The tip of Heavenpiercer touched the place where the bell's hook did not "exist."
And the world reacted like it had been insulted.
There was no loud explosion. There was no bright flash. It was worse than that.
A thin, clean crack ran through the air, like glass breaking inside a dream. For one heartbeat, the Court-made dome stopped feeling like a barrier.
It felt like a lie.
The invisible hook on the Frost Thread froze in place, not from ice, but from shock. The bell's pressure stuttered, like it had to "think" for the first time.
Qi Shan Wei did not move his face.
He held his sword steady, calm as always, like he was testing a tool, not challenging a heaven-law relic.
Above them, the ancient words in the air shook.
PAY WITH THE FROST THREAD. NOW.
The sentence flickered. The last word bent, then snapped back into shape, angry and bright.
Then the bell answered.
The second bell beyond the realm rang again, and this time the sound carried weight like a mountain. The sound pushed through skin, through bone, through spirit.
People outside the dome screamed and dropped.
A few old elders bit their tongues until blood ran down their chins, just to stay conscious.
Inside the dome, the ground "replayed" itself for a breath. Cracks sealed, then re-cracked. Blood that had dried became wet again. Dust fell upward, then fell down.
Time was trying to punish the mistake Shan Wei had made.
But Shan Wei's eyes stayed steady.
Heavenpiercer's prismatic light sharpened, and the crack in the air spread just a little wider.
The Silent Bell envoy's face tightened.
For the first time, his calm looked strained.
"You should not cut Bell-Law," the envoy said.
Qi Shan Wei replied in the same calm voice, simple and clear. "Then it should not touch her."
Ling Xueyao's body shook as the Frost Thread pulled again. Frost crawled along her collarbone like winter trying to claim her throat. Her lips turned pale.
Behind her, the moon-shape tried to form again. It was not fully there yet, but the shadow of it was enough to make the air feel cold and sharp.
Her Lunar Frost Domain was knocking on the door of reality.
Zhen stepped closer at once, like a wall walking forward.
His armor lines glowed. His red core beat with steady light.
"Priority," Zhen said in his flat voice. "Protect master. Protect consort-thread. Protect cocoon."
Drakonix's half-born wing twitched. The prismatic flame inside the cocoon surged, hot and angry, like a small dragon trying to bite a storm.
"Mine…" Drakonix rasped, voice rough. "Not… payment…"
The bell rang again.
The dome shook hard.
This time, the bell did not only pull the Frost Thread.
It reached for Shan Wei's name.
The Time-Debt Ledger in the air lit up like a blade.
The line under the old sentence wrote itself, fast and cruel.
IF NOT THREAD… THEN NAME.
A wave of panic rolled through the crowd outside the dome.
Some people did not even understand what it meant, but their souls did.
A name was not just a sound.
A true name was a person's place in the world.
If the bell took a name, it could change the person.
It could make a person "less real."
It could make them harder to remember.
It could make their fate easier to erase.
The Silent Bell envoy lifted one hand, like he was trying to stop something too big to stop.
"This is why the Monastery keeps the flow stable," he said, voice low. "If the Bell that remembers starts hunting names, whole realms will shake."
A Court elder's eyes gleamed with cold greed. "Then let it take his name," the elder said. "Let the world forget him. Let the debt be paid."
Qi Shan Wei did not look at that elder.
He looked at the ledger.
And he spoke one quiet line that made the air feel heavier.
"My name is not yours."
Then he moved.
Not with panic.
Not with rage.
With command.
He lifted his left hand, two fingers raised, and drew a small circle in the air.
A formation disc appeared.
Plain.
Bronze.
Public grade.
It was one of the "simple" things he sold to the world.
A Heaven-Anchor Bastion disc.
Outside the dome, a few nobles stared like they were about to faint.
That formation was supposed to defend walls.
It was not supposed to touch time.
Qi Shan Wei activated it anyway.
But he did not place it on the ground.
He placed it on himself.
The disc melted into light and spread into thin lines that wrapped around his chest, his shoulders, his spine, like a quiet armor made of rules.
Not a chain.
A foundation.
Zhen's head turned slightly. "Observation: master is anchoring identity."
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "Yes."
The bell rang again.
A pressure reached for Shan Wei's name.
It hit the Heaven-Anchor lines and slowed, like a spear forced to push through deep mud.
The air groaned.
The Court elders' eyes widened.
One of them whispered, angry and shocked, "He anchored a name with a wall formation…"
Qi Shan Wei did not answer that.
He gave Zhen one short order.
"Second layer. Move with me."
Zhen's core flared brighter.
"Imperial Shield Matrix," Zhen said. "Second Layer: Moving Fortress."
The shield inside the dome shifted.
It was not only a dome anymore.
It became a living wall that moved around the cocoon, around Ling Xueyao, around Shan Wei.
It turned the space they stood in into a fortress that walked.
The bell's pressure hit the fortress and bent again, like sound being forced to take a longer road.
Drakonix hissed, proud even while half-born. "Good… wall…"
Then, because he was still a menace, his wing twitched toward Ling Xueyao again.
"Still… mine…"
Ling Xueyao's jaw tightened. Even half-choking on frost pain, she found enough strength to glare. "Focus," she forced out.
Zhen replied at the worst time, with perfect bluntness. "Jealousy detected. Not useful during life threat."
Drakonix snarled. "Shut… gear…"
Zhen corrected him, flat. "I am not gear. I am Zhen."
The tiny moment of humor died fast as the bell's pressure returned like a blade.
The ancient sentence in the air flashed again.
PAY WITH THE FROST THREAD. NOW.
The hook pulled.
The Frost Thread began to tear.
A thin, bright crack appeared along the frost-colored line.
Ling Xueyao gasped, and her body jerked like her heart had been grabbed.
For one breath, her Lunar Frost Domain flared again.
The pale moon shadow behind her sharpened.
Frozen law touched the bell's hook.
And the hook slowed.
Just a little.
Just enough.
Qi Shan Wei saw it.
He saw the small window between Bell-Law and Frozen Law.
He did not waste it.
He lowered Heavenpiercer, and instead of cutting the hook again, he cut the space around it.
Not a deep slash.
A clean slice that drew a thin prismatic line around the hook's "reach."
Like drawing a border on a map.
Then he placed another "simple" disc into that line.
Nine-Fold Stillwater Barrier.
The quiet ripple spread out.
The bell's pull hit the Stillwater field and softened again, like a wave forced to lose its teeth.
The hook wavered.
The Frost Thread stopped tearing for half a breath.
That half breath was enough for Qi Shan Wei to step closer to Ling Xueyao.
He did not do anything childish.
He did not joke.
He placed his palm gently over her wrist again, where his bracelet formation still glowed, steady and warm.
His voice was low. "Look at me."
Ling Xueyao's breath shook. Her eyes were wet for a heartbeat, then sharp again.
She forced herself to meet his gaze.
Qi Shan Wei spoke two simple words, quiet but heavy like an oath.
"I'm here."
Her throat tightened.
Not because she was weak.
Because that sentence meant he had already decided something.
It meant he would pay any price to keep her from being lost.
Ling Xueyao swallowed hard. "Then… don't let it take me."
Qi Shan Wei's eyes did not move. "It won't."
The bell rang again.
Angrier.
Deeper.
The Stillwater field trembled.
The Heaven-Anchor lines on Shan Wei's body flared.
The Court elders above the dome began to panic for real now, because they felt it too.
The bell was not only collecting debt.
It was reacting to resistance.
And if it reacted too hard, it could break the realm.
The Silent Bell envoy's voice became sharper. "Stop!" he snapped at the Court. "If you push the Bell into rage, it will not only take one thread. It will take many."
A Court elder shouted back, "Then control it!"
The envoy's eyes turned cold. "You cannot control it. You can only survive it."
The Thousand Masks assassin trapped inside the dome suddenly screamed.
Not from pain.
From fear.
Because the burned contract on their wrist did not just disappear.
It changed.
The prismatic flame had burned the words… but something underneath was revealed.
A hidden mark.
An old time-mark, burned deep into their spirit.
Qi Shan Wei's gaze sharpened. "Tagged."
The envoy nodded once. "Yes."
Zhen's voice came out clean. "Conclusion: the assassin was bait. Someone wanted the Bell to target this place."
Outside the dome, the Thousand Masks watchers went still.
One masked woman whispered, shaking, "That mark is not ours… That is… Monastery-era."
The crowd exploded with fear whispers.
"Silent Bell Monastery…?"
"Did they do it?"
"Or did someone steal their method?"
The envoy's bell rang once on its own, like a warning to stop guessing.
Then the big bell beyond the realm rang again.
And this time, it spoke without words.
A third sentence formed in the air, burning bright.
PAY NOW. OR LOSE WHAT YOU LOVE.
Ling Xueyao's eyes widened.
So did Shan Wei's.
Because the bell had changed the game.
It was not asking for a thread as payment anymore.
It was threatening to take the thing that made payment hurt.
It was trying to force obedience.
Qi Shan Wei's calm deepened into something colder.
He looked up at the words, then at the hook, then at the Court elders who were watching like hungry birds.
Then he made a choice.
He did not beg.
He did not negotiate.
He moved like an emperor.
He raised his hand and drew a formation pattern that the world had never seen.
It began with public lines.
Simple lines.
Stable lines.
But the way he connected them was not simple.
He connected the Heaven-Anchor lines on his body… to the Court-made dome itself.
To the dome's heart.
To the Court's own formation core.
The air made a sound like a chain clicking into place.
The Court elders froze.
One of them shouted, "Stop! What are you doing?!"
Qi Shan Wei answered calmly, "If the bell demands payment… it can take it from the one holding the cage."
The envoy's eyes widened.
For the first time, real alarm showed.
"You cannot—" he started.
Qi Shan Wei cut him off, calm and clear. "Watch."
He lifted Heavenpiercer again.
But he did not strike the hook.
He struck the dome's formation heart line.
A clean cut.
A precise cut.
And the bell's pressure, still searching for a payment path, rushed into the new opening like water finding a hole.
The dome screamed.
Not like a person.
Like a giant formation being forced to remember its own sins.
The Court elders' faces turned white.
Outside the dome, people stumbled back, terrified.
Because the bell's hunting pressure changed direction.
It stopped pulling only the Frost Thread.
It started pulling the Court's seal network.
The Silent Bell envoy's voice went sharp like steel. "You are redirecting debt!"
Qi Shan Wei's answer was simple. "Debt belongs to the jailer."
The bell rang again.
And the Court's dome began to crack.
Huge lines spread across it like lightning scars.
The Court elders shouted orders. They poured power into the dome to stabilize it.
But that only fed the bell.
The bell did not want spirit stones.
It wanted years.
It wanted memory.
It wanted threads.
And the Court had many.
One elder suddenly screamed and grabbed his head.
His eyes went empty.
He whispered, lost, "My… daughter…? What was her name…?"
Another elder coughed blood and aged a full ten years in one breath.
Fear turned the Court's faces ugly.
Because now the bell was collecting from them.
Zhen's voice came out blunt. "Result: enemy panic. Efficiency improved."
Drakonix, still half inside the cocoon, let out a rough, proud laugh-sound. "Good… punish… cage…"
Then his cocoon cracked wider with a loud, ripping sound.
A second wing burst out.
Not fully grown yet.
But real.
A full prismatic wing, burning with flame that did not look like normal fire.
It did not only burn heat.
It burned rules.
The Thousand Masks watchers backed away fast.
One of them whispered, shaking, "His flame is burning law…"
Ling Xueyao stared at Drakonix, stunned.
Then the bell's hook pulled again, desperate now, trying to take payment before the dome broke.
It yanked the Frost Thread hard.
The tear widened.
Ling Xueyao cried out, and the pale moon behind her finally tried to appear fully.
Her Lunar Frost Domain was about to awaken right there.
Right there, under the bell.
If it awakened under pressure like this, it could go wild.
It could freeze the whole dome.
It could freeze her own heart.
Qi Shan Wei moved instantly.
Not fast like panic.
Fast like a decision already made.
He stepped into her space, close, steady.
He placed his forehead lightly against hers.
Not romance like a playful boy.
A vow like an emperor making a promise.
His voice was a quiet command. "Hold your moon."
Ling Xueyao's breath broke.
Her eyes trembled.
Then she nodded once, small and fierce.
Qi Shan Wei opened his palm.
A tiny prismatic line slid out and wrapped around the Frost Thread like a soft ribbon.
He did not pull it.
He did not force it.
He simply held it in place with his will and his formation logic.
"Anchor," he said.
Zhen stepped beside them like a shield.
"Assist," Shan Wei ordered.
Zhen's core flared.
The Imperial Shield Matrix pressed against the hook's pressure line, trying to bend it away from the thread.
Drakonix roared.
Not loud like a full dragon yet.
But the roar carried one clear meaning.
"No."
The prismatic flame touched the hook again.
This time, the flame did not try to burn the hook completely.
It burned the path the hook was using.
It burned the "connection road."
The hook shook.
The bell rang, furious.
The dome cracked wider.
Then the Court elder who had been the loudest suddenly screamed.
A bright line above the platform snapped.
One of the Court's own hidden "authority threads" tore.
The elder's face went gray.
He fell like a puppet with its strings cut.
The crowd outside the dome went silent.
Because now everyone understood.
This was not a normal trial.
This was a time-law collection.
And Shan Wei had turned the collection back onto the Court.
The ancient words in the air flickered again.
PAY NOW. OR LOSE WHAT YOU LOVE.
Qi Shan Wei lifted Heavenpiercer.
His golden eyes became colder, sharper.
He spoke one sentence, calm and final.
"Then I will cut the bell's hand off."
And Heavenpiercer struck again.
Not at the hook.
At the place where the bell's "reach" entered the dome.
At the doorway of Bell-Law itself.
The air screamed.
The dome shattered into a web of cracks.
And the bell's sound… hesitated.
For the first time, the Bell that remembers paused.
Like it had met something it could not easily name.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2026
All rights reserved.