DONG.
The sound didn't come from the battlefield.
It came from time.
It rolled outward through mountains and spirit veins, through sect barriers and city wards, through sleeping beasts and meditating elders—an ancient bell-tone that made the world pause as if it had just heard its own future whispered aloud.
In the ring zone, the sky-eye stuttered—pale-gold light flickering like a candle in a storm.
The True Judge's calm finally sharpened into urgency.
"Seal that word," he snapped.
But the word was already everywhere.
Not in mouths.
In echoes.
In the way the air remembered vibration.
In the way fate-lattices trembled after being struck.
Shan Wei stood with the Heavenpiercer Ruler humming in his grip—Zhen's guardian architecture now embedded into its spine like a second pulse. His brand burned like a star pressed into flesh.
Across from him, the moon-masked girl's outline held—still scraped thin by erasure, but no longer fading. Moonlight clung to her like a returned route refusing to be deleted.
Her eyes—pale moons hiding storms—locked onto Shan Wei.
"You heard it," she said softly.
Shan Wei's jaw tightened.
"I didn't speak it."
Her gaze didn't waver.
"But the world answered."
Behind Shan Wei, Yuerin's Null Page shook, shadow-ink flaking like ash. Drakonix's Monarch Flame bristled, the witness beasts tightening their ring, hackles raised.
And in the center of it all, the Fate-Lock globe—cracked by the spoken name—flickered like shattered glass, trying to re-form a cage around tomorrow.
The True Judge lifted both hands.
"Fine," he said coldly.
"If you want the world to hear…"
His halo rotated into a new alignment.
"Then the world will forget."
1. The Ripple Beyond the Battlefield — Factions Begin Moving
Far away, in places no mortal disciple dared imagine, the bell-echo struck like a signal flare.
Spirit Vein Continent — Rankings Boards
In a grand hall where floating jade tablets listed "most-wanted anomalies" and "genius ascendancy indexes," every tablet flickered at once.
A blank line appeared.
Not a name.
A disturbance.
Then, like ink forced onto paper by an invisible hand, two words tried to form—
…and failed.
The tablets shuddered.
Elders stiffened.
Someone whispered, hoarse:
"A forbidden echo…?"
Heavenly Auction Conclave — Black-Robe Alert
In a sky-vault auction chamber where artifacts slept behind crystal seals, an observation mirror flared and projected a trembling scene of the ring zone—blurred, unstable, yet unmistakable.
A Conclave elder rose slowly.
"Mysterious Black-Robe… puppet architecture… Monarch-class beast…"
His gaze narrowed.
"And a time-bell response."
A single command followed, quiet and absolute:
"Send retrieval envoys."
Thousand Masks Pavilion — A Mask Tilts
In a shadow corridor lined with shifting faces, a watcher in half-mask received the echo like a blade pressed to the throat.
They didn't panic.
They didn't celebrate.
They recorded.
And then they lowered their head just slightly, as if greeting an old legend.
"Xuan-Chi," a voice murmured behind the masks. "So the Returning Thread is real…"
A second voice, colder:
"Confirm identity. Confirm bonds. Confirm the Heart."
Silent Bell Monastery — Time Pool Trembles
In a temple where the air smelled of incense and inevitability, a pool of still water rippled without wind.
A monk opened his eyes.
In the water, the reflection of a young man with silver hair and burning gold eyes flickered—then fractured into seven afterimages.
The monk whispered:
"The Returning Prismatic One… has been heard."
And somewhere deeper, something ancient stirred—relics that had slept too long.
Back in the ring zone, the True Judge's gaze hardened.
"Witnesses are multiplying," he said softly, as if tasting bitterness.
"So we erase witnesses."
2. Witness Purge Protocol — The Tribunal Tries to Delete Memory Itself
The sky-eye rotated into a terrifying configuration.
Not chains.
Not needles.
Not verdict.
A pale-gold rain began to fall—fine, invisible particles of scripture drifting like dust.
Where the dust touched air, the air went briefly dull.
Where it touched stone, the stone lost a hair-thin layer of history.
Where it brushed a beast's fur, the beast's eyes flickered—confused for half a heartbeat—like forgetting why it had been angry.
Shan Wei's stomach tightened.
This wasn't killing.
This was worse.
This was the Tribunal's favorite kind of control:
make the world forget the crime, then punish anyone who remembers it.
The True Judge spoke, voice cold enough to freeze stories.
"WITNESS PURGE PROTOCOL: GRAY SILENCE."
The dust thickened.
The beast ring snarled, shaking heads as if trying to throw off something crawling into their minds.
Yuerin's face went white.
Her Null Page trembled violently—shadow ink spreading, trying to hold memories in place.
"They're… wiping," she hissed.
Drakonix's Monarch Flame flared, angry and sharp.
He roared—not at the Tribunal, but at the beasts.
A command.
A demand.
Remember.
The beasts answered with a howl that shook the valley.
But the pale-gold dust kept falling, soft as mercy, cruel as law.
Shan Wei lifted the Heavenpiercer Ruler, guardian core humming within.
Zhen's embedded architecture pulsed—weak, unstable, but still loyal.
Shan Wei's eyes hardened.
"Not happening."
He slammed the ruler's tip into the ground.
"IMPERIAL GUARDIAN — WITNESS DOME!"
A prismatic-gold barrier expanded outward—not thick, not flashy, but layered with a single purpose:
protect cognition.
Protect the mind's right to hold a memory.
The dust struck the dome and… hesitated.
Not blocked completely.
But slowed, like rain hitting glass.
The True Judge's eyes narrowed sharply.
"That weapon now carries an imperial cognition ward."
Shan Wei's voice was low.
"Yeah."
"And it hates erasers."
The True Judge's halo rotated faster.
"Then we break the dome."
He lifted his hand.
The sky-eye brightened.
A record-severing edge began to descend toward Shan Wei's barrier.
And Shan Wei felt the Heart behind the micro-gate press closer, hungry and amused—
"Heaven deletes… you preserve…"
Shan Wei clenched his jaw.
Stay sealed.
But he couldn't fight everything alone.
So he did what he was born to do—even in a cage of fate.
He commanded.
3. Commander of the Ring — Shan Wei Turns Witness into a Weapon
"Drakonix!" Shan Wei snapped, voice cutting through dust and law.
The cub's head snapped toward him instantly.
Shan Wei pointed—not at the Tribunal.
At the outer ridge.
"Push witnesses outward. Keep at least one ring outside the purge radius."
Drakonix's eyes flared with understanding.
He roared—a Monarch command that rippled through bloodlines.
Half the beasts surged outward immediately, racing to higher ground, spreading in a wide crescent so the purge could not swallow them all at once.
Shan Wei turned to Yuerin, voice sharp but steady.
"Anchor memory to fear."
Yuerin's smile flickered—brittle, dangerous.
"You want me to weaponize trauma?"
Shan Wei didn't flinch.
"I want you to keep the truth alive."
Yuerin's eyes narrowed.
Then she nodded once, jaw tight.
"Fine."
She slammed her palm onto her Null Page.
"SHADOW AUTHORITY—WITNESS BRAND."
Shadow ink surged outward, forming thin black marks in the air—tiny "memory hooks" that latched onto witness minds, beasts, and even distant mirrors.
Not full awakening.
But close enough to make the air shiver.
The Reaper silhouette flickered behind her—watching, hungry.
Yuerin trembled, then forced it back again with a sharp inhale.
"I'm still me," she whispered, almost like a prayer.
Shan Wei shifted.
He glanced at the moon-masked girl.
"Can you bend the purge?"
Her pale eyes held him.
"I can reflect it."
"Then do it."
She stepped forward and lifted her hand.
Moonlight spread like a sheet across the air.
The pale-gold dust struck it—and curved, scattering sideways like rain sliding off an invisible slope.
For the first time, the Witness Purge's perfect coverage broke.
The True Judge's eyes narrowed, anger sharpening.
"You reflect law," he said coldly. "You are still a flaw."
The girl's voice remained calm.
"I am the scar you tried to hide."
Shan Wei's chest tightened as the purge thickened again.
He shifted his stance and extended his palm.
Prismatic glyphs spun into existence—his own invention, formed on instinct.
"LEGEND ANCHOR PILLARS."
Seven small prismatic markers stabbed into the ground around the ring zone, forming a micro-formation that did something the Tribunal hated:
It made events sticky.
Harder to erase.
Harder to forget.
A battlefield that insisted, This happened.
The sky-eye shuddered.
The Quill Sigil Judge's scroll spasmed.
"The record is becoming permanent!"
The True Judge's voice dropped.
"Then we purge harder."
The pale-gold dust thickened into a storm.
The witness beasts howled, some staggering as their eyes glazed—forgetting why they were here, forgetting what they saw.
Shan Wei's teeth clenched.
He felt Xueya's breath behind him—still steady, still unconscious.
He felt Zhen's dormant shell—still standing like a statue, still sacred.
He felt the micro-gate strain—Heart leaning closer, delighted by chaos.
And he felt the world's eyes turning toward them, drawn by bell-echo and legend.
The True Judge raised his hand higher.
"WITNESS PURGE: TOTAL."
The sky-eye brightened.
The dust storm surged.
And Shan Wei knew—if the Tribunal completed this, the name would be buried again, the girl would be erased again, and every witness would become a blank page.
He stepped forward into the storm.
And spoke a line that wasn't power.
It was command.
"Over my dead body."
4. The Moon-Masked Girl Speaks — "You Were the Route They Feared"
The girl's outline flickered under the storm.
Her moonlight field tightened.
She leaned slightly toward Shan Wei, voice low enough only he could hear.
"Do you know why they erased me?"
Shan Wei's golden eyes narrowed.
"Because you interfered."
Her gaze sharpened.
"No."
"Because I remembered a route they couldn't control."
Her fingers trembled faintly as the purge dust scraped at her existence.
"I was your witness once," she whispered.
Shan Wei's breath hitched.
"What?"
Her eyes held him.
"Not Qi Shan Wei."
She didn't say the forbidden name again. She didn't have to.
Her gaze did it.
"You were the route that broke their record. The route that refused to end the way they wrote it."
Shan Wei's brand burned.
Imperial memory pressed behind his eyes like a flood behind cracked stone.
He clenched his jaw.
"I'm not—"
The girl cut him off softly, deadly calm.
"You don't have to remember everything."
"But you need to understand one thing."
She lifted her hand and pointed toward the sky-eye.
"They are not trying to capture you because you are strong."
"They are trying to capture you because you are unfinished."
Shan Wei's throat tightened.
"Unfinished?"
She nodded.
"A prism that hasn't decided what to become."
"And if you decide… their heaven becomes optional."
The words hit Shan Wei like thunder.
The Heart behind the micro-gate laughed softly, pleased—
"Yes… decide…"
Shan Wei snarled under his breath.
Stay sealed.
The girl's eyes flicked to the micro-gate crack, and for the first time her calm faltered—just a hair.
"That thing," she whispered, "wants your decision."
Shan Wei's jaw clenched.
"I know."
The purge storm surged.
The sky-eye brightened.
The True Judge's voice cut through, cold and final.
"Erase the ring. Erase the witnesses. Erase the girl."
Moonlight flared.
Shadow ink flared.
Prismatic glyphs spun.
Drakonix roared.
The battlefield became a war not of blades…
…but of who gets to tell the story.
5. The Tribunal Escalates — "If We Cannot Delete, We Will Kill"
The Witness Purge Protocol faltered—reflections bending it, shadows anchoring memory, prismatic pillars making truth sticky.
The True Judge's eyes narrowed.
He made a decision.
"Then we stop deleting," he said softly.
His halo rotated into a killing configuration.
The Law Severing Blade reappeared in his hand—black edge, pale-gold scripture crawling along its spine.
"If the world refuses to forget…"
His gaze swept over the beasts.
"…then the world will lose witnesses."
Drakonix's flame exploded.
The beasts snarled.
Yuerin's shadow tensed like a blade about to snap.
Shan Wei felt the shift in the True Judge's intent.
A massacre option.
A brute-force containment.
The Tribunal was changing methods.
Shan Wei's eyes went cold.
He lifted the Heavenpiercer Ruler.
The embedded guardian core pulsed again—weak but willing.
"Drakonix," Shan Wei snapped.
The cub turned instantly.
"Protect the witnesses. No retreats. Push them outward and keep them alive."
Drakonix's eyes flared with fierce loyalty.
He roared.
The beasts surged—this time not only as a ring, but as a moving shield wall, forming lanes for escape while snarling at Tribunal enforcers.
A wolf with silver horns leapt at a chain-script spear.
A serpent with lightning scales spat a bolt that shattered pale-gold dust clouds.
The ring zone erupted into open conflict.
And above it all, the sky-eye continued to flicker, trying to stabilize a record that was becoming legend faster than it could be erased.
The True Judge raised his blade.
And then—
the air split.
Not like a tear.
Like a page being turned.
A crack opened in the sky—thin, vertical, shimmering with time distortion.
The Witness Purge dust froze mid-fall.
Even the True Judge's blade paused.
Because the crack wasn't made by formation or flame.
It was made by permission older than the Tribunal.
A figure stepped through.
Not rushing.
Not floating arrogantly.
Walking as if time itself moved aside for them.
A monk in bronze-and-ash robes, face calm, eyes deep like bells heard from far away.
A Silent Bell Monastery envoy.
The moment he arrived, the bell-echo in the distance answered again—faint, like a second heartbeat.
The envoy's gaze swept across the battlefield—Shan Wei, Xueya unconscious, Yuerin bleeding shadow, Zhen's dormant statue, the moon-masked girl's flickering outline, the micro-gate's crimson slit.
Then his eyes settled on Shan Wei.
And he spoke a title Shan Wei had never heard in this life—soft, respectful, terrifying:
"Returning Prismatic One."
Shan Wei's breath caught.
The True Judge's eyes narrowed sharply.
"You dare step into Tribunal procedure."
The envoy's calm gaze didn't change.
"This is no longer procedure," he said quietly.
"This is an echo that has already been heard."
He looked at Shan Wei again, voice gentle as incense smoke—and heavy as fate.
"Xuan-Chi has returned."
Shan Wei's brand burned like a second sun.
The Heart behind the micro-gate purred, satisfied.
"Now the heavens cannot pretend."
The True Judge's halo spun faster, anger sharpening.
"You will hand him over."
The envoy's eyes remained calm.
"No."
He lifted one hand.
And the air filled with a faint bell-tone—not loud, but absolute.
The sky-eye flickered.
The Witness Purge dust trembled.
And Shan Wei realized the nightmare had just evolved again:
A higher authority had arrived.
Not to save him kindly.
But to claim the story.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.