A human face flickered in the darkness.
It is made of gold, but it is as dull and old as if it is full of mold. Six empty eye holes surround the head, and the darkness inside cannot be seen. Each one is like a bottomless hole that can swallow people. . This blind human face also has no ears, nose or gills, but under the sickly wrinkled skin, it shows a strange and solemn expression mixed with pain. Directly in front of his huge face, a slender golden road hung across the void.
This golden path, big enough for three people to walk side by side, is brand new and brilliant, with countless indescribable strange faces carved on its surface, staring at the dome with the same empty eyes. There are cliffs at both ends of this golden path, which can only lead to the endless and treacherous cold darkness below. A row of stairs descends diagonally from the middle of the golden road, allowing outsiders to climb onto the road full of faces. However, even the lowest step does not touch the golden path, maintaining a thin gap as thin as paper.
What really provides support for the Golden Way is a slender golden rod that plunges straight into the abyss below. It is only the thickness of an ordinary flagpole, and is simply untouchable compared to the entire golden path. However, it is actually extremely strong, neither bending nor swaying. It has supported the balance of the golden path for countless years. On the face of the blind colossus Standing quietly in front of it, like a scale rising from the netherworld.
Yaleriga stands at the right end of this terrible scale, close to the dead end road that leads to nowhere. The air pressed heavily on her shoulders and back, forcing her to stand still, unable to move. She remained calm and looked at the giant statue that seemed to be looking at her with empty eyes.
On the top of this frightening space, there are countless radiating trapezoidal and ring-shaped gold plates evenly divided by horizontal lines, and finally build a magnificent dome-shaped ceiling. Those densely packed horizontal lines, although so dense that it can be dazzling, are extremely neat and precise. No matter where they are on any gold plate, the two horizontal lines can always cut out a part of equal area with the side seam. The entire dome is not only a perfectly symmetrical whole, but also countless uniform and equal smallest units. Under this superb architectural art, the abyss leading to the netherworld lurks quietly, waiting with its terrifying mouth for the prisoner standing on the slender gold scale.
The coveted prey is not just Yaleriga. At the left end of the golden road opposite her, she saw a golden guardian escorting her two accusers. The goblin looked dazed and startled, while the doll looked much calmer. It stared at the eyeless colossus with its button eyes, and Yaleriga guessed that it also knew something about the inside story.
That's not a top secret. Various rumors about the "Judgement Hall" are not only engraved on the public walls at both ends of the gate city, but also lingering among the tongues and teeth of the people in the city. This legend is closely related to the existence of the Golden Guardian. Since the Gate City was known to the world, these golems have roamed the city, maintaining order according to the wishes of their masters. Sometimes, in some unexpected violent conflicts, some guardian statues are smashed to pieces, or fall into some irreversible situation. Its fragments will weather quickly, but the guardians patrolling the city have never been affected by this. reduce. Since each of them looks exactly the same, no one knows whether they were resurrected in a special place or carved by a mysterious hand, and no one can accurately estimate their number. People only rumored that these statues were immortal, at least an army of tens of millions.
These golems have no real temperaments. They are just exquisite and soulless machines. They maintain law and order meticulously and faithfully follow the rules of the city lord. Sometimes, when some important but difficult-to-decided disputes arise, the guardians will take away all those involved and then give a conclusion on how to deal with it. Those who were taken away, if they could still return, were always tight-lipped about the matter, and often showed some lingering fear. This led many people to believe that the golems brought the suspects to their masters.
The mysterious ruler with supreme power not only has the ambition to open this mysterious city of thousands of gates to the entire world, but also hides himself behind many rumors and suspicions. People cannot help but respect it, but at the same time they are full of fear and doubt. Among the various rumors related to this, news about the "Judgement Hall" and the "Giant Guardian Statue" quickly spread like wildfire.
It is believed that one of the men who had been taken away drunkenly confided the story, claiming that he had been taken to a magnificent golden hall over an abyss, where a giant golden statue served as a symbol of his dispute with a murderer. Preside over the ruling. They were placed on both sides of the judgment seat, and were asked questions by the Golden Guardian standing behind them. Every time the abominable murderer tells a lie, the ground he stands on rises a little, and the other side sinks a little toward the abyss. However, when he was asked about some secrets that he did not want to reveal and tried to cover it up with words, the end he was standing on would immediately sink, saving the person who was about to fall into the abyss.
This frightening situation quickly frightened those standing on both sides, unable to weave even the slightest lie. Finally, when the guardian took turns asking them "Who killed someone?", he and the other party had completely similar fears, but they both denied it tremblingly.
That was his last memory of the Hall of Justice.
After that, the end where his despicable enemy stood sank suddenly, falling straight into the darkness at his feet, like a sinking ship. He was held in place by the guardian, and watched helplessly as the opponent fell amidst screams, his claws strong enough to scratch the rock but unable to lift them up at all. And he himself was the same - at that moment, his heart seized by fear did not have any joy of revenge, and he could only be on the verge of madness in the sinister smile of the blind and blind image. At the other end of the tilted scale, he finally saw the lower part of the blind image's face sunk in the darkness, like countless knotted roots, densely extending to the bottom of the golden path. It is the presiding officer and controller of all these, weighing the lies they have told on the scale of death and judging those who are truly guilty of serious crimes. People believe that he is the Inquisitor of the Gate City, the most terrifying of the Golden Guardians, or perhaps the Lord of the Gate City himself.
This story, and other equally popular versions, were all well known to Yaleriga. She didn't even need to go out of her way to collect them, people would bring her all kinds of weird things to talk about. But she didn't stop there. This strange rumor had evoked older and more obscure legends in her memory. The celestial city and the Spellweaver, the forged gods, the magic network and the door leading to the highest and deepest...
Her mind drifted away for a moment, but soon returned to the matter at hand. This ridiculous and bizarre baby abandonment case was obviously more serious than she thought, because according to legend, this court was only used to deal with murder-level felonies. Even though she knew that the Golden Guardian's wisdom was limited, she still pretended to be ignorant and asked the one behind her: "What is this statue? Is it the Lord of the Gate City?"
The Golden Guardian ignored her, which was not beyond Yaleriga's expectation. But when she was about to ask the next question, a distinct vibration came from the golden path on the soles of her feet. She said nothing, but the little goblin standing opposite her shouted in panic.
"It's rising, it's rising, it's rising!" it shouted, "It's rising here!"
As expected, the end where it stood rose slightly in the void, scaring the poor little thing quite hard. But in fact, that doesn't hinder it at all, because due to some unknown force, the golden guardian holding it can firmly fix the base on the golden path.
But it was Yaleriga who was really in trouble. When this part of her body pointed downwards, she clearly felt that the guardian holding her shoulders was slowly loosening its grip. A very clear warning sign.
Yaleriga adjusted her body's center of gravity and stood firmly on the slightly inclined plane again. She hadn't said anything that could be considered a lie, she was just using questions to cover up her knowledge of all this, but she had already been taught a lesson by this hall. Now she realized the trouble: the myth about lying was wrong, too.
This golden chamber above the abyss punishes not even lies—but insincerity expressed.
