The moment the forbidden title whispered through the Memory Sea, the world seemed to hold its breath.
PRISMATIC ASCENDANT.
Qi Shan Wei stood on the edge of deletion, holding two gate keys like stolen stars. Seven colors were now leaking through the skin of his arms and neck, thin cracks of light that looked like a prism trying to break out of a cage.
His face stayed calm.
But inside his body, a storm was rising.
The Silent Bell Judge lifted its hand.
The Name-Deletion crown dropped again—fast, cold, certain.
Shan Wei did not dodge.
He did not retreat.
He inhaled slowly.
Not as a man.
As a cultivator taking a first breath of a new life.
That breath pulled the seven colors inward.
Then they exploded outward in a controlled wave.
Prismatic Overdrive — First Breath.
For one heartbeat, Shan Wei's body became a living prism.
Crimson fire flickered along his veins. Golden lightning ran under his skin like a net. Dark void energy sat behind his eyes like a deep night sky. The air around him cracked. The sea below him trembled.
But Shan Wei's control was perfect.
He did not let the wave spread.
He folded it back in, like a king closing a door.
The Judge's crown hit the prismatic aura—
And slowed.
Not stopped.
Slowed.
Because deletion was a higher law.
But prismatic force was a multi-law existence. It did not break the crown. It made the crown explain itself.
The crown's chains trembled, trying to decide what Shan Wei was.
The Judge spoke.
"Illegal awakening."
Shan Wei's voice was steady.
"I am alive," he said. "That is enough."
The Judge stepped forward again.
The blank deletion field under its feet spread wider, turning the Memory Sea into a clean, white page wherever it touched. The field crawled toward Shan Wei like snow that erased footprints.
The Warden watched with bright eyes, whispering.
"Now we see if your Overdrive is real… or just a pretty flare."
Shan Wei ignored it.
He could feel the Name River behind him, roaring with lantern names. He could feel the river's fear too.
If he unleashed too much, he could burn the names.
If he held back too much, he would be erased.
So he made the only choice that fit his nature.
A balance.
He lifted his ruler, and the primordial runes on it pulsed with his heartbeat.
He spoke a simple command.
"Overdrive… Seal Pattern."
Seven colors snapped into place around him—not wild, but shaped into rings. The rings became a tight armor of prismatic law, layered like a fortress.
Prismatic Overdrive — Controlled Shell.
Now the deletion field touched his stance.
And for a breath, it could not erase it.
The field hissed like a blade scraping stone.
The Judge's bell mask tilted slightly.
Then it raised both hands.
The Judge did not throw lines now.
It spoke a sentence.
A sentence meant for systems.
A sentence meant for the world itself.
"Verdict: Name removed from return list."
The words stabbed into the Memory Sea.
Shan Wei felt his Name Anchor rings scream.
A hidden list in reality—something like a "door of return"—was being rewritten.
If the Judge finished, Shan Wei might never be able to go back to his body.
He could win here and still lose forever.
Shan Wei's eyes sharpened.
He raised the two keys at once and pressed them into his rings.
CLICK. CLICK.
The Name River surged so hard that the lantern names rose like a storm of lights.
Shan Wei whispered, cold and clean.
"Open the path that was stolen."
He used the keys not as weapons—
But as access.
A thin seam appeared in the sea, like a hidden zipper made of bell symbols. It ran along the water's surface, pointing toward a deeper part of the Memory Sea where darker currents spun.
A hidden route.
A secret channel.
The Warden's smile widened.
"That's it," it whispered. "That's where the Court keeps what it stole."
The Judge saw the seam too.
Its mask turned.
Its voice became sharper.
"Unauthorized access."
Shan Wei moved instantly.
Not to fight the Judge.
To pass it.
His Overdrive shell flared, and he stepped into the seam.
The seam opened like a mouth.
He entered—
And the Memory Sea changed.
The water became darker.
Heavier.
The lantern names were fewer here, but louder. They felt older. More painful.
The air tasted like broken vows.
In the distance, six giant threads hung in the void like ropes made of light.
They were not connected to bodies.
They were tied to fate.
Six threads.
Six consort threads.
But they were not clean.
They were wrapped in bell chains.
Locked.
Sealed.
And above them, a massive bell symbol spun like a ceiling.
Shan Wei's heart struck once, hard.
His eyes stayed calm.
But his fingers tightened on the ruler.
He had found them.
Then the space shook.
A bell sound rolled through the hidden channel.
The Judge had followed.
Its blank field poured in behind it like white ink, trying to erase the secret room itself.
The Judge spoke, colder than before.
"Return Chamber: True Form."
The space behind Shan Wei opened like a wall turning into a door.
A real Bell Chamber appeared.
Not a circle.
A room.
A giant hollow bell made of law.
Inside that bell, everything was clean.
No formations.
No keys.
No tricks.
Only judgment.
The bell mouth widened, trying to swallow Shan Wei whole.
Outside, in the real ruin, Xuan Chi's Lunar Frost Domain flickered again.
Her knees hit the ground. Her hands shook violently. Frost blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
But she forced her palm up again, whispering through pain.
"Hold… one… more… breath…"
The seal lines above froze for a heartbeat longer.
Then cracks spread in her meridians like ice splitting stone.
She gasped.
Her moon outline behind her brightened—
And threatened to fully awaken by force.
Elsewhere, Yin Yuerin's duel turned vicious.
The mouthless masked killer moved with strange freedom, like nothing it did would ever be punished.
The "no karmic debt" clause was feeding it.
Yuerin's shadow steps flashed.
Her eyes were cold now.
She whispered a name that sounded like a secret.
"Second Mask…"
Her shadow split.
Not two.
Not ten.
A sharp number.
Ninety-nine.
Shadow Authority — 99 Clones (Seed Form).
The hallway filled with Yuerins.
The killer froze for a breath.
Then it laughed.
"So you kept Pavilion training," it whispered.
Yuerin smiled softly.
"I kept what mattered," she said. "And I cut what didn't."
She struck.
Not loud.
Not messy.
One clean shadow spike through the killer's wrist mark.
The clause mark flickered.
For the first time, the killer's "free kill" power shook.
Back near the cocoon, Zhen's fracture line glowed like a dying sun.
His voice stayed blunt, but slower now.
"CORE… WARNING… CRITICAL."
Name Vault Mode still held.
Mei Yulan's thread stayed safe inside his chest.
But Zhen's body was starting to fail.
He looked toward Shan Wei's direction, as if he could sense him through the laws.
Then Zhen spoke one simple statement.
"IF I BREAK… THREAD WILL DROP."
He paused.
"CHOOSING… SELF-DESTRUCTION… IS ACCEPTABLE."
A strange silence hit the air.
Even the nearby guards felt cold hearing it.
Drakonix's cocoon pulsed again.
A brighter wing outline appeared.
Then the cocoon flame spat a thin prismatic tongue into the air and touched the Bell dome above the ruin.
The tongue did not burn stone.
It burned the seal symbols.
The bell symbols turned black and flaked away like dead leaves.
The Silent Bell monk watching outside stiffened.
"No…" he whispered, fear finally showing. "He is burning the Court's writing."
Inside the hidden channel, Shan Wei faced the bell chamber mouth.
The Judge stood behind it, hands raised, mask crack wider now.
"Enter," it said.
Shan Wei did not answer.
He took a slow breath.
His Overdrive shell tightened.
Seven colors circled his body like a crown of controlled destruction.
Then Shan Wei lifted the ruler and pointed it at the bell chamber.
His voice was calm.
"I will not enter your cage," he said.
The Judge spoke.
"Then be erased outside it."
The bell chamber mouth widened again.
It pulled at Shan Wei's body like a storm pulling a leaf.
The six consort threads trembled behind him, as if they sensed danger and wanted to run.
Shan Wei made a choice.
Not wild power.
Not fear.
A precise, emperor-like strike.
He traced one prismatic glyph in the air.
A single word of his own.
A rule made by his own will.
FATE SEVERANCE — FIRST CUT (SEED FORM).
The ruler flashed.
A thin prismatic line sliced through the air and touched the bell chamber's pulling force.
The pulling force did not shatter.
But it split.
Like a rope being cut.
The bell chamber mouth jerked.
The Judge's mask crack widened sharply.
The Judge took its first real step backward.
And in that moment, the hidden channel shook.
Because Shan Wei had done something forbidden.
He had used prismatic will to cut a system pull.
The six consort threads reacted.
They flared brightly.
One of them—cold, pale, and sharp like moonlight—jumped toward Shan Wei's chest, as if it recognized him.
Shan Wei's Heart ring slammed.
The thread touched his aura—
And the Memory Sea screamed.
A new bell sound exploded above.
Not the Judge's.
A deeper bell.
A true Court bell.
A signal that reached across realms.
"INTRUSION CONFIRMED."
The Judge's voice turned low.
"Now the Court will send… more."
Shan Wei's eyes stayed calm.
He tightened his grip.
He looked at the six threads.
Then at the bell chamber.
Then at the Judge.
His voice was cold and steady.
"Let them come," he said.
Because the first breath of Overdrive had already opened the door.
And now, the war over stolen bonds had truly begun.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.