The depths of the Fog Sea.
Seen from high above, amid the boundless, heavy mist, there stretched a peculiar zone of clarity.
The warships arrayed in formation dragged long wakes behind them, their advance thunderous, as they pursued the ship ahead: the Black King.
For the first time in a thousand years, the depths of this fog basked in such intense sunlight. Beneath that sun, every color here grew vivid and sharp.
Overhead, the sun blazed gold; below, the sea lay a deep, unbroken blue; and all around, the mist stood like a wall, a heavy pale gray.
On that blue expanse, the white-painted warships of Intis threw back the glare in blinding flashes, countless in number, circling their precious quarry like a pack of wolves.
Their target, the Black King, was a black beyond black, impossibly dense.
At first, that blackness had been growing steadily transparent.
Built in the age of the Solomon Empire, this strange vessel possessed, like Nast's Black Emperor, the power to slip through the spirit world, to "travel" to places no fleet could ever reach.
But the shells hurled from the lead Intis warship, that strange vessel among them, produced a curious effect: they disturbed the spirit world all around it.
"Clank..."
The Black King, which had been fading into transparency, solidified once more, as though it had struck some invisible wall, and shuddered to a halt. The chains draped across its deck clashed together with a crisp, ringing sound.
The spirit world around it had been sealed off!
"It works!"
Joy flashed across Major General Francois's eyes, and without a moment's hesitation he barked out a new order. "All ships, fire at will!"
His voice rolled across the entire sea, echoing in the mind of every soldier and officer present.
These sailors, who moments before had been shaken to the core, plunged into terror and confusion by the overwhelming might of the Bishop parting the mist, now found that voice sweeping through them, unseen but unmistakable, filling them with courage and fearlessness.
Never mind the archbishop, never mind the ghost ship, none of it mattered anymore. They were the glorious navy of Intis, and they would bathe in glory amid the iron and blood of war!
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
The soldiers' fervor was plain to see. Every ship fired in rapid volleys, muzzles of every caliber flashing, smoke thick in the air.
Countless shells, each carrying tremendous force, streaked toward the Black King like driving rain, filling the very space it occupied.
And yet something strange happened.
However many shells there were, just as they closed on the black three-masted ship, their trajectories bent oddly off course: some plunged straight into the water, others swerved and flew wide to one side.
In moments, the sea around the Black King churned with countless waterspouts, yet the ship itself remained untouched.
There was no mistaking it: this was the effect of Distort, drawn from the Lawyer pathway!
Silas, parasitizing the body of Lieutenant Philip, witnessed the battle through his host's eyes.
Though Philip himself, swept up by the Major General's power, fired his guns with fanatical zeal, Silas kept his own thoughts cold and clear, analyzing the situation.
The Intis forces had trapped the Black King here, preventing its escape, and yet even so, under the cover of Distort, their attacks could not land. So what would they do next?
At that moment, aboard the distant flagship, Bishop Jean-Pierre moved again.
"Cease your power. Step aside."
He spoke first to the Major General of the Hunter pathway. "Or you will be cast out by the Lord's might."
Once Francois obediently withdrew his power and stepped back, Jean-Pierre moved forward, raised both hands, and gazed at the black ship ahead, a fierce, unassailable sense of order rising steadily in his eyes.
"Remnants of a fallen empire..."
Loathing written across his face, Pierre murmured under his breath.
Then he raised his voice and began to intone a prayer: "Lord, may Your Holy Spirit ever walk beside us, may Your eyes watch over my heart..."
With every word he spoke, the presence surrounding Archbishop Pierre grew a degree stronger, an unseen order spreading outward from him, swiftly filling the entire sea.
"I swear upon Your glory, I shall uphold justice, I shall destroy all evil, I shall smite the Lord's enemies."
"Roselle is evil incarnate, Roselle is the enemy of God!"
"My justice shall carry Your blessing!"
Shff!
As Pierre finished proclaiming his own creed of "justice" in full, some change seemed to ripple through the order of the entire sea.
Every member of the fleet hunting down Roselle's remnants felt a strange surge of strength, as though they themselves now embodied absolute justice.
Meanwhile, the fleeing Black King came under crushing suppression, marked, as something tied to Roselle, as a symbol of injustice itself.
The formidable power of Sequence 3, Justice Mentor: the Justice Halo!
"These religious fanatics are all lunatics... the higher the Sequence, the further gone their minds..."
Feeling the unseen covenant and order settle over the entire sea, watching the sailors on deck fall fanatically to their knees in prayer, Francois thought to himself, unable to help it.
As a nobleman of deep pedigree, though his own strength had not yet reached Sequence 3, he still understood something of what Justice Mentor's power entailed.
A so-called Justice Mentor forms, from his own understanding, a code of "justice" that suits the particular nature of the Sun pathway.
To a Justice Mentor, this code becomes his own personal order, a covenant he forges with himself, with the divine, and with the world.
That covenant is binding. Once he invokes the power of the Justice Halo, everyone within his reach who upholds the covenant gains tremendous strength, while anyone who violates it suffers tremendous weakening. And the Justice Mentor himself must abide by his own code above all: the moment he breaks even a single tenet of it, he will be consumed from within by his own flame.
As for Jean-Pierre's own code of justice, it was, in truth, remarkably simple: opposition to Emperor Roselle, and as for the reason, just as Lieutenant Philip had said before, he bore a deep and abiding hatred for Roselle.
It could only be said that this subjective, deeply personal "justice" was extremely narrow in scope, of little use in most circumstances, effective only against Roselle and things connected to him. The Church of the Eternal Sun had chosen well in sending him.
Even as this thought crossed Francois's mind, the entire fleet opened fire once more.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Under the invisible order now governing them, their strength had been vastly enhanced, and even the cannons in their gun decks were strengthened, the shells they fired now carrying tremendous force.
The order surrounding the Black King could no longer bend their trajectories, and at last, its hull was struck by a dense barrage of cannon fire.
Not only that, aboard their flagship, Archbishop Pierre acted again as well, hurling forth a blazing spear of light!