"I am willing to take up arms for the safety of humankind.
I will grant a fair judgment to every compatriot.
Although wrong, it is still correct."
Pauli recited the words slowly.
"The Pledge of the Trial Court," he said.
An Zhe was stupefied. He had once heard the final line of this pledge.
After coughing up those two mouthfuls of blood, his body unexpectedly became lighter, and his senses gradually dulled. Winter's fierce wind blew into his face, but it no longer made him shiver with cold. It was a kind of ethereal airiness, as though he was about to scatter in the wind. He once again propped himself up. Leaning against the railing, he looked down at the two badges.
The hexagon-shaped badge was engraved with a design. The Trial Court's insignia was made up of two intersecting prismatic four-pointed stars, resembling the icon on a map that indicated directions. The star that pointed north, south, east, and west was slightly bigger, and the arm that pointed south was elongated, forming a cross-like shape. The star that pointed northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest was slightly smaller and hidden beneath the other star.
An Zhe had examined this distinctively pointed shape many a time. Its cold silvery texture, sharp points, and straight lines all displayed breathtaking severity and impartiality.
Pauli's fingers stroked the four-pointed star's surface. Perhaps he had traced its shape many a time, for the design on the badge bore deep traces of wear and tear.
"Its artwork was drawn by one of my colleagues." In the howling cold wind, Pauli looked into the distant night sky. "We had hoped that the four-pointed star would point humankind in the correct direction like a compass."
"Weren't you… a scientist of the Fusion Faction?" he asked in a low voice.
"I was," Pauli said.
His tone of voice was soft, just like a sigh. "I was the leader of the Fusion Faction as well as the founder of the Trial Court. The Fusion Faction was the Trial Court's predecessor."
An Zhe suddenly remembered that in the Trial Court's long, long corridor, the portraits and birth and death dates of all the Arbiters were lined up in a row. The picture frame at the end, however, had been removed and the name and birth and death dates had been scraped off, leaving behind only a blurry "P." That was the record of the first Arbiter, but for some unknown reason it had been expunged by those who came after.
The Northern Base was a place where various ethnic groups mingled. He didn't know which language the word "Polly" was transliterated from, but he could vaguely spell out the similar word "Polly" with letters.
But his impression was that the ideologies of the Fusion Faction and the Trial Court were poles apart and completely incompatible. One hoped for humans and monsters to safely fuse, while the other mercilessly killed all fused xenogenics that tried to enter the base. The two sides were as far apart as the sky and the earth. He was so doubtful that he didn't know what he ought to ask about first. Pauli said, "It was a coincidental thing."
In the past, An Zhe had heard many people recount the history of the base. Those calm narrations were like limited rays of light, and he lifted the light to illuminate every corner of the dark room so as to piece together the full view of it.
"It seemed that the ability to maintain one's will post-infection only depended on chance. But we still believed that everything in nature had traces that could be followed. It's just that our capabilities were limited and that we hadn't yet glimpsed the patterns within. We were constantly doing research, going deeper and becoming more frenzied in that area." At that point, Pauli had closed his eyes a little, and a faint pain appeared in his expression as he remembered. "An experimental subject's body divided into two for reasons unexplained, but the halves had a unified consciousness. One of the two escaped the laboratory while the other remained in the observation room. Because it looked like it had stayed there the entire time, we didn't discover the anomaly in time, and the half that escaped caused a tragic disaster."
An Zhe knew about the disaster. A leech had polluted the water source of the entire Outer City.
"The entirety of the Outer City was exposed, and the base had to distinguish humans from xenogenics and promptly eliminate the latter. The Fusion Faction was to blame for this calamity. However, the ones who researched infection and mutation and were the most familiar with the differences between monsters, xenogenics, and humans were us as well," Pauli said.
In an instant, An Zhe came to a realization. At the very beginning, the Trial Court was not one of the military's organizations. It used to be under the Lighthouse's jurisdiction.
"All the experimental projects were discontinued, the samples were destroyed, and the experimental subject was killed, but the base still gave the Fusion Faction the chance to atone for its sins. We set up the Trial Court overnight, drafted the Trial rules, and tried the entire city. Over those ten days, we killed half of the base's population," Pauli said slowly. "The infection was controlled, and the purity of human genes was preserved. And after that—the Trial system continued in that manner. The annihilation of the Virginia base served as further proof of its correctness."
"I was part of the Fusion Faction for ten years and the Arbiter for four years." Pauli spoke those words slowly. A shadow of a smile appeared on his face, but that smile seemed more like a soundless wail of anguish, a grimace of pain. "My original intent was to have everyone be able to achieve a peaceful life, but instead I slaughtered my compatriots every day. Over each day of those fourteen years, my sins became increasingly deep."
An Zhe said, "But you also protected the base."
"By no means was that the case," Pauli said. "I indiscriminately killed innocents every day."
"You drafted rules and followed the procedures, so you wouldn't have indiscriminately killed innocents," An Zhe said, defending him.
Pauli's reply landed like a thunderclap.