.
His breathing grew heavy, and even the snow-white whiskers scattered about him trembled lightly with each breath.
Staring in astonishment at the pitch-black Goddess of Justice before him, he cried out in a shaking voice:
"The—the Goddess of Justice!?"
Lived several hundred years, and this was the first time he'd ever seen a ghost... oh wait, no—seen a god.
Though she differed slightly from the descriptions—this Goddess appeared somewhat dark—the innate divine will about her remained undiminished.
And so, with the Goddess of Justice having appeared, then... the scales Viktor had been holding just now were...
"The Goddess of Justice's Scale!?"
What the hell, this time he really had seen a ghost.
Where on earth had Viktor gotten that thing?
At this moment, Viktor stood with both hands in his pockets, his gaze calm as he looked ahead.
Faced with this sacred aura, the Chaos Dragon King was clearly gripped by no small amount of dread.
Its massive frame trembled faintly, the chaotic Magic Power flowing through its body stuttering and faltering.
Even its eyes had gone rigid with tension, as though confronting a mortal enemy.
The black scales across its body shuddered without cease.
That's right—divine will.
Even though this Divine Scale was merely a replica.
It did, in fact, possess the divine power of the Goddess of Justice.
The Dark Archmage, to prevent the obsessive will of the Goddess of Justice from continuing to affect more and more of humanity, had stolen her divine power.
And using it, he had constructed the magnificent Sky City in the clouds—Endymion.
Thereafter, the Dark Archmage had used the stolen divine power to craft this scale, with the intent of weakening the Goddess of Justice's influence.
In truth, Viktor was unable to use this scale.
Because the weight of his own moral conviction far exceeded what the Goddess of Justice required.
Though the scale in his hands, no matter how one looked at it, was still nothing more than a replica.
Since he himself could not use it, then let Weija handle it.
A replica such as this—with Weija's current divine power—was still well within her capacity to control.
"It's a good thing you know to fear. Pity, though."
Viktor stood with both hands in his pockets, gazing at the massive dragon in the sky.
His voice—steady and cold.
"It is too late for repentance."
The moment those words fell, the Goddess of Justice in the sky raised the pitch-black scale in her hand.
The scale swayed back and forth before finally settling into a balanced position.
In that instant, the Chaos Dragon King's body was as though seized by a giant hand gripping all four of its limbs—utterly unable to move.
The bones within its body creaked and groaned, as though being crushed against one another, producing a spine-chilling grating sound.
Simultaneously, the Goddess of Justice raised the dark blade and cleaved it forward toward the great dragon.
The enormous blade tore through the air, carving a rift like a canyon in its wake, and came slashing downward with fierce momentum.
A terrifying black shockwave spread across the entire cloud layer, and following the chaotic Magic Power, it dispersed across the entire City of Mages.
Like black flames, like black waves.
Rolling and churning, refracting and twisting.
Boom—!
The instant the blade made contact with the dragon's body, a dazzling white light erupted in the sky like the sun itself, and a scorching shockwave surged and rolled outward in all directions.
The moment the blade touched the Chaos Dragon King's formidable armored scales, they shattered completely.
The tough skin and flesh split open, mixed with the pitch-black chaotic Magic Power as blood erupted outward, and a massive column of blood shot straight into the sky.
White blazing flames swept across the entire Sky City in an instant, as though the entire world were being overturned.
That radiant light seemed to carry the resolve to extinguish all things, continuing to spread, until everything was drowned beneath it.
White shattered rock, beneath this terrifying impact, crumbled into powder and dissolved into that white light.
The clouds gradually dispersed, and with them, the various sounds in everyone's ears were torn apart, slowly leaving behind only a sharp and monotonous echo, which at last sank into boundless stillness.
A feeling of absolute oppression and terror.
【Judgment's Will】
Boom—
Until the white light gradually faded—like noise subsiding and silence returning—tranquility settled back over the entire City of Mages.
The pure sky stretched clear without a single cloud, as though washed clean of all impurity by clear water.
Boundless azure—as though some divine being had tipped a vat of paint downward, thoroughly dyeing the entire sky blue.
The wind breathed and swayed in the open heights above, and green leaves carried in from who knew where drifted and danced through the air.
That radiant sunlight kept pouring down its heat, as though trying to call this sky back to life.
The originally black clouds of the entire Twilight Expanse had likewise vanished, as though purified from top to bottom.
Even the white shattered rocks had diminished greatly—only a few simple fragments of floating land remained, still swaying.
Accompanied by swirling gusts of wind.
That majestic, pitch-black Goddess had faded away like a vision.
"Caw—"
A hoarse cry drifted slowly down from the sky, and a pitch-black Crow descended through the clear azure.
It struggled to grip the top of the scale—twice its own size—in its beak, and landed somewhat unsteadily upon Viktor's shoulder.
Ryan stared blankly at Viktor, frozen in a daze.
Viktor looked at him calmly, reached out, and took the black scale from Weija's beak.
Holding it once more in his hand, an appreciation long absent stirred in the depths of his eyes.
To Ryan, sitting there on the ground, he appeared so towering, so far beyond reach.
"How about it?"
"I said it before—this thing can be used to craft a Staff."