"It seems that we have a rat here as well."
Percival’s words didn’t just hit Judge — they perford a full percussion solo on his cardiovascular system. His pulse went on vacation, his lungs forgot their job description, and his brain started filing for early retirent. The remark was clearly aid at Satan, who, by all laws of logic and smugness, was supposed to be imperceptible.
Apparently, imperceptibility had taken the day off.
Judge had made a fatal miscalculation: he’d grown accustod to the idea that his ability to record reality was an all-access cheat code.
Turns out it was more of a student edition. Sure, it could copy monts, distort perception, and do other impressive things that make normal people question their sanity — but perfection? Not yet.
This wasn’t the reality created by Tenebris, the god of night, anymore.
No divine script was guiding sleeping mortals through their prewritten tragedies. No, this world had people who thought — which, honestly, was becoming quite the inconvenience. They had instincts, skills, and so even had the terrifying ability to notice when an invisible demon was breathing down their neck.
Or just blatantly staring at them in this case, but that was beyond the point.
Judge swallowed the realization like bad dicine. His ability wasn’t divine armor; it was a half-baked science experint with the side effect of getting him killed.
He couldn’t even just pop in, save the day, and look cool while doing it. Not this ti.
Then there was Percival. Without that crybaby with him, thank the gods... No, never mind the gods.
Oh, Percival — an overachiever with the irritating habit of existing. He might not rember eting Judge in Tenebris’ little sandbox, but mory loss didn’t make him less dangerous.
If anything, his original strength far surpassed that of Judge. The only advantage Judge had in their previous encounter was the fact that he was completely sentient, unlike Percival.
He was still the kind of guy who’d notice an invisible cosmic rat sniffing around and politely vaporize it.
In the reality that Tenebris had created, even his grandfather had stuck to slashing skills instead of using any powerful principles, which was most of it. He stuck to that principle since it required less psyche. So, soone like Percival was not even worth ntioning.
Judge knew better than to fight uphill battles. He was many things — reckless, sarcastic, emotionally unavailable — but stupid wasn’t one of them. Summoning Satan inside the Studio might have worked in theory... but since invisibility had decided to stop being a thing, he wasn’t eager to test if Percival could spot a demonic dinsion like a bloodhound at a barbecue.
Which left him with one delightful alternative — delegate.
He let out a sigh so heavy it could’ve anchored a ship and spread his hands like a magician at a children’s party whose rabbit had escaped.
"This won’t end well..."
Magical threads shimred into being, dancing through the air before snapping into form—a quill and a sheet of paper, his most loyal coworkers.
So people commanded armies. But Judge was different; he commanded stationery... and fate. Both of which, regrettably, had terrible morale.
The quill twitched in his fingers like it knew it was about to be overworked again. Paper unfurled midair, trembling with the sa enthusiasm as a bureaucrat told to file divine decrees by hand. Judge’s eyes narrowed.
"You know the drill," he muttered, like a tired boss addressing underpaid employees. The quill sighed — figuratively, but Judge could feel the judgnt — and began to glow.
anwhile, Satan didn’t even get the courtesy of an ominous but gentlemanly polite introduction before Percival moved. One second, he was invisible and smug; the next, he was visible and strangled.
Percival’s hand clamped around his throat, and the air itself scread from the force. The movent was so fast it looked like ti skipped a fra. The poor recorder barely managed a jerk off his hand before he was slamd against the floor hard enough to rearrange the room’s acoustics.
Judge winced, mostly out of sympathy, partly because he knew who’d have to clean up afterward. "...That’s one way to make friends," he muttered under his breath.
The quill had already started doing its part as letters started to appear on the scroll, then words, as they turned to sentences. It was as if the quill had a mind of its own. More words were starting to appear as Judge just stared at it; he was "formulating" strategies.
"Percival’s eyes were filled with pure madness. As their purple glow materialized, a deafening crash occurred. He slamd Satan to the floor, the ground itself trembling as though the heavens wept."
"Wow, dramatic," He praised the quill, but that did not stop it from writing.
"Master!" Solarae, his magnificent spirit, who seems to appear whenever he pleases and disappear on a whim, appeared out of thin air as he pleased.
Already in a tense situation, Judge jumped as soon as he heard a voice, not figuratively, but literally — he actually jumped out of his throne like a frightened kitten.
Solarae hovered with his usual celestial calm, radiating golden light like a self-satisfied sunrise. As if completely oblivious to the fact that Judge just jumped out of his seat like a cat.
"You’re in danger," he announced, in that serene, unhelpful tone only sealers and custor service representatives have mastered. "Percival’s ether is tainted. He’s being influenced... by Tenebris."
Judge blinked at him, one hand still clutching his chest. "Co again?"
"Tenebris," Solarae repeated gravely, as if the repetition would make it less absurd. "The god of night has his claws on this one. You must be careful, Master. The corruption is deep—"
Judge interrupted, raising a finger. "Hold on. Didn’t we already end Tenebris’ little dreamworld? The whole ’god of darkness tries to rewrite reality’ phase? Ring any bells?"
Solarae tilted his head, brows furrowing like a divine being trying to rember if he’d left the stove on. "I... have no recollection of such an event, I am only starting to recall a few unimportant things."
Judge’s face fell. "Oh, fantastic. Isn’t there an order to this recalling mory thing? What’s the use of unimportant mories? What’s next? The quill starts developing anxiety?"
The quill twitched mid-air, as if insulted. A blot of ink splattered dramatically across the parchnt, almost spelling the word rude.
Suddenly...
His quill continued.
The air thickened as every being present buckled to the ground, and the lightless room was swallowed by the starry night sky; each surface seed to reflect countless stars.
"This stench!" Percival’s voice was truly deep, each word he uttered brought weight to the air, he felt like the tide of the abyss. "Why is such a weakling working for the Princeps?"
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