The star-lit eye did not blink.
It stared at Shan Wei through the thin doorway slit like it could see through skin, bones, and soul.
The Causality Court went quiet for one breath, as if even the Court was waiting to see what this thing would do.
Then the starlight widened.
A tall figure stepped forward, and the air turned cold and clean, like night on a mountain peak. He looked like a man, but he did not feel like a man. His robe was dark, and tiny lights moved on it like slow stars. His hair was long and pale. His eyes were not gold. They were a deep, shining silver, like a lake under moonlight.
He did not look angry.
He looked certain.
The Ledger Warden bowed its mask slightly, not like a servant, but like a tool obeying a higher tool.
The Court stamped a line in red-gold, like a label.
"HIGH-RANK JUDGE: STAR THREAD OFFICE."
The Judge's voice stayed calm, low, and sharp.
"Returning Thread," he said again. "Look at me."
Shan Wei did not look away. His prismatic flames stayed steady, but inside him, everything tightened. He could feel the Judge's sight touching him. It was not a normal gaze. It was like a hand moving across invisible strings.
Threads.
Cause-and-effect threads.
Fate threads.
Bond threads.
The Judge could see them.
Shan Wei's mind moved fast. The Court was a cage. The guillotine was still above him. The doors were still closing. And now a Judge had arrived—one who could see what most heavens could not.
Shan Wei spoke calmly.
"I am looking," he said.
The Judge stepped one more pace forward. The starlight around him did not spread wild. It stayed neat, like a formation that never made mistakes.
He lifted one hand.
A thin line of starlight appeared from his finger to Shan Wei's chest. It did not stab like a weapon. It touched like a probe.
The moment it touched, Shan Wei felt a sharp pull inside him, as if the Judge was trying to read his story like a book.
The sealed Heart inside Shan Wei stirred again, hungry.
"Let me bite him," the Heart whispered.
Shan Wei answered inside himself, cold and firm.
"No."
The Judge's eyes narrowed slightly.
"So you can resist," he said. "Interesting."
The Court stamped fast.
"EXECUTION CONTINUES."
Above Shan Wei, the Causality Guillotine shook and dropped again, trying to cut the Overdrive at the root.
Shan Wei moved his hand.
Not fast.
Not messy.
He drew one simple prismatic glyph and pressed it into the air above his head.
The guillotine struck the glyph.
The glyph cracked.
But it did not shatter.
It slowed the cut again—just enough.
The Judge watched, calm and focused.
"You are building rules inside a rule room," he said. "That is not normal."
Shan Wei's voice stayed steady.
"Neither is the Court trying to kill a man for waking up," he said.
The Judge did not argue. He simply looked deeper.
His silver eyes brightened, and the starlight line touching Shan Wei's chest split into many thin lines. They spread across Shan Wei like a net, trying to find the "true thread" inside the prismatic storm.
The Court stamped again.
"THREAD READ: AUTHORIZED."
The Silent Bell witness trembled near the edge of the Court. He whispered like he was praying.
"That's the Thread-Seeing Art… If he finds your core thread—"
Shan Wei's eyes sharpened a little.
He understood. If the Judge found his "core thread," the Court could cut it. Not just cut his power. Cut the reason he existed.
Shan Wei lifted two fingers and drew a second glyph. Then a third.
Small.
Clean.
Prismatic.
A curtain of seven-color light formed around his chest, like a thin shield.
Not a wall.
A veil.
A veil that said one thing: "You can't read me for free."
The Judge's starlight lines hit the veil and slowed.
The Judge's mouth moved slightly, almost like a small smile that never became warm.
"A thread veil," he said. "So you understand."
Shan Wei did not reply with pride. He replied like a leader.
"I learn fast," he said.
The Judge tilted his head.
"Then answer," he said. "Why is the Prismatic Emperor signature on you?"
The Court stamped as if the question itself was dangerous.
"ANSWER REQUIRED."
Shan Wei's Overdrive flared quietly. Seven afterimages flickered and returned to one body again. His gaze stayed calm.
"I did not stamp that signature," Shan Wei said. "Your Court did."
The Judge's eyes narrowed.
"But the Court only stamps what it detects," he said.
Shan Wei's voice stayed even.
"Then your Court detects the future," he said.
That sentence hit the Court like a stone hitting a bell.
The spirals above the Ledger Warden shook.
The Judge did not laugh. He looked at Shan Wei more carefully.
Then, the Judge's gaze slipped past Shan Wei's chest and went somewhere deeper.
For one heartbeat, Shan Wei felt it.
The Judge had seen something behind him.
Not his afterimages.
Not his flames.
Something else.
Six faint points of light, far away like stars behind fog.
Consort threads.
They were dim.
They were not cut, but they were locked—tied down across cycles like someone had buried them.
The Judge's silver eyes hardened.
"So it is true," he said softly. "The Six Consort Threads are confirmed lost across cycles."
The Court stamped like a verdict.
"CONSORT THREAD STATUS: LOST."
The Silent Bell witness gasped. He looked terrified.
The Judge's voice turned colder.
"If the consort threads are lost," he said, "the Court will label you a destabilizing obsession."
The word "obsession" sounded ugly in that clean starlight voice, like a blade pretending to be polite.
The Court stamped fast, louder than before.
"DESTABILIZING OBSESSION: PROBABLE."
"EXECUTION PRIORITY: INCREASE."
Shan Wei's eyes turned colder.
He spoke one calm sentence.
"You speak of love like it is a disease," he said. "That is why your Court rots."
The Judge's face did not change, but his starlight pressure increased.
"Careful," the Judge said. "You are inside a Court. Not a battlefield."
Shan Wei's answer was quiet.
"I am always on a battlefield," he said.
Outside the Court, the burning corridor was still open. Zhen's moving fortress rushed forward with heavy, steady power. Drakonix flew low beside it, wings spread wide. His flames were thinner now. The cracks near his wing joints glowed brighter, like his body was paying the price for burning the sky's marks.
He growled under his breath, stubborn.
"No chains," he rumbled. "No eyes."
But the growl sounded rougher now. His breath came out hotter, uneven.
Inside the dome, Xuan Chi forced herself to kneel. Her moonlight thread shield shook, but she held it. Behind her, a faint moon shadow hovered again—still weak, still not complete, but real.
A group of assassins rushed the corridor from the sides. They tried to throw contract blades into the moving fortress.
Xuan Chi lifted her hand.
A thin line of moon frost spread across the ground in front of the dome.
It was not a big storm.
It was a clean lane of cold, like a frozen road.
The assassins' feet touched it and slowed. Their ankles iced over. Their movements became heavy.
Yuerin's eyes flashed.
"Good," she said, sharp and approving.
She moved like a shadow flicker and struck the nearest assassin's mask with one clean hit. Not flashy. Not loud. Just deadly efficient.
The assassins fell back.
The Pavilion leader saw the fortress escaping and snapped their hand up.
The leader tried to retreat, pulling the thread-map close, slipping into a shadow route.
But Yuerin had already guessed it.
She lifted one finger and released a tiny shadow mark—so small no one noticed. It landed on the thread-map like dust.
The leader vanished into the dark.
But the mark stayed.
Yuerin's voice was calm.
"Run," she whispered. "I can still see you."
Inside the fortress, Zhen adjusted his shield rings again. The dome shifted shape. It became thicker at the back, where the weak were, and sharper at the front, where the attacks came from.
Zhen spoke clearly.
"DOME MODE CHANGE: REFUGE FORM."
He paused, then added with blunt pride.
"WE ARE NOW SAFER."
Xuan Chi's eyes widened slightly. Even in pain, she looked surprised.
"You can change modes?" she whispered.
Zhen answered like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"YES," he said. "I AM VERY ADVANCED."
Yuerin did not look at him, but her voice carried a dry edge.
"Less talking," she said. "More moving."
Zhen replied instantly.
"YES."
Then he said, very serious, "MOVING IS IMPORTANT."
Drakonix snorted, like he agreed with the simple logic.
At the back of the dome, the captured assassin lay limp in the containment box. Zhen dragged the box along like proof, not like a prisoner.
Yuerin's eyes stayed sharp.
"Eight-Chime Black Sun," she whispered again. "So the Conclave has a hidden seat hunting us."
Her shadows curled tighter.
"That means we are not just fighting masks," she murmured. "We are fighting money, power… and people who think they own the world."
Inside the Court, Shan Wei felt Drakonix's pain through the bond like a knife pressed into his chest.
For one heartbeat, his calm mask almost cracked.
Almost.
Then it became colder, stronger.
Shan Wei's voice moved through the link, steady and firm.
"Drakonix," he said. "Hold. Do not burn yourself empty."
Drakonix's answer came rough.
"Brother… safe," he said.
Shan Wei's reply was a command.
"Live," he said. "That is not a request."
Drakonix went silent for a beat.
Then, in a low voice, he answered like a vow.
"Live," he repeated.
Inside the Court, the Judge watched Shan Wei's face.
He saw the tiny change.
Not weakness.
But something deeper.
Care.
The Judge's eyes sharpened.
"So you do have anchors," he said softly. "Good."
The word "good" was not kind.
It sounded like a hunter finding the rope on a trap.
The Judge lifted his hand again, and the starlight lines moved away from Shan Wei's chest and drifted toward the doorway slit itself.
The Judge looked through the slit.
For a heartbeat, Shan Wei realized the Judge was trying to track his allies through the crack.
Shan Wei moved instantly.
He drew a prismatic glyph and slammed it onto the slit like a seal.
The slit trembled.
The starlight lines snapped back.
The Judge's eyes flashed with cold interest.
"You are protecting them," the Judge said. "Even while the guillotine hangs above you."
Shan Wei did not deny it.
"They are mine," he said simply.
The Judge's voice dropped.
"Then you will break," he said. "Because the Court breaks people by touching what they love."
The Court stamped as if it agreed.
"WEAKNESS CONFIRMED."
Shan Wei's eyes turned sharper.
"Try," he said.
The guillotine dropped again. This time it fell faster, heavier, carrying more Court pressure than before.
Shan Wei raised his hand.
His prismatic veil shield cracked.
A thin cut of cold light sliced across the edge of his aura.
Pain hit like ice.
But Shan Wei did not scream.
He did not stumble.
He held his stance like a mountain.
The Judge's silver eyes glowed brighter.
Then he spoke a sealed title, quiet and heavy, like a name from a past life.
"RETURNING PRISMATIC ONE."
The moment the title was spoken, the sealed Heart inside Shan Wei reacted like it had heard an ancient enemy.
It slammed against its chains.
It roared inside him.
"HIM. THAT TITLE. THAT CHAIN."
Shan Wei's breath stayed steady, but the air around him shook.
The Court stamped at once, like it had been waiting to use this.
"TITLE CONFIRMATION: ACCEPTED."
"IMMEDIATE TERMINATION: REQUIRED."
The Ledger Warden raised its sleeve.
The Judge raised one finger.
The starlight at the fingertip sharpened into a single, perfect thread-blade.
Not a guillotine.
Not a stamp.
A Judge's execution.
The Silent Bell witness cried out.
"Shan Wei—!"
Shan Wei's eyes were colder than ever.
He lifted his hand slowly, still calm, still controlled, even with pain slicing his aura.
A prismatic edge formed around his fingers.
Not wild.
Not loud.
A clean cut.
A decision.
His voice was quiet.
"If you can see threads," he said, "then you should know this."
He looked straight at the Judge.
"I cut back."
The Judge's finger moved.
The execution thread-blade started to fall.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.