The Causality Court doors kept closing. You could not see the doors clearly, but you could feel them. It felt like the sky was folding in, slow and heavy, like a giant cage shutting.
Above Shan Wei, the Causality Guillotine hung like a thin line of cold light. It was not a normal blade. It was a rule shaped like a blade. It was made to cut an awakening before it could become real.
Shan Wei stood under it without moving. His prismatic light was still there, clean and sharp, like seven flames standing in one body. His face stayed calm. His eyes stayed steady.
The Court stamped again.
"CUT MUST LAND."
The line above him vibrated, then dropped.
It fell straight down.
It fell like a final answer.
Shan Wei breathed in once. Slow. Quiet. Like a man who had already decided what he would do.
His Overdrive flared, and his seven afterimages appeared again. For one heartbeat, it looked like there were seven Shan Weis standing in seven small places at once. The guillotine tried to choose the real one.
Shan Wei lifted his hand and drew one simple mark in the air. It was a small shape, like a child's simple drawing, but the meaning behind it was huge. A prismatic glyph.
The guillotine cut down.
The glyph flashed.
The blade hit the glyph and made a sound like glass being sliced. The blade did not break, but it slowed, like it was cutting through something it was not meant to cut.
The Court's air shook.
The Ledger Warden's mask tilted, like it was watching something forbidden.
Shan Wei did not smile. He did not shout.
He pushed.
Not with anger, but with will.
His prismatic light pressed upward, and the guillotine line bent slightly. Just slightly. Like a strong hand pushing a spear away from the heart by one finger's width.
The Court stamped fast.
"UNAUTHORIZED RESISTANCE."
"INCREASE PRESSURE."
The guillotine pressed harder.
Shan Wei's brand burned hotter under his robe, but his face stayed controlled. His eyes moved once toward the closing doors, and he understood the real danger.
If the Court doors closed fully, the Court would become a sealed room.
A sealed room meant one thing.
No escape.
No outside help.
Only a verdict.
Shan Wei's voice was quiet.
"You want to close a cage around me," he said.
The Court answered with cold stamping.
"YES."
Outside the Court, the battlefield exploded into motion. The heavenly stamp was gone, shattered by Drakonix. The air was lighter now, but danger was sharper, because fear had turned into panic.
The Thousand Masks Pavilion leader stood in the backline, still calm, still holding that thread-map. The leader's mask was black with a thin gold line across the eyes. The leader did not look at the fallen assassins with pity. The leader looked at them like tools.
"Move," the leader said.
The remaining assassins shifted into a new shape. Not a circle. Not a wall. A funnel. They were trying to push Zhen's moving fortress into a narrow kill zone.
Zhen's rotating shield rings spun faster. The dome moved forward like a walking fortress, heavy and steady, but the enemy line was thick.
Inside the dome, Xuan Chi lay on her back, weak and cold. Her moon threads were faint now, like a candle that could go out if the wind touched it again. Yuerin stayed close to her, one hand ready to catch her if she slipped.
Xuan Chi opened her eyes again and looked up at the moving lights around Zhen's inner shield space.
"We're… still here," she whispered.
Yuerin's voice was sharp, but not cruel.
"Yes," she said. "And you stay alive. That's your job."
Xuan Chi swallowed. Her voice was quiet.
"I will," she said. "I won't leave."
Then she looked past the inner shield pocket and saw Drakonix again.
He stood outside the dome, fully free. Both wings open. Flames around him like a crown. He looked like a beast king who had finally remembered his name.
Xuan Chi's eyes softened.
"He broke Heaven's stamp," she whispered.
Yuerin answered without looking away from the enemy.
"He did," she said. "Now we break the rest."
Drakonix lifted his head and sniffed the air. His flames moved in a slow spiral, like they were tasting the world. The sky felt strange now. Quiet. Blind.
Because Drakonix had burned the sky's tracking mark.
For one hour, the heavens would not track them clearly.
Zhen spoke, like a clear report.
"NO SKY TRACKING: ACTIVE."
Then he added, with blunt logic, "WE SHOULD USE THIS TIME."
Yuerin's eyes narrowed.
"We will," she said.
Outside the dome, the captured assassin shook inside Zhen's containment box. The assassin's face flickered, still unstable from mask sacrifice. The assassin looked like a person losing their own self.
Zhen carried the box like it weighed nothing. The assassin's eyes darted around, searching for a way to die.
Zhen spoke calmly.
"DO NOT TRY TO DIE."
The assassin spat blood. "You can't stop—"
Drakonix flicked a small flame toward the assassin.
The assassin went silent at once.
Zhen nodded, satisfied.
"GOOD."
Then he asked the question he wanted, very direct.
"WHO IS YOUR TRUE EMPLOYER?"
The assassin's eyes widened. The assassin tried to stay silent.
Yuerin stepped closer, shadows curling around her fingers.
"Answer," she said softly. Her voice was calm, but the fear behind it was real. "Or you will learn what it feels like to be erased without dying."
The assassin shook.
"I… I can't—"
Zhen leaned in.
"YOU CAN," Zhen said. "YOU ARE TALKING RIGHT NOW."
The assassin's breathing became sharp.
"Pavilion contracts—"
Yuerin's shadows tightened, and the assassin flinched.
"Not the contract," Yuerin said. "The hand behind it."
The assassin's lips trembled. Then, finally, the truth spilled out.
"A Conclave seat," the assassin gasped. "A hidden seat! The Heavenly Auction Conclave… the one who buys time—"
The assassin choked, like an invisible hook grabbed their throat for speaking.
Yuerin's eyes sharpened.
"A Conclave seat," she repeated.
Zhen's head tilted, like he was sorting the information into a neat line.
"EMPLOYER = AUCTION CONCLAVE LEADER," Zhen said.
The assassin shook hard.
"Not all of them! One! The one called—"
The assassin's throat clenched again. The name refused to come out, like a curse was glued to their tongue.
Yuerin's voice turned colder.
"A name-block," she whispered. "So the buyer is important."
The Pavilion leader raised a hand and snapped their fingers once. Two assassins tried to rush the containment box, to destroy the prisoner before more truth came out.
Zhen reacted instantly.
His rotating rings shifted. Two rings snapped outward like moving walls. The assassins hit the walls and bounced back, stunned.
Zhen spoke in the same calm tone.
"NO."
Then he added, like a lesson, "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED."
It was simple. It was almost funny because of how blunt it was. But it hit hard, because Zhen was not joking. He was a fortress that decided something and would not change.
Drakonix growled low.
"Mine," he rumbled, looking at the dome, the people, the prisoner, like all of it was under his wing now.
The Pavilion leader's mask turned slightly, watching Drakonix. The leader's voice stayed calm, but you could hear anger under it.
"You think one hour without Heaven will save you," the leader said.
Yuerin answered like cold smoke.
"It's not saving," she said. "It's hunting."
The leader held up the thread-map again. Six points glowed like small stars. Each point looked real. Each point looked like a promise.
Then the leader did something cruel.
They pressed one finger to one of the points.
The point flickered.
For one heartbeat, the point showed a wrong color. A false pulse. Like a fake star placed to pull hungry people into a trap.
The leader's voice cut through the air.
"One of these points is a lure," the leader said. "Follow it, and you die."
Yuerin's jaw tightened.
"You're proud of that," she said.
The leader's mask tilted.
"It's smart," the leader said. "Your Emperor cannot protect everyone if you chase ghosts."
Drakonix's flames rose higher, angry.
Zhen spoke, simple and blunt.
"LYING IS BAD."
The leader ignored him.
Yuerin's shadows moved like a storm around her legs.
"We don't need your map," she said.
The leader's voice turned colder.
"You do," the leader said. "Because your bonds are sealed across cycles. You can't even find them without someone pointing."
Yuerin's eyes sharpened.
Then she smiled a little.
Not a happy smile.
A dangerous one.
"I know something you forgot," she said softly.
The leader's mask did not move.
"What?"
Yuerin's voice turned low.
"I used to live in masks," she said. "I know how liars hide."
Her shadow power pulsed once, and for one heartbeat, her eyes looked like deep midnight.
The leader's calm cracked slightly.
Because Yuerin was not just a guard beside Shan Wei.
She was someone with a past tied to places like this.
Inside the Court, the doors were almost closed now. The air inside the Court felt tighter, like the room was becoming a sealed box.
The Silent Bell envoy groaned again. The mark on his wrist flared bright, and the time doorway behind him widened. The pull grew stronger. His feet slid backward.
"No," he forced out, teeth clenched. "Not now—"
The Silent Bell witness stepped forward, fear in his eyes.
"Stop!" the witness shouted, but it was too late.
The Monastery mark did not ask permission.
It pulled.
The envoy's body began to tilt into the doorway, like he was being dragged into a cold river.
Shan Wei turned his head slightly. His eyes locked on the envoy.
His voice did not rise.
It did not shake.
But the promise in it hit like a blade placed on a table.
"I will come," Shan Wei said.
The words echoed in the Court like a vow stamped into stone.
The Silent Bell envoy's eyes widened. In that moment, the envoy looked like he believed Shan Wei more than he believed his own Monastery.
The pull snapped harder.
The envoy's hand clenched around his bell.
Then the doorway swallowed him.
He vanished into time-light.
The witness staggered back, pale.
The Court stamped, cold and fast.
"WITNESS ASSET REMOVED."
"TIME INTERFERENCE REGISTERED."
The Ledger Warden turned its mask toward Shan Wei again.
"Execution continues," it said.
The guillotine above Shan Wei pressed down again. It tried to cut his Overdrive at the root.
Shan Wei's seven lights flared stronger. For one heartbeat, his prismatic aura shaped into a tall shadow behind him—like a giant emperor outline made from seven laws. Not fully real. Not fully formed. But enough to make the Court's spirals shake.
The Court stamped a new pressure rule.
"CUT DEEPER."
The guillotine line sank lower, now close enough that the air around Shan Wei's head felt like it was being sliced.
Shan Wei lifted his hand again. He drew a second glyph, then a third. Small prismatic shapes, clean and sharp.
The Court's air trembled.
Shan Wei was building a formation inside the Court's own rule space.
Not to attack the Court.
To make one thing.
A gap.
A tiny opening in the closing cage.
He spoke one calm command into the link, his voice steady like iron.
"Drakonix," he said. "Corridor."
Drakonix's head snapped toward the dome. His flames answered instantly. He spread his wings and moved forward like a king beast charging.
He did not fly away. He did not run.
He burned a path.
Prismatic fire poured out in a long, clean line. It did not spread wild. It carved the ground like a bright knife. The flame touched Pavilion traps and burned them. It touched hidden contract marks and erased them. It touched the air and made a safe corridor through enemy pressure.
The assassins screamed and jumped back.
Some tried to throw blades into the corridor.
The blades melted mid-air.
Drakonix's flame did not care.
"No sky," Drakonix growled. "No chains."
Zhen drove the moving fortress into the corridor at once. The dome moved fast now, faster than before, using the moment of fear.
Inside the dome, Xuan Chi forced herself to sit up. Her hands trembled, but her eyes were steady.
"I can help," she whispered.
Yuerin glanced at her.
"You're half dead," Yuerin said.
Xuan Chi shook her head, stubborn.
"Not yet," she said.
She lifted one hand. A thin moon thread formed, small and weak, but clear. She placed it near the dome's inner edge, like a soft shield for the people inside.
It wasn't a big power move.
But it was loyalty made into action.
Yuerin's expression tightened for one heartbeat. Then she nodded once.
"Good," she said. "Hold it."
Outside, the Pavilion leader saw the corridor and the moving fortress pushing through. The leader raised a hand, and the thread-map flashed again.
"Run," the leader said, voice cold. "Run while you can."
Then the leader threw something into the air.
A thin mask shard.
It spun like a coin.
The shard exploded into a spray of tiny black pieces, like dust made from broken faces. The dust rushed toward Drakonix's corridor, trying to stick to it, trying to mark it, trying to rebuild tracking even without Heaven.
Drakonix's flame flared.
The dust burned.
But some of it still drifted, stubborn like poison.
Yuerin's eyes narrowed.
"They're trying to make their own tracking," she whispered.
Zhen spoke instantly.
"WE WILL MOVE FASTER."
He pushed the fortress forward harder.
The corridor widened as Drakonix burned it wider.
They were running, but not like prey.
They were running like a blade moving toward its target.
Inside the Court, Shan Wei's glyphs connected. A thin prismatic line formed between them, like a thread of light.
The closing doors trembled.
A small slit opened in the Court's seal—tiny, but real.
The Court stamped in alarm.
"SEAL BREACH."
Shan Wei did not waste time.
He stepped toward the slit.
The guillotine fell again.
Shan Wei's Overdrive surged, and his afterimages split once more. The guillotine cut empty space again, but this time it grazed the edge of his prismatic aura. A thin line of light cut through one color layer, and the cut burned like ice.
Shan Wei's face stayed calm, but his eyes sharpened.
He pushed his hand into the slit.
He did not escape fully.
He did not run away like a defeated man.
He forced the slit wider by sheer will.
The Court's air screamed.
The Ledger Warden stamped fast.
"STOP."
Shan Wei spoke one sentence, quiet and heavy.
"I do not accept your ending."
His prismatic light flared again, and the slit widened enough for his voice, his will, and his command to pour through like a spear.
Outside, everyone inside the dome felt it.
A calm pressure.
A leader's presence.
A promise.
"Keep moving," Shan Wei's voice said through the link. "Do not look back."
Yuerin's shadows tightened like armor.
"Yes," she whispered.
Xuan Chi's eyes filled slightly, like she wanted to cry, but she didn't. She just nodded, like a soldier.
Zhen replied clearly.
"YES, MASTER. MOVING."
Drakonix roared once, louder than before, and the corridor fire brightened.
But inside the Court, the air suddenly changed.
The spirals above the Ledger Warden froze.
Then they turned red-gold.
A new warning stamped itself into the air, brighter than the rest, like a signal flare.
"PRISMATIC EMPEROR SIGNATURE: DETECTED."
The words did not just float.
They rang.
They sounded like a bell that every high heaven could hear.
The Court trembled, like it had just screamed a name it was not supposed to say.
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed slightly.
Not with fear.
With cold understanding.
Because that line meant one thing.
The heavens were not just watching now.
They were coming.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.