The crack in the heavenly stamp was small, but it changed everything. It was like the sky had been cut with a thin knife. Everyone could see it. Everyone could feel it. A heavenly order was not supposed to crack.
The cold voice above the clouds went silent for one heartbeat. Then it returned, colder.
"By Star-Script authority… kneel."
The pressure hit again. It pushed down like a mountain. Many people who were still standing fell to their knees. Their bones shook. Their faces turned pale. Even the ground seemed to sink, like it wanted to obey.
Zhen's moving fortress groaned. His shield layers flashed as they took the weight. His runes burned brighter, and the dome shook like a wall during a storm.
"PRESSURE INCREASING," Zhen said, blunt and clear. "THIS IS RUDE."
Yuerin's shadows were pinned flat by the stamp's force. She clenched her jaw, fighting it. Her eyes stayed sharp.
Xuan Chi's moonlight threads trembled like thin silver wires. The frozen-law scars around her spread again, crawling across the air like glass cracking. She tried to hold them back, but the heavenly stamp was like a giant hand pressing down on her mind.
Drakonix stood in front of the dome, wings wide. His claws dug deep into the earth. His scales shone with prismatic light. His flames curled around him like a living crown.
He did not kneel.
He roared again.
The roar hit the stamp and made the crack grow a little wider. Not much. But wider.
Inside the Causality Court, Shan Wei felt the stamp's pressure too, like a cold weight on his soul. The Ledger Warden did not look away from the records. It did not care about pride. It cared about law.
The Court stamped new words in the air.
"Risk increased."
"Returning Thread resists heavenly stamp."
"Beast sovereign resists heavenly stamp."
Then another line formed, and Shan Wei's eyes narrowed.
"Execution review: speed up."
The Silent Bell envoy at the boundary went tense. His hand tightened around his bell. He looked at Shan Wei like a man making a hard choice.
"If they speed it up," he said quietly, "they may try to erase you before you can answer."
Shan Wei's voice stayed calm.
"Then I will answer faster," he said.
Outside, the heavenly stamp pressed down again. The crack in the stamp glowed, like a wound that did not want to exist.
The cold voice spoke again.
"Kneel."
Drakonix's flames rose higher. His eyes locked on the stamp. His mouth opened, and his flame did something new.
It did not blast.
It wrote.
It burned lines into the air, like fire-ink carving words into the sky.
The words were not normal words. They were command words, the kind that held up the stamp's power. Drakonix's flames touched those words and burned them away one by one.
The stamp's pressure stuttered.
For a tiny moment, the order felt… confused.
The cold voice above the clouds sharpened with anger.
"Beast… you dare—"
Drakonix's flame surged again and burned another command word.
The stamp shivered.
The crack widened again.
People stared in shock. Some cultivators outside the siege backed away, fear replacing greed. Even the Pavilion assassins looked shaken.
Yuerin whispered, voice cold and pleased.
"Good," she said. "Burn their words."
But the heavenly stamp did not fall yet. It pushed harder, trying to crush them before the words could be burned completely.
Zhen reacted. His voice became more serious.
"NEW DEFENSE PATTERN REQUIRED."
His moving fortress dome changed shape. Rings appeared around it, rotating like city walls. One ring. Then another. Then another. They spun in different directions, stacking defense logic like layers of armor.
"ROTATING SHIELD RINGS: ACTIVE," Zhen said.
The stamp's pressure hit the rings. The rings flashed and held. The dome stopped shaking as badly.
Yuerin's shadows lifted slightly again, freed just enough to move.
Then something ugly happened behind the Pavilion lines.
The masks started to fight.
Not loudly. Not in a big clash. But you could feel it. Their steps broke rhythm. Their group formation turned sloppy. Their eyes flicked at each other with blame.
One assassin hissed, "You said the kill gate would work."
Another snapped, "Your contracts failed because the beast burned them!"
A third said nothing, but their hand moved toward a hidden blade, not aimed at Shan Wei's group, but aimed at another Pavilion assassin.
They were panicking.
And when people like that panic, they become dangerous in a new way.
A figure at the backline lifted a hand.
This one wore a different mask.
Not a simple killing mask.
Not a porcelain or bone mask.
This mask was deep black, with a thin line of gold across the eyes, like a calm smile that never reached the mouth.
A leader mask.
The air around that mask felt heavier than the others. Not stronger in raw power, but sharper in control.
The leader spoke, voice quiet but cutting.
"Enough."
The other assassins froze. Even in panic, they obeyed.
Yuerin's eyes narrowed. She felt it too. Her shadows curled like a snake ready to strike.
"A hidden leader," she whispered. "So that's who was behind the kill gate."
The leader mask looked toward the moving fortress and then toward Drakonix. For a moment, the leader's gaze was not hate.
It was calculation.
Then the leader mask raised a hand again, and a new plan began. Not contracts. Not kill gates. Something else.
But before it could fully form, Xuan Chi suddenly gasped.
Her moon threads snapped tight.
Her frozen-law scars surged.
For one heartbeat, she lost control.
A wave of cold light spread out from her like a silent explosion. It did not freeze like ice alone. It froze meaning. It froze movement. It froze the space itself into clear glass.
A wide area of the battlefield turned into a glassy "moon zone."
Pavilion assassins inside it froze in place, their feet stuck like they were trapped in clear stone. Their breath turned white. Their eyes widened.
Even one of Zhen's rotating rings slowed slightly at the edge of the moon zone, as if the cold law tried to grab friendly formations too.
Xuan Chi's face went pale. She swayed. Her lips trembled.
"I… I didn't mean—" she whispered.
Shan Wei's voice came through the link, firm but not harsh.
"Focus," he said. "Hold the edge. Don't let it spread."
Xuan Chi closed her eyes and took one shaky breath. Then another. Her moon zone stopped expanding. It held like a frozen circle, sharp at the edges.
The Silent Bell envoy saw her shaking. He made his choice.
He lifted his bell.
The bell rang once.
It was not loud. But the sound sliced through the heavenly stamp's pressure for a single moment. Like time itself blinked.
In that blink, the weight on everyone's spine eased. The dome steadied. Xuan Chi breathed. Yuerin's shadows moved. Drakonix's flames rose higher.
The envoy's face tightened in pain. Using the bell like that cost him. But he did it anyway.
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed inside the Court.
He understood what the envoy had just done.
The envoy had stepped closer to Shan Wei's side.
And now the Monastery would not forgive him easily.
The heavenly stamp above the clouds shook again. Drakonix's flames burned another command word. The stamp's order stuttered.
"K—kneel—" the cold voice forced out, like it was being choked by burned law.
The crack widened.
Then, inside the Court, Shan Wei's brand suddenly burned like a sun under his skin.
Not a gentle heat.
A sharp, prismatic heat.
Seven kinds of power pressed against the seal at once, like a storm trying to break out of a cage.
Shan Wei's breath stayed controlled, but his fingers tightened. He could feel it clearly.
Something was reaching a threshold.
The Ledger Warden turned its mask slightly, as if it sensed the change.
The Causality Court stamped a new line, and the words hit the air like a gong.
"Prismatic Overdrive — awakening threshold reached."
The Heart inside Shan Wei whispered, excited and dangerous.
"Say yes."
Shan Wei's eyes stayed calm, but his aura sharpened.
Outside, the heavenly stamp cracked wider.
Inside, Shan Wei's power pressed against the seal.
The whole world stood on the edge of a single choice.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
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