The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1235

The Ylvainan Inquisition tried many heretical Ylvainans over the centuries. Some of them openly defied the Ylvainan Faith. Others were exceedingly careful in expressing their deviant beliefs.

When the inquisition caught on to the heretics and dragged them to their tribunals, it was quite hard to know for certain if someone was guilty. While many tribunals generally issued a unanimous judgement of guilt, sometimes an extreme case would appear where it was truly difficult to be sure of someone's guilt.

In cases where an inquisitor was deeply conflicted about someone's guilt, they could choose to abstain from issuing their judgement.

This was a rare event, but fairly problematic. These kinds of edge cases might also prompt another inquisitor to take the rare step of acquitting the accused!

This resulted in a tie, whereby the tribunal became stuck between two verdicts!

After a lot of thought, the Ylvainan Inquisition decided that if a tie ever occurred, they would gravitate towards the guilty verdict!

The argument for this policy was that it was better for the Ylvainan Inquisition to be safe than sorry! Letting a potential heretic go free meant letting a potential threat return to society! In the interest of public safety and the integrity of the Ylvainan Faith, the inquisitors couldn't take the chance that they were releasing a monster!

Of course, whether Ves deserved to be treated in this fashion was still in question. Many Ylvainans in the gallery and watching the broadcast thought it was deeply unfair!

Yet while the Ylvainan Inquisition caught a lot of flack for following this rule, it was better than outright declaring Ves guilty!

Judge Kelber Kronon still attracted most of the blame! If not for judging the Bright Martyr guilty, the tribunal wouldn't have fallen into such an awkward situation!

Ves couldn't help but reveal a mocking smile at how this tribunal developed. He immediately came up with a guess for why High Inquisitor Kelly Ixef Poxco refused to issue her judgement.

She wanted to have it both ways! She wanted to declare Ves guilty but avoid most of the blame for condemning a potential Martyred Follower! By abstaining from the decision, she elegantly preserved most of the reputation of the inquisition while still ensuring that Ves would no longer be a problem to their interests!

What a dirty move! If Ves hadn't been the target, he would have applauded the shrewd woman for coming up with this brilliant solution!

"Outrageous! The Bright Martyr is innocent!"

"The rules shouldn't be applied anymore!"

"Kill this devil before he bewitches us again!"

The controversy that erupted from this result threw everyone into disarray yet again! Those who were inclined against Ves celebrated this result, while those who deeply believed that he was the Bright Martyr found it to be a travesty!

Yet no matter how they regarded the process, it didn't change the fact that the tribunal essentially declared Ves guilty of sacrilege!

While the judges hadn't even addressed the sentencing yet, there was really only one possible sentence they were allowed to make. For the vast majority of the crimes the Ylvainan Inquisition enforced, the punishment was death!

This was why despite Kelber Kronon's repeated strikes with his gavel, the Ylvainans in the gallery simply wouldn't stay still!

"Order! Order!"

Through a variety of technological means, the audience in the gallery experienced increasingly greater suppression!

Even though the Ylvainan observers felt stifled, the most fanatical among them had to be dragged out by the guards before the entire gallery subsided!

Just as a tense and forceful silence descended on the courtroom, a Protector captain suddenly stepped out and approached the bench from the side!

The captain whispered something to the judges. The news was so alarming that none of the judges managed to maintain their composure!

"Ahem! A highly unusual disruption is taking place outside the court building!" Please remain seated while the Protectors attempt to reassert order!"

The Ylvainans seated in the gallery frowned. They raised their comms and attempted to access the galactic net to see what was happening, but their connections had forcefully been cut off!

Several uncertain minutes passed by as the judges became preoccupied with what was happening outside.

It must be something incredibly serious to prevent the judges from moving onto the sentencing! Ves glanced around and saw that the Protectorate guards increased their alertness. They were gearing up for a fight!

Was someone trying to rescue Ves? But how? The Protectors of the Faith deployed an entire mech regiment around the court building, and placed a lot of units around the city district in order to guard every direction! They even took precautions against both aerial and underground threats!

Yet for some reason, the Protectorate guards looked increasingly more tense as they acted as if a great force was about to descend upon the court!

Ves felt it first. Despite his exhaustion and his spiritual depletion, his spiritual senses hadn't turned entirely numb. He felt a very familiar sensation approaching him from the direction of the main entrance of the court building.

He doubted it at first, but as the sensation slowly grew stronger, his eyes widened as he realized what was approaching!

"My prototype is back!"

He sensed the pale but incredibly strong X-Factor of his prototype! He knew it was his prototype and not one of the authorized copies of the Transcendent Messenger because its X-Factor hadn't been affected by a virtue! The mech radiated a strong sense of absolute faith that was incredibly similar to the aura that he emanated during his extraordinary tirade!

The Ylvainans in the gallery, the Protector guards on duty and the judges on the bench all began to sense something familiar in the air.

Their sensitivity towards spirituality wasn't as good as Ves, so it took quite some time before they realized the similarities!

"The prophet has returned! He is outside the courtroom!"

"Is there another Martyr outside?!"

"Let us see! Let us see!"