The Magistrate: Chapter 139 (Patreon)

I haven't vanished. When I started writing this chapter, I realised that I needed to write until the end to make this all come together. That turned out to be four chapters, so I'm going to be dropping the last four chapters over the next couple of hours, and then The Magistrate is done. Chapter 139

Tobias was giving his closing remarks. The 3rd Emperor's guilt was proven beyond a doubt when he confessed, and justice had been dispensed through ritual combat. The survivors from Tobias's purge trembled in place as he finished closing the case, unable to leave because he had told them to stay.

"In addition, I find you all innocent of collusion," Tobias said, looking around at the weary faces. "By the laws of the Han Clan, none of you can be recognised as free or independent. You have no autonomy over your actions. You are slaves and slaves cannot be members of the Han Clan, so despite what your ancestors told you, none of you are officially members of the Han Clan. Therefore, I cannot hold you responsible for the crimes of your ancestors. You are free to go. I will bother you no more, unless you continue to use the surname Han."

The old generation of the Han Clan was now gone from this world. Tobias had executed them en masse for their crimes, leaving piles of spirit stones where they had once stood. Only those who had been born after their exile remained. But they were not Han. They were the Ice Matriarch's slaves.

Tobias turned away from the small crowd and walked to his disciples. During his travels, Tobias had executed bandit camps and slavers, cutting a blood path across a chaotic continent for decades. The blood of the Han Clan bothered him no more than a roadside bandit. You became used to blood as a magistrate.

Tobias stopped before his disciples. "Hun Fen, I could use a walk. Would you care to join me?"

Ming Dia Lu didn't frown at being excluded from the invitation, but she did give her sister a look that asked her what she had done wrong. Tobias only invited them on a walk when he needed to scold them.

Hun Fen cringed but fell in beside Tobias as he made his way through streets paved with coloured ice. The locals had developed dyes and pigments to fill their world with colour, creating a city which looked like stained glass. It had its own type of beauty, and there were hints of cultivator art everywhere he looked.

The locals had hidden themselves inside their homes when the Ice Matriarch fled. They were shocked and terrified by what they had seen, unable to comprehend what had befallen them. It was not that their leader had been defeated, but that their leader was defeated by someone two realms beneath her.

There was no precedent for this in their understanding of the world, only terror.

Tobias cupped his hands behind his back as he took in the beauty around them. "It's a shame this will all come to an end."

Hun Fen looked around her. "What will come to an end, Master?"

"Everything that lies before us. The Ice Matriarch and her clan are at their strongest in this city. They are both empowered and trapped here. Without the Han Clan to engage their enemies from afar, this city will be ravaged by their enemies like it was in the past."

Hun Fen raised an eyebrow. "Master, I don't believe you will let these people suffer."

Tobias sighed at the truth of her statement. "You were much easier to chastise when you were younger."

"I like knowing I can trust you as much as I can trust myself. And I love that you were able to teach me that before I met you properly."

Tobias could still remember the hug she had given him the night he'd returned to his real body. The smile on her face and the warmth of her embrace had shown him how much joy she felt over learning that he was the man she thought he was.

However, Hun Fen had forgotten something important.

Tobias knew her just as well as she knew him, so he knew all her tricks for distracting him. "Are you going to continue pretending you cannot form another layer of your core, or are you finished with this farce?"

Hun Fen swallowed, clearly surprised her trick had been noticed. "You knew?"

Tobias hadn't. Not in the beginning at least. He still didn't understand how she had made reality turn against her, but her behaviour since he had proposed they come here and seek justice for her father was far too suspicious. She had never questioned him. She had never questioned his methods. She had allowed everything to play out the way he chose.

For someone seeking to correct their dao path, this was not the way to go about it. And Hun Fen's instinctive grasp of her dao path was clearer than Tobias's understanding of his. His disciple had done everything she could to ensure he got what he needed for this exchange, leaving herself the crumbs.

"Not at first," Tobias replied, "but when you did not treat this matter with the delicacy it required, I saw through your lies."

"Are you angry with me?"

"I'm not just angry, I'm disappointed. Your father deserved justice. He did not deserve that justice to be turned into a spectacle for you to build your reputation. If you continue down this path, your vanity will be your downfall. It will become ingrained in your dao, forcing you to carry it with you into immortality. There it will become a threat to all those you love, causing you to take actions which will draw more attention than necessary, creating problems where there should be no problems."

Hun Fen turned to him, face falling. "Master, you don't understand what it's like to be me."

Tobias looked at his disciple, reached out, and draped his arm across her shoulders, sharing his hidden heart and the pain he didn't show anyone but her mother.

Tobias knew exactly what it felt like to be seen and celebrated but not understood. The way he viewed the world was so different to other cultivators that he could not relate. The patterns which existed but were imperceptible to others were his and his alone, creating a world of endless beauty and intrigue which he could not share.

Everything that he wrote down was a mere shadow of what he saw, for dao could not be written or explained, only experienced and understood. All his work could do was lead others down the right path, but most never got more than a few steps. Giving them a hint of his world, but not a complete understanding.

Hun Fen's face filled with shock, feeling the raw emotions of living in a world and being misunderstood. These feelings had plagued Tobias for centuries, until he made peace with them.

There was little in life more intimate or exposing than sharing your hidden heart with another, so Hun Fen's features softened. She looked into his eyes and opened her hidden heart, sharing it in return.

She felt alone and unseen, so misunderstood. She was so starving for recognition that she was willing to accept glory and renown in its place. If others could not understand her, at the very least they could understand her accomplishments. And there was no greater accomplishment than a core realm cultivator defeating her father's nascent soul realm murderer; forcing a sage realm cultivator to flee the field was just a bonus.

Hun Fen wanted to be recognised and understood but had settled for being famous. That hurt Tobias's heart.

Tobias pulled her closer, embracing her in a hug, overcome with sadness that he had not seen her pain sooner. He had tried his best to prevent this from happening, but his best wasn't good enough.

Tobias rested his cheek on top of her head. "You and I walk the lonely road. We see colours that others do not see. We hear notes others do not hear. And all we want is to share what we see and hear with those we care for so that we can be understood."

Fat tears ran down Hun Fen's cheeks as she hugged him back, like a lost little girl taking comfort from her teddy. "No one understands me. Not even you, Master."

"I know. But one who needs love cannot find fulfilment with excitement. What you felt back there was not a lessening of your pain, but a distraction from it. And our minds grow numb to distraction. If you keep seeking distraction, you will have to go further and take greater risks until one day those distractions bring you harm. And if you allow it to go further than that, eventually it will harm those around you too."

Tears continued to roll down Hun Fen's cheeks. "What do I do?"

"You learn to be content with less."

"But how?"

"By not expecting the impossible." Tobias stepped back and squeezed her shoulders, watching the tears fall down her cheeks. "It pains me to say this, but you will not be understood in this life. Going around expecting to be will only cause you more heartache. However, you are destined for immortality. In the world beyond this one, perhaps you will find peers who understand you."

"You're not certain?"

Tobias shook his head. "Nothing in life is certain. But I promise you that while you are amazing, you are not unique. Only so rare that it is unlikely you will ever meet another like you while living among mortals."

Hun Fen sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve.

Cultivators tended to forget they were cultivators when overwhelmed by emotion, and Hun Fen was no different. It was moments like this which made Tobias confident he was right. Hun Fen might have been the greatest cultivator alive, but she was still human, still filled with the insecurities and unconscious actions they all were.

"Master, you're not making me feel better."

"That's because this is not a walk to make you feel better, but one to address your actions today. You disgraced your father's memory. You used your sister's grief to get your way. And you have forced me to take actions that I was not willing to take. I'm of half a mind to leave you here to act as this city's guardian for a few centuries, so you can deal with the consequences of your actions."

Hun Fen stiffened.

Tobias's expression softened. "But I won't. Because I've been where you are, and this little problem is nothing compared to the catastrophes that I caused working everything out."

"You caused catastrophes?"

"Most refer to my indiscretions as the founding of The Republic."

"Those weren't indiscretions. The people of The Republic love you for that?"

Tobias stepped back and looked at his disciple. "The survivors loved me for what I did. Their children loved me for what I did. Those who didn't make it through those events are not here to pass their judgment, so I must pass it for them. And I judge that my fears led me. That my actions were not the wisest. And because of these faults, civil war broke out, leading to the deaths of millions. The blame doesn't lie solely at my feet, but my share of it is a burden I will always have to carry."

"Master, you can't blame yourself. I've seen the records. I know-"

Tobias held out his hand, stalling her. "You might have studied my life, but you did not live it. And you'll learn with time that history has a way of painting over our failures and showing them in a better light. When a series of events work out in our favour, people will see a plan, not someone making the best of the cards they were dealt."

Tobias turned and continued walking. Hun Fen hurried after him, once again matching his pace.

"Now, no one is perfect," Tobias said. "And I don't expect you to be either. But I'm doing my best to make sure you don't repeat my mistakes. That doesn't mean you won't make mistakes. It just means you won't make the same mistakes that I did. Starting tomorrow, I'll begin teaching you how to cope with not being seen. I can't promise you happiness. But I can promise you that you will find contentment with this life. That the pain you feel in the future will be a mere shadow of what you feel now."

Hun Fen began to smile and then looked around her. The smile turned into a frown. "Master, why did you let a place like this exist? Did it not harm your dao to leave it so lawless?"

Tobias considered the question and shook his head. "They are not my responsibility."

Hun Fen's eyes widen and she stepped closer, grabbing his shoulder and turning him to face her, while staring into his eyes as if searching for something. "Master, you could rule this world with a single sentence. And with that sentence, these people could be your subjects. Protected by the same laws which protect those in The Republic. It is only through your grace that this world does not have an emperor. And it is through that same grace that these people must suffer. How are they not your responsibility?"

Tobias opened his mouth, but no words came loose.

He frowned as his mind searched for an answer.

His gaze wandered to the mark on his belt. The mark of a senior royal magistrate. The mark that had shaped who he was. Tobias remembered a conversation long ago about how his past had changed his thinking. How cultivation had cemented this trait, forcing him to not consider other possibilities.

Tobias looked at the city around him and the suffering he had let continue, and he did not have to wonder why he had allowed it to happen. He was not here to see these crimes. This was not his jurisdiction. Not his responsibility. To come here for no reason other than to enforce the law was the action of a conqueror. And he was not a conqueror. He was a magistrate.

Tobias grabbed his mark, holding it before him. He'd carried it for centuries. It never left his side. And in all that time, he'd never asked himself one simple question.

"What sort of magistrate do I want to be?"

Putting words to his thoughts was like opening the floodgates to possibilities. Tobias's skin began to give off a familiar soft light as a vision filled his mind, body, and soul.