Codex Wars: Judgment of the Forsaken

What Are Laws?

Laws are rules, concepts, precepts — invisible structures that regulate how humans coexist. Some are written: civil codes, social contracts, religious doctrines. Others, however, are older and more fundamental: gravity, time, the cycle of life and death.

These were once called Natural Laws — absolute, inviolable, universal. At least... in the Old World.

But then came the Great Revocation.

And with it, the collapse of what was once understood as reality.

The laws that were once stable became volatile.

Fire no longer always burned. Time no longer always moved forward. The weight of a body no longer depended solely on its mass.

What was once unbreakable became questionable.

And slowly, humanity realized the unthinkable: laws could be controlled.

Not all of them. Not easily.

But those that could be understood — mastered, interpreted, deciphered — could be shaped.

Those who achieved such feats were rare. Some called them lucky. Others, chosen. But the truth was, only the truly capable — by mind, soul, or instinct — could access that power.

And for each of them, a singular artifact emerged: the Codex.

More than a weapon or a tool, the Codex was the physical manifestation of a Law.

A living constitution.

A magna carta of reality.

Each Codex was unique — born from the fusion between the understood Law… and the essence of the one who understood it.

It couldn't be inherited, stolen, or copied. Unless, of course, a law allowed for that.

A Codex would respond only to its rightful bearer — and even then, that bearer often paid dearly for the privilege of wielding it.

And the price?

An energy once known as Impetus, but now called something else:

Vis.

Vis is the primordial energy. The invisible sap that flows through the Laws of Reality. It is what sustains the workings of everything — from the smallest phenomenon to the greatest catastrophe.

Everything possesses Vis.

People, stones, monsters, feelings, words.

Existence itself hums with this invisible essence.

Just as blood nourishes the body, Vis nourishes the Laws.

Without Vis, a Law is nothing but a dead concept.

Without Vis, a Codex is nothing but a blank book.

In this new world, governed by Laws, those without a Codex — and thus without the ability to control Vis — were little more than living sacrifices for the so-called Bearers.

Because with Vis, even the impossible becomes a matter of price.

For every Law comes at a cost.

And Vis... is the currency.

✦ ✦ ✦

And this same Vis… The primordial energy, the invisible sap of the Laws… was the exact cause of the situation the group of ten young people now found themselves in.

BOOM!

A thunderous crash echoed through the temple, as if the heavens above and the earth below had collided. The ground shook. The columns trembled. The air seemed to split in half, charged with electricity and something more — something ancient, alive, awakened.

Ezra stumbled two steps back, ears ringing, heart pounding so hard he could barely hear his own thoughts.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Edward shouted, eyes wide as the ground still quivered beneath his feet.

"Something... answered," Kael said quietly, as if afraid something other than the group might hear him.

Above the altar, the once-static symbol now pulsed with a golden, almost liquid light. Droplets of this energy shimmered in the air, floating like inverted ashes — rising instead of falling. And at the center of the altar, where there had only been stone… a crack was beginning to open.

"Careful!" Beatriz yanked Nyra aside as a fissure formed beneath her feet. The structure seemed to crack not from the outside, but from within — as if something were trying to break free.

"The Vis…" Dorian murmured, eyes fixed on the growing fracture, as if hypnotized. "The temple is reacting."

"It's not just reacting," Mei Lin corrected in a low, steady voice. "It's… recognizing us."

"Or rejecting us," said Lena, arms crossed in a guarded stance. There was tension in her voice, as if she already felt the verdict approaching.

Ezra, standing at the edge of the fissure, simply watched. His eyes narrowed, locked on that impossible opening. Inside… there was no stone. No earth. Only light.

But not ordinary light — It burned like a forgotten memory. Like raw truth. Like a nameless Law trying to make itself heard.

Then, it spoke. Not with a human voice. Not with sound. But with essence.

Like a whisper passing through time and the world's laws, reality itself pronounced:

"Astonishment, Doubt, Rigor, Discontent."

"Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom, Choice."

"Ius Primordialis, onward to Lex Primus."

The crack split open with a dry snap, spreading like a wound in the flesh of the world. It advanced. Without haste. Without pause. Too fast to escape. Too slow to prevent terror.

Light. But not light — a clearing in reality. An incision torn into the fabric of the cosmos.

When it reached Rurik's feet, he tried to step back, pure instinct — but it was already too late.

Beatriz clenched her teeth and raised her chin, facing it head-on.

Edward cursed — and his words vanished into the void.

Dorian let his glasses slide from his face, forgotten.

Kael simply closed his eyes.

And the world swallowed them.

There was no pain.

No time.

No ground.

Only the sensation of being turned inside out, as if Vis itself were examining them from within.

As if their souls were being dissected in search of something… essential.

An eternity passed.

In a single instant.

✦ ✦ ✦

CLANK.

BOOM.

THUD. THUD.

A flood of sounds exploded in Ezra's ears — iron against iron, muffled explosions, impacts heavy like hammers striking stone. Dazed, his senses came and went like waves in a stormy sea. Everything around him was a blur of light, sound, and movement.

"Ezra's awake!" Mei Lin's voice broke through the chaos, filled with both relief and panic, right beside him.

'What's going on…?' Ezra thought, blinking rapidly, trying to clear the fog of unconsciousness.

"And what the hell are we supposed to do with that information!?" Nyra roared, her voice hoarse and exhausted as she loosed arrows in quick succession. Her bow barely stopped vibrating, and each arrow felt ripped from sheer, raw anger.

"No offense, Mei Lin… but Nyra's right," said Dorian, pressing his shoulder against a partially broken wall, his eyes scanning the frontline. "In this situation, distractions only make things worse."

Ezra blinked, feeling the weight of his own body as if he'd been dragged for miles. "What... what's happening?" he murmured, trying to sit up from Mei Lin's lap. His voice was faint, almost childlike, while his thoughts still crawled sluggishly.

Mei Lin hesitated, but it was Dorian who answered — with his usual exhausted sarcasm:

"After you and Bastian touched God-knows-what... and that thing happened — which you damn well remember — we got spat out into this place. Lucky for us, we landed against a wall. Otherwise... well, we'd be so fuck—"

"Dorian," Mei Lin cut in sharply, her glare like a dagger. "Alright, alright! No swearing," he muttered, raising his hands in surrender.

Ezra frowned. "What do you mean... fucked?" he pressed, now more upright, bracing himself on his hands as pain throbbed behind his eyes. His body still felt borrowed, not quite his.

Dorian only sighed... and pointed to the side.

Ezra turned his head slowly — and then he saw it.

They were inside a partially destroyed structure. The architecture vaguely resembled the place they'd come from, but it was… twisted. As if someone had rebuilt a castle using pieces from the wrong puzzle — angles bent where they should be straight, columns carved by impatient hands.

But that wasn't what made his stomach drop.

It was the swarm.

A multitude of creatures advanced like a sea of dead flesh and cracked porcelain. They looked like mannequins — or what was left of them. Human torsos with misshapen limbs, as if someone had tried to assemble bodies without instructions.

Some bore vaguely animalistic forms — thick limbs, exposed bones, hands made of interlinked spheres that clacked together like macabre maracas. One had an inverted jaw. Another seemed to laugh — but made no sound.

A cold shiver ran down Ezra's spine.

"HOLY FU—"

SLAP!

Mei Lin delivered a sharp smack to the back of his head. "No swearing, please," she said with the forced calm of someone barely clinging to sanity.

Farther ahead, the sounds of battle rang out without pause.

"Nyra, Edward — cover!" Bastian's voice sliced through the chaos like a blade — precise and unquestionable.

He held the center of the front line, metallic gloves on his hands glowing with raw energy. With each strike, his fists landed like arcane sledgehammers, shattering the remains of mannequins with dry cracks and bursts of Vis.

Beside him, Rurik swung his colossal axe with ferocious, almost primal control. Every movement was deliberate — a spin to clear space, a vertical chop to cleave an enemy in two, a charge like a runaway tank smashing through warped ranks. Fragments of porcelain and artificial bone flew in all directions.

Nyra weaved forward and back in a zigzag, her steps light like a huntress moving through dense forest. She fired without hesitation — one arrow into a mannequin's eye lunging at Kael; another between the joints of what looked like a glass-and-fake-tendon hound.

Edward danced amid the carnage. Twin pistols twirled in his hands — shooting at impossible angles, ricocheting bullets off walls, destabilizing enemies before they could breach the main line. With every retreat, he spun like a chaotic circus performer, reloading with his body's momentum and firing from his back against the floor, defying gravity itself.

On the left flank, Lena cracked her whip with brutal force. The slicing sound mixed with the metallic screams of the creatures. The whip's tip coiled around a horse-like mannequin's neck, yanking it to the ground — and before it could rise, she crushed it under her heel.

On the right, Beatriz spun her bishamon yari like a warrior-dancer. The three-pronged spear glided with near-mystical precision — sliding between joints, severing limbs, and piercing torsos dead-center. With every move, the weapon seemed to sing — a subtle, resonant tone like a war bell.

A double assault came at her — one quadruped mannequin with circular claws, and another crawling like a shattered spider. She spun the shaft, leapt sideways, and skewered both in a single X-shaped motion — the spear piercing them as if it instinctively sought their vital cores.

And amid the chaos, there stood Kael.

It was impossible to tell where he was for more than two seconds. One blink — and there he was, behind a mannequin, slicing its legs before vanishing again before it hit the ground. Another blink — and his blade was already cutting through the throat of an enemy who hadn't even sensed his presence.

He moved between allies and enemies with a near-supernatural rhythm. He seemed intangible, a glitch on the battlefield. When the mannequins tried to encircle him, it was already too late — he'd appear behind them, as if dancing on invisible threads.

But the enemies were learning.

More robust ones began to emerge from the shadows — larger creatures, with multiple arms and reinforced joints. One of them, a mannequin shaped like a bull with exposed ribs and rotating horns, charged forward with fury, smashing part of the side wall.

Nyra fell back and shouted: "Mutation on the east flank!"

"Beatriz, containment!" Bastian shouted, leaping in the same instant to intercept another brute. He struck the creature's chest with both hands — a double blow amplified by his metallic gloves. The shockwave sent the monster stumbling backward, cracking the floor beneath its feet.

Rurik roared like a bear and followed up, delivering a vertical strike that split the mutated mannequin down to the waist.

With every command from Bastian, the group moved with lethal coordination — as if they'd trained together since childhood. And even so... the enemies kept coming. Tireless. Endless. As if the place itself spawned them.

Ezra just watched. Unable to look away.

Every blow he didn't land was a dagger to his soul.

"...Shouldn't you be helping him?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer. Still, he needed to hear it. Needed to feel the weight of the words.

"With you as the weakes—" Dorian stopped himself, catching Mei Lin's sharp glance.

He exhaled and started again: "With you knocked out by the Vis impact, someone had to protect you."

Ezra lowered his head. Every word hurt more than any wound.

"Besides," Dorian continued, "Bastian was clear: no point in burning out the whole team."

He rolled his shoulders, as if explaining was just a tedious formality.

"Sure, I can fight, but that's not my role — my job is to keep the links intact. I teleport who needs it, pull out whoever's about to fall, reposition allies, intercept threats. If I go down early, half the team falls with me." — he said, with his trademark tone of casual arrogance.

"These are the advantageous disadvantages of not being a combat mage."

He gave a brief glance toward Mei Lin, who remained focused on their surroundings.

"And she's our healer. If things go south, it's us — the ones who don't shine on the front line — who'll need the strength to turn the tide."

Ezra didn't respond.

He just stood there, still, his gaze distant.

He felt like an empty space among sharpened gears — surrounded by warriors shaping the battlefield with blood and might, while he… could barely stay on his feet.

The truth weighed heavily:

He was supposed to be the leader of this expedition — and yet, the only one who had to be protected.