The words in the Court did not float like normal words. They landed like stones.
"Prismatic Overdrive — awakening threshold reached."
The moment the Court stamped that line, Shan Wei's brand burned like a hidden sun under his skin. It was not pain that made him panic. It was power that wanted to break its cage. Seven forces pressed at once, like seven rivers trying to flood through one narrow gate.
Shan Wei did not move. He did not gasp. He only breathed once, slow and steady, like an emperor controlling a storm inside his own chest.
The Ledger Warden's mask tilted.
The Court spoke, colder than before.
"Suppression required."
Golden spirals above the Warden tightened, like a rope being pulled.
Then the Court stamped new words in the air.
"Prismatic Suppression Law: Seven Locks."
A ring of light formed around Shan Wei's feet. Then another ring formed above his head. Then another ring formed around his chest. Seven rings in total. Each ring carried a different sealing law, like seven chains made from Heaven's rules.
The air grew heavy. The Court was trying to press Shan Wei's awakening back down before it could bloom.
The sealed Heart inside Shan Wei whispered, harsh and excited.
"They fear you."
Shan Wei did not answer it. He looked at the rings and understood them at once. He could feel the logic. He could feel the pattern. It was a sealing formation made from authority, not stone.
He spoke calmly.
"You want to stop an answer you asked for," he said.
The Court replied without emotion.
"Answer may destabilize Court stamp authority."
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Then your authority is weak," he said.
The rings tightened.
The brand flared harder.
Outside the Court, the heavenly stamp still pressed down on the battlefield. It was shaking now, cracked and wounded, but it had not fallen yet. The cold voice above the clouds repeated the order again, but the words were no longer clean.
"K—kneel…"
The command stuttered.
Drakonix lifted his head, wings wide. His prismatic flames rose and wrote fire-ink across the air again. He was not just burning random things now. He was hunting the stamp's command words like prey.
His flame touched another glowing word in the sky.
The word screamed and vanished.
The heavenly stamp shuddered.
Zhen's moving fortress dome held steady under the pressure. The rotating shield rings kept spinning like small city walls, each ring catching part of the weight and pushing it away.
Zhen spoke, blunt and serious.
"SKY IS PRESSING TOO HARD."
Then, because Zhen was Zhen, he added with perfect honesty:
"SKY SHOULD APOLOGIZE."
Yuerin did not laugh. She was watching the Pavilion line with sharp eyes. The Thousand Masks Pavilion was no longer calm. Their kill gate had failed. Their contracts were burning. Their assassins had lost masks and control.
They were afraid.
And afraid killers do dangerous things.
Xuan Chi stood inside the dome, shaking. The moon zone she made still covered a wide part of the battlefield, freezing several assassins in place. But her frozen-law scars were still leaking. The glassy cracks in the air trembled, and even friendly formation lines felt stiff at the edges.
Her breathing was uneven.
"I can hold…" she whispered, but her voice sounded thin.
Then her knees buckled.
Her moonlight threads flickered.
The moon zone wobbled.
Xuan Chi fell forward.
Yuerin moved fast and caught her before her head hit the ground. Xuan Chi's body was cold, too cold, like winter had reached inside her bones. Her lips were pale. Her eyelids fluttered.
Yuerin's voice turned sharp.
"Don't you die here," she snapped, but there was fear under it.
Zhen's head turned.
"MOON GIRL IS FALLING," he reported, like a guard captain.
Drakonix's eye flicked back, and his flames tightened, as if he was angry at the world for pushing them while they protected someone weak.
Inside the Court, Shan Wei felt Xuan Chi's collapse through the link. His face did not change, but his command carried more edge.
"Protect her," he said.
Zhen replied at once.
"YES, MASTER."
The moving fortress dome shifted its inner space. A small safe pocket formed, like a room inside a wall. The air inside it warmed slightly, shielded from the stamp's pressure and from Xuan Chi's leaking frost law.
Yuerin laid Xuan Chi down carefully. Xuan Chi's moonlight thread still clung to life, but it was thin.
Outside the dome, the hidden Pavilion leader mask stepped forward.
That black mask with the thin gold line did not rush. It did not scream. It walked like it had time, even though Heaven's stamp was cracking above them.
The leader raised one hand, palm open.
"Enough," the leader said. "You cannot win and protect the girl forever."
Yuerin's shadows rose like knives.
"Speak," she said coldly. "But speak fast."
The leader mask's voice stayed calm.
"We offer a trade," the leader said. "Give us the Returning Thread. Step away from the Court. End this."
Yuerin's eyes narrowed.
"And what do you give?"
The leader mask paused, then spoke like a person laying bait on the ground.
"One consort thread," the leader said. "Returned. Unsealed. Real."
For one heartbeat, the battlefield felt like it held its breath.
Even Yuerin's shadows froze slightly.
Because that was not a small offer.
That was a knife wrapped in gold.
Inside the Court, Shan Wei heard it through the link. He did not react with surprise. He did not believe it without proof.
He only asked one calm question.
"Which thread?"
The leader mask answered smoothly.
"The one sealed in ice," the leader said. "The Frost Star thread."
Yuerin's jaw tightened. She understood what that meant.
They were offering Ling Xueyao's bond as bait.
Not because they were kind.
Because they wanted Shan Wei to choose.
Because they wanted him to show weakness.
Zhen spoke, blunt and fast, as if it was a simple math problem.
"THIS IS A TRICK."
Then he added, because Zhen always said the next truth with no shame:
"THEY ARE BAD PEOPLE."
The leader mask's head tilted slightly toward Zhen.
"You are a puppet," the leader said. "You don't understand what a bond is."
Zhen answered immediately.
"I UNDERSTAND LOYALTY."
Then he said, in the same flat tone:
"YOU DO NOT."
Yuerin's shadows sharpened again. Her voice was like cold smoke.
"You can't 'return' a thread you never owned," she said. "You stole it. You held it. Now you wave it like a prize."
The leader mask's calm did not break.
"We are giving a chance," the leader said. "One thread for one life. That is fair."
Yuerin's mouth turned into a dangerous line.
"Fair?" she whispered. "You don't know what that word means."
Inside the Court, the Silent Bell envoy suddenly winced. His hand clutched his bell at his waist. A dark mark flashed on his wrist, like a hook made of time.
The envoy's face tightened with pain.
"They are pulling me," he whispered. "The Monastery mark… it's calling me back."
The Silent Bell witness turned pale too. His bell rang once, sharp and frightened. He looked like a man who knew what punishment felt like.
Shan Wei spoke calmly.
"You rang time," he said to the envoy. "Now they want to drag you away."
The envoy swallowed.
"I chose," he forced out. "I won't let them crush you with a stamp while we pretend to be holy."
The Monastery mark on his wrist burned brighter. It pulled like a chain.
The envoy's knees bent slightly, almost forced.
Shan Wei's voice stayed steady.
"Stand," he ordered.
The envoy gritted his teeth and stood straighter. Sweat formed at his temple. The mark still pulled.
Shan Wei understood.
The Monastery could not control the Court.
But it could punish its own people.
Outside, the heavenly stamp cracked again as Drakonix burned another command word. Only one bright command word remained, spinning near the center of the stamp like a heart of law.
Drakonix's eyes locked onto it.
He flared his wings.
He breathed in.
The air pulled toward him.
Then he breathed out.
A clean, prismatic flame line shot upward and struck the last command word.
The word did not just burn.
It broke.
The heavenly stamp made a sound like glass falling from the sky.
The cold voice above the clouds stuttered.
"B—By…"
Then it cut off.
The stamp shattered into broken light, raining down like bright dust.
The pressure vanished.
People who had been forced to kneel fell forward, coughing and shaking, as if their bodies suddenly remembered they were allowed to move again. Some stared up in horror. Some screamed. Some crawled away.
Because a heavenly stamp had just been broken.
And everyone knew what that meant.
It meant Heaven could be challenged.
It meant Shan Wei's path was not a story anymore.
It was a threat.
The Pavilion leader mask stared at the shattered stamp for one long heartbeat. The leader's calm finally cracked a little.
"Impossible," the leader whispered.
Drakonix's flame curled around him like a crown. His rough voice came again, simple and proud.
"No."
One word.
One beast king's answer.
Zhen's rotating rings kept spinning, but now they felt lighter, like the world stopped trying to crush them.
Yuerin looked at the leader mask and spoke coldly.
"You offered a thread," she said. "Now you lost your sky."
The leader mask recovered fast. A leader did not survive by being shocked too long.
"Then we will take what we need ourselves," the leader said.
Behind the leader, two assassins raised thin blades. Their bodies flickered. They were the ones who had removed their masks earlier. Their faces were unstable, like their identities were falling apart.
They rushed the dome, fast and desperate.
Zhen reacted.
He shifted stance.
His whole body lowered slightly, like a fortress learning how to punch.
The rotating shield rings changed. Two rings spun outward, creating a trap corridor. The assassins ran into the corridor, and the rings snapped shut like walls turning into a cage.
The assassins slammed into the invisible walls.
Zhen spoke, flat as always.
"TRAPPED."
Then he added, like a small lesson:
"RUNNING IS NOT ALWAYS SMART."
Yuerin's shadows surged forward and pinned the trapped assassins in place like black chains.
She leaned closer, eyes cold.
"Who sent you?" she asked.
One assassin tried to bite down on a suicide pill.
Drakonix's flame flicked.
The pill burned in the assassin's mouth before it could break.
The assassin screamed.
Yuerin's voice stayed calm and cruel.
"Answer," she said.
The assassin shook, unable to die, unable to escape.
Inside the Court, the golden suppression rings around Shan Wei tightened again, as if the Court panicked after the heavenly stamp shattered.
The Court stamped fast.
"Suppression increased."
"Seven Locks: tighten."
Shan Wei's brand surged again.
His chest felt like it was filled with a bright storm trying to burst out.
The Heart whispered, hungry.
"Now."
Shan Wei's eyes stayed calm, but his aura sharpened like a blade being pulled out of a sheath.
He spoke one quiet sentence.
"You want to stop my answer," he said to the Court. "But your locks are not stronger than my will."
He moved his hand slightly off his chest.
The moment his palm lifted, the brand flashed through his robe like prismatic lightning.
Seven colors.
Seven forces.
They rose like a crown of light behind him, not fully formed, but real enough to make the Court's air tremble.
The suppression rings shook.
The Court's spirals above the Warden stuttered.
The Ledger Warden's mask tilted back, like it was looking at something it did not want to see.
Shan Wei did not shout.
He did not roar.
He only breathed in, and the world around him seemed to hold that breath too.
Then he breathed out.
And the Prismatic Overdrive ignited.
It did not explode like wild fire.
It awakened like an emperor standing up.
Light filled the Court—crimson, gold, shadow, ice, lightning, wind, earth—all layered together, clean and sharp.
Seven afterimages appeared behind Shan Wei for a split second, each moving in a slightly different direction, like reality could not decide where he truly stood.
The Court screamed—not like a human scream, but like a system alarm.
"OVERRIDE IN PROGRESS!"
The golden suppression rings cracked.
One ring broke.
Then another ring broke.
The Court stamped frantic lines.
"WARNING."
"UNAUTHORIZED."
"RETURNING THREAD: RESISTING."
The Heart inside Shan Wei whispered one final time, thrilled.
"Yes."
Shan Wei's eyes stayed calm.
He spoke like a judge.
"No," he said.
Not to the Court.
Not to Heaven.
To the thing inside him.
"I command myself."
The light around him flared again.
And the Court's spirals spun faster, as if the whole sky-system was about to choose between sealing him…
Or admitting it could not.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.