The lightning did not fall.
It turned.
Like a hunting beast that had learned a name.
Above the broken Court dome, the sky split into thin silver cracks. They were not clouds. They were lines, sharp and clean, like someone had drawn them on the world with a blade.
Then one line flashed.
A white spear of lightning shot sideways across the heavens, not down. It crossed the sky in a breath and vanished behind distant mountains.
A heartbeat later, the mountains lit up.
The peak turned to glass.
Not melted. Not burned. Just… changed. Like the world had been edited.
People screamed far away. The sound reached the battlefield late, like the thunder was dragging time behind it.
Qi Shan Wei stood in the open air, calm as stone.
The Court elders had rushed out after him, trying to regain control. They were used to law obeying them. They were used to the world waiting for their voice.
But the sky did not care.
Another lightning line formed. It hovered for one breath, as if looking.
Then it pointed again.
Right at Qi Shan Wei.
The crowd outside the ruined dome froze. Even strong cultivators held their breath. Some stepped back without meaning to, like their bodies knew a truth their minds did not want to accept.
The Silent Bell envoy raised his head slowly.
His eyes looked distant, like he was listening to something far away walking closer.
"The schedule has begun," he said.
A Court elder snapped, "Schedule? Speak clearly!"
The envoy did not look at him. He looked at the sky. "Seven days," he said softly. "Seven answers. Or the world breaks."
Those simple words dropped into the battlefield like a heavy stone into water.
Seven days.
Seven answers.
The world breaks.
Some people did not understand what it meant, but everyone understood the fear that came with it.
The lightning flashed again.
This time, it did not strike mountains.
It struck a cultivator.
A strong one. A proud one. Someone who had been shouting seconds ago about "Court justice" and "execution."
The lightning touched his shoulder.
He vanished.
Not burned. Not shattered.
Just… gone.
His robe fell to the ground, empty.
The people around him screamed and ran. The crowd broke apart like frightened animals.
The Court elders' faces went pale.
"That was not an attack on Shan Wei," one elder whispered.
"No," the envoy said. "That was a warning."
Qi Shan Wei's golden eyes stayed steady. He did not move. He watched the sky like a ruler watching an army line up.
He spoke one calm command.
"Zhen."
Zhen stepped forward at once. His armor lines lit. The Imperial Shield Matrix shifted again, and the moving fortress barrier expanded, covering Qi Shan Wei, Ling Xueyao, and the cracked cocoon behind them.
Zhen's voice was flat, as if reporting weather. "Shield Matrix expanded. Priority: protect master, protect allies, protect cocoon."
Inside the cocoon, the prismatic flame surged.
The shell cracked again with a loud sound, like stone breaking open.
Drakonix pushed out fully.
Two wings unfolded, shaking, huge, and bright. They were not simple dragon wings anymore. Each feather-like edge held prismatic colors inside it, like the sky had been melted into the bone.
His body was leaner, longer, sharper. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths that pulled in the air like a furnace pulling fire.
Then his eyes opened fully.
They were not childish eyes.
They were old.
They looked like the first storm that ever existed.
The crowd outside the shield screamed again, but this time it was not only fear.
It was awe.
A dragon that looked like that did not belong in a "lower realm" story. It belonged in legends that made empires kneel.
Drakonix lifted his head and stared at the sky cracks.
The lightning line pointed at Qi Shan Wei again.
Drakonix's throat rumbled.
Not a full roar yet. A warning.
Then he spoke, rough and proud, like he was still learning how to shape words with a new body.
"Sky… looking… at him."
Zhen turned his head slightly toward Drakonix. "Confirmation: the sky is hunting."
Drakonix glared. "Stop… saying… hunting."
Zhen replied, calm. "Suggestion: we rename it to reduce fear. Alternate term: 'aggressive selection.'"
Drakonix blinked once, then hissed. "Metal mouth."
Zhen answered, perfectly serious. "I do not have a mouth. I have a faceplate."
That tiny moment of weird timing made a few terrified people blink like they did not know whether to laugh or faint.
Then the thunder hit.
Not sound.
Pressure.
A wave rolled across the battlefield and pressed down on every bone. People fell to their knees. Some vomited blood. Even strong cultivators staggered as if the sky had grabbed their shoulders and forced them to bow.
Ling Xueyao's breath came out in frost.
The thin "frozen law scars" around her body flared again. The moon-shadow behind her tried to form.
Her Lunar Frost Domain wanted to wake.
But it was dangerous right now. It was unstable. And thunder pressure made it worse, not better.
Qi Shan Wei stepped close.
He did not panic. He did not show fear.
He lifted his hand and drew a simple prismatic formation ring around her chest and shoulders, like a calm frame holding her power in place.
It was not a chain.
It was a guard.
His voice was quiet. "Hold."
Ling Xueyao swallowed hard. Her eyes were bright like moonlight on ice, but she nodded once.
"I can hold," she whispered.
Qi Shan Wei answered with simple certainty. "I know."
Those two words hit her like warmth.
Not childish comfort.
A ruler's trust.
The thunder rolled again.
The sky cracks widened.
Then something happened that made the whole world's skin crawl.
The lightning paused.
For one heartbeat, the cracks did not flash.
Everything went still, like the world was waiting for someone to speak.
And in that stillness, the Silent Bell envoy's own bell rang once—soft, almost respectful.
His voice came out lower than before.
"Do not speak false names today," he warned the crowd. "Do not swear empty oaths. Do not promise what you cannot pay."
A Court elder snapped, shaking, "Why?"
The envoy's eyes stayed on the sky. "Because the sky is listening," he said. "And it remembers debts."
Qi Shan Wei's gaze sharpened.
He understood.
This was not just lightning.
This was Time inside thunder.
The convergence was beginning.
A thin line appeared in the air in front of Qi Shan Wei.
It was not a lightning line.
It was a "step line," like a path made of tiny invisible marks.
Qi Shan Wei watched it, calm, and his mind measured it like a formation.
He could feel it.
The lightning was not random.
It was following rules.
It was asking a question.
Are you worthy?
Are you stable?
Are you real?
Qi Shan Wei raised his chin slightly.
He did not answer with words.
He answered with presence.
His prismatic aura rose—controlled, clean, layered.
Not wild power.
A system.
A ruler showing the world that his strength was not a burst. It was a structure that did not collapse.
The sky reacted.
One lightning spear formed in front of him, close enough to light his face.
It hovered like a blade held at his throat.
The crowd screamed and stumbled backward.
A Court elder shouted, "It will kill him!"
The Silent Bell envoy whispered, "No… it is judging."
The lightning moved.
It touched Qi Shan Wei's chest.
The world held its breath.
Nothing exploded.
No blood sprayed.
No body fell.
Instead, the lightning sank into his aura like water into deep stone.
It tested every layer.
It pressed into his meridians.
It brushed the edge of his soul.
And Qi Shan Wei did not move.
His expression did not change.
But his eyes sharpened, because he felt the hidden danger.
This lightning was not only checking strength.
It was checking identity.
It was trying to "read" him the way the bell ledger had tried to "write" him.
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "You want my name."
The lightning trembled, as if offended that he understood.
The Silent Bell envoy's face tightened. "Do not answer with a full name," he warned instantly.
But Qi Shan Wei did not speak a full name.
He did something else.
He lifted two fingers and traced a tiny prismatic seal in the air.
A simple seal.
A public-grade seal.
A thing the world would laugh at in normal times.
But when his fingers finished the last line, the seal became a mirror.
Not a mirror of glass.
A mirror of law.
A formation reflection that showed only one thing:
A stable mark of self.
A Name-Anchor.
A person's "I am me," carved into a system.
The lightning pressed into it.
And for one heartbeat, the lightning could not go deeper.
It hit the anchor and stopped, like a spear hitting a wall.
The crowd outside gasped.
A Court elder's voice cracked. "He blocked lightning… with a formation?"
Qi Shan Wei's answer was quiet. "Lightning is movement."
He tapped the anchor seal again. "Movement can be guided."
The lightning pulled back slightly, like a predator realizing this prey had teeth.
Then it struck again.
Not at his chest this time.
At the ground around him.
The lightning exploded outward in a ring.
Earth turned white. Stones became glass. Air screamed.
Zhen's shield flared hard and held.
But even through the shield, the pressure shook everyone.
Ling Xueyao's knees almost buckled. Her frozen scars surged.
Qi Shan Wei moved his hand, steady and fast.
A second ring formation appeared around her feet.
He anchored her stance.
He anchored her breath.
He anchored her power.
Ling Xueyao's eyes widened slightly, because she could feel it.
He was not "protecting" her like she was weak.
He was stabilizing her like she was a weapon that must not break.
That felt… worse than romance.
That felt like fate.
Across the battlefield, the Thousand Masks Pavilion watchers had been moving quietly, trying to take advantage of the chaos.
Their contract methods were clean. Their "kill without karmic debt" clause was meant to bypass Court rules.
But now their masks trembled.
The lightning and the bell pressure had changed the space.
Their contract seals flickered.
Their shadow tricks looked thinner.
One masked watcher whispered, "Our contract is slipping… why is it slipping?"
Another answered with panic. "The sky is reading the field. Contracts are being treated like lies."
A third stepped forward, voice cold. "Then we stop using contracts."
He pulled out a thin black needle case.
Not a talisman.
Not a seal.
A real weapon.
A very old kind.
"Kill method shift," he said. "No karmic language. No clauses. No signatures."
He opened the case.
Inside were needles that looked wet even though they were dry.
Soul-needles.
Memory-needles.
Name-needles.
Tools designed to hurt what law could not easily trace.
They began moving toward Qi Shan Wei, trying to slip around the edge of the chaos.
But Drakonix's head snapped.
His new eyes focused.
His nostrils flared.
He smelled the intent.
"Mask… worms," Drakonix growled.
His wings opened wider.
His prismatic flame rose—not as a wild fire, but as a thin, sharp burn that cut the air.
He did not burn the sky.
He burned the space where "hidden intent" tried to hide.
The flame touched one masked watcher.
The watcher screamed as the shadow around him peeled away like old paint.
He stumbled into the open, exposed.
The crowd roared.
The Pavilion watcher tried to retreat.
A lightning line saw him.
It turned.
And hunted.
The watcher vanished.
No ashes.
No scream at the end.
Just gone.
Drakonix huffed, proud. "Sky… hates… masks."
Zhen replied, flat. "Correction: the sky hates instability. Masks are unstable."
Drakonix hissed, then muttered, "Good… enough."
The Court elders tried to shout orders again, desperate to regain control.
But the thunder rolled in a different rhythm now.
Not random.
Timed.
Like a heartbeat that belonged to the world itself.
The Silent Bell envoy raised his hand and spoke, voice louder now so everyone heard.
"Listen," he said. "This is not a Court punishment. This is a convergence."
The word made the elders flinch.
"One of the Nine Cataclysm Convergences," the envoy continued. "The Lightning Convergence has begun to stir."
The crowd erupted in fear.
"Nine…?" someone whispered.
"Cataclysm…?" another said, shaking.
The envoy's eyes stayed on Qi Shan Wei. "It begins with a question," he said. "Then it becomes selection."
A Court elder pointed at Shan Wei, voice trembling with hate. "Then let the sky select him to die!"
The envoy's gaze snapped to the elder like a blade. "Be careful," he warned. "The sky heard that."
The elder went pale.
The thunder rolled again.
A lightning line turned—
Not at Shan Wei.
At the elder.
The elder screamed and tried to flee.
Too late.
The lightning touched his shoulder.
He vanished.
The Court platform shook. The remaining elders stumbled back, horrified.
No one spoke for three breaths.
Qi Shan Wei finally looked at the Silent Bell envoy.
"Seven days," he said calmly.
The envoy nodded once.
"Seven days," he confirmed. "Seven answers. Or the world breaks."
Qi Shan Wei's expression did not change.
But the air around him sharpened. Not anger.
Decision.
He turned his head slightly, giving calm commands like a general in war.
"Zhen. Keep the shield moving. Protect civilians if they are close enough."
Zhen answered instantly. "Understood. Expanding safe corridor."
Qi Shan Wei looked at Drakonix. "Do not chase lightning. Let it come."
Drakonix's tail flicked. He looked offended. Then he nodded, proud. "Fine."
Qi Shan Wei looked at Ling Xueyao. "Hold your domain. Do not bloom until I tell you."
Ling Xueyao's breath steadied. "I will hold," she said.
The sky cracked wider.
Then the first true strike came.
A spear of lightning formed above Qi Shan Wei's head, thicker than before, bright enough to turn everything white.
It did not fall.
It descended slowly, like a judge lowering a seal stamp onto paper.
The world went silent.
The lightning touched Qi Shan Wei's aura.
And this time, it did not only test.
It spoke.
Not like a human voice.
Like a sentence pressed into the bones of the world.
A voice that existed between flashes.
Old. Thin. Calm. Unhurried.
"Returning…"
Everyone froze.
The Silent Bell envoy's eyes widened.
The Thousand Masks watchers went stiff.
Even the Court elders stopped breathing.
Qi Shan Wei's golden eyes narrowed slightly.
The voice spoke again, clearer now, still calm, still slow.
"Returning Prismatic One."
The air felt older. The sky felt closer.
Then the voice added one more line, and it landed like a blade.
"Do you remember… the first strike?"
Qi Shan Wei did not answer with fear.
He answered with calm truth.
"I remember enough."
The lightning trembled.
The voice between flashes sounded almost… amused.
Not joking.
Testing.
"Good," it said. "Then walk with me… between strikes."
And the lightning around Qi Shan Wei suddenly changed shape.
It did not explode.
It formed a path.
A thin line of light in the air—like a road made of thunder.
The world stared.
Because everyone could feel it:
A being was awake.
A World Elder.
And it had spoken directly to him.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2026
All rights reserved.