The bells of Star-Signet Academy were much clearer than the ones over Rust Street.
By the third stroke of the Morning Bell, the square in front of the great theology hall was already packed with students. The uniforms were all the same cut and color; only the cuffs and badges on their chests differed—marks of each department. Contract students wore an unseated key. Theology students had a closed ring.
"All first-years, line up by class."
A guidance priest on the platform raised his voice.
"Today we conduct the reading and confirmation of the Basic Divine Covenant."
Qi Luo stood in the middle of the Contract Department's formation, boxed in by classmates all half a head taller than he was.
The sky was overcast.
The mid-tier sky was always a little gray. Today the cloud cover was thicker than usual, like a blanket weighed down just enough to make the city's breathing feel tight. Overhead, the Covenant Chains dimmed a shade under the moving shadows, but did not disappear—if anything, the darker backdrop made them stand out clearer: tier after tier, all of them tied to the Basic Covenant:
[Obedience]
[Taxation]
[Service]
[Confession]
Each word repeated along the links, over and over.
"What are you so tense about?"
Someone bumped his arm. It was his neighbor in the roll call, a dorm mate he'd chatted with a few times.
"It's just the Basic Covenant reading. Not like they're rewriting it."
"First time reciting under this many Chains." Qi Luo forced a smile. "I'm afraid I'll mess up a line."
"Mess up?" The boy shrugged. "It's been carved on your name since you took your first breath. We're just repeating it for show. Even if you choke a word, they're not going to rescript the whole thing for you."
He paused, lowered his voice.
"Though I heard if you deliberately twist the wording, the Chains will yank your tongue out."
A few older students in front—ones who'd done this ceremony already—turned and laughed.
"Relax. Before they yank it, you get one chance to confess."
The laughter rippled through the queue like dust blown on the wind.
Qi Luo didn't laugh.
He tipped his head back, watching as the thick Chain that represented "Academy Student Basic Covenant Confirmation" slowly lit up. From a distance it looked like a branch from the world-scale mainline: one end sunk deep in the temple district, the other hanging in the sky above Star-Signet, coiling into a massive ring over their heads.
"Quiet."
The guidance priest lifted his hand.
Several thin Chains of discipline uncurled and dipped above the crowd, swaying lightly to remind everyone that from this moment on, every word spoken would be recorded.
"The Basic Divine Covenant,"
The presiding professor on the dais began. His voice spread like bell-tones.
"is the set of clauses engraved on every Skycast citizen's name from the moment of birth. Today, for the first time in this academy, you will review and confirm these clauses as adults."
He paused, eyes sweeping the ranks.
"First, each of you will receive a personal copy of your Basic Covenant, as filed with the Covenant Council."
"Take note—mortals may read these copies, but not alter them." He stressed the words.
"Any attempt to change even a single character will be treated as an act of provocation toward the Covenant Chains."
As his voice fell, countless pinpricks of light drifted down from the sky.
Not dust—scrolls of light, each one separating from the mainline, each carrying the imprint of a name. They came to a stop in front of the students, hovering at chest height.
Qi Luo caught one in his hands.
It weighed almost nothing, but there was a faint warmth to the touch. The instant his fingertips brushed it, a fine thread extended from the scroll, looped around his wrist, and burrowed into his chest.
The confirmation link.
"Look to your individual copies," the presiding professor said. "You will first read them silently and confirm that they match your memory. Then I will lead us in reciting them aloud."
The square quieted. Only the soft rustle of unfurling scrolls remained.
Qi Luo lowered his head.
Lines of pale-gold script emerged on the light-scroll, characters neatly written, content so familiar it was almost nauseating—words that had been poured into his ears since childhood:
[Clause One: From this day forth, my Name, witnessed jointly by the gods of Skycast, willingly enters the Basic Divine Covenant of Skycast City.]
[Clause Two: I am willing to fulfill the duty of obedience, abiding by the oracles of the gods and the commands of their agents.]
[Clause Three: I am willing to fulfill the duty of taxation, returning a portion of what I gain to the city's workings and the offerings of the gods.]
[Clause Four: I am willing to fulfill the duty of service, providing labor or military service when the city and gods summon, without betrayal.]
[Clause Five: I am willing to fulfill the duty of confession, admitting my crimes when I err, accepting judgment and purification.]
After each line, dense small print followed—sub-definitions, scope of application, all sorts of exemptions. Most people would only ever remember the bolded words.
Qi Luo's gaze slid down.
To him, the text wasn't just ink. Each character had a thread of its own, rising from the scroll into the air, linking into nodes along the Chains overhead. A bundle of threads rose from his chest as well, meeting the scroll's in midair.
Then his eyes dropped to the line of tiny text beneath Clause One—and his pupils shrank.
That was where the "basic annotations" usually were—too faint for normal people, but plainly legible to him. Things like: [This clause is maintained by the World-Scale Chain: Eternal Obedience branch.]
Now, that entire segment, in his sight, was smothered by a smear of black fog.
Not ink. Not blur.
Fog.
A compact knot of black mist gripped that segment of Chain, swaddling all the characters. He could see the edges of the fog shift slowly, like something alive breathing under a blanket.
Qi Luo blinked.
The scroll itself was still perfectly clear to everyone else. A quick sideways glance at his roommate's copy showed the little annotation on that boy's scroll crisp and sharp:
[This clause is recorded on the World-Scale Covenant Chain: Eternal Obedience branch.]
But in Qi Luo's vision, while everyone else's links showed clearly, his corresponding segment was a solid black blot.
"…?"
Cold crept up from the pit of his stomach to the back of his neck.
He looked up on reflex.
The Basic Covenant mainline still stretched across the sky, thick and steady. But at the segment tied to his name, there was a section visibly darker than the rest. Every other student's thread ran straight into that mainline. His thread, halfway up, was intercepted by something.
The same black fog.
Which meant—
Between him and the Basic Covenant, something invisible was sitting in the middle.
"Qi Luo." His roommate nudged him. "You find a typo on yours or what? You're staring like it's going to bite you."
Qi Luo jerked his attention away from the fog, forcing himself to act as if he were carefully checking the text.
"No… it's nothing." He kept the tightness out of his voice. "Just… first time seeing such a formal copy."
"What's formal about it?" the boy snorted, tapping his scroll. "This crap's been etched on us since our first breath. Who knows how many extra lines they've quietly tacked on."
The offhand joke made the cold in Qi Luo's gut sink another layer.
—He knew.
They could tack on a few extra lines.
"Those who have finished reading, raise your hand," the presiding professor called. "If you have questions, you may ask them now."
Hands went up across the square, but they were for minor things:
"Why is the tax ratio on this edition slightly different from the textbook?"
"Does 'military service' in the service clause include academy training?"
The professor answered each one patiently, tossing in a few light jokes to ease the tension.
Qi Luo didn't raise his hand.
His question wasn't one anyone could answer safely: Why is my segment blacked out? Does that count as a clause error? Who put something between me and the Basic Covenant?
More importantly, asking would mean admitting in front of everyone that he could see what others couldn't.
"Since everyone has confirmed their copies," the presiding professor finally said, "please close them and join me in reciting the Basic Divine Covenant."
Under their fingertips, the light-scrolls folded of their own accord, turning to a soft glow that slipped back into the Chains at their chests.
"Clause One—"
The professor raised his voice. Hundreds of throats answered in unison:
"From this day forth, my Name, witnessed jointly by the gods of Skycast, willingly enters the Basic Divine Covenant of Skycast City."
Qi Luo's lips moved with the rest.
As they spoke, the massive Chain overhead gave a faint shudder. Filaments of light spilled from nodes along its length, flowing down the thin Chains attached to each of them—a "system update."
The light reached Qi Luo's chest and hit the black fog.
"—"
A prickle of pain stabbed out from his sternum, sharp and brief, then something blocked it. The light no longer seeped inward.
The fog gave a soft "breath," holding the light outside as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Clause Two—"
"I am willing to fulfill the duty of obedience, abiding by the oracles of the gods and the commands of their agents."
The voices rolled like surf. The flagstones beneath their feet seemed to hum in sympathy.
Qi Luo's voice tightened.
He could hear the words congealing in the air, dropping from the mainline like rings and slipping over each Name, cinching tighter.
He could see it too—everyone else's Chains taking on new grooves as the fresh script sank in. Only his segment shed the incoming light like oil off lacquer. The glow slid across the fog's shell and spilled away along some unseen route.
"Clause Three—"
"I am willing to fulfill the duty of taxation, returning a portion of what I gain to the city's workings and the offerings of the gods."
The professor went on.
To any outsider, the rite was perfectly normal. No one had their tongue ripped out. No Chain sounded alarm at deliberate tampering.
For Qi Luo, each line made the wrongness in his chest worse.
The black mist felt like an "insulation protocol" being slowly roused—pulling itself tighter around the section that joined him to the Basic Covenant. Not severing it, but capping it: the Chain was still there, but a stretch of it was now sealed in a shell no one could see through.
"Clause Five—"
"I am willing to fulfill the duty of confession, admitting my crimes when I err, accepting judgment and purification."
The final words fell. The glow over their heads slowly faded.
The presiding professor exhaled, smiling.
"Very good. You have completed your first duty as academy students—formal confirmation of the Basic Divine Covenant."
His gaze swept over Qi Luo's direction and paused for a heartbeat.
Qi Luo's heart clenched.
But the moment passed. The look was nothing more than the standard scan over the few lower-tier faces, as if weighing how much "correction" they would require.
"Dismissed," the guidance priest called. "Return to your classrooms and prepare for afternoon lectures."
The crowd dispersed.
Qi Luo realized his back was soaked, as if he'd just been hauled from a river. He didn't linger on the square, letting himself be carried by the flow of bodies toward the classroom blocks.
"Hey." His roommate caught up. "You really didn't look great back there."
"First time being under that many Chains at once." Qi Luo made his mouth move. "Takes getting used to."
"You will." The boy shrugged. "Look at the upper-tiers. They were loving it—probably hoping they'll get a few extra 'noble exemptions' thrown on."
Qi Luo's lips twitched.
Get used to it?
—Get used to the Basic Covenant not reading on him? Or get used to the knot of foreign black mist over his chest?
He said nothing more.
On the walk back from the square, he barely looked up at the Chains, afraid some sensitive monitoring strand would catch his gaze. With his scalp prickling, he did what any ordinary first-year would do—kept his head down, opened his book, and listened to a teacher drone through "academy regulations."
Only once did he glance up.
A crow-like bird skimmed past the window, cutting across the monotone lecture. Wisps of mist clung to its wings—scent of the Abyss.
Qi Luo's head turned of its own accord.
In that one stolen look, far off toward the upper tiers, he thought he saw a black Chain drifting slowly across the sky—one that belonged to no academy clause.
It didn't look like it was "monitoring the campus." It looked like it was hunting for something.
Qi Luo dropped his eyes at once.
Under his shirt, the forbidden sigils over his heart gave a small thump—like a warning: You've been watched enough for one day.
The Night Bell was still a long way off, yet the academy was already quiet.
Star-Signet kept strict time. One hour before Evening Bell, lights in all public teaching areas went out. Only the dorms and a sliver of the library stayed on, dim.
Qi Luo lay on his bunk, listening as his roommates' breathing evened into sleep.
Wind brushed the outer walls, humming softly. Light from the upper tier bled through gaps in the buildings, stretching across the ceiling in long shadows like Chains.
He couldn't sleep.
His mind kept replaying that fog.
It sat between him and the Basic Covenant, hiding a thicker, more complex structure. He couldn't shake the image of a bone wedged halfway down a throat, impossible to swallow or spit out.
"Reverse browsing."
The phrase flicked through his head.
He'd always read other people's clauses from the top down—start at the Covenant Chain, then figure out how to tweak things from the mortal end. Today he'd suddenly realized: he had an original, root-level Chain of his own, running from his Name all the way up into the world-scale clauses.
What if he went the other way, from his end up?
What would he see?
"You're out of your mind," he told himself. "You know that thing isn't to be touched."
But the fog was like a hand scratching at the inside of his skull.
If he didn't look, he wasn't sleeping tonight.
He rolled over, quietly pulled a rag from under his bed, and laid it across his chest to block any stray light that might slip through the window.
Pressing his palm over the cloth, he found the center of his sternum—where the forbidden sigils were carved between bone and flesh. Usually they just hummed with a low warmth. Now they lay still, as if asleep.
"Just a peek," he told himself. "Look, don't touch."
He closed his eyes, drawing his awareness back from the surrounding web of Chains, shrinking it down into his own body, then easing it along the thin line that rose from his chest.
When he looked at other people, he usually "jumped" onto a visible node and then worked outward. Now he chose to start from his own end.
The line in his perception was fine but firm.
It passed through layer after layer of pale-gold membranes—childhood add-on clauses: [Vaccination],[Basic Education],[Restricted from hazardous zones]… and so on.
On most people these were light as dust. On him they felt as if someone had layered them three or four times, but he'd long since gotten used to that.
Higher up were the Basic Covenant branches—taxation, service, confession. Clause after clause, tidy and cold, like unchanging equations.
He skirted them, following obedience upward.
That segment was thicker than the others, grooves deeper—its importance far higher than taxes.
"This is where it should join the world-scale mainline," he counted silently. "Past this… is the fog."
His awareness crept along like someone climbing a staircase with no rail and no visible top.
Suddenly—
Nothing.
Not darkness—absence. Every sense of structure cut off at once. The Chain stopped, yet it wasn't severed. It felt jammed into something indescribable.
Then the fog appeared.
Not a mist in the distance, but a wall right in front of him.
The fog-wall hugged the Chain, ripples rising and falling. Tiny pinpricks of light flowed under its surface—countless commands going in and out, not one legible.
Qi Luo stopped.
The sigils over his heart gave off a low heat, as if they'd noticed him leaning too close to something forbidden.
"Here is far enough," he told himself. "Just see the shape, then back off."
He pushed his awareness forward by a fraction.
The wall didn't slam him out. It dimpled where he touched it, like soft skin pressed by a fingertip.
In the little hollow, a sliver of the inside showed through.
Not characters, not Chains—something deeper, some underlying architecture.
He saw only one shape before it vanished again.
A thick primary line descending from the world-scale mainline, intended to connect directly with the Eternal Obedience branch of the Basic Covenant… only near the mortal end, it had been torn open.
At the tear, the edges were hooked with a fringe of broken script, and between those fragments, stitched into the gap, a tiny symbol flickered:
[Del—]
The glyph flashed only half a character before fog swallowed it.
That instant was enough.
The sigils over his heart detonated.
Qi Luo choked off a scream.
Pain like a nail drove through his sternum, all the way into his spine. Every muscle in his body seized as if a Chain inside him had been yanked, trying to tear him out of his own flesh.
Air vanished. Bed vanished. All he could feel was his consciousness being dragged backward by a colossal force, away from the fog-wall, away from the torn mainline.
"—!"
He opened his mouth and bit down hard on the rag, smothering the howl in his throat.
The dorm stayed quiet.
His roommates' breathing never hitched.
In the middle of the pure, white-hot pain, a sound reached him.
Not through his ears. Through his bones.
It wasn't a human voice, nor like any god-whisper he'd heard. It was more like the crack of a thousand Chains snapping at once, slowed down and stretched into a single, long, drawn-out pronouncement.
"…Unauthorized access detected…"
Something clinical and cold slid along the inside of his sternum like a scanning beam.
"…Key fragment… anomaly detected…"
His mind was so white with pain he barely caught the phrase "key fragment" before another, deeper force pushed down against it.
Abyssal mist.
In that near-death haze, something stranger seeped out from between his bones, crawling slowly up his Chain like ink, trying to push that scanning light back.
Outside the fog-wall, somewhere beyond his reach, a low, blurred chuckle sounded.
"Don't look, child."
That rough, familiar-yet-unfamiliar voice murmured.
"That's for the ones who wrote you to read. Not for you."
Qi Luo tried to speak. No sound came.
His awareness was hauled back and forth between two forces—on one side, the world-scale Chain's cold warning; on the other, a murky protection rising from the Abyss.
Seconds, minutes—he couldn't tell.
The sigils burned like molten iron pressed into his bones, so hot his skin went icy. Sweat poured from his forehead down into his pillow, soaking it through.
At last, the world-level scan withdrew.
"…Temporary masking enacted…"
The final word reverberated faintly through his ribs.
The fog-wall closed again, sealing the torn mainline and the half-seen [Del] under its skin.
The agony didn't vanish. It ebbed from tearing pain to deep, dull throbs rolling out along his ribs, until he could feel the bed beneath him again, feel the cold of the room.
He spat the shredded rag out of his mouth.
Blood tinged the back of his throat.
Outside, the wind rattled the leaves. The dorm was still heavy with sleep.
A roommate rolled over, mumbling something, then settled.
Qi Luo stared at the ceiling.
Sweat trickled from his temples into his ears, cold enough to make him shiver.
In those brief seconds, he had looked up.
What had he seen?
A branch ripped out of the world-scale mainline, hung above the Basic Covenant and never fully reattached. In the gap, a single half-written command:
Del—
Delete who?
Delete what?
"…This is one face of your World Rollback Contract."
A rasp from some distant memory spoke in his mind—he could no longer recall whether Drip-God had said it, or whether it had slipped from some fallen knight's lips.
"You are the vessel for that agreement."
Qi Luo pressed his hand over his chest, fingers still trembling.
He was almost certain that if that Abyssal breath hadn't shoved between him and the scan, the light would have followed his Chain down, tagged him on the spot as an "anomalous key," and triggered some far harsher "cleanup protocol."
He shut his eyes and dragged in a few ragged breaths.
"No more touching it," he told himself. "No more looking up."
But that half a character was lodged like a barb in his thoughts.
Del.
"If necessary, this Name may be deleted at any time."
Suddenly, a line from one of the high-level outlines flashed back—the final clause at the end of the story.
That was supposed to be something very far away.
Now it had stuck a claw out from the fog ahead of schedule.
Outside, something dark slid across the night sky.
In a small house attached to the Covenant Hunters' local post, a black Chain in the "observation" state jumped faintly—as if tugged by some tremor at the root.
Ruan Ji startled awake.
She pressed two fingers to the Chain-plate sewn into the inside of her sleeve, feeling the latest log give off a faint ping.
[Target: Qi Luo]
[Status: Basic Covenant confirmation completed]
[Note: No anomalous fluctuations]
Ruan Ji narrowed her eyes.
"No anomalies?" she repeated under her breath.
Her instincts told her nothing involving him would be that simple.
But if the monitoring Chains reported a calm line, then as far as the system was concerned, Qi Luo's Basic Covenant looked perfectly normal.
"Either they didn't see it," she leaned back in her chair, "or someone got to him first and blurred the picture."
She tilted her head back, eyeing the sky outside—too quiet, even for this hour.
"An unreadable clause," she murmured. "Interesting."
Back in the dorm, Qi Luo's eyes were still open.
In the dark, the forbidden sigils over his heart cooled, like metal fresh from the forge settling back into shape.
Deep within, a filament-thin line poked out for a heartbeat from the edge of the fog-wall, then withdrew.
Like a caged beast testing its claws.