Sora, a female fox-kin descended from the mid-level branches with practiced grace with five silver tails flowing behind her like silk in water. Sora had navigated hundreds of beastly minds under Lord Ash's tutelage. Most could never resisted and a few who did, didn't long against her.
She placed her hand on Michelle's shoulder with professional confidence. "This should only take a moment, Master."
Her consciousness dove...and shattered against defenses like glass against stone. Sora's eyes snapped open, hand jerking back as if burned. She steadied herself, drew breath, tried again with more power, authority..."Listen, you stone-head...you must yield to serpents truth," but then Michelle's psychic rebound sent her stumbling backward, clutching her head.
"Master." Her voice carried genuine fear. "I can't breach with force she somehow repels it... Even under Serpent's Truth, she shouldn't...humans can't have barriers like this."
Lord Ash's tails lashed. "Then break her concentration. Physical pain might slightly disrupts her mental walls giving you enough opening to force in." Sora's eyes widened, 'Physical pain' Does she have to hit the human? Isn't that against the rules of trial?
"Master, Do I have to? Is there no other spell technique used—"
"Do it. Or step aside." Lord Ash roared as he murmured a spell and purple-black marks began spreading across Michelle's skin from her veins outward. The distinctive signature of Serpent's Truth turned toxic.
Sora's jaw tightened. She drew a curved silver blade, pressed it to Michelle's forearm just above the wrist. Even though her hands gripped it she didn't dare nevertheless, Lord Ash glared at his student and the tip of the blade broke Michelle's skin.
Thick crimson blood welled and ran down Michelle's arm in delicate streams. Dripped onto white stone of Whispering Groves.
Still Michelle didn't flinch, her eyes were closed since she reminisce that childhood and now deeply indulge in a meditative trance which looked like a shield mode by withdrawing to guard her mind-space.
Profoundly focused despite blood running down her arm Michelle's breathing remained unchanged and her stance immovable. Face intense serious, eyes closed, as if she'd locked herself away and thrown away the key.
"She's completely dissociated." Sora pulled back, alarmed. "It seems to be all of her senses turned inward. You could set her on fire and she wouldn't notice." Saying so Sora pressed deeper. The wound now not only open but widening deep. More blood flowed out. The human's reaction was stock-still and nothing.
In the audience in a beat, Kael and Riven rose as one there angry feet stomping at once.
"Don't you dare!" Kael yelled.
"Enough." Alpha Riven growled.
Both of their voices carried a Alpha's and draconic resonance that rippled through the amphitheater. Kael seemed more pissed off as his smoke filled scales flickered along his jawline, eyes shifting to vertical slits. "This ends now."
Riven moved beside him, wolf-gold eyes blazing with Alpha dominance that made lesser beast-kin and more than half-foxes instinctively lower their gazes. "She's bleeding. You're supposed to test her mind, not torture her body."
Lord Ash turned with careful composure. "The humans are stubborn beasts and her trial requires—"
"Bullshit." Kael began to march spectators scattered from his path but beast council guards assigned for Lord Ash's service took their stances ready to neutral any form of beast intervention in council's affair. "I've attended dozens of these trials. Physical harm is only permitted if the subject refuses to engage. Michelle isn't refusing but she yielding her power in defending herself from your abuse."
Riven's claws extended fully as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Kael and gave both of them more of a reasons to act against council Lord.. "Last night she could barely function. This morning she's strong enough to lock out a five-tail? That's not resistance. That's her intuitive response and you're punishing her for it."
Lord Ash's ears flattened. "This is a sanctioned Trial by Challenge. My methods are within—"
"Within what?" Riven's voice dropped to something dangerous. "Within decency? Because from here, it looks like you are trying to weaponised Serpent's Truth into something it was never meant to be. Are you twisting her memories, Lord Ash?"
Kael's eyes narrowed, smoke to about to come out furling from his nostrils and make breathing burn for these foxes. "What did you do to the potion, Ash?"
"I did nothing—"
"Lie again, and I will burn this amphitheater to ash with you in it."
Lord Ash's composure cracked. "The Serpent's Truth can be... modulated. I'm utilising one of its properties as it can be made stronger or weaker depending in the entrant-beasts physical and psychic power, it safe for both of us..."
"On the administrator's intent." Riven's voice went flat with fury. "So you are willing to turned truth serum into poison. You're not revealing her memories.. you're weaponising her mind against her."
"She got poison like marks," Kael bit out. "That's your definition of safe?"
"I wouldn't have let any danger on her, you've to trust a Council Lord? My words held more truth than the Serpent truth serum. I would never let a single hair on her get damaged..."
"Would you? Or would you have kept pushing until she broke completely?"
Meanwhile, Suddenly the standing High Lord in the ancient trees, Master Kenshin spoke. "Enough now," though he said simply but it made every fox resign and Dragon Kael and Alpha Riven to look up as he kept stepped off the branches down from one side to other as leaves follows to cushion his covered step forming a petal like pool.
He didn't utter any spell or order any creature. Just simply descended as if gravity was optional, nine white tails spread in a perfect fan behind him, each glowing with power that made the air shimmer.
The amphitheater went absolute silent. It was undeniably not the silence of attention but the silence of fear. Kenshin touched down without sound. Every other fox had to lowered their in instinctive deference. Even the rowdiest fox-kin went from peacocking up to flat including Lord Ash.
As Kenshin walked past Lord Ash without a glance. Past Kael and Riven with a slight nod. Stopped three feet from Michelle's motionless form and studied her with the intensity of someone examining an impossible puzzle.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" he murmured.
Then he turned to Lord Ash, and his expression shifted to something cold and terrible.
"Would you care to explain, dear Uncle?" Master Kenshin said, voice gentle and absolutely lethal, "what you were exactly doing to this young woman?"
Lord Ash's confidence shattered. He lowered his ears, his inner will dropping in submission. " Kenshin, I was conducting the trial according to our law—"
"According to what? The principles grandpa taught you? Or your own creative sadism?"
"I was revealing her truths—"
"And I have faith that you were not creating any falsehoods in the process." Master Kenshin's voice hardened. " But not taking her memories of rescue and love, twisting them into burden and manipulation. Tell me there wasn't any accusations against dead humans who cannot defend themselves. or the intent of weaponising truth serum into poison when she proved too strong to break."
It was then the other two nine-tailed foxes, Master Yuki and Master Hiro descended behind him, flanking him in unified authority. Twenty-seven tails of combined power made the air feel heavier.
"Do enlighten me...is that really our technique?" Master Kenshin said in a pondering way. While Lord Ash's ears flattened completely. "I...I thought exposing darker interpretations would help reveal—"
"Reveal what?" Master Yuki's voice cut like broken glass. "That humans are capable of self-deception? We know that. Every sentient being is. You weren't revealing Michelle's hidden truths—you were projecting your own cynicism onto innocent memories."
"And when that didn't work," Master Hiro added, "when she proved strong enough to resist, you escalated. Poisoned the potion. Ordered physical harm. Crossed every ethical boundary we've established."
Master Kenshin raised one hand everyone fell silent.
"You forgot," he said quietly, "the fundamental principle of our art. The Den of Unveiled Truths illuminates shadows, brings clarity to confusion. It does not create new wounds disguised as revelation."
He gestured to Michelle's still form.
"How could you... when she showed unexpected strength...you punished her for it."
Lord Ash's head dropped. "If you doubt I went too far. I apologise—"
"I doubt? No, no, I'm sure of it, Uncle. That's why you will apologise to her. And you will accept whatever consequences she then decides."
Master Kenshin turned back to Michelle, hovering his hand near her forehead without touching.
"Now let's see what happened to her mind."
He closed his eyes. His consciousness vast, ancient, impossibly powerful reached toward Michelle's locked fortress.
The first thing he noticed was the completeness of her shutdown. This wasn't panic shutdown or wasn't any trauma response or to be honest some defense mechanism. This was deliberate, controlled and absolute control of mind space.
Her every sensory input, smell, touch, vision, thought, listening powers severed completely for anyone to affect so that way the serpent Truth serum in her blood could reach it through any means. Every sensory, imagery connection closed. Michelle had retreated so far inward that her consciousness no longer inhabited her body. Just breathing. Existing. Vacant.
Impressive, he thought. And deeply troubling, he felt.
He approached the edge of her mental space with the respect of someone approaching sacred ground and stopped there
Because what he saw was impossible.
Michelle's mind wasn't empty or disordered.
It was the kind of blank filled with everything.
Like white canvas ready to depict all colours before the first brushstroke. Like void that held everything before its creation explode. Like a source that all power went into—
His eyes opened briefly, genuine shock flickering across ancient features.
What is she?
He tried again, pushing deeper with gentle insistence. For the human ego, and entity that is named Michelle.
Yet nothing showed up.
No memories. No identity. No personality construct. No ego. Not even the basic sense of self every conscious being possessed. Just empty, infinite space. And threaded through that emptiness—so faint he almost missed it—something else. Something that made his ancient instincts prickle with recognition and alarm.
Power.
Not learned or inherited power. Pure power. Raw. Untouched. Fundamental. The kind that only existed in one context. Divine?
Master Kenshin withdrew immediately, heart racing in a way it hadn't for decades.
Impossible. Divine bloodlines died out. The gods abandoned all the mortal world millennia ago.
He tried from a different angle, using a different technique.
Same result.That strange pure power illuminating emptiness like light through stained glass.
And absolutely no way to reach Michelle herself. That made him wondering, Does Michelle even exists?
Master Kenshin stepped back, expression carefully neutral despite inner turmoil.
"Well?" Master Yuki asked quietly. "Can you bring her back?"
"No. She's gone too deep. Farther than I can reach without risking permanent damage."
Lord Ash looked up, alarmed. "But the trial—"
"The trial is suspended until she chooses to return." Master Kenshin's voice went cold. "If she returns."