novelraw Chapter 175: Standing by My Lady to the End
Chapter 175: Standing by My Lady to the End
“And you! Talking about mixing real and fake?” Gabby Lucien’s voice cut like a knife. “Nonsense!”
He pulled an empty, intact glass bottle from a pouch at his waist and held it high. “Every bottle the Lady sells has her mark. Hand-etched on the bottom. Clean lines, even depth. Almost impossible to copy.” He pointed at the “evidence” in the short man’s grip. “Yours is rough. Blurry. Jagged edges. A bad fake. Either you bought junk from a back-alley hustler and got burned, or…” His gaze flicked meaningfully toward Wilbur at the crowd’s edge before snapping back. “…someone paid you. Gave you the fakes and sent you here to throw mud at the real deal. Your eyes are bad or your heart’s black, and you want to pin it on her? Total garbage.”
Lucien’s logic was sharp, his delivery punchy, backed by an Enforcer’s natural authority. The three agitators tried to talk back, but they were no match for his rapid-fire, word-perfect rebuttal. He picked their story apart, exposing every hole and contradiction. The more he spoke, the weaker they sounded. The more he spoke, the harder it was for them to hide the guilt and panic on their faces.
The crowd, listening, began to shift. Suspicion turned to understanding, then to scorn.
Finally, Lucien drove the point home, his voice ringing clear. “Under the Eden Administrative Code, the three of you are guilty of spreading false information, deliberate market disruption, and disturbing the peace.” He slammed the label on them: “Sabotaging Eden’s Business Environment.” The agitators went pale, stammering. Their righteous victim act evaporated. Instinctively, they shot pleading looks toward Wilbur, whose face had gone dark as stormwater.
Wilbur’s expression was pure thunder. He saw it now. These Eden Enforcers had come ready for a fight. He couldn’t let them flip the script.
“Enforcer Captain.” Wilbur finally spoke, his voice a low rasp that carried the weight of a third-rank. His eyes locked on Aurora. “Ascension Road handles its own affairs. That’s the custom. The Committee sees to it.” He paused, letting the implication hang. “Eden… is overreaching.”
He was playing the custom card. The territory card.
Aurora didn’t flinch. Her clear, firm eyes met his without backing down. She wasn’t a natural talker, but she’d rehearsed this with Lucien. She took a slow breath, her voice cool and edged with faint mockery.
“The Ascension Road territory exists within Eden’s bounds. It enjoys Eden’s protection. It follows Eden’s rules.” She took half a step forward. “Maintaining fair trade and basic order in all sectors is the Enforcement Squad’s duty.” The mockery deepened. “Do you believe, Mr. Wilbur, that you can declare Ascension Road exempt from Eden’s law?”
Her words were heavy, lifting the issue from a street spat to a question of sovereignty. Of whether Ascension Road obeyed the foundational rules of the gathering place that hosted it.
Wilbur choked. For a moment, he had no comeback. Letting internal matters slide by custom was one thing. Publicly denying Eden’s jurisdiction was a whole other kind of trouble—the kind even Aldrich wouldn’t dare court openly. The Ascension Road committee had more veterans on it than just Aldrich.
Seeing words fail, a vicious glint flashed in Wilbur’s eyes. This wasn’t going to be settled quietly.
“Captain Aurora,” he said, slow and deliberate. “Lord Aldrich values stability and order in Ascension Road highly.” The threat was clear. This was Aldrich’s will. Opposing it meant opposing him.
But that wasn’t all.
As the last word left his mouth, the Coercion of a third-rank Corpse-Plague Acolyte erupted. It wasn’t a physical blow. It was subtler, crueler—a suppression of spirit and life, aimed like a weapon at those of the same, lower path.
An invisible, substantive tide of pressure crashed down.
Aurora, at the front, took the full force. Her breath hitched. The air turned to thick, cold sludge around her, heavy as wet lead. In her perception, warped by the rank gap, Wilbur’s figure swelled and distorted into a monstrous shadow of plague and hunger.
The pressure didn’t press on her skin. It crushed directly into her bones, her muscles. Her body groaned in protest. Cold sweat drenched her undershirt in an instant, sticking to her back. She grit her teeth until her gums ached, the tang of blood filling her mouth.
She’d underestimated a third-rank. Wilbur was newly promoted, but she was freshly second-rank. Her talent hadn’t yet hardened into unshakable strength. The inherent hierarchy of the Corpse-Plague path made the gap feel like a mountain. Forming a single, coherent thought was a battle.
Behind her, she knew the other Enforcers were crumbling under the pure, rank-based coercion. If this held, their authority was a joke. The enforcement would fail before it began.
No.
She couldn’t let this stand.
Aurora’s eyes reddened with the strain of her resistance. But every ounce of her will was locked in the fight just to remain upright, to draw breath. She had nothing left to act with.
What now?
The Enforcement Squad’s dignity looked paper-thin against this raw display of power.
Wilbur watched Aurora’s trembling form, poised on the edge of breaking. Beneath the skin of his Blighted Hand arms, tiny poison glands swelled with power. He didn’t plan to actually strike here—that would change everything. He just needed this pressure to drive them back. To shatter their resolve.
To wreck this intervention for good.