E-Rank or SSS-Rank: I Awakened a Skill That Shouldn't Exist-Chapter 333: Tipping the Scale (1)

Chapter 333

"I made myself clear. I am here to defend him, and I have all the evidence to prove his innocence."

The man opened his mouth to speak, to try to twist the narrative again, but before a word could escape, Clara stepped forward.

Sincerely, I knew people were vile, selfish filth. But today, I realized just how much I had underestimated them. They all came here acting like victims, trying to shove their guilt onto another.

Her calm, cold gaze swept across the courtroom and landed on the first hero who had accused Ronan—the one claiming his guild had been wiped out.

"You said your guild was destroyed," Clara said quietly, cutting through the tension, "yet you weren’t even a proper member yourself."

The man sputtered, "That’s not true!"

Clara raised a single finger, asking a simple question. "How many guild members did your guild have?"

The man froze, swallowed, then muttered, "Forty."

Clara shook her head slowly. "You said you were all C rankers. But according to the long records I checked, there has never been a guild of forty C rankers. Not once. Over all these years."

The man tried to argue, showing scraps of his picks and documents, but Clara ignored him. She raised her hands, and images flared in the sky above the courtroom.

The pictures showed him and several others, dressed in black, meeting in what looked like an alley.

"You are not heroes," Clara said, her voice echoing calmly. "You are a group of dark mercenaries."

The images shifted. Now they showed the man negotiating with a wealthy client, taking money to perform dirty deeds while hiding behind the façade of a hero guild.

The pictures changed again, showing him committing atrocities—acts he had spent years covering up.

The man was sweating, his confident façade cracking. How could everything he had buried for so long be unraveling so fast?

Clara’s gaze never wavered. Her words hit with cold precision, backed by concrete evidence.

She detailed the missions, the lies, the manipulated deaths. One mission, she explained, had been aimed at Ronan himself. His team had been tasked with eliminating him. And yet, the mission failed. Ronan had wiped them all out, leaving only the man standing, alive but exposed.

The courtroom went eerily silent.

It was hard to believe. The infamous Exterminator had not destroyed a hero guild. He had eradicated a vile, corrupt group posing as heroes.

"No! This is all a lie!" the man shouted, panic creeping into his voice. "I was only paid to testify against Ronan! I was promised a justice!"

He turned to the crowd. "She is his friend! She’s covering for him! It’s all lies!"

But the crowd’s eyes were cold. The evidence Clara presented was flawless, undeniable. Every piece backed her words.

The man’s face drained of color. He realized the truth. He was doomed. If he stayed here, if he didn’t escape, the one who would be executed in this room would be him.

Desperation made him act. He activated his skill, a burst of speed, and lunged forward. As a high C ranker, he thought he could outrun anyone, at least until the S rankers intervened.

But before he could take even a step, a hand shot out. It gripped his hair with iron strength and slammed his face hard into the marble floor.

Blood pooled instantly from the wounds. Pain exploded through him, every nerve screaming.

Standing over him was Crimson Scale. His face calm. His voice was not.

"You’re not getting away that easily," he said quietly before lifting the man off the floor.

The man’s condition was brutal. His teeth shattered. His face was nearly ripped apart by the sheer force of the grip.

Crimson Scale did not flinch. He threw the man toward one of the enforcers.

"Lock him up," he ordered.

The enforcer snapped out of his daze and obeyed immediately, grabbing the man as he struggled.

Crimson Scale stepped back, his expression unchanging, and returned to his previous spot as if nothing had happened.

The courtroom remained silent. Everyone had witnessed just how far the scales had already tipped.

The crowd could barely follow the scene.

Everything happened too fast, too brutal. The man had moved quickly, thinking he could escape, but it was clear—Crimson Scale was far faster. The man didn’t even get a chance to process what hit him. It happened like a storm, sudden and merciless.

Clara cleared her throat, commanding the courtroom’s attention back to her.

"I’m not done. All of you have been fooled by false accusers. I will prove my friend’s innocence. Let’s move to the second accuser."

Her gaze shifted toward the exit door. "You wouldn’t happen to be running away, would you?"

The man who had claimed Ronan killed his entire family froze in fear. He was only a few steps from the door, but he had seen enough. He knew he wouldn’t escape. Not without ending up like the last man.

He felt the hundreds of gazes lock onto him. His heart hammered violently.

"No... no! I’m clean. There’s nothing to hide!" he stammered, trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

"Is that so?" Clara asked, her voice calm but deadly. "If so, then step forward."

His chest felt like it was going to explode. But he forced himself to step forward, swallowing his racing heart.

Clara tapped her device. Images sprang into the air above the courtroom. The man froze again, heart skipping violently. Where the hell did she get that?

Clara’s gaze fixed on him. "Can you tell us the story of how Ronan supposedly killed your family?"

He gulped, forcing his heart to slow. "There’s... there’s nothing in those images that—"

Clara cut him off. Her voice deepened, cold as steel. "Did you mean to say he ruined your family? Or that you ruined your family, you psycho?"

The man tried to argue, but Clara wasn’t done. Another video sprang up.

It showed him giving pills to his two children—a boy around sixteen, a girl probably fourteen. Clara paused the video and zoomed in.

The crowd’s eyes widened as they recognized the pills. Energy-boosting pills, illegal for their side effects. They enhanced energy pools, extended skill durations, and amplified the children’s abilities.

"This man," Clara said, voice icy, "used illegal pills on his children to boost their skills. He turned them into tools for his own filthy ambitions."

The video changed again. The children, masked, were seen stealing valuables. Their skill was impressive, effective even in combat—but it was all a result of his manipulation.

This cruel father treated his own children as weapons, not as human beings. His own family, corrupted and forced to obey him, used to line his pockets.

The crowd’s eyes burned with disdain and hatred. Every gaze was on him, the man trying to pin blame on someone else.

"Where is your wife? Where is the mother of these children?" someone shouted.

Clara nodded and snapped her fingers. The image changed again—this time showing a middle-aged woman, chained and locked up like an animal.

In the video, the man was seen using her as leverage. Threats to her life kept the children under control. Obey, or their mother dies.

The words made several people’s eyes flare red. Some looked like they wanted to rush forward and kill him on the spot.

He was doomed. Every lie he had told, every accusation he had made, was crumbling.

Clara continued, each piece of evidence striking deeper than the last.

How had she accessed all this? How did she know everything?

Ronan had discovered the thieves, traced them, and uncovered this man’s deeds.

He had tried to kill Ronan. But the man used his children as shields. In the battle, the children died, their energy pathways shattered from the overuse of the pills. The man himself was left gravely wounded, teetering on the edge of death.

And Ronan had left a mark. One word etched into his skin: Filth. Etched so deep it left scars, scars he would carry for the rest of his life, a permanent reminder of the cost of his cruelty.

The courtroom remained silent. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.

The so-called victim had been exposed. The truth had flipped the narrative entirely.