“My ‘Abnormal Property Damage Compensation Form’… My ‘Overtime Hours Calculation Sheet’…”
Jacques knelt among the oil-stained papers scattered on the ground, looking more miserable than someone mourning his own father. The surrounding police officers exchanged uneasy glances, none daring to comfort their superior now mired in a career crisis.
Vivian cast him a sympathetic look, then kicked a pile of scrap metal nearby.
“Stop crying, Inspector. I think you won’t have to worry about your paperwork much longer.”
“What?”
From the pile of ruins behind him, the wreckage of the steam monster suddenly let out a screech of metal grinding.
“Creak—”
As if drawn by an invisible magnet, all the metallic objects scattered around the square defied gravity, floating up into the air. They spun and collided midair, clanging densely, then brutally recombined.
“It… it’s restoring itself?!” a young officer shrieked in terror, his baton clattering to the ground.
“That’s not all.” Cicero stood beside Vivian, eyes fixed on the swirling storm of reassembling metal.
“It’s evolving. Now, it’s about to get serious.”
As if to prove his words, the reconstructed metal giant stood up, looking even more hideous than before, its body laid bare with industrial bones and hissing pipes spewing steam.
At the core of its chest, a blinding golden light suddenly burst forth.
“Buzz——!”
A translucent golden barrier radiated outward from the monster, expanding rapidly like a giant, inverted bell.
A few unlucky police officers who stood too close were flung out by the spreading wall of light before they could even scream, sent flying like bowling pins to crash with a clatter against the street lamps.
“Open fire! Quick, open fire!” Jacques finally snapped out of his daze. He leapt to his feet, grabbed his pistol, and fired wildly.
“Bang bang bang!”
Bullets whistled through the air, but the instant they touched the golden barrier, something bizarre happened.
The lead bullets vanished.
Like cotton candy tossed into water, the bullets dissolved into golden dust as soon as they met the barrier, merging into the wall of light, making it shine even brighter.
“This isn’t scientific!” Jacques gaped. “Where did my bullets go?”
“In the face of ‘Royal Authority’, violence is forbidden.” Cicero spoke coldly.
“In this domain, it is the absolute law. Any attack is deemed ‘blasphemy’ and erased by the rules.”
“So my frying pan’s useless too?” Vivian looked regretfully at the pan in her hand, hefting it.
“Unless you can prove your pan is a holy relic bestowed by God.”
The monster didn’t rush to attack. The giant head that had reassembled hung low, gazing down at these ‘ants’ from on high.
All around, the police felt their knees buckle, dropping uncontrollably to the ground, faces full of terror and confusion.
“What… what’s going on? Why can’t I stand up…”
“This is conceptual suppression.” Cicero remained upright as a pine tree. He turned to Vivian.
“Listen, Vivian. Since it’s playing with concepts, we’ll defeat it with concepts.”
“You have a plan?”
“Its core logic now is ‘Divine Right of Kings’, meaning its authority comes from God—undeniable and irresistible.”
Cicero took a deep breath, unbuttoning the top button at his collar, exposing his rapidly moving Adam’s apple.
“To break this turtle shell, we have to fundamentally deny its legitimacy. We must punch a hole through this closed loop with language.”
“Language?” Vivian arched a brow. “You’re going to reason with it?”
“Not reason. Judgment.”
“Vivian, cover me. Until I’m done, don’t let anything break my flow.”
“Cover you? How? That shell’s impenetrable—I can’t even get a bullet through!”
“You don’t need to break in.” Cicero stepped forward, moving toward the arrogant golden giant.
“Just stand beside me. If I falter, just make sure I don’t fall into the mud and dirty my clothes.”
“Hah? Just one hand, huh? Because lending a hand makes us brothers, but lending more than a hand—”
Before Vivian could finish her snark, Cicero was already standing less than five meters from the barrier.
The monster noticed this reckless challenger. It let out a low rumble, and the golden barrier began to ripple, countless golden runes flickering across its surface, condensing into lances of light aimed at Cicero.
“Lowly… rebel…”
The air vibrated with a majestic, thunderous voice.
“Kneel… receive… judgment…”
“Judgment?”
Cicero laughed—a nearly arrogant, savage grin.
“Absurd! According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762, in Book One, Chapter One of The Social Contract—”
Cicero’s voice wasn’t loud, but it came out in a rush.
“‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves masters of others are more slaves than they are!’ The so-called divine right of kings is nothing but strength converted into authority, obedience into obligation! Force does not create right—people are obliged to obey only legitimate authority! And where is your legitimacy? In those rusty gears?!”
“Bang bang bang bang bang!”
Invisible force hammered the barrier, a rapid series of blasts. The invincible domain of Royal Authority began to ripple violently under the bombardment of the concept of ‘natural human rights’.
The monster had never faced such an attack. Its simple logical core jammed.
It tried to retaliate, several golden lances of light hurtling toward Cicero.
“Watch out!” Vivian reflexively raised her frying pan to block.
But Cicero didn’t even blink. His words only came faster, now shifting languages seamlessly.
“Darwin, 1859, On the Origin of Species!”
He roared in English, speaking so quickly Vivian could only catch a few words.
“Struggle for survival! Natural selection! Survival of the fittest! Even in the realm of biology, you’re a misshapen product discarded by the age—unable to adapt to industrialization! Your very existence defies the fundamental law of evolution! You’re nothing but inorganic refuse, lingering by leeching off rotting corpses and obsolete memories! You ought to be dismantled! Reforged! Cast into manhole covers for the sewers!!”
“Boom!”
Those English words, embodying ‘the theory of evolution’, turned into heavy iron chains that coiled around the incoming lances.
The lances froze midair, then, as if exposed to strong acid, swiftly corroded and broke apart. In the face of higher ‘natural law’, the deterrence of ‘divine authority’ vanished utterly.
“So this is what they mean by… knowledge is power?” Vivian’s mouth dropped open, her pan nearly slipping from her hand.
She stared at Cicero. He quoted from Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, ridiculed with Voltaire’s satirical philosophy, then moved on to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
The monster began to tremble. The golden barrier crawled with cracks, like a bay window shattered by a mischievous child.
“Silence… silence!!”
The monster let out a piercing howl, trembling with fear at the collapse of its self-concept.
In this man’s storm of words, it was no longer the lofty symbol of royal authority, but a pile of irrational junk.
“I… I am… absolute…” The monster struggled to reconstruct its logic.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely! You can’t even control your own pressure valves, and you dream of controlling this country?!”
“Pfft!”
Cicero suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The backlash from high-intensity use of word-spell—his throat was swollen and bloodshot, every syllable felt like swallowing razor blades. His face was deathly pale, body teetering, but the light in his eyes only grew fiercer.
“Boss!” Vivian rushed up to steady him.
Cicero gently pushed Vivian aside, taking one last step forward.
By now, the golden domain of Royal Authority was paper-thin, webbed with countless cracks.
“Now, I will pronounce the final verdict!”
Cicero raised his battered cane, pointing it directly at the monster’s core. This time, he spoke in that ancient and solemn Latin.
“Vox populi, vox Dei.”
Each syllable was slow and heavy, ringing out like a funeral bell.
“The people have made their choice. Whether it was at the Bastille in 1789, or on the streets of Paris today. Your era is over.”
With the last syllable spoken,
the cane struck down hard upon the web of cracks in the barrier.
“Crack.”
A quiet sound.
Then—
“Clatterclatterclatter——!!!”
That golden barrier, symbolizing supreme royal authority, shattered completely in that instant. Countless shards of gold exploded like fireworks, fading brilliantly into the night sky.