Having traversed countless realms, can you possibly be as clever as me?

"The crimes committed by the above-mentioned individuals include, but are not limited to, mass murder, rape, bribery, embezzlement, illegal drug trafficking, and arms dealing..."

Hiromi Nichisha, sitting on the bench, completely ignored the threats and inducements from this group of rotten oranges and simply delivered the first-instance verdict in a flat and straightforward voice.

Yes, there are no lawyers, no defense proceedings, at least not in the first instance.

"All personnel shall be executed immediately!"

The next moment, a transparent noose appeared around the necks of these high-ranking sorcerers.

"Wait, wait a minute!!!" Finally realizing that they had no control over their own fate and that their opponents, unlike Gojo Satoru, wouldn't compromise with them, the high-ranking jutsu official panicked and let out a terrified scream.

"Killing me would cause you a lot of problems! We can make a deal, we can..."

"Do you want a second trial?" Hiromi Hiraki asked, looking at them calmly.

"This court allows the offender to appeal a second time. This time, we will release all the evidence and let the 'jury' make a decision. However, if the defendant is found guilty again, the sentence will be more severe."

"We're appealing! We want a second trial!!!"

One of the high-ranking sorcerers screamed, and then all the other high-ranking sorcerers responded in the same way.

"Very well, let's begin the second trial." Hiromi Higurashi struck the gavel again without any expression, beginning the second trial.

"The second instance proceedings in this court differ from the first instance proceedings." Hiromi Hirotaka's fingers rested on the gavel, his voice flat and unwavering, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

"According to the rules, the second instance trial will introduce an independent jury. The jury members will be composed of the spiritual consciousness of all relevant victims in the case. Their testimonies will be the sole basis for the final verdict."

As soon as he finished speaking, a snicker of disapproval rippled through the defendant's dock.

"Soul? Consciousness?" Another middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses scoffed. "You mean you want to summon the dead? Don't be ridiculous, even if it's a curse—"

His voice caught in his throat, and something began to light up in the courtroom's dome.

It wasn't light, but faint glimmers of light, like fireflies, that emerged from the dark void, gathering, condensing, and taking shape.

First, there were a pair of calloused hands, then worn-out work clothes, and then a tired and sunken face. It was a man in his forties, wearing a construction worker's uniform, with dried mud still clinging to his name tag.

He stood in the jury box, his gaze darting around blankly before settling on the elderly man in the kimono in the defendant's dock. In an instant, the blankness in his eyes transformed into a deep-seated hatred.

“It’s you…” The worker’s voice was hoarse, like rusty iron rubbing together.

“You ordered the accident at that construction site to be covered up. Thirteen people were buried in the rubble because of your battle with sorcerers… but you refused to send in rescues… We waited in the rubble for three days and three nights… My daughter is only five years old…”

The elderly man in the kimono in the dock narrowed his eyes. He didn't remember the worker's name, but he recalled what had happened.

It was a battle between sorcerers seven years ago. A building under construction was destroyed in a fight between a sorcerer and a cursed mage, and thirteen workers were trapped in the collapsed concrete structure. He was the highest-ranking person in charge of handling the matter at the time, but after assessing the cost of the rescue, he chose to abandon it. The cursed mage had been eliminated by them because of their shady secrets, and letting thirteen ordinary people die there was the best way to cover up their secrets.

"I...I don't know what you're talking about." The old man forced himself to remain calm and looked away. "It's just an illusion—"

"It's not a hallucination."

Another voice rang out. In the jury box, a second beam of light materialized. It was a girl in a high school uniform, with a gruesome scar running diagonally from her forehead to her jaw. She stood in the witness stand, her empty eye sockets filled with pure resentment.

"Two years ago, at Kumamoto Prefectural Third High School." The girl's voice was calm yet filled with despair.

“In the past, a cursed object buried under our school was accidentally activated, and you chose to lock us in that building for four whole days. Forty-six students were tortured to death one by one by the cursed spirit that was transformed from that curse. I had my eyes gouged out and bled to death.”

872 >>

She raised her hand and touched her empty eye sockets.

"You used our lives to satisfy that cursed spirit, and then seized the opportunity to reseal it and take it away! Forty-six people, you used us as sacrifices just to obtain a powerful shikigami!"

Some in the dock began to tremble; they were now facing charges they had never encountered in years. There were no eloquent defense lawyers, no bribed judges, no falsifiable case files. Only the eyes of the victims, staring straight at them.

The jury seats continued to light up. One after another.

A middle-aged man in an old suit appeared. He said that he used to be a level two sorcerer. He was punished for "acting without authorization" because he discovered information about the secret deal between the higher-ups and the cursed sorcerer organization. He was then forced to go on a mission that was sure to kill him and was devoured alive by the cursed spirit.

A young mother appeared, holding a baby covered in blood. Her child was born with a certain technique that could suppress cursed spirits with blood. However, instead of being recruited by a high-level sorcery expert, she was kidnapped by people sent by the higher-ups of the sorcery. She petitioned and reported the case several times, but ended up being hit by a car and killed on her way home!

One after another. A dozen. Dozens. The jury seats gradually filled up, but the light kept gathering, as if behind the walls of the courtroom stood thousands of silent souls, unable to squeeze in, waiting in the darkness for a seat that would never come.

The air in the courtroom grew heavy. Not from the oppression of cursed power, but from the weight of accumulated human lives, the mass shaped by the compression of silence.

Hiromi Higurashi stood on the judge's bench, flipping through a case file that kept automatically thickening. His expression remained unchanged, his face still calm to the point of being numb.

"All of the above testimonies have been recorded." He closed the file, looked up, and glanced at the pale faces of the defendants in the dock. "Does the defendant have any defense arguments?"

No one spoke, not because they were confessing and didn't want to make excuses, but because at the moment each sin was declared, they felt a strong physical and mental pain and burden!

The gavel didn't fall loudly, but in this courtroom filled with the spirits of the dead, it felt as if it struck the heart of everyone present.

"The second-instance judgment of this court is as follows—"

Hiromi Hiroshi's voice remained flat and unchanging, devoid of excitement, anger, or even the smugness of a victor. He was simply reading a verdict that should have been read long ago, word by word.

"The entire group of 27 defendants, with the victims testifying in court, are charged with a total of 234 counts, including 89 first-degree felonies. All charges have been verified by this court, and the evidence is conclusive and the facts are clear. The defendants have failed to provide any valid counter-evidence."

"The first-instance verdict—death penalty—is upheld unanimously. Because the defendant has appealed, according to the rules of this court, the sentence is increased by one degree!"

In modern criminal law, the death penalty is the highest form of punishment with no upper limit.

So what punishment would be even more severe than the death penalty?

These people knew very well that the higher-ups in the sorcery were fully aware of this!

Death is never the most severe punishment. For those who are still alive, there are countless punishments that can make them experience an abyss of pain and despair far worse than death!

Seemingly aware of their impending doom, screams and pleas for mercy echoed through the courtroom. Some knelt down, some tried to break free, some shouted hoarsely, "I was just following orders," and some began rattling off a string of names in an attempt to make a deal.

Seeing that no one was listening, Hiroshi Riche stepped down from the judge's bench, walked past the frantically struggling figures, and headed towards a door that had appeared out of nowhere deep inside the courtroom. The door was ordinary, made of wood, and somewhat old, like the kind of sliding door he had seen in his hometown when he was a child.

He pushed open the door, and behind it was a sea cliff. The seawater lapped against the shore, making a rustling sound. Everything was peaceful and ordinary.

"Your end is here." Hiromi Hiraki looked at them and said softly.

"Don't think that everything will be over once we've dealt with you!!!" The old man who started it all seemed to realize that there was absolutely no hope left, and he screamed and twisted his body at Hiromi Hirakawa.

"There will be others, Japan will be destroyed by your hands, what can that imaginary cursed spirit do?!"

"The second hearing is about to begin."

Hiromi Nichisawa completely ignored the convicted criminals who had already been sentenced, and returned to his bench, gently tapping the gavel.

The next moment, with a beam of light, one figure after another appeared on the judge's bench.

Upon seeing these people, the old man's almost insane words caught in his throat, and he stared at them in disbelief.

872>>>>

This is because many of these people were people with whom those major powers had made shady deals, and even if we don't mention those, there are a few people that the general public will recognize!

For example, Netanyahu, or those members of the royal family, or capitalists and wealthy people from large families like the Rockefellers.

They were all forcibly dragged to this courtroom in a state of complete bewilderment.

"Court is now in session for trial!"

The sun chariot struck the gavel, and once again the trial began indifferently.

These important figures, like those in the cycle of reincarnation, repeat the same process as these high-ranking sorcerers: thinking themselves calm, putting on airs, threatening, and then being broken down by the stubborn Japanese car.

Hiromi Nichisha ignored all external conditions and coldly pronounced their deserved punishment for their crimes.

They stared blankly at the young man who called himself the Demon of Judgment, who, without hesitation or regard for any so-called gains or losses, judged all sinners, whether they were kings or presidents, and whether they had any so-called judicial immunity.

Without a doubt, this is a resolute decision to wage war against the world—just what kind of beings are that guy and the imaginary cursed spirit behind him that would do something like this without hesitation!

No, can something like that really be called a hypothetical cursed spirit? What on earth is something so terrifying, so horrifying...?

Suddenly, the old man felt his body lighten, and then countless unseen sharp blades tore his body to pieces!

This is an incredibly cruel form of execution to outsiders, but only they themselves know the true pain and torment they endured.

In the instant of death, they seemed to see a strange young man with stitches all over his face, his expression numb yet yearning for death—and soon, they understood the meaning of that emotion.

At first, the old man felt a sweet sense of annihilation, as if he had fallen asleep. But this feeling lasted only a minute.

Then, he returned to his body with a dreamlike consciousness, initially feeling nothing—blind, deaf, and numb. But then, as if all his nerves had reconnected, his senses returned to a level even greater than when he was alive. Yet, he was trapped in a body he couldn't move.

The struggle intensified gradually, from sensitivity to sharpness, and then to agonizing torment. He felt his skin cracking under the scorching sun; soon, flies swarmed around him. He felt the eggs hatching, the larvae crawling about, the foul odor accumulating within him, his cells beginning to disintegrate, and his slime decaying and turning acidic.

In that very instant, he screamed a longing for death, a longing for eternal and sweet sleep. But such pain was merely the beginning.

He could still feel it all, and the feeling was growing—even though his brain had collapsed and disintegrated, his perception continued to extend, reaching deep into the stomachs of birds and the teeth of fire ants. He could feel every fingernail and every hair being blown away by the wind.

His senses drifted away to the ocean and dissipated in the stomachs of millions of diatoms. But he didn't understand that the more scattered his senses became, the more intense his perception of pain became.

When he rotted to the point that even the smallest nerves could no longer be distinguished, the pain changed—from the burning, tearing agony of human language to something so terrible that it could no longer be clearly expressed: a horrifying and maddening sense of extension between every part of him.

Humans tend to become numb to chronic pain, don't they? But with each passing year, each month, each second, such torment only intensifies over time.

He may have pondered heaven and hell, which side he would go to, or something in between. But this feeling was completely different from the numbness of heaven or the torment of hell he had imagined.

In hell, there are at least definite abusers, memories of past actions, and a sliver of justice, even if one's soul has defied it.

He could imagine the solace in hell, and it was indeed so for his cruel and wicked soul, but soon all his memories withered into ashes and were covered by endless pain.

Hiromi Higurashi, who had just tried and sentenced another group of people to their 'afterlife', raised his head and saw a pleased face in the dark and deep courtroom dome.

He is the judge, Light Yagami is the executioner, but death is never the end.

The eternal torment after death belongs to the Crimson King.

873

592. Gojo Satoru Awakens, A New Technique

Tokyo, High School of Cursed Arts

With Tsurugi defeating Tengen, the Hōsei Palace completely collapsed, and everyone returned to the High School of Spellcasting, where the barrier had been lifted.

But at this moment they are in a state of mixed joy and sorrow.

What worries them is what they are seeing right now, or rather—what they are forced to see.

They are being forced to watch a trial, a verdict from Hiromi Hitsugaya, a trial of the devil.

This trial was subject to viewing with certain thresholds and permissions, and its conditions were based on the magnitude of the curse power.

When one's magical power reaches a certain threshold, one will be forced to watch the trial even if one does not want to. If one's magical power is at the standard of an ordinary person, one will receive a vague invitation.

If you agree, you will go to watch; if you refuse, you will see and hear nothing.

Just like Zenin Maki, as the Heavenly Tyrant with zero curse power, she was completely unaware of what was happening.

[Guilty] [Guilty] [Guilty] [Guilty]!