The Mech Touch

This was an unforgettable day for the Ylvaine Protectorate. Most of the Ylvainans present in the courtroom and watching the live broadcasts had been thrown in confusion.

In that fateful moment where Ves stood up and and spoke those words, all of them felt compelled to listen.

The more devout they were, the more difficult it became to resist the impulse to listen!

This was because the words struck right at the core of their faith!

Many Poxcos were deeply affected by the attacks on how the Ylvainan Faith developed during the Age of Mechs. Compared to the unsurpassed glory it enjoyed while the great prophet was alive, the faith only encompassed a single third-rate state in a remote star sector!

Where was their missionary drive? Why was the faith still confined in a single state? How much courage did they really have left after closing themselves off from the galaxy for so long?

Whereas most of the other states in human space moved on from the trauma of the latter days of the Age of Conquest, the Ylvaine Protectorate was still in its grip!

For centuries, the Ylvainans had grown more and more insular. Even though the upper levels still stayed in touch with foreigners, if only by necessity, the rest of the population had become more and more focused on themselves.

Was this Ylvaine's will? For an extremely long time, very little Ylvainans thought about this question. Compared to trying to survive and lay low in a hostile galaxy, they didn't have the luxury to consider whether they were expressing their faith in the right direction.

What Ves had done was to force the Ylvainans to confront this long-standing contradiction. Even if he didn't benefit from the sacred aura emanated by Ylvaine's spiritual fragment, Ves would have still been able to throw much of the population into a crisis of faith!

Ves singlehandedly opened up a Pandora's box in the Protectorate! It was too late to close it now that the horrors flowing out of the box afflicted the conviction of many devout Ylvainans!

Perhaps the Ylvainans aligned to the reform agenda would not feel that much of a crisis, since they had already accepted the argument that they needed to open up their state.

Yet the traditionalists suffered a much more severe crisis of faith, as the criticism laid out by Ves struck right at their heart!

The traditionalists always believed they were the most devoted worshippers of the Ylvainan Faith! Their zeal drove them to become more militant in their beliefs, yet they focused most of their energy on maintaining their purity in isolation, which was in great opposition to the intentions of the prophet they worshipped and idolized!

As the Ylvainans began to come to terms with the wounds that Ves had opened up, several of them began to rationalize the strange and alarming mood that swept over everyone.

This unreplicable phenomenon sent many Ylvainan doctors and scientists into a tizzle!

They couldn't explain why everyone felt compelled to listen!

Some turned hostile and accused Ves of being a black magician. Others guessed that Ves was in the possession of super-advanced high technology that enabled him to brainwash every human by taking advantage of their psychological vulnerabilities!

Yet the skeptics were in the minority as the sensation sweeping over every watching Ylvainan resonated with their faith!

This was incredibly strange! It was so remarkable that a large number of Ylvainan had already made up their minds on what had happened!

When the foreigner addressed the Ylvainans, he spoke with the voice of the prophet!

No one knew who came up with this rumor first. Perhaps some savvy Curin saw an opportunity to elevate Ves from a sinner who was facing the death penalty into a blessed figure who would continue to benefit their dynasty as long as he was alive!

Yet once this rumor started spreading around, it immediately caught fire in the vast swathe of the Protectorate! No matter whether they were Curins, Kronons or Poxcos, at least a third of every Ylvainan took this rumor as fact!

They all believed that the transcendent prophet had spoken to them this day!

It was both a great honor and a very deep shame for the prophet to have emerged in this manner.

It was an honor because the prophet hadn't forgotten about the descendants of the survivors of his cult!

It was a shame because the prophet chose to convey his words through a foreigner rather than an Ylvainan!

A very strange kind of stubbornness therefore crept up to these ardent Ylvainans. No matter how much the other Ylvainans cast doubt on what had happened, the more superstitious Ylvainans deeply wanted to believe that the great prophet had spoken to them in person!

No matter if they were aligned to the reformers or the traditionalists, their desire to feel special caused them to become extremely defensive about this rumor!

For this reason, the rumor quickly acquired a life of its own, to the point that even the most senior figures among the Attendants of Ylvaine couldn't suppress it anymore!

Compared to Brighters who had always been taught to regard supernatural phenomena with skepticism, the Ylvainans as a whole were much less capable of critical thinking!

Ordinarily, this was good for the Attendants of Ylvaine as they would be able to dictate the beliefs of the citizens of the Protectorate. Discouraging critical thinking and encouraging them to accept the existence of miracles allowed the Ylvainan Faith to remain strong and relevant long after the great prophet had died.

Yet now this policy backfired on the Attendants of Ylvaine! The impressionable sheep all believed they witnessed an embodiment of the prophet!

Since the Attendants of Ylvaine weren't quite sure of what had happened, they hadn't moved to stifle this interpretation of events in time! Now, it had spread throughout the entire Protectorate, and as time went by, more and more Ylvainans settled their doubts by accepting this explanation!

Throughout this vortex that affected the entire state, these Ylvainans started to regard Ves in a very different light.

Some called him the voice of the prophet. More extreme Ylvainans even claimed that Ves was the second prophet who inherited Ylvaine's holy mission!

Then someone started calling him the Bright Martyr. This new moniker happened to fit very nicely with the narrative adopted by many Ylvainans!

Although the core leaders within the Attendants of Ylvaine deeply disliked referring to Ves with this honored name, they couldn't stop it from spreading either! Even if the traditionalists media outlets didn't broadcast the name, the reformer media outlets mentioned it at least once every thirty seconds!

They went all out to propagandize the new name for Ves!

Even though the courtroom fell into silence as the judges spoke, the people in the gallery all looked at Ves as if they completely accepted him as the Bright Martyr!

Ves didn't have to guess who was responsible for making all of these Ylvainans accept this favorable interpretation.

Only someone as astute as Calabast could have pulled it off so quickly and effectively! Her profession and her outsider's perspective of the Ylvainans enabled her to find the best way to manipulate the citizens of the Protectorate!

Now, as two of the judges had already issued their judgement, Ves deeply hoped whether his extraordinary speech and the interpretations that gained wider acceptable managed to sway the last judge!

With one judge declaring him innocent and another judge finding him guilty, only the third judge who presided over this tribunal would be able to break the tie!

High Inquisitor Kelly Ixef Poxco looked sternly at the gallery, forcing them to contain their excitement. She then swept her gaze towards Ves, meeting his calm and resigned eyes without displaying any of her earlier conviction.

The Ylvainans who were present in the courtroom during the time that Ves spoke out faced the full brunt of his aura!

Those who watched the tribunal proceedings many light-years away simply couldn't imagine how those who were physically present basked in the glory of that sacred glow!

Yet Ves still doubted whether he managed to change the heart of the most hostile judge in the tribunal. He targeted the Ylvainan Inquisition directly, meaning that the high inquisitor could react in two different ways.

The most hopeful outcome would be that High Inquisitor Kelly Ixef Poxco experienced a change of heart! If she accepted the criticism that Ves and Ylvaine's spiritual fragment had expressed, then she might absolve him from his crimes!

Yet Ves knew that humans were not always so open-minded. Inquisitors happened to be the most narrow-minded Ylvainans in the Protectorate, so they possessed a strong tendency to dig into their heels despite being told they were wrong!

No one in the courtroom had ever imagined that the judge from the inquisition became the deciding swing vote of the tribunal!

Judge Kelber Kronon received a lot of backlash for his judgement! The entire Kronon Dynasty entered into deeper turmoil as they struggled to balance their strong adherence to the rules to the extraordinary event they witnessed!

In fact, the judge's comment that he would even declare the prophet guilty of a crime had thoroughly tarnished the Kronon Dynasty's halo!

Kelber Kronon's rigid judgement thoroughly echoed the Bright Martyr's accusation that the Protectors of the Faith were caught up in their own circle and had become wildly out of touch!

Even if many Kronons hated Kelber Kronon for single-handedly ruining the reputation of their dynasty, the damage had already been done!

Aware that the entire Ylvaine Protectorate hung on her words, High Inquisitor Kelly Ixef Poxco carefully issued her judgement.

"This has been an eventful day. I agree with the opinions of both of my fellow judges on the bench. Perhaps the Ylvainan Faith may have gone astray in fetishizing trivial objects, but Mr. Larkinson has still done wrong. I have thought long and hard these last two hours, and I still find myself no closer to a decision than before. Is Mr. Larkinson guilty? If this was a regular court session, then maybe I have no choice but to say yes. Yet this is an Inquisitorial tribunal! We do not decide upon our verdicts by mindlessly following law and precedent!"

Many people in the gallery held their breaths. Was the high inquisitor trying to paint the Ylvainan Inquisition in a good light?

That was very encouraging to Ves! With how much support he enjoyed from the public, the Ylvainan Inquisition should definitely be reluctant to earn their ire!

"The Inquisition has always endeavored to find the truth." She continued while maintaining as much calm as possible. "While most fellow Ylvainans believe that we are preoccupied with hunting down heretics, blasphemers, traitors and other enemies of the faith, our holy mission encompasses much more than that. We find the truth behind every claim of a miracle. We determine whether a witness truly experienced divine providence or if they were just hallucinating while overdosing themselves on stimulants."

If not for the stakes, Ves would have scoffed. As if he would believe such drivel!

"It is due to our mission that this tribunal doesn't necessarily have to cast a narrow judgement Mr. Larkinson's actions. To the question whether an extraordinary event has occurred, I cannot bring myself to answer it. I am still in doubt and I believe the rest of the Inquisition is the same. Reviewing the footage and studying the analyses written by many experts during this time, it is clear that no conclusive answer can be given for what has happened. For this reason and after much thought, I choose to abstain from issuing a judgement!"

Shock swept through the entire gallery and all the other Ylvainans watching the proceedings! The third judge refused to break the tie!

As everyone tried to figure out what would happen next, someone realized something very important!

"In the event an Inquisitorial tribunal is deadlocked in a tie, the final verdict will always favor guilt!"

"Ves Larkinson is declared guilty by the tribunal!"

What?! Ves widened his eyes! How could the Ylvainan Inquisition follow such a ridiculous rule!?