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🌧️ 1:46 AM — The Street
The sky was leaking oil.
Elias walked alone under the amber glow of a broken streetlamp. The brand on his hand had burned steadily for hours—not pulsing, not warning. Demanding.
The Mandate didn't whisper this time.
It screamed.
> "One has sinned beyond mercy."
> "A name burned in the Book."
> "Judgment required."
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🏚️ The House
Vernon Craig's home sat on the edge of the industrial district, half-eaten by ivy and shadow. A white two-story colonial. Too clean. Too neat. Like it was hiding something.
The moment Elias stepped onto the porch, the temperature dropped.
He could smell it.
Bleach. Blood. Sweat. A chemical sweetness that clung to walls like a memory.
The Mandate did not hesitate.
The door unlatched itself.
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🛋️ The Monster in a Man's Skin
Vernon Craig was in the living room, sitting in an armchair, legs crossed, sipping tea. White shirt, slacks. Calm as a sermon.
He smiled as Elias entered.
"You're not the first to come here," he said. "But you'll be the last."
His voice was low, practiced. The voice of a man used to making people freeze.
He gestured around. "Go ahead. Check the basement. That's where the evidence was. I got rid of it."
Elias said nothing.
His eyes were already glowing gold.
Craig stood.
"You judges are all the same," he said. "Thinking punishment changes anything. What I do—what I've done—it's already in the ground. Buried deep. You kill me, nothing changes."
Elias raised his hand.
The brand flared.
> "Vernon Craig," he said, voice hollow, godless.
"Guilty of rape, torture, and the murder of children."
"Your crimes are recorded in the Book."
"Your soul is forfeit."
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🕯️ Trial Zone: The Mandate Unleashed
The room peeled open like skin.
The wallpaper folded into fire. The floor dropped into an abyss. Elias and Craig now stood inside a courtroom made of bone and silence. A thousand unseen eyes watched from the dark.
Craig's body began to tremble. He saw them.
Faces. Names. Ghosts.
The children. The ones he broke.
They stood in the gallery. Silent. Crying.
Craig screamed.
> "NO. THIS ISN'T REAL."
Elias stepped forward.
The Scalesword appeared in his hand, not metal—light and wrath given shape.
> "Sentence: Echo."
"Let him feel everything he gave."
Craig's body convulsed.
Bones snapped backward. Flesh stretched. His mouth tore open in a howl that shook the courtroom. The Mandate burned his memories into him—every scream, every plea, every breath taken from another, forced into his skull on repeat.
> "Sentence: Silence."
"Let no one hear his cries."
Craig clawed his throat as his voice died.
The children turned their backs to him.
> "Sentence: Fire."
The sword struck.
And Vernon Craig burned from the inside out, collapsing into a pile of ash shaped like a man curled in fear.
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🧎 Elias Breaks
The courtroom faded.
Elias stood alone in the burned-out ruin of the living room.
Ash swirled around him. The house was quiet. Too quiet.
He dropped to his knees. The Scalesword clattered to the floor.
He was shaking. Not from fear. Not from power.
From the crack inside him that had finally split.
> "It wasn't enough," he whispered.
"It's never enough."
Behind him, something watched.
Not the Mandate.
Something older.
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