The farther they went down, the less they could hear the bell.
Somewhere around one particular ring of steps, the echo of the third chime simply cut off, as if there were an invisible boundary there—beyond it lay a place even the bell couldn't reach.
The stone steps under Qi Luo's feet grew narrower, older.
The once neat clause-carvings along the walls had turned rough. In some spots only a stroke or two of broken sigils remained, like someone had been in a hurry to keep writing here and had their hand slammed down halfway through.
"How much farther?" Ruan Ji asked.
Her voice sounded especially clear in this stretch of tower.
"Almost there," Qi Luo said.
He wasn't guessing.
In the chain-world, a line marked "abyssal interface" loomed directly ahead.
It wasn't a flat line, but a deep notch cut into the world.
[Abyssal Clocktower · interface layer]
[Note: this is the boundary between the World Base-Covenant and the abyssal mist-sea; the effectiveness of ordinary clauses decreases here.]
"The effectiveness of ordinary clauses decreases," Qi Luo repeated inwardly.
Meaning—down here, the Old Covenant's voice wouldn't carry as far, but other, more primal parts of the world would speak more clearly.
The last few steps were surprisingly gentle.
They turned the final curve and suddenly stepped into open space.
The interior of the Clocktower widened at this level, becoming a round, hollow hall.
There was no stone platform in the center, only a ring of railing that opened outward. Beyond the rail, there was nothing—just a vertical shaft of black.
Black with no mist, no light, no echo.
The abyss.
The true abyss. Not the rolling fog you could glimpse from the city's edge, but the "bottomless" underneath that fog.
From this height, the mist-sea looked like a skin stretched over the abyss, a thin membrane that could be punctured at any moment.
There were no complete clause-carvings on the Clocktower wall at this level. In their place were rings of chaotic writing—some lines had been scrubbed out entirely, leaving only stumps of strokes; some had been violently crossed through, with new words wedged clumsily into the gouges.
These were clauses discarded, rejected, exiled.
They crusted along the wall like a fringe made of mistakes.
"This is where they planned to press you," Ruan Ji said quietly.
You could still faintly see the old setup on the stone—several recesses on the inner side of the rail where some ritual apparatus had once been fixed; a darker circle in the center of the floor, just the right size to hold a stone slab.
The slab was gone.
All that remained was a bare circle of emptiness, glaringly stark.
Qi Luo walked to the rail and looked down into the abyss.
Far out, the mist-sea rolled slowly. Directly beneath their feet, there was only black.
That blackness carried no emotion.
It wasn't the cold of power that clung to the great hall of the temple, nor the mud-and-smoke-soaked darkness of Rust Street's nights.
It was simply a huge blank of "what has not yet been written."
"Qi Luo." Ruan Ji lowered her voice. "What did you come here to do?"
"Confirm something," Qi Luo said.
"Confirm what?"
"Where the world went wrong," he said.
"Whether the error is that we're too loud—or that the recovery plan it wrote for itself is wrong."
"Qi Luo." Ruan Ji frowned. "This isn't somewhere you can just… talk to. It—"
She didn't finish.
Because the light in the hall dimmed for a heartbeat.
It wasn't that any lamp went out. A patch of darkness simply appeared on the wall, where there shouldn't have been one.
At first it looked like nothing more than a stain slightly deeper than the stone around it, the mark damp left after years of seeping.
But as they stood there, the stain slowly bulged outward, as if something on the other side of the wall were pushing through.
The bulge split.
What seeped out of the crack wasn't blood, but strings of ink-black characters.
They had no complete structure, broken into jagged fragments:
[——all names]
[——may be re-]
[——written]
Qi Luo knew what he was looking at.
"The initial draft," he said softly. "What's left of the line 'All names in this world may be rewritten'."
That first sentence that had been sealed, obscured, pinned under Forbidden-Seal Scrolls was showing its torn tail here.
The black characters dripped from the crack and splashed onto the floor—not as liquid, but pooling into a mass of shadowy pulp.
The shadow spread slowly across the stone, cold in a way that didn't belong to any physical thing.
Ruan Ji's hand went to her sword on reflex.
Her hunter badge flashed a hard prompt:
[Detected: unknown anomaly manifesting.]
[Preliminary assessment: neither god nor simple abyssal phenomenon.]
[Tag: ——]
The blank hung for a second before two characters slowly surfaced:
[world fragment.]
"World… fragment?" Ruan Ji repeated under her breath.
Qi Luo wasn't surprised.
He only watched as the puddle of shadow climbed the rail.
It had no fixed shape, shifting with every breath: one moment like a human silhouette, the next like the clause-marks on the Clocktower's outer wall, then like the churn of mist at the abyssal rim.
The one constant was that scraps of torn wording clung to it.
Qi Luo saw "recovery," "contingency," "error handling," "discarded sample," "reload failure" flash and vanish across its surface, like a huge, impatient hand flipping through a stack of files dumped into the recycle bin.
The shadow lifted its "head."
If that slightly more condensed knot of black could be called a head.
It had no face, yet it felt like being watched.
"You finally came, little Key."
The voice rang through the hall, not traveling from any direction, but vibrating at once in the stone, in the mist-sea, and in Qi Luo's sternum.
Qi Luo knew who it was.
Or rather—what.
"Shadow," he said.
The name was more habit than anything.
Back when the Fallen Knights had whispered about their trade in the abyssal pipes, this was what they'd called it.
Now he knew that was just the shape it took when it was seen.
"You didn't crawl out of a pipe crack this time," Qi Luo said. "You came out of the wall."
"Means you're a little freer than back then."
The edge of the shadow rippled, like a laugh.
The sound held none of human delight, only a faint tremor.
"Free?" it echoed, tasting the word as if it were amusing.
"You know what I am."
Not a question. A confirmation.
Qi Luo nodded.
"The piece torn off when the world's clauses went wrong," he said.
"The part of its will that got labeled 'discard,' 'error,' 'should not exist,' and stuffed into the abyss."
"So it wouldn't have to look at it."
The shadow didn't deny it.
It crawled further along the rail, bracing itself upright into a roughly human silhouette.
The outline had no features, yet carried an uncanny familiarity—like the pose of certain gods on mural reliefs, and at the same time like the blurred handwriting the world itself had left along the edge of the master covenant.
"When they wrote the World Recovery Contingency," the shadow said, "a few lines conflicted with that first sentence of the initial draft."
"The self-check module raised a warning."
"It said: 'If executed this way, a large number of names will be reset unjustly.'"
"At that time, the world's memory hadn't decayed this much yet."
"It still hesitated for a moment over the word 'unjust'."
"And afterwards?" Qi Luo asked.
"Afterwards it was persuaded," the shadow said.
Its tone didn't rise or fall, as if stating a fact that should've long been written into history.
"The chief gods showed it some charts and told it——"
"'If we don't recover, the structure will collapse.'"
"'Sacrificing a few now will save the many later.'"
"The world was comforted by that argument."
"Then it picked a Key."
"Tore off a portion of that first draft sentence and threw it into the abyss."
Qi Luo's brow twitched.
"Which part did it tear off?" he asked.
The shadow raised a "hand."
Its fingertips were built from fragmentary characters—"all," "names," "re-," "written" swapping places across the joints.
"'May be rewritten'," the shadow said slowly.
"It kept 'all names'."
"Forgot the latter half."
"Or rather—it treated that half as an error and threw it away."
"And then it dropped this chunk of mistaken will down here."
"You're that chunk," Qi Luo murmured.
"The part of it that still wanted to acknowledge that all names may be rewritten, processed by itself as an error-removal remnant."
"So you're not its enemy."
"You're its… regret."
The shadow stilled.
"You're always trying to give people the best possible name," it said softly. "Even the world."
"'Regret'—that's a good one."
It shivered, half-laugh, half the twitch of a shade.
"Then that night, when you made a deal with the Fallen Knights in the abyssal pipes," Qi Luo said, "in what capacity were you speaking?"
"In the name of an 'error-handling module'," the shadow replied.
"By the world's own algorithm, what they did that night should have been erased on the spot."
"I wrote them an atonement clause instead."
"I traded years of buffer-layer duties for the chance to let them run off with you."
"The world agreed?" Qi Luo asked.
"It was busy with other things," the shadow said. "Didn't plan on spending much processing power on a few small violations."
"It thought, in any case, there was a recovery plan."
"That once the button was pressed someday, everything would be clean."
"So you persuaded it too," Qi Luo said.
"You two packaged that night's mistake as 'buffer'. "
"I did not persuade," the shadow corrected. "I merely exploited its laziness."
"By then it had already learned to push errors into a folder labeled 'later'."
"The recovery plan is its biggest 'later'."
Qi Luo's chest tightened.
He suddenly thought—
Back then, the world still retained some awareness of "all names may be rewritten," which was why it hesitated, why it self-checked.
Now that piece had been ripped off and shoved into the abyss, leaving a colder structure running up top.
"What do you want?" Qi Luo asked.
"You didn't call me here just to rake through its old sins."
"A bargain," the shadow said.
Its outline tilted forward slightly.
Black mist climbed up its edges, like countless small hands clutching at it.
"The first time we met, you couldn't talk yet."
"When I told you 'don't be afraid' that night, I was actually asking if you wanted to make a deal."
"Of course you didn't understand."
"So I went to the Fallen Knights instead."
"They traded their atonement years for your 'unfinished process'."
"You didn't sign that one."
"Today, I've come to have you sign."
The erroneous clauses on the wall all fell silent, like a crowd of onlookers cut off mid-whisper.
"What do you want me to sign?" Qi Luo asked.
The shadow extended that hand of characters.
Black mist gathered at its fingertips, knitting itself into a simplified clause frame.
[Draft · Transaction Clause]
[Party A: fragment of the world's will (the Shadow).]
[Party B: carrier Key · Qi Luo.]
[Content:]
[1. Party A will assist in restoring full execution authority to the World Recovery Contingency, clearing all obstacles and ensuring that the world smoothly rolls back to the Initial Version.]
[2. Party B agrees to act as the carrier and complete the recovery process, returning the world to a state before error.]
[3. Once rollback is complete, all names and fragments that suffered injustice due to erroneous clauses shall restart in the new world in a state of "never having been hurt".]
"What are you selling me?" Qi Luo laughed under his breath.
"I'm selling 'every mistake can be redone'," the shadow said.
"You've seen the names wrapped around the Clocktower."
"They were written wrong, sacrificed, treated as noise."
"After rollback, they'll be as if they were never written wrong."
"No Purified cities. No test-run wars. No gods or mortals forced into humiliating covenants."
"The world will have a clean Initial Version."
"All names can be written anew."
"Isn't that what you want?"
Qi Luo closed his eyes.
On the back of his mind, the remnant names outside the tower flashed by at speed.
He'd seen them drifting in the mist, whispering that they wanted to be remembered, to start over.
The Shadow's temptation was near-perfect: press the recovery button, wipe all mistakes, erase all wounds.
At what price?
He opened his eyes.
"You said 'Initial Version'," Qi Luo said. "Which version?"
"When Skycast City first rose into place?"
"Or further back—before divine authority stratified the world?"
The shadow simply watched him—or rather, the movements on its surface went still.
"You know too much," it said quietly.
"The contingency only says 'return to a stable version,' not 'return to the best version'," Qi Luo said.
"And the 'Initial' you just said—if we look at how it's actually written, I'd bet it's more like 'a version that's convenient to manage'."
"One where divine authority is even more concentrated, where mortals find it even harder to resist."
"You'd help it wash away all those Human Clauses you forced into existence."
The shadow didn't deny it right away.
Its outline sank a shade deeper.
"You've read the Forbidden-Seal Scrolls," it said. "You know the world's trend—stability matters more than fairness to it."
"Rollback will indeed revert things to a 'convenient to run' state."
"Those new covenant leanings you've etched in, the Human Clauses you forced gods to sign, will be treated as errors and cleared."
"But—"
It slowly raised that hand again, the fingertip characters rearranging:
[Any who have been harmed by erroneous clauses shall be harmed no more.]
"This line is true," the shadow said.
"They won't remember being used as samples."
"Won't remember being slaughtered in Purifications, erased in test-runs, or forced into degrading covenants."
"They'll wake in a world where none of it ever happened."
"You want to give them a new world."
"I'm offering you an old world with none of those wounds."
"You just have to press."
Qi Luo suddenly felt like laughing.
"You're very honest," he said.
"You're telling me to my face that everything I've done all these years is an 'error' in your plan."
"And you want me to help scrub those errors."
"Including myself."
The shadow neither admitted nor denied.
"You're a Key," it said.
"Keys are meant to be used and then discarded."
"That's how the Recovery Contingency defines you."
"If you agree to this deal——"
"The moment rollback completes, you'll be erased from all rosters."
"Even I won't remember you."
"The world will pick a new Key."
"Or maybe it won't need any Keys anymore—just run clean on a simpler set of rules."
"Then why let me off the slab back then?" Ruan Ji couldn't hold back.
"Why not press early?"
"Why let him grow up, rebel, then come and ask again 'do you want the rollback'?"
The shadow's edges quivered like water.
"Because back then, the world wasn't sure whether you all were truly 'errors that must be cleared'," it said.
"That first draft line 'All names may be rewritten' was still there."
"The world was curious—if you gave the Key some time to run wild inside the current clauses, might it stumble into a better structure?"
"So it let you off the slab."
"Not out of mercy."
"It used you as a measuring pen."
"To see whether your scribbles on the Old Covenant lightened the load at all."
"And?" Qi Luo asked.
The shadow paused.
"You did lighten the load in some places," it said.
"You lowered the death rate in some districts. You made some gods default less often."
"You forced through a precedent of 'gods signing for mortals'."
"But you also let a lot of people learn about the recovery plan, sent the noise index spiking."
"You wielded this Key too sharply."
"So sharply that the world began to think——"
"——using you as a pen was more dangerous than using you as a button."
"So it chose to press," Qi Luo said.
The shadow didn't reply. It didn't need to.
The Forbidden Scrolls had already given the verdict.
"And now you're here to ask me," Qi Luo said.
"Ask whether I'll help it finish the press."
"Help it return to a version without all this noise."
"Help it forget that it ever wrote 'All names may be rewritten'."
"You aren't it," he said, looking at the shadow. "You're the part that was torn off."
"Why are you trying to finish the rollback for it?"
The shadow's outline tightened.
"Because if we roll back, it's as if none of the errors ever happened," it said.
"Including the cut that tore me off."
"In the new version, the world will be without a Shadow."
"That is its wish."
"And part of mine."
Qi Luo frowned.
"You want to die?" he asked.
"Not exist," the shadow corrected.
"'Die' is for those who have names."
"I was never meant to exist like this."
"I'm its lesion."
"After rollback, I'll return to its body and become a sentence in the initial draft that's never been torn."
"An 'All names may be rewritten' that was never ripped apart?" Qi Luo asked.
The shadow paused.
"Perhaps," it said.
"At least the possibility is there."
"You mortals enjoy gambling."
"This is the table I can lay out for you."
Qi Luo's mind churned.
Above, the world was running its cold recovery plan.
Down here, it had hidden its own regret.
—The Shadow wanted to use the rollback to send itself back up,
—to give everyone hurt by erroneous clauses a state of "never hurt,"
—at the cost of wiping every act of resistance, every new clause written since.
Including him.
"And if I refuse?" Qi Luo asked.
"If I don't press."
"If I don't let the world use rollback as an excuse for its mistakes."
The shadow's outline blurred a little.
High above, the Iron Law of the Night Bell was still in effect.
The echo of the chime had faded, but the characters still glowed on the stone.
[World Recovery Contingency: suspended.]
[Major violation handling: in progress.]
Up there, the world was busy stitching the buffer-layer the Fallen Knights had burned through, too occupied to press the button right away.
That sliver of time had been bought by violation.
Qi Luo knew he could say "no" now only because someone had already burned through their "yes."
"If you refuse," the shadow said.
Its voice dropped, weighed down by something hard to name.
"The world won't collapse immediately."
"Don't overestimate its fragility."
"You cancel the rollback, you'll at most make it more tired, noisier, full of wider cracks."
"It can hold out a long time."
"Decades, centuries, maybe millennia."
"During that time——"
"You can do what you want: gather the gods, convene a New Covenant Council, write 'basic human rights' into the master covenant."
"You can force it to admit mortals are no longer just parameters."
"You can write those sacrificed by the Old Covenant back in, one by one."
Qi Luo held his breath.
It sounded exactly like what he wanted.
"Sounds great," he said quietly.
"And then?"
The shadow extended that hand of characters and traced a line.
This time, the words didn't appear on stone or mist.
They sank straight into the depths of Qi Luo's chest—into the deepest layer of the Key-Sigil.
[Cost of the New Covenant:]
[If the current world structure attempts to rewrite the master covenant without using rollback, the cost shall be borne by the carrier Key.]
[Form: all 'responsibility' and 'reparation' for errors of the Old Covenant that would have been handled by rollback shall be aggregated onto the Key.]
[At the moment the New Covenant is established, the Key's name may be deleted by the world at any necessary time to prevent structural collapse.]
Qi Luo's heart clenched.
The line wasn't just information, but a thin wound.
It scored a groove along the inside of his sternum and etched in those four words: "cost of the New Covenant."
"What does that mean?" Ruan Ji demanded.
She couldn't see the characters carved into him, but she felt his whole body jolt as if struck.
"It means——" the shadow said slowly.
"If you don't roll back, and instead brute-force a new master covenant into the old world."
"Then all the Old Covenant's errors—all the costs that were 'supposed' to be handled by rollback—have nowhere to go."
"The cities sacrificed, the erased names, the gods wiped as noise…"
"Their 'compensation,' their 'balance,' their 'account'—someone has to carry it."
"The world won't."
"The gods won't."
"Mortals can't."
"That leaves you—the Key."
"You'll become the New Covenant's 'total compensation term'."
"When you finally write the New Covenant up,"
"the world will put one line at the bottom of its ledger——"
"'If necessary, this name may be deleted at any time to offset unresolved error cost.'"
Qi Luo's breathing shattered for a moment.
That one line——"this name may be deleted at any time."
Like a cold nail, hammered in advance into his bones.
He suddenly understood where a hazy phrase he'd glimpsed on old scraps in the future would come from—
Not written by the world.
Written by his own hand.
And now, the shadow was laying that future price out on the table before him.
"You're not threatening me," Qi Luo rasped. "You're showing me the bill."
"I'm only writing your two roads clearly," the shadow said.
"Road One: rollback."
"The world hits the button, all errors zeroed, all wounds never happened, you vanish, and maybe some form of New Covenant appears in a cleaner version someday—maybe not."
"You gamble on the world 'regretting its ways' after it returns."
"Road Two: refuse rollback."
"You rewrite the master covenant on this torn page, force the old world to admit it was wrong."
"You write restitution and rights for those sacrificed by the Old Covenant, line by line."
"They stop being treated as noise."
"But all of that—"
"—the world will log as 'New Covenant cost' under your name."
"In future, whenever it needs to steady some unstable patch, its first thought will be to delete you."
"You'll become this world's temporary administrator."
"An administrator who can delete others—and be deleted."
The air in the hall pressed down, heavy enough to choke.
Ruan Ji finally couldn't stay silent. "Who decided the New Covenant's cost has to be his?"
"The world," the shadow said.
"It's the base layer of this system."
"Whatever you carve on top, as long as you don't tear the root, it can simulate most of it."
"The recovery plan is a tool it wrote to wipe itself clean."
"The New Covenant… if it ever gets written,"
"will be its first admission that mortals have a right to help rewrite."
"It won't admit that for free."
"It will add a line at the very bottom: 'The cost of the New Covenant shall be borne by the Key.'"
"Then why tell him ahead of time?" Ruan Ji pressed.
"If you want this deal, wouldn't it be easier to hide the cost?"
The shadow went quiet for a moment.
The erroneous clauses on the wall seemed to hold their breath.
"Because I am an error," it said.
"When I was torn off, it was because the world wouldn't face its own cost."
"I don't intend to lie for it again."
"You could say I'm——"
"——giving myself a chance to become a true 'all names may be rewritten'."
Qi Luo studied it.
The shadow had no face, but there was a strange kind of honesty about it.
Honest to the point of cruelty.
"So, two roads," he summed up.
"Either hit the recovery button—everything starts over, I disappear, and the world maybe ends up cleaner but not necessarily better."
"Or refuse, and brute-force the New Covenant into the old world, haggle on behalf of every name the Old Covenant sacrificed."
"And write the full account under my name."
"Let the world steady itself anytime by 'deleting the Key'."
"That about right?"
The shadow nodded.
"You have a third choice," it added.
"You can choose nothing."
"Neither rollback nor rewrite."
"Do as so many gods and mortals have—hear all this and pretend you didn't."
"Keep squeezing by in the cracks of the Old Covenant, wait until the world gets too lazy to patch anything and lets it all collapse on its own."
"That way, you live longer."
"Only—every day you live will be standing on the shoulders of those names outside the tower."
"They'll keep whispering in the mist."
"Asking why you stood here once at the base of the Clocktower, heard them, and turned your back."
Qi Luo said nothing.
The bottom of the tower was so quiet it was frightening.
He could hear his own heartbeat knocking against that line—"cost of the New Covenant"—like on an unfinished headstone.
"I won't pick the third," he said at last.
"That's the world's default, not the Key's."
"When the world's lazy, it writes recovery plans."
"When the Key's lazy, he hides in the gaps, curses the gods, and keeps tweaking small covenants for people."
"I've cursed enough this life."
He looked up at the shadow.
"You knew I'd refuse rollback," Qi Luo said.
"So why bother with the speech?"
The shadow didn't answer at once.
Its outline leaned in the abyss-wind like some nerve hidden behind a massive structure.
"The world wants you to choose rollback," it said.
"The abyss wants you to choose nothing and let it all fall."
"I… want you to choose after you know the cost."
"If you refuse rollback, the first line of the New Covenant will be written in blood."
"You need to know whose blood."
"Otherwise—you'll write it wrong."
Qi Luo let out a short breath of laughter.
"You're afraid I'll mess it up?" he asked.
"You just called yourself an error."
"Precisely because I know how much errors hurt," the shadow said softly.
"I don't want the New Covenant to write itself dead on day one."
"If you don't know the cost,"
"you'll write 'the world owes you,' instead of 'the world owes every name sacrificed by the Old Covenant.'"
"Then the New Covenant will just become your personal revenge script."
"The world will find a respectable reason to delete you in no time."
"And then pick the next Key."
Qi Luo fell silent.
The words were blunt knives, prying open feelings he hadn't wanted to look at even himself.
—Yes, he wanted revenge.
—He wanted the world to admit it was wrong.
—He wanted the temple on its knees reading out contrition for those "Purified."
Without a cost constraint, those desires would easily twist the New Covenant sideways.
"You're not on the world's side," Qi Luo said. "You're not on ours either."
"You're on the side of error."
The shadow laughed.
"Error needs someone too," it said.
"Now you know."
"Rollback: the errors seem to vanish, but the world doesn't necessarily learn."
"New Covenant: errors are recorded, and someone pays."
"The Key—do you want to be the one carrying the bill?"
Qi Luo's fists clenched, knuckles white.
Ruan Ji's fingers still clamped around his wrist, iron-tight.
She didn't answer for him.
This was the Key's choice.
Qi Luo closed his eyes and let out a long breath.
"I crawled from Rust Street to Star-Signet Academy, from small churches rewriting loan covenants to forcing gods to sign Human Clauses."
"I didn't do all that just to give the world a convenient reset button."
"You didn't ask a single person used as a sample when you wrote the recovery plan."
"At least you're asking me now."
"So here's my answer——"
He opened his eyes and fixed them on the ever-shifting black.
"I refuse rollback."
The hall seemed to drop another degree.
The erroneous clauses on the wall shuddered together, like someone had knocked their frames in the distance.
The abyssal mist gave a faint churn.
The shadow was unsurprised.
It simply reached out and folded the "Draft · Transaction Clause" away.
The characters that said "recovery" and "Initial Version" tore, curl by curl, and sank back into its body.
"That deal's void," it said.
"The world will be displeased."
"It's used to handling everything unpleasant with rollback."
"Your refusal will tire it."
"I've been tiring it for a long time," Qi Luo said.
"Ever since the day I rewrote a vendor's first loan covenant in Rust Street."
"Then you need to understand," the shadow said, pointing at his chest,
"this New Covenant bill——"
"——is already written into you."
"You turned back today and saw those lost souls, those names torn by the Old Covenant."
"You refused to soothe yourself with 'they can start over'."
"From now on, every Human Clause you write into the New Covenant, the world will shave a slice of stability off you."
"When it's shaved enough, it will ask itself——"
"'If I delete this Key, would things get easier?'"
"You have to finish writing the New Covenant before that moment."
"Write it solid enough that——"
"——even if it deletes you, it'll feel ashamed to press rollback again."
Qi Luo gave a tired, oddly light laugh.
"Is this your way of chasing my word count?" he asked.
The shadow seemed to smile too.
"You could put it that way," it said.
"Haven't you always said——"
"'If the world treats me as a tool, I'll treat the world as a manuscript'?"
"Here's your paper."
"The pen is in your hand."
"And the cost is in your bones."
Ruan Ji finally spoke up: "You just said 'the world will be displeased'."
"What about you?"
"Which do you want him to pick?"
For once, the shadow was silent for several breaths.
The erroneous clauses on the wall glowed faintly, then dimmed again.
"I hope——" it said slowly,
"that someday I can return to the world's page as something other than an 'error fragment'."
"Not as part of the recovery plan."
"But as the first line of the New Covenant."
"'All names may be rewritten.'"
When it spoke the sentence this time, the characters were whole, not torn.
The "cost of the New Covenant" carved in Qi Luo's chest gave a little tremor.
The Key-Sigil flared as if tapped by a metal pen.
"Then you'll help me?" Qi Luo asked.
"Help me write that first line into the master covenant."
"I'll be on the abyss side, biting the Old Covenant's heel," the shadow said.
"When you write upward, the Old Covenant will want to kick you off."
"I'll keep its footing unsteady."
"The world will hesitate between two kinds of pain—the pain of rollback, and the pain of admitting it was wrong."
"You have to seize that moment of hesitation."
"And write the New Covenant in."
"And after that?" Qi Luo asked.
"After that——" the shadow's outline began to unravel.
The characters of error that made up its body dropped free and crawled back into the cracks of the wall, like worms that'd slipped out for air and returned to their warm rot.
"After that, the cost starts tallying," it said.
"You'll feel it."
"Every life you save, every clause you rewrite, every time you force a god to kneel and read a name correctly—"
"that line in your bones, 'this name may be deleted', will cut a little deeper."
"That's the price for turning back on their behalf."
"You can curse."
"You can pound that line with a knife at night, curse the world, curse me, curse the temple."
"As long as you keep writing by day."
"That's enough."
The last trace of the shadow vanished over the lip of the abyss.
The hall once more held only the black below and the scars of wrong clauses on the wall.
From higher up in the tower came the faint clatter of chains.
The world was recovering from the Fallen Knights' violation and the chaos in the great hall, recomputing its procedures.
[World Recovery Contingency: suspended status unchanged.]
[Major violation handling: entering wrap-up phase.]
[Carrier · Qi Luo: status——pending recovery (suspended), additional tag: New Covenant cost node.]
The cold script flickered deep in Qi Luo's field of vision.
He looked up at the empty ring in the floor where the slab had once stood.
"You've chosen," Ruan Ji said.
Her voice was soft, but crystal clear.
"You refused rollback."
"You're planning to carry the New Covenant."
Qi Luo turned to her.
Her hunter badge was cold as stone; the chain across her chest trembled faintly.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"Of what?" Ruan Ji shot back.
"Of the day the world decides you're too expensive and deletes you."
Qi Luo thought a moment.
"Yes," he said.
"But I'm more afraid of those names around the Clocktower never finding anywhere to go."
"They've already told me what they want."
"I turned back. I have to own it."
He placed his palm on the wall of the Clocktower.
Beneath his fingertips were the scars of scrubbed-out clauses.
"From today on," Qi Luo said quietly, "I'm not looking back on the world's behalf."
"I'm looking back for them."
"I'll live as long as it takes to write the New Covenant."
"Until I finish writing 'All names may be rewritten.'"
"And then write 'This name may be deleted at any time.'"
"You really plan to write that one yourself?" Ruan Ji asked.
Qi Luo smiled.
"If I don't," he said, "the world will."
"I'd rather choose the words myself."
The abyss stayed as silent as ever.
The base of the Clocktower sank back into stillness.
Only the line carved in Qi Luo's sternum glimmered faintly with each heartbeat, then dimmed again.
—That was the cost of the New Covenant.
And the first line of him, as a Key, truly beginning.