The Causality Court became quiet in a strange way. It was not the quiet of peace. It was the quiet of a knife being placed on a table. The golden spirals above the Ledger Warden slowed, and the light in the air turned colder. Shan Wei stood with his hand over his chest, calm and still, like a mountain that refused to move even when the sky was falling.
The Court spoke again, and its voice sounded like a thousand pages turning at once.
"Summon Silent Bell witness."
The Silent Bell envoy at the boundary stiffened. His bell trembled in his hand, like it was alive and afraid. He did not step back, but his eyes showed a warning.
"If they pull a witness here," he said softly, "time itself will be forced to answer. And time does not like to be forced."
Shan Wei did not look away from the ledger. "Let it answer," he said.
The Ledger Warden raised its sleeve. A pale-gold circle opened in the air, like a door made from law. It did not lead to a place. It led to a rule. The circle widened, and a bell sound echoed through it, slow and deep, like a heartbeat that belonged to an old mountain.
Outside the Court, the battlefield moved again. The Thousand Masks Pavilion did not stop just because Heaven was speaking. They moved closer, step by step, silent as smoke. Their contracts had failed, but they still had bodies, blades, and tricks that did not need paper.
Zhen's moving dome shifted like a walking fortress. The second layer of his shield tightened, and the air around it grew thick with pressure. The dome did not look like glass anymore. It looked like a wall made from stacked laws.
"MOVE-FORTRESS MODE CONTINUES," Zhen said, blunt and steady.
Yuerin kept close to the dome's edge, shadows ready like knives under her sleeves. Xuan Chi stood near the center, pale but standing, her moonlight threads shaking like thin silver wires. The cold scars from her near-awakening still hung in the air around her, like frozen cracks in invisible glass.
Drakonix was still half in the cocoon, but more of him had pushed through. One wing was open enough to cut the air. His prismatic flame leaked out in slow waves, not wild, but angry in a controlled way. Every time a contract scroll came near, the flame reacted like it hated lies.
One masked assassin lifted a small blade and tried to slide it into the ground under the dome. It was not a contract. It was a tool that cut formation lines by biting into the earth. The assassin's hand moved fast.
Drakonix looked at it.
His flame touched the blade.
The blade turned soft like wax and fell apart.
Drakonix made a low sound, rough and proud, like a warning.
"No paper. No tools."
Zhen's head tilted a little, as if thinking hard. Then he said, very seriously, "DRAKONIX DOES NOT LIKE THEIR STUFF."
Yuerin's lips almost moved into a smile, but she kept her face hard. This was not a joke moment. People were trying to kill them.
The masked assassin's voice turned colder. "Then we will cut the girl's thread."
Another mask stepped forward with a thin mirror tool, trying to catch Xuan Chi's moonlight line and snap it. Xuan Chi's breath hitched. Her hands shook. But she did not run.
Shan Wei's voice came through the link, calm and firm, like a leader speaking from a high wall.
"Hold," he said.
Xuan Chi held.
Her moonlight threads flashed once, and frost crawled over the mirror tool. It cracked and broke in the assassin's hand. The assassin hissed and stepped back, finally showing fear.
Inside the Court, the summoning circle widened.
A figure appeared.
He was a monk in pale robes. His face was calm like stone, but his eyes were deep like a well. A small bell hung at his waist, and that bell did not shine. It drank light. It was the kind of bell that made the air feel like it was watching you.
The monk stepped into the Court.
The moment he entered, the golden spirals above the Ledger Warden shifted, as if the Court itself recognized him as something dangerous.
The Court stamped in the air.
"Silent Bell witness present."
The monk did not bow. He did not smile. He did not speak first.
The Ledger Warden's mask tilted toward him.
"State your function."
The monk's voice was quiet. "Witness of time."
The Court's spirals tightened.
"Witness of time. Answer truthfully."
The monk's eyes moved to Shan Wei for the first time. His gaze was not friendly. It was not hateful either. It was… careful. Like a man looking at a sealed weapon he was told never to open again.
Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "Who sealed the Six Consort Threads?" he asked.
The monk did not answer right away. His eyes shifted slightly, like he was listening to something only he could hear. Then he said, "Seals were placed by Silent Bell hands."
Yuerin's shadows outside curled in anger, even though she was far away from the Court. Shan Wei did not react with surprise. He already knew the signature was Silent Bell. The real question was deeper.
"Who ordered it?" Shan Wei asked.
The monk's jaw tightened.
The Court spoke before the monk could dodge.
"Answer required."
The monk's bell at his waist trembled once, and for a heartbeat, Shan Wei felt something cold crawl across his brand. It was not pain. It was a test. Like time trying to see if he was allowed to exist.
Shan Wei did not flinch.
The monk's voice stayed soft, but now it had tension inside it.
"The order came through a lawful request."
The Court stamped.
"Name the requester."
The monk's lips pressed together.
The Silent Bell envoy at the boundary looked like he wanted to step forward, but he held back. His bell shook, and his eyes were sharp with warning.
"Do not," he murmured, not to Shan Wei, but to the witness. "Do not lie here."
The witness looked at him for a brief moment, and the look was heavy, like a quiet threat between two people from the same place.
Then the witness spoke again.
"It was… for stability," he said.
The Court's spirals froze for half a heartbeat.
Then the Court's voice hit like a hammer.
"NON-ANSWER."
"WITHHOLDING."
"CONTEMPT."
The witness's face did not change, but his bell shook harder now. Shan Wei understood. The witness was not refusing because he didn't know. He was refusing because the name was dangerous to say.
Shan Wei's voice remained cold and steady. "If the name is too dangerous to say," he said, "then it is exactly the name we need."
The Court spoke again, sharper.
"FINAL WARNING. NAME THE REQUESTER."
Outside the Court, the Pavilion kill-team attacked again, as if they could feel time being forced to speak. They moved in a fan shape, trying to surround the moving fortress. Two masks threw thin black wires into the air. The wires were not contracts. They were hunting threads. They tried to hook onto Drakonix's cocoon and pull.
Zhen reacted instantly.
A shield line snapped outward like a wall slamming shut. The wires hit the shield and sparked. The wires tried to bite into the formation.
Drakonix's flame touched them.
The wires burned away like dry grass.
Drakonix's eye narrowed, and his wing pushed wider. The cocoon shell cracked again. More prismatic scales showed. His chest rose, and the air shook with his breath.
The masks hesitated.
Because the more Drakonix came out, the less their tricks mattered.
Zhen spoke again, blunt as always. "THEY KEEP TRYING. THEY SHOULD STOP."
One assassin hissed, "Shut up, puppet."
Zhen answered, "NO."
Then he added, very honestly, "YOU ARE RUDE."
It was small. It was quick. It did not break the tension. But it cut the fear for one heartbeat, like a tiny breath in the storm.
Inside the Court, the witness stood rigid. The Court's pressure pressed down harder. The golden spirals above the Warden rotated fast, and the air became thick like deep water.
The witness finally spoke, voice low.
"I cannot."
The Court did not argue.
It stamped.
"AUTHORITY SEIZURE: INITIATED."
The witness's eyes widened slightly. For the first time, his calm cracked. His bell at his waist rang by itself, one sad note, as if it was warning him that the Court was about to rip his protection away.
Shan Wei did not smile. He did not celebrate. He only watched.
Because Shan Wei did not need anger here.
He needed truth.
The Court spoke again.
"NAME THE REQUESTER."
The witness's throat moved. His lips parted. Then he tried to twist the answer, like a man trying to walk around a trap.
"It came from… Heaven."
The Court stamped again, colder than before.
"NON-ANSWER."
The witness's shoulders tensed. His bell rang again. This time, the sound was sharper, like something breaking.
The Silent Bell envoy at the boundary closed his eyes for one moment. When he opened them, they were hard.
"You will doom us all if you keep hiding," he said.
The witness's eyes flicked to him again. There was fear there now. Not fear of Shan Wei. Fear of the name.
Shan Wei's voice stayed quiet, but it carried weight.
"I will not kill your monastery for the truth," he said. "But I will not let you hide it either."
The witness's breathing became shallow.
Then, finally, he spoke.
He said one name.
And when he said it, the Causality Court's spirals stuttered like the world itself had been slapped.
"The requester was…" the witness whispered, "…the Star-Script Regent of the Eternal Celestial Heaven."
Outside the Court, the sky trembled. It was not thunder. It was a far-off feeling, like a giant eye turning.
The Pavilion masks froze.
The Conclave proxies who had been watching from a distance went pale. Some stepped back without thinking.
Even the Ruin Court scouts stiffened, like scholars hearing a forbidden title.
Yuerin's shadows stopped moving for one heartbeat.
Xuan Chi's moonlight threads flickered.
And Drakonix, half out of the cocoon, lifted his head slightly, as if he had heard a predator's name.
Inside Shan Wei's chest, the sealed Heart reacted like it had been stabbed.
It hissed inside him, low and hateful.
"Him."
Shan Wei's hand pressed harder on his brand. His eyes did not change, but something in the air around him became colder.
The Court stamped fast.
"REQUESTER IDENTIFIED."
"SEAL ORDER CONFIRMED."
"EXECUTION REVIEW: UPDATED."
The Ledger Warden's mask tilted toward Shan Wei.
"Returning Thread is now confirmed as targeted by higher realm authority," it said in its flat voice.
The Silent Bell envoy's bell trembled so hard it looked like it might shatter.
Shan Wei's voice stayed calm.
"So a higher realm wanted my bonds sealed," he said. "And they used your monastery to do it."
The witness's face went gray. He looked like a man who had just admitted a sin that could crush an entire mountain.
Outside, the masks moved again, panic now mixed into their silence.
Because the moment a higher realm name was spoken in Court, everything changed. Contracts became smaller. Plans became weaker. Enemies became afraid of being seen.
But one mask still stepped forward, voice tight.
"It doesn't matter," the assassin said. "We will still kill you."
Shan Wei's gaze turned slightly toward the battlefield through the link. He did not shout. He did not rage.
He gave one calm command, like an emperor moving a piece on a board.
"Zhen," he said, "push."
Zhen's eyes flashed.
"YES, MASTER."
The moving fortress dome surged forward like a wall that decided to walk.
The masks stumbled back as the pressure hit them like a mountain falling.
Drakonix's flame flared, and for the first time, the flame did not only burn paper or wires.
It burned the space in front of him.
A prismatic line of fire cut across the ground, forcing the masks to retreat or be swallowed.
Drakonix's rough voice came again, simple and angry.
"Mine."
The Court's golden spirals tightened once more, and a new line wrote itself on the audit page, half redacted, half clear.
"Star-Script Regent… has filed an inter-realm stability claim."
The Silent Bell envoy's face went tight with fear.
Shan Wei's voice stayed cold.
"Then let him come," he said.
The Court stamped one final line for this part.
"Witness statement accepted. Next action: summon requester's record."
And in that moment, Shan Wei understood.
This was no longer just a fight against the Pavilion or the Tribunal.
This was a path leading straight into the sky.
Into the Eternal Celestial Heaven.
Into the hands of the one who had tried to seal his love, his bonds, and his return.
Shan Wei stood still, calm as ever.
But the promise in his eyes was clear.
If they wanted to stop the Prismatic Emperor from returning…
They had chosen the wrong method.
Because now the name was spoken.
Now the record was open.
Now the lie would bleed.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
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