“STOPPP! IT HURTS!!!” The stone-skinned Wukong mathematical Spirit screeched as Fengshui grinded away with her sawblade. “I’M GOING TO DIE!”

The Wukong, the new Nascent Spirit of the metal pillar, was lying in a white gurney next to the metal pillar. A meter away was Fengshui, cutting off the thin streams of mathforce connecting the monkey to the pillar.

“Come on, loser.” The Sphinx snorted slapping the Wukong’s face several times. “Don’t be a wuss.”

“Wukong, I’m going to need you to push harder.” Fengshui complained. “This will all go a lot faster if you put some effort into it.”

Tears trickled down the Wukong’s cheeks as he wailed in agony.

“It seems like he is in great pain.” Jingji remarked as he watched, a grimace on his face. “It’s almost as if he is actually dying. Actually, it seems that this operation is incredibly dangerous.”

“It’s a Spirit Severing, what do you expect?” Shuxue snorted. “I am told this Stone-skinned Wukong is a high-quality Spirit, though. Unlike that trash Muckgreen Grass Spirit over there.”

He pointed contemptuously at the Infinity Spiral. “Muckgreen Grass Spirits, they’re the trashiest, least special Spirits you can find. They’re useless Spirits that can’t even move! Muckgreen Grass is considered the standard for useless Spirits. We’re going to Sever that thing and immediately grow a new Spirit.”

“It’s okay.” Zhujiao clenched his fists. “Having a trash Spirit like Muckgreen Grass will not stop me, Zhujiao, from being Zhujiao!”

“Besides, at least it isn’t a Three Shingle Powdered Donut Shack.” Zhujiao added as an afterthought.

“Oh my god! I’m going to die!” The Wukong shrieked as mathforce sprayed out of his body. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

“Quick, get me the chainsaw!” Fengshui yelled. “We need to do a C-section, or else the Wukong Spirit will die!”

“What!” Zhujiao yelled, immediately pulling a chainsaw out of his forehead. “Wukong Spirit can’t die! He cost me 2,000,000,000,000 pearls!”

Shuxue sighed to himself, before walking away. “This is incredibly boring business.” He grumbled as he thought about all the jade slips he could be pressing to his forehead. “If I remember correctly, Spirit Severing last an average of 55 minutes. What an incredible waste of my time.”

“Success!” Fengshui gasped in relief as she sliced a section of wall out of the metal pillar. “We have just obtained a healthy Severed Spirit, a stone-skinned Wukong!”

Everyone but Shuxue began wildly cheering. Even the Wukong faintly smiled.

“It hurt so much…” He croaked. “But since I’m not dead, that was worth it! Sphinx, give me one of your pills, I need to recover.”

The Sphinx tossed the Wukong an entire bag of pills, patting him on the back. “Haha, being Severed is truly the start of your life as a Spirit! Now, you are an independent and free being who can leech mathforce from any Spiritseed! It feels good to seize power from other Spiritseeds, let me tell you that.”

The Sphinx turned away, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Now, for the next order of business. I’ve compiled the reports my Thought Police have given to me, and it’s time to enforce social justice!”

“Wait, but we still have to Sever the other Spirit.” Fengshui protested.

“Nope! Social justice takes precedence over everything!” The Sphinx smiled.

“This isn’t the time or place for such things.” Fengshui waved her chainsaw around exasperatedly. “Can we wait until later?”

“The wrong time? The wrong place?” The Sphinx snorted. “If not now, then when? If not here, then where? If not us, then who? The time for social justice is always now, and the place for social justice is always here! Even if lives hang precariously under the sword of Damocles, no, especially when lives are in danger, we must remain committed to our values!”

“The first person to be tried in the Social Justice Trials… is XIAOBAI!” The Sphinx roared.

The entire audience gasped. Even the people who had not heard what the Sphinx had said gasped. Even the cats, dogs, and rats that just happened to by gasped. A shocking silence descended on the entire Weakest Plane, before a huge hubbub broke out.

“X-x-xiaobai!” A girl screeched, collapsing into a chair. “How could he do any wrong?”

“My god!” Jingji sighed. “It seemed as if the entire plane fell into complete silence just now.”

At the top of one of the mountains ringing the core of the Infinity Sector, a young shepherd collapsed onto the floor in shock, along with his entire herd of mathematical goats. He attempted to speak, but only hoarse croaks came out.

Across the ocean, on the Weakest Island, General Shibing looked around confusedly before shrugging. “Uh, those graves aren’t digging themselves. Hurry up!”

In an underwater mountain range far, far, away, Jijian withdrew her sword from the throat of a kraken, which didn’t have a throat. “My senses are tingling…” She muttered. “Somebody has just called out an unofficial member of the Zhujiao Society!”

Inside a very strangely shaped building with only three donuts serving as its roof, Daoli frowned. “Somebody just made a very unreasonable accusation, I think.”

On the other side of the plane, millions of kilometers away, a great Leviathan paid no attention to any of this.

“I, too, am greatly shocked!” The Sphinx snarled. “Who would’ve thought such an upstanding member of our very own Infinity Sector would actually become an enemy of social justice? Little, did I know, Xiaobai was Dong Feiliao’s offspring!”

Xiaobai was led in front of the Sphinx by two masked women.

The Sphinx jabbed a finger at Xiaobai. “Like father, like son, I see! The first thing in the report the Thought Police had given me was evidence that Feiliao’s son had raped a girl! You know, somehow I completely expected this to happen. It seems I must exterminate the lineage of that Feiliao from the root!”

“What!” Zhujiao shouted. “Xiaobai already had sex? That’s absolutely not fair!”

“I raped someone?” Xiaobai looked utterly dumbfounded. “I did no such thing!”

“Actually, you did! Bring in the witness!” The Sphinx snarled. “Filthy liar. I will have to carry out the nine familial exterminations.”

Fengshui spoke up, her expression ugly. “Sphinx, Xiaobai is a very important person. Don’t offend the wrong person here.”

The Sphinx snorted as a sobbing Nupu was dragged forward.

“Xiaobai, you are accused of raping this girl! What do you have to say?!”

Xiaobai’s face darkened. “I did have relations with Nupu! In my happiest times, she was with me. In my darkest hours, she was the only one to support me. Nupu is a girl I truly cherish, from the bottom of my heart! The relationship between us is one of love! Our union was one of mutual consent. There was no rape involved.”

“Please, Sphinx!” Nupu pleaded, bawling her eyes out. “Let Xiaobai go. He didn’t do anything wrong!”

“All penis-in-vagina is rape! You definitely brainwashed this poor little girl into accepting her rape. Because of the severity of your crime, you shall be tried as an adult.” The Sphinx growled darkly.

Shuxue frowned. The Sphinx was getting incredibly out of hand, with this frivolous trial. Not only was Xiaobai an important asset to the Sector, everybody seemed to like him. Who knows what kind of unrest his execution would spark?

“Wait, this is ridiculous!” Fengshui pushed away the two girls holding Xiaobai down. “This would never hold up in a court of law!”

“Feh, doesn’t matter! This is a trial of public opinion, by the people, for the people!” The Sphinx sniffed. “The people shall decide whether or not Xiaobai is guilty. Those who think he is guilty, raise your hands! Those who think he is not guilty, keep your dirty, uneducated opinions to yourselves.”

Not a single hand was raised. The Sphinx tapped his foot impatiently. After several moments passed, still nobody raised a hand.

“Haha, I know what’s going on!” The Sphinx laughed angrily. “Everyone who knows this man is a criminal is too intimidated to speak! How about this: Everyone who thinks he is guilty, DON’T raise your hands!”

The hand of every person present, Shuxue included, went up. Even the stone-skinned Wukong who had been completely forgotten by everyone present raised his hand.

BOOM!

A table exploded into a cloud of splinters as the Sphinx morphed into his original form in a fit of rage.

“What the hell!” The Sphinx screamed. “I have no words for this! Absolutely no words at all! There is nothing I can say about my misfortune at having been born into this backwards era. You all are too stupid to know what’s good for you! I have no comments whatsoever. From now on, I will never again waste my time preaching social justice to you nimwits.”

Author Note: Sorry for the really delayed Math God Plane chapter. There are a lot of reasons for this, including

1. I re-downloaded Hearthstone

2. I was writing a Hegemony battle

3. School

4. I debated with myself for a long time about having a chapter 75% devoted to social justice. The more I thought about it, the more I didn't want this trial to take place, lol. But Xiaobai needs some character development, I think. So while this chapter is about social justice, this chapter will be the last time social justice is mentioned in the novel.

5. I forgot what was going to happen after the trial. Yeah, rip. Still trying to remember the jokes I had thought up for it.

I still have some misgivings about this chapter, I may come back and heavily edit it.