The prismatic light around Shan Wei did not roar like a wild fire. It stood tall, like a king standing up from a throne. Seven colors moved around him in clean layers. His robe fluttered, even though there was no wind inside the Court. The golden suppression rings around him cracked, and tiny pieces of law fell like dust.
The Causality Court reacted at once.
Not with fear like a person.
With force like a machine.
The golden spirals above the Ledger Warden spun faster. The air turned heavy. A red-gold sentence formed above Shan Wei's head, and it burned like a warning sign.
"OVERRIDE IN PROGRESS."
The Ledger Warden lifted its sleeve again. This time, the Court did not try to "lock" Shan Wei. It tried to cut him.
The Court stamped a new rule. The words hit the air like an axe.
"CAUSALITY GUILLOTINE: ACTIVE."
A thin, straight line appeared above Shan Wei. It looked like a blade made of light. It did not shine like gold. It shone like cold judgment. The blade carried one simple purpose.
End the awakening.
End the answer.
End him.
The Silent Bell witness gasped softly. Even he could feel how serious this was.
The Silent Bell envoy at the boundary turned pale. The mark on his wrist burned again, and this time it pulled harder, like a hook in his bones.
"They're doing it," the envoy whispered. "If that blade falls, it will cut your Overdrive… and it might cut your life too."
Shan Wei did not step back. He did not shout. He looked up at the guillotine line and studied it like a formation.
He understood it.
The blade was not made from metal. It was made from cause and effect. It would cut the "reason" his power was rising. It would cut the "path" before it became real.
Shan Wei breathed in once.
Slow.
Controlled.
Then he spoke to the Court in a calm voice.
"You stamped a guillotine," he said. "So you admit you cannot hold me with locks."
The Court answered with a flat stamp.
"LOCKS FAILED. CUT REQUIRED."
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed a little. That was all.
Inside his chest, the sealed Heart whispered, hungry and sharp.
"Let me help."
Shan Wei replied in the same calm tone, but only inside himself.
"No."
The Heart hissed.
"You will die."
Shan Wei's answer was simple.
"Then I die standing."
The prismatic light behind him sharpened. His seven afterimages appeared again for a split second, like reality was trying to copy him and failing. The guillotine blade above him trembled, as if it could not decide which "Shan Wei" to cut.
The Court stamped again, louder.
"FOCUS TARGET."
The guillotine line brightened. It tried to lock onto the real one.
Shan Wei lifted one hand.
He drew a small circle in the air with his finger, slow and exact, like he was drawing a formation diagram on an invisible board. Seven tiny marks appeared around his hand—fire, lightning, shadow, ice, wind, earth, and light—each one clean and sharp.
The Court's air shook.
The Silent Bell witness stared.
"That is… formation logic," he whispered. "Inside the Court?"
Shan Wei finished the circle.
A prismatic formation bloomed around him like a thin shield, not thick like a wall, but perfect like a rule. It did not say, "Stop the blade."
It said, "Change the blade's target."
The guillotine fell.
It fell fast.
It fell like a verdict.
And at the last heartbeat, Shan Wei's afterimages split.
Not as a trick.
As a command.
The blade cut through empty space.
A cold line sliced down where Shan Wei should have been.
The Court's air screamed like torn paper.
The guillotine did not vanish, but it missed.
For the first time, the Court's spirals stuttered.
The Ledger Warden's mask tilted, like it was seeing something it did not want to believe.
Shan Wei stood one step to the side, still calm, still controlled, his prismatic light burning steady.
He did not look proud.
He looked inevitable.
Outside the Court, the heavenly stamp was gone, shattered into light. But the battlefield was not calm. Without the stamp crushing everyone, the Thousand Masks Pavilion moved again, faster and more violent.
The hidden leader mask stood in the backline, that black mask with the thin gold line across the eyes. The leader's gaze stayed sharp, and their voice stayed calm.
"Plan changed," the leader said.
The remaining assassins shifted, moving into new positions around Zhen's moving fortress. They were not trying to break the dome anymore. They were trying to make the defenders choose who to save.
Inside the dome, Xuan Chi lay in the safe pocket Zhen made. Her breathing was weak, but she was alive. Her moonlight thread flickered like a candle in wind.
Then her eyelids opened.
She looked up.
And she saw Drakonix fully free.
Both wings open.
Prismatic scales shining.
Flames curling around him like a crown.
Xuan Chi's mouth parted slightly. She looked shocked, then frightened, then… steady, like something inside her finally decided.
"So it's real," she whispered. "The beast… the bond… the return…"
Drakonix glanced at her. His eyes were still fierce, but there was also a strange, proud calm in them now, like he was not a cub anymore.
Xuan Chi swallowed. Her voice became softer.
"You didn't run," she whispered. "Even when Heaven pressed you."
Drakonix made a rough sound, like a warning and a promise at the same time.
Xuan Chi turned her face slightly, looking past him, like she was trying to see Shan Wei through the chaos.
"I understand now," she said, voice shaking. "If I walk away… I freeze alone forever."
She closed her eyes for one heartbeat and whispered words that sounded like a vow, simple but heavy.
"I will not betray you."
Yuerin watched her, shadows still wrapped around her hands like sleeves. Yuerin did not smile, but her eyes softened for a tiny moment.
"Good," she said. "Because betrayal here is death."
Outside, Zhen still held a captured assassin in his containment box. The assassin had tried to bite a suicide pill before, but Drakonix burned it away. Now the assassin's mouth was raw, and their eyes were wide with panic.
Zhen stepped closer.
His voice was flat, like a judge reading facts.
"You cannot die," Zhen said. "You cannot escape. You can only answer."
The assassin spat blood and said nothing.
Zhen tilted his head slightly, as if thinking hard.
Then he said, very seriously, "IF YOU DO NOT ANSWER, YOU ARE USELESS."
He paused.
Then added, even more seriously, "USELESS THINGS GET RECYCLED."
The assassin's eyes widened in horror.
Yuerin blinked once.
"What does 'recycled' mean to a puppet?" she asked.
Zhen answered honestly. "I TAKE APART YOUR BONES AND USE THEM AS PARTS."
The assassin's face went white.
Yuerin stared at Zhen for one heartbeat, then looked away. "Ask faster," she said, but her voice had a tight edge, like she was trying not to react.
Zhen nodded once, like a soldier.
"LOCATION," Zhen said to the assassin. "WHERE IS THE THREAD-MAP KEPT?"
The assassin shook.
Zhen leaned closer.
"ANSWER," he said. "OR RECYCLE."
The assassin's voice finally broke.
"Thousand Masks… Ninth Archive…" the assassin gasped. "Under the Mirror-Dust Canal… beneath the Conclave's old river gate… it's sealed—sealed with a mask-lock!"
Yuerin's shadows tightened, like the name tasted dangerous.
"Ninth Archive," she whispered. "So it's real."
The hidden leader mask heard the words too. The leader's head turned slightly, calm and sharp.
Then the leader lifted one hand.
A thin object appeared in the leader's palm. It looked like a small, folded sheet made from dark silk and shining runes.
A map.
But not a normal map.
A thread-map.
Six points flickered on it like faint stars. Each point carried a different color. Each point felt like a living wound.
The leader's voice carried through the battlefield.
"You want the truth?" the leader said. "Here is the real bait."
The leader held the thread-map up.
"This shows where all six consort threads are sealed," the leader said. "Not only one."
Yuerin's eyes sharpened. Her shadows trembled slightly, not from fear, but from anger.
"And you want us to hand over Shan Wei," she said.
The leader's calm did not break.
"Yes," the leader said. "Give us the Returning Thread, and we give you the thread-map."
Drakonix's flames flared low, like a beast growling.
Zhen spoke, blunt as always.
"THEY ARE TRYING TO BUY OUR MASTER."
Yuerin's voice was cold.
"You can't buy him," she said.
The leader's mask tilted.
"Everyone can be bought," the leader said.
Yuerin's shadows rose higher, like a storm.
"No," she said. "Not him."
She stepped forward, and for a moment, her shadow power felt bigger, darker, more serious. Her eyes stayed locked on the leader.
"You made one mistake," Yuerin said. "You think bonds are chains."
The leader did not move. "Aren't they?"
Yuerin's answer was sharp.
"No," she said. "They're blades."
Then Drakonix did something that made everyone freeze again.
He lifted his head and looked at the sky like he was staring at an invisible watcher. His flames rose, thin and precise.
He burned the air.
Not in front of him.
Above him.
A strange, glowing pattern appeared in the sky for one heartbeat—like a signature, like a tracking mark. The kind of mark Heaven used to follow a person's location across distance.
Drakonix's flame touched it.
The mark screamed silently and vanished.
The sky felt… blind.
The hidden leader mask stiffened slightly.
The Conclave spies watching from far away stepped back.
Even the Ruin Court scouts swallowed hard.
Because everyone understood what Drakonix had just done.
He did not just burn attacks.
He burned the sky's eyes.
For one hour, Heaven would not track them clearly.
Zhen looked up.
"DRAKONIX HAS DELETED THE SKY'S TRACKING," Zhen said.
Then he added, like a helpful report, "THIS IS VERY GOOD."
Drakonix's rough voice came, proud and firm.
"No sky."
Yuerin's lips moved just slightly, almost a smile.
"Good," she whispered.
Inside the Court, the Causality Guillotine rose again, shaking with anger. It tried to lock onto Shan Wei's true position. The Court stamped fast, building new rules on top of old rules.
"RE-ALIGN."
"RE-LOCK."
"CUT MUST LAND."
The Silent Bell envoy suddenly groaned. The Monastery mark on his wrist flared bright. A thin doorway of pale time-light opened behind him, like a hook pulling him backward.
His feet slid a little.
His face tightened.
"They're taking me," he whispered through clenched teeth.
Shan Wei turned his head slightly, calm but cold.
He looked at the mark.
He understood it immediately.
It was a recall stamp. A leash.
The envoy tried to resist, but the pull grew stronger.
Shan Wei's voice did not rise. It did not shake.
"I will retrieve you," Shan Wei said.
The envoy's eyes widened.
Shan Wei's eyes stayed steady.
"Even if I must walk into your monastery to do it," he added, quiet and dangerous.
The Silent Bell witness's breath caught.
The envoy's face showed fear… then something else.
Relief.
Because Shan Wei's words sounded like a promise that could not be broken.
The Court stamped again, furious.
And then it stamped one final sentence in red-gold.
The words burned brighter than anything so far.
"EXECUTION AUTHORIZED NOW."
The whole Court shook.
The walls of law trembled.
The doors of the Court—giant, unseen doors made from fate and authority—began to close.
The sound was slow.
Heavy.
Like the sky itself shutting a cage.
The Ledger Warden's mask turned toward Shan Wei.
Its voice was flat, but the pressure behind it was deadly.
"Returning Thread will be terminated."
The Causality Guillotine rose high again, now aimed with perfect focus.
Outside, at the same time, the hidden Pavilion leader mask snapped their hand down.
The thread-map flashed.
And the assassins moved, trying to strike while the Court tried to kill Shan Wei.
Inside, the doors were closing.
Above, the guillotine was falling.
And Shan Wei stood calm, prismatic light burning steady, as if he had already chosen his next step.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.