The red-gold words stayed in the air like a wound that would not close.
"PRISMATIC EMPEROR SIGNATURE: DETECTED."
The Causality Court shook as if it regretted stamping those words. The golden spirals above the Ledger Warden froze for one beat. Then they began to spin again, faster than before, like a giant alarm wheel.
Shan Wei stood inside the Court with Prismatic Overdrive still burning around him. Seven layers of light moved like calm flames. His face did not change, but his eyes turned colder. He understood what that warning meant.
It meant the Court was no longer trying to "fix" a problem.
It was calling a stronger hand.
The Ledger Warden stamped a new line, sharp and loud.
"BROADCAST TO HIGH HEAVENS: ACTIVE."
A thin beam of red-gold light shot upward through the Court's ceiling. It did not break the ceiling like a weapon. It passed through like a message. Like a signal flare meant for gods.
The Silent Bell witness stepped back, pale. His lips trembled.
"They… they're calling a Judge," he whispered.
The Court answered him with another stamp.
"HIGH-RANK JUDGE REQUESTED."
The air pressure changed at once. It felt like a bigger sky was leaning down. Like something far above had opened one eye.
Shan Wei looked up at the beam. He did not panic. He measured it, like a leader looking at an enemy's banner.
"You called for help," he said calmly.
The Ledger Warden replied without emotion.
"COURT AUTHORITY INSUFFICIENT."
Shan Wei's prismatic light tightened, like a blade being held more firmly.
"Then I will use what you cannot stop," he said.
Above him, the Causality Guillotine still hung. It was not as clean as before. It shook slightly now, as if Shan Wei's Overdrive had made the Court's rules unstable. But it was still deadly.
The Court stamped again.
"EXECUTION CONTINUES."
The closing doors of the Court kept moving. The slit Shan Wei forced open was still there, but it was thin, like the last breath in a sealed room.
Outside, Zhen's moving fortress rushed through the burning corridor Drakonix carved. The air was filled with smoke and broken contract ash. The Thousand Masks Pavilion assassins pulled back, not because they were kind, but because their tools were failing.
They could not use "kill without karmic debt" the same way anymore.
Because Drakonix's flames had learned how to burn contract words.
The Pavilion leader stood in the backline, holding the thread-map. That black mask with the gold line faced the corridor like a calm wall.
"You are running into darkness," the leader said.
Yuerin's voice came back like cold wind.
"We were born in darkness," she said.
She stayed beside the inner safe pocket where Xuan Chi lay. Xuan Chi's face was pale, but her eyes were open. She was forcing herself to stay awake. Her breath came out white, even inside the dome.
The moon thread shield Xuan Chi made was thin, but it still covered the weak inside the fortress like a soft blanket of light.
Then the fortress shook.
A hidden blade hit the dome from outside. The blade did not cut through, but it made the shield ring flash.
Another blade hit.
Another flash.
The Pavilion assassins were not attacking to break the dome fast. They were testing it. Looking for weak spots. Like wolves biting a wall.
Zhen spoke, flat and clear.
"THEY ARE ANNOYING."
Then he added, like a perfect report, "I WILL REMOVE THE ANNOYANCE."
Two of his rotating rings snapped outward. The rings did not fly like weapons. They moved like walls. They trapped three assassins in a narrow lane between them.
The assassins tried to jump away.
The rings rose higher and sealed the air.
The assassins slammed into the invisible barrier and bounced back, trapped like insects in a jar.
Zhen stepped forward and punched once.
Not a fast punch.
A heavy punch.
One assassin's mask shattered. Their body flew and hit the ground hard, not dead, but broken enough to stop fighting.
Zhen looked down at the prisoner in the containment box. The prisoner's face kept flickering like it could not choose one shape.
Zhen's voice stayed calm.
"YOU WILL GIVE A CODE," he said.
The prisoner shook and tried to spit again, but there was no strength left.
Yuerin stepped closer. Her shadows curled around her hands like dark gloves.
"Not a name," she said softly. "Give the identity code. The thing your buyer can't hide."
The prisoner's eyes widened. Their mouth opened, but a curse squeezed their throat again.
The prisoner choked.
The curse was trying to stop the answer.
Drakonix turned his head. His prismatic flame flicked toward the prisoner's mouth, not touching flesh, only touching the curse shape in the air.
The curse hissed like a snake and pulled back.
The prisoner gasped, free for one second.
Yuerin did not waste it.
"Code," she ordered.
The prisoner cried out fast, scared and desperate.
"C—Conclave Seat: EIGHT-CHIME—BLACK SUN! That's the code! Eight-Chime Black Sun!"
The moment the code left the prisoner's mouth, the curse snapped again and crushed their throat. The prisoner coughed blood and went limp, alive but half-unconscious.
Yuerin's eyes sharpened.
"Eight-Chime Black Sun," she repeated.
Even she looked slightly surprised.
"That's not a small buyer," she whispered.
Zhen nodded once.
"CODE STORED," he said.
Then he added, blunt and proud, "I AM GOOD AT STORING THINGS."
Yuerin did not answer his proud tone, but her shadows relaxed a little, like she approved.
Outside the corridor, the Pavilion leader mask shifted their hand. The thread-map glowed again. One point on it flickered with a strange wrong pulse.
The leader spoke clearly so everyone could hear.
"That point," the leader said, "is the lure."
Yuerin's eyes narrowed.
"Tell us," she said. "Where does the lure lead?"
The leader's mask tilted, like a smile that never showed teeth.
"Mirror Burial," the leader said.
The words felt heavy. Even the assassins behind the leader looked uneasy.
"Mirror Burial?" Xuan Chi whispered from inside the dome, voice weak.
Yuerin looked down at her.
"You know it?" Yuerin asked.
Xuan Chi swallowed.
"It's a trap realm," she said, breath shaky. "A place where reflections become graves. If you follow the wrong light… you meet yourself. And you don't come back."
Yuerin's eyes turned colder.
"So you made a fake point to send us there," she said.
The leader did not deny it.
"Yes," the leader said. "Follow it, and your Emperor will lose time, lose people, and lose hope."
Drakonix's wings twitched. His flames rose like anger kept on a chain.
Zhen's voice came, blunt as a hammer.
"THAT IS EVIL."
The leader ignored Zhen and stared at the dome.
"You have one hour," the leader said. "After that, Heaven's eyes return. Then you will be hunted across worlds."
Drakonix growled, low and proud.
"No," he rumbled.
Then he lifted his head toward the sky again.
The sky still felt blind, but Drakonix could sense the shape of the "eyes" that would return. The tracking marks were like thin lines of rule in the air. They were not fully here yet, but they were close.
Drakonix's flames became thin and sharp. He aimed upward and burned again.
A second sky-mark appeared for one heartbeat—faint, hidden, trying to form.
Drakonix burned it before it could lock.
The air screamed softly, like a secret being erased.
The sky stayed blind longer.
But Drakonix's body shook.
His prismatic scales dimmed slightly, then brightened again like a heart struggling to beat. Tiny cracks appeared near his wing joints, glowing faintly, like his flames were costing him something real.
Xuan Chi watched him, eyes wide.
"He's… hurting himself," she whispered.
Yuerin's voice turned hard.
"Idiot beast," she muttered.
But her hand tightened, like she was worried.
Drakonix lowered his head and snorted smoke. He looked angry, not weak, but the cost was there.
Zhen observed him, like a doctor watching a patient.
"DRAKONIX USED EXTRA FLAME," Zhen said. "THIS REDUCES FLAME RESERVES."
Then he added, very serious, "HE SHOULD EAT MORE."
Even Yuerin's mouth twitched for half a heartbeat. It was not a smile. It was just… life, in the middle of danger.
Inside the Court, Shan Wei felt Drakonix's strain through the bond. His prismatic light stayed calm, but his heart tightened once.
Not fear.
Responsibility.
He spoke through the link, voice steady.
"Do not burn yourself empty," he told Drakonix.
Drakonix's rough voice answered like a vow.
"Brother safe," he said.
Shan Wei did not praise him. He only replied like an emperor giving an order.
"Live," Shan Wei said. "That is also a command."
Outside, Xuan Chi forced herself upright inside the dome. Her hands trembled, but she lifted her moon thread shield again. The moonlight line grew brighter. The frozen-law scars in the air around her stopped spreading and began to tighten into a clean circle.
Her breath came out white, but her eyes sharpened.
The air behind her seemed to dim, then glow.
A faint moon shape appeared behind her back—very weak, like a shadow of a moon.
Not fully formed.
But real enough to make the assassins outside flinch.
Yuerin noticed it. Her eyes narrowed.
"You're waking up," Yuerin said quietly.
Xuan Chi's voice trembled, but she nodded.
"I… I can feel it," she whispered. "The moon… it wants to stand behind me."
That was the first hint of her true Lunar Frost Domain returning.
It was not strong yet. But it was coming.
Inside the Court, the beam of red-gold broadcast light grew brighter. Something answered it from far above. The air in the Court turned colder, like star-snow falling.
The Silent Bell witness whispered, shaking.
"A Judge is listening."
Then the Court stamped again, and the words were heavier than before.
"HIGH-RANK JUDGE DESCENT: APPROVED."
A line of star-lit light appeared in the ceiling of the Court. It looked like a narrow doorway made of cold starlight, opening from above.
Shan Wei's eyes turned sharp.
He felt it.
A presence.
Not the Ledger Warden's cold machine pressure.
Something older.
Something with choice.
The slit Shan Wei made at the closing doors trembled too. It was still not wide enough for him to leave fully. But it was wide enough for something to look through.
Shan Wei held his hand up. His prismatic glyphs floated around his fingers like small stars. He kept the slit from closing.
Then, far away, the Silent Bell envoy screamed inside a cage of time.
He was no longer on the battlefield.
He was inside a white, quiet place where sound felt slow. Thin rings of time-light wrapped around his body like ropes. Each time he moved, the rings tightened.
A bell sound echoed in the distance, not his bell, but the Monastery's bell.
A monk's voice came from the white air.
"Envoy," the voice said. "You rang time for a destabilizing obsession."
The envoy gritted his teeth.
"He was being crushed," he said. "I did what was right."
The monk's voice stayed cold.
"Right is decided by the Monastery."
The time rings tightened again, and the envoy gasped.
Then the monk's voice spoke a sentence that sounded like a death knife.
"Break the vow," the voice said. "Or be erased."
The envoy's eyes widened.
"Break… what vow?" he whispered.
The monk's voice answered.
"The vow you heard," it said. "The vow you accepted in your heart. The vow that ties you to the Returning Thread."
The envoy's lips shook. He remembered Shan Wei's words inside the Court.
"I will come."
The envoy swallowed hard. He understood what the Monastery feared.
Not just Shan Wei's power.
His promises.
Because a promise from a man like Shan Wei was a law of its own.
Back in the Court, Shan Wei felt a cold tug through the link. Not from the envoy's mind, but from the Monastery's chains touching the edge of his fate.
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed.
The Court doors kept closing.
The guillotine still hung above him, waiting for the clean cut.
And now a Judge was descending.
The Court stamped again, with new danger.
"FINAL VERDICT PREPARATION."
Shan Wei's voice stayed calm, but his inner thought was sharp.
If he stayed, they would cut him.
If he forced the slit wider, the Court would panic faster.
But he had one advantage.
They had just called him by the wrong name.
They stamped "Prismatic Emperor Signature."
That meant they were afraid of what he might become.
Shan Wei lifted his hand again and drew one more prismatic glyph. It was small. It was simple. But it carried a huge meaning.
"Gap."
He pressed the glyph into the slit.
The slit shook.
Then the slit changed.
It did not just widen like a tear.
It became a shape.
A doorway shape.
Like a door that could open if he pushed one more time.
The Court screamed in stamping.
"BREACH EXPANDING."
The Ledger Warden raised its sleeve fast.
"STOP."
But the prismatic glyphs around Shan Wei's fingers spun like a lock made from his own will. The Overdrive behind him burned clean and steady, seven forces held like a sword held in two hands.
Shan Wei stepped closer to the doorway slit.
The air on the other side felt cold.
Not Court-cold.
Star-cold.
Then something appeared.
A cold, star-lit eye opened on the other side of the slit.
It did not blink.
It stared at Shan Wei like a hunter seeing prey.
The eye was not human.
It looked like the sky itself had an eye.
The Court stamped instantly, frantic.
"HIGH-RANK JUDGE HAS ARRIVED."
The star-lit eye stared harder.
And a voice came through the doorway, low and perfect, like law spoken gently.
"Returning Thread," it said. "Look at me."
The moment that voice spoke, Shan Wei's brand flared.
Not in fear.
In anger.
Because it felt like someone was trying to claim him.
Shan Wei's eyes turned colder than ever.
He did not kneel.
He did not look away.
He stared back into the star-lit eye.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.