The golden page in the Causality Court turned by itself. It did not move like paper. It moved like time. The air felt heavy, like the whole sky was leaning down to listen. Shan Wei kept his hand on his chest. His face stayed calm, but the mark under his palm burned hotter, like a brand waking up.
The Court's voice filled the hall. It sounded like many books opening at once.
It said the next words slowly, as if even the Court did not like them.
"Six Consort Threads. Status: unknown, lost, sealed."
Shan Wei did not blink. He did not ask "why" with anger. He asked it with control.
"Show me," he said.
The Ledger Warden lifted its sleeve again. The page behind it lit up. Lines of light spread out in the air, like six thin strings made from law and fate. They were not normal threads. Each one carried a different feeling. One felt like cold moonlight. One felt like warm spring rain. One felt like sharp fire and pride. One felt like soft light and quiet care. One felt like shadow and laughter that hid a knife. One felt like wild blood and beasts calling from deep forests.
Shan Wei's chest tightened for a single breath. Then he forced it steady. He would not break in a Court. He would not show weakness in front of Heaven.
The first thread showed a frozen place. It was a tomb of ice, and the ice was not only cold. It was a cold that could freeze rules. The thread was wrapped in white-blue chains. A stamp sat on those chains like a nail.
The Court spoke.
"Thread One. Frozen and sealed."
A tiny mark appeared beside it on the page. It looked like a bell shape made from frost.
The second thread showed a room full of green light and flower smell. A furnace sat in the middle. It was not a normal furnace. It was an old one, covered in runes, and it was locked with a thin layer of time. Inside, a small flame danced. It looked gentle, but it was strong. It was trapped. The thread tried to pull back, but the lock held.
The Court spoke.
"Thread Two. Hidden and sealed."
A bell mark appeared again, faint and clean, like someone pressed it with careful hands.
The third thread showed a palace with red banners and gold lines. A chain of bright fire wrapped around a woman's wrist. The chain looked pretty from far away, like jewelry. But close up it was a prison. The chain connected to a stamp on the floor. The stamp was made from marriage law. It was not love. It was control.
The Court spoke.
"Thread Three. Bound by contract law."
The bell mark appeared again. Shan Wei's eyes narrowed. He noticed. He remembered.
The fourth thread showed a temple. White light filled it. The light should have felt safe. But it did not. It felt like a cage made from kindness. A door stood in the middle of the temple, and it had many locks. Those locks were not metal. They were promises forced onto someone. Behind the door, a soft glow moved, like a heart that refused to stop.
The Court spoke.
"Thread Four. Sealed by holy restriction."
A bell mark appeared again.
The fifth thread made Yuerin's shadow move by itself outside the Court, even though she tried to keep it still. The thread showed masks. Hundreds of them. A hall of masks. A hand reached out and pinned the thread to a ledger with black ink, like a spider pinning a fly. There was a name there, but it was scratched out again and again, as if someone did not want the world to read it.
The Court spoke.
"Thread Five. Captured by the Thousand Masks Pavilion."
Yuerin's collarbone mark flared. Her teeth clenched. She did not scream. But her eyes turned very cold.
The sixth thread showed a valley full of bones. Huge beast bones. Old beast bones. Chains hung from the sky like net lines, and they pulled down on something that tried to rise. A roar echoed in the image, like a beast king refusing to kneel. But the chains held for now.
The Court spoke.
"Thread Six. Buried under beast-hunter law."
Another bell mark appeared.
Six threads. Six bell marks.
Shan Wei finally spoke again, still calm, still sharp.
"These seals," he said, "they all carry the same touch."
The Silent Bell envoy near the boundary went stiff. His bell trembled once, like it did not want to answer.
The Court answered first.
"Sealing signature detected."
The words formed in the air like a stamp being pressed.
"Silent Bell Monastery."
For one heartbeat, the whole Court felt colder.
Shan Wei's hand pressed harder on his chest. The Heart under the seal reacted like a living thing hearing an old enemy's name. It did not laugh this time. It hissed inside him, low and angry.
"You," Shan Wei said inside his mind, warning it.
But the Heart still whispered, full of hate.
"They touched what was yours."
Shan Wei's face did not change, but his eyes became deeper. He looked at the envoy at the boundary. The envoy's face was tight. He looked like a man standing between a storm and a cliff edge.
The envoy spoke softly.
"The Monastery is not simple," he said. "Many people think they are only monks. They are not only monks. They keep time. They keep fate. They keep secrets. And sometimes… they keep things they should not."
Shan Wei's voice stayed steady.
"Why would they seal my consort threads?"
The envoy swallowed.
"Because they fear a full return," he said. "Because if you come back as you were… the heavens shake. And courts lose control."
Shan Wei did not argue. He did not shout. He only looked at the ledger page again, as if he was carving it into his bones.
Outside the Court, the siege did not wait.
The Thousand Masks kill-team moved again, faster now. They had heard the Court speak their name earlier, and now they had decided to finish the job before the Court could dig deeper. One masked assassin held up a scroll. The scroll was black-red. The stamp on it looked sick, like it drank meaning.
The assassin spoke in a calm voice, like they were reading a polite rule.
"Clause: Kill without karmic debt."
The air around the scroll twisted. It was a dirty trick. If this worked, the world would pretend the murder never created a cost. No punishment. No bad luck. No fate backlash. Just a clean death.
Zhen's dome flared, but the contract clause slid toward it like oil.
Xuan Chi's breath caught. Her moon threads trembled. The frost scars from her near-awakening still hung in the air like thin glass. Her eyes looked tired, but she did not step back.
Yuerin raised her hand. Shadows rose like blades.
Zhen spoke, blunt and fast.
"THIS PAPER IS BAD."
Then he added, as if it was the most normal thing.
"I WILL BREAK IT."
The clause hit the dome.
For a tiny moment, it looked like it would slip through.
Then Drakonix's prismatic eye inside the broken cocoon narrowed.
A wing pushed out further, not fully spread yet, but enough to cut the air like a sword. Prismatic flame leaked from the crack. It did not burn like normal fire. It burned rules. It burned lies. It burned stolen "permission."
The flame touched the edge of the contract scroll.
The scroll screamed.
Not with a voice.
With the sound of ink dying.
The black-red stamp on it melted like wax. The words "Kill without karmic debt" broke apart and fell into nothing, like they were never allowed to exist.
The masked assassin stumbled back, shock finally cracking their calm.
Drakonix's voice came rough, still new from the cocoon.
"No."
One word. A king's word.
The kill-team hesitated again. They had planned for a puppet. They had planned for a tired group. They had planned for fear.
They had not planned for a beast that could burn contracts.
Yuerin's mouth lifted into a small, dangerous smile.
"That's right," she whispered. "Your papers don't work on him."
Another assassin lifted a thin mirror tool. It tried to catch Xuan Chi's moonlight thread and cut it like scissors. Xuan Chi's body shook. The Lunar Frost Domain door inside her rattled. The moon behind her did not fully appear this time, but a thin ring of cold light did. The mirror tool frosted, cracked, and snapped in half.
Xuan Chi whispered, voice shaking but brave.
"I won't go back."
Shan Wei heard her through the link even inside the Court. He did not comfort her with soft words. He strengthened her with command.
"Stand," he said, calm and firm.
She stood.
Zhen's dome changed again. A second layer folded into place, like a moving wall becoming a moving fortress. The dome did not only protect. It started to shift its position, sliding in small steps, keeping the cocoon and the allies in the safest pocket of space.
Zhen spoke like a guard captain who only knew truth.
"SECOND LAYER ACTIVE. MOVE-FORTRESS MODE."
One assassin tried to step inside the shifting edge.
A beam snapped out.
A box formed around them.
Containment.
The assassin's mask hit the invisible wall and could not move.
Zhen added, very calmly:
"YOU ARE NOW A PACKAGE."
Yuerin almost laughed, but she stopped herself. This was not the time to laugh. Still, the blunt words cut the fear a little. It was like a tiny breath in the middle of a storm.
Inside the Court, the ledger page kept writing. The Court did not care about the outside fight. It cared about truth. It stamped another line:
"Silent Bell Monastery sealing signature confirmed."
Then, worse, it stamped a second line under it.
"Sealing request origin: pending."
The envoy's bell shook.
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed. He understood what that meant.
It meant the Monastery might not be the only hand. Someone may have asked them to do it. Someone may have paid them. Someone may have used them.
The Court spirals turned again, slower now, like a judge thinking.
"Execution Order: pending," the Court reminded, cold as steel.
Shan Wei spoke, calm and clear.
"If you push execution while the consort threads are sealed, you create instability," he said. "Because the sealed bonds are part of the consequence you said is deferred. If you cut the Returning Thread now, you leave the deferred consequence wild."
The Court spirals paused for a heartbeat.
The Court did not say yes.
But it did not say no.
It stamped:
"Argument registered."
Outside, a masked assassin stepped forward, voice still polite, but now sharp.
"Drakonix cannot burn all contracts," they said. "We will use bodies instead."
They threw small black nails into the ground. Each nail carried a tiny stamp. The nails tried to form a killing field under Zhen's moving dome, like a trap net.
Zhen's runes flashed.
"TRAP DETECTED."
He slammed his fist down.
A prismatic pulse spread out, not fire, not lightning, but clean formation force. The nails popped out of the ground like they were rejected by the land itself.
The masked assassin's calm finally cracked.
"What are you?" they snapped at the puppet.
Zhen answered with perfect simplicity.
"I AM LOYAL."
Then he added, bluntly, like a fact that ended the talk.
"YOU ARE NOT."
Drakonix pushed out further. The cocoon shell broke more. A prismatic wing opened wider. His scales glowed like broken rainbow steel. The air around him shook. He looked at the masks again, and this time his flame did not only burn the scrolls. It burned the very idea that the masks had the right to stand there.
Yuerin's shadows tightened around the edges of the dome, ready to strike the moment someone stepped wrong.
Xuan Chi's moonlight threads kept shining, even though her face was pale.
And Shan Wei stood inside the Court, calm as a mountain, while Heaven read his past like a record and tried to decide if he should be erased.
The ledger page glowed again.
A new line appeared, half hidden at first, then clearer, as if the Court was forced to admit it.
"Silent Bell Monastery… holds a sealed vault."
Shan Wei's eyes sharpened.
"What vault?" he asked.
The Court spirals turned.
And the Court stamped the next words like a hammer hitting stone.
"Vault designation: Consort Thread Repository."
The envoy's face went tight.
Yuerin's shadows froze outside, like the world itself had stopped for a breath.
The Heart inside Shan Wei went silent.
Then, in a low and dangerous whisper, it said:
"They kept them."
Shan Wei's voice stayed calm.
But it carried an emperor's promise.
"Then I will take them back."
The Court spirals tightened.
And the final line of this part stamped into existence, cold and bright as a blade.
"Next audit action: summon Silent Bell witness."
The envoy's bell shook like it wanted to break.
Because if a Silent Bell witness stepped into Court… time itself might be forced to speak.
And if time spoke… someone's lie would bleed.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
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