The Bell Coffin fell faster.
It was not falling like a rock.
It was falling like a judgment—clean, quiet, and sure that the world would move out of its way.
The bell line aimed at Qi Shan Wei's throat flashed forward at the same time, thin and sharp, like a rule trying to end a sentence.
Shan Wei did not flinch.
His seven colors rose behind his prismatic shell like a storm trapped inside glass. His golden eyes stayed steady. His face stayed calm, serious, and cold like an emperor looking down at an executioner.
He did not shout.
He did not beg.
He only made one choice.
He moved the Heavenpiercer Ruler a finger's width, turning the bell line's path.
The line that should have cut his throat slid instead toward his shoulder.
It struck.
A clean pain snapped through his body, fast and bright. The bell line did not cut like a normal blade. It tried to erase what it touched.
Shan Wei's robe tore at the shoulder, and a thin streak of blood appeared—dark at first, then shimmering with faint prismatic light.
He breathed in once.
Then he spoke in a quiet voice that carried more pressure than any scream.
"Not my throat."
The envoy's eyes hardened.
"You would rather bleed than bow," the envoy said.
Shan Wei answered without heat. "I would rather bleed than let you touch the Name River."
Above them, the Bell Coffin's shadow swallowed the hidden channel's light.
The Warden leaned forward, eyes bright with hunger.
The Silent Bell Judge did not move, but the crack in its mask widened like a smile.
The coffin slammed down.
The impact did not make a loud boom.
It made a sound like a world being sealed.
A thick wave of clean-law pressure burst out, washing across the Name River lanterns behind Shan Wei. Thousands of names flickered in fear, their tiny lights shaking like candles in a storm.
Shan Wei's prismatic shell flared wide.
A barrier ring expanded from his feet—tight, clean, and very controlled.
It did not push the wave away with raw power.
It guided the wave.
Like a hand guiding flood water away from a village.
The wave split around the ring and slid off into the empty sea.
The lanterns steadied.
The names did not go out.
The envoy's eyes narrowed.
He understood what that meant.
Shan Wei's control was not just talent.
It was a threat to the Court's story.
The Bell Coffin's lid began to close.
Inside the coffin, the air turned pale and empty. It did not smell like death. It smelled like nothing—like a room that had never held life.
Shan Wei felt the coffin trying to grab him fully. The moment the lid closed, it would lock him into clean-law space, where all "illegal" things would be judged and cut away.
His prismatic shell cracked at the edges.
A strip of color turned white again.
Not because he was weak.
Because the coffin was trying to force the world into one rule: only the Court is allowed to decide.
Shan Wei lifted the ruler.
He did not strike the lid.
He struck the coffin's chain-writing again—those wrapped lines that fed power into the seal.
He cut one.
Then another.
Each cut was not a power clash.
It was formation logic, aimed at the heart of the lock.
The coffin shook.
The lid slowed for half a breath.
The envoy reacted at once, voice sharp.
"Higher Counter Seal."
He drew a bell symbol in the air and pressed it into the coffin's surface.
The new symbol was darker than the others.
It had a faint beast-claw mark inside it.
A seal made for one purpose:
to punish beasts that burn contracts.
Outside the hidden channel, in the real ruin, the bell dome flashed.
A matching symbol appeared above Drakonix's cocoon.
It tried to press down on the prismatic wing.
It tried to force the flame to become "illegal" again.
Drakonix growled.
The sound was low, deep, and angry.
Not playful.
Not cute.
It sounded like a king cub being told to kneel.
The prismatic wing trembled, then flared wider, and the flame surged up like a living answer.
The flame hit the new beast seal.
For a heartbeat, the flame slowed again.
Then something changed.
The flame did not burn the seal like paper.
It burned it like it was burning a lie.
The seal cracked.
Black dust spread across it.
The bell dome shook harder than before.
A monk outside screamed, "It's rejecting the Court's beast law!"
Another monk whispered like he was seeing a nightmare, "That flame is… judging us back…"
Near the cocoon, Zhen stood like a wall.
His armor was cracked.
His core light was unstable.
But he did not move from his place.
Mei Yulan's hands shook as she kept healing seals on the ground, her face pale.
"Zhen, your core—"
Zhen answered in his blunt, flat voice, like he was reading a simple report.
"CORE INTEGRITY… NINE PERCENT."
He paused.
Then, with terrible timing, he added, "THIS IS ACCEPTABLE."
Mei Yulan almost choked.
"That is not acceptable!"
Zhen turned his head slightly, as if thinking.
"CORRECTION," Zhen said. "NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR YOU. ACCEPTABLE FOR PROTECTION."
Even in the middle of fear and death, that one line hit like a strange, sharp warmth. Not funny like a joke. Funny like a puppet being too honest at the worst time.
Mei Yulan's eyes filled with tears anyway.
Because Zhen's "logic" sounded too much like love.
Inside the hidden channel, Shan Wei felt the return seam behind him tearing again.
It screamed like a door splitting open.
The seam was not stable.
It was being ripped by the bell domain pressure.
If it collapsed, there would be no way back.
Shan Wei made his retreat pattern.
He did it in one calm breath.
He pressed his bleeding shoulder with two fingers, and his prismatic blood smeared across his glove.
Then he drew a formation in the air with that blood.
Not a big one.
A small one.
A tight one.
A pattern with seven anchors.
A "return rope" formation.
The rope linked three things:
Shan Wei's chest anchor thread (the frost thread),
the marked life thread pulse he had just awakened across distance,
and the return seam itself.
The rope became real.
It hummed.
The envoy's eyes widened a little.
"Blood-writing formation," the envoy said, voice tight. "You dare use yourself as ink in the Name River?"
Shan Wei answered calmly, "My blood is my responsibility."
He stepped backward toward the seam.
The Bell Coffin lid dropped faster.
The bell domain pressed harder.
The envoy raised his palm and spoke a cold verdict.
"Seal him."
The coffin's inside space pulled like a giant mouth.
Shan Wei's robe snapped in the wind.
His hair moved like silver blades.
He did not resist the pull by brute force.
He turned the pull into motion.
He used it.
He let it drag him forward—then he twisted his body at the last moment and slipped sideways, aiming for the seam like a fish slipping through a net.
The lid clipped his back.
A clean-law scrape ran across his shoulder blades.
It did not just hurt.
It tried to erase his skin's "story."
Shan Wei's teeth tightened once.
He did not make a sound.
He stepped again—Heavenstep Flash—seven tiny steps at once.
Not a burst.
Not a show.
A controlled, precise slide.
The return seam caught him like a hook.
The rope formation tightened.
The frost thread in his chest pulsed.
The life thread mark answered from far away again.
Outside the hidden channel, Mei Yulan gasped, bending forward as if someone had pulled a string in her heart.
She felt warmth flood her chest again.
She whispered, shaking, "I hear you… I hear you…"
Her eyes lifted to the dome.
She could not see Shan Wei inside the hidden channel.
But she could feel him like a distant flame behind a wall.
Her hands stopped shaking.
Her fear did not vanish.
But her will became firmer.
She pressed her palms to the ground harder and poured more healing power into the formation lines.
"Don't you die," she whispered. "Not again. Not ever."
At the dome edge, Xuan Chi was still holding the outer door line.
Her Lunar Frost Domain scars crawled along the battlefield like thin ice cracks on a lake. Each scar was "frozen law" that did not melt, even when flames touched it.
Her breathing was ragged.
Her lips were pale.
Her eyes were fighting to stay open.
Every time she moved, frost dust fell from her sleeves.
She looked like she was turning into a statue of moon snow.
A bell shockwave hit the dome.
Xuan Chi's knees buckled.
She fell.
The moment she fell, the dome's edge flickered.
A gap appeared.
A thin gap.
But enough for a bell thread to stab inward.
The thread aimed straight for the cocoon.
Zhen reacted instantly.
He slammed one arm down.
A gold-black shield plate unfolded from his forearm like a door.
He blocked the thread.
The thread hit and hissed.
Zhen's armor cracked louder.
His core light dipped.
Zhen's head shook once like he was losing balance.
But he forced himself upright again.
His voice came out flat and quiet.
"IMPERIAL GUARD PROTOCOL… ACTIVATING."
Mei Yulan's heart dropped.
She knew "protocols" in ancient puppets meant one thing.
A last rule.
A rule that often cost the puppet's body.
"Zhen, no—!" she cried.
Zhen answered with blunt calm.
"IF I DO NOT, BEAST WILL BE TAKEN. MASTER WILL FALL."
Then, as if it was a normal detail, he added, "YOU WILL BE SAD. SADNESS IS INEFFICIENT. THEREFORE I MUST SUCCEED."
Mei Yulan sobbed, furious and helpless.
At the same time, a shadow flickered behind broken pillars.
Yin Yuerin stepped into view, her cloak torn, her eyes sharp, her smile faint but dangerous.
A thin mask messenger—made of black contract paper—floated in front of her face. It carried a glowing line of words.
The Thousand Masks Pavilion's new order.
"Bring her back alive… or erase her name."
The "her" was clear.
It was Yin Yuerin herself.
The Pavilion wanted to use her like a tool, then wipe her away if she failed.
Yin Yuerin's smile turned colder.
"So that's the leash," she murmured.
Her eyes flicked to the bell dome, to the cocoon, to Zhen cracking like a broken star.
Then her gaze sharpened like a knife.
Her voice became soft, almost playful.
"Alright," she said. "Let's see who erases who."
She raised one hand.
A shadow mask formed, thin as smoke.
She placed it on her face.
For a heartbeat, her outline blurred.
Her shadow split.
One became two.
Two became many.
Not loud clones.
Silent ones.
A deeper shadow skill, not meant for the open.
The contract paper messenger trembled, as if it suddenly felt fear.
Yin Yuerin's voice was sweet and dangerous.
"Tell the Pavilion," she whispered, "my name is not yours to delete."
Then she crushed the messenger between her fingers.
It turned into ash.
Back inside the hidden channel, Shan Wei was half inside the return seam.
The Bell Coffin lid slammed down again, trying to cut the seam itself.
The envoy's eyes flashed.
He pointed at the seam and spoke one clean command.
"Close."
The seam screamed.
The rope formation burned.
Shan Wei's prismatic blood lines heated up like red wires.
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed slightly.
This was the cost point.
He could force the seam open with more power.
But if he did, the Name River lanterns could be harmed.
And if the lanterns were harmed, names could vanish.
Not enemy names.
Innocent names.
Shan Wei did not hesitate.
He chose the harder path.
He took the pain into himself.
He pulled the rope formation tighter and let it bite into his chest anchor, using his own meridians as the bridge instead of using the Name River as a road.
His body shook once, small and controlled.
His lips tightened.
A second line of blood slid from the corner of his mouth.
Then he spoke, very quiet.
"Void Pulse."
A black shockwave burst from his dantian—not wide, not wild.
A small, sharp push.
It struck the coffin's chain-writing from inside.
The chain snapped.
The coffin tilted again.
The seam opened a breath.
Shan Wei slipped through that breath.
For one heartbeat, the hidden channel flipped upside down.
Shan Wei felt like he was falling through cold glass.
Then—
He was inside the coffin.
Not sealed under it.
Inside its clean-law space.
The world around him was pale gold and empty, like an endless room made of bell writing and silent air.
The lid above him was closing from the inside.
And the air in front of him moved.
A presence was already waiting.
A voice whispered from the clean-law emptiness, close to his ear, like it had known him for a very long time.
"Welcome back… Returning One."
Shan Wei's eyes sharpened.
His calm did not break.
But something deep in his chest turned cold and heavy, like an old scar being touched.
"Who are you?" Shan Wei asked.
The voice did not answer like a normal person.
It answered like a bell being struck, calm and certain.
"A witness."
Shan Wei's grip tightened on the Heavenpiercer Ruler.
He could feel the frost thread in his chest pulsing.
He could feel the life thread mark answering faintly across distance.
He could feel Drakonix's flames outside, hitting the coffin again and again.
He could feel Zhen's core dropping like a dying star.
He could feel Xuan Chi's falling breath.
He could feel Yin Yuerin's shadows moving.
And now he could feel something else.
A second layer of the coffin's inner writing began to glow.
Words appeared on the empty walls.
Not normal words.
Old words.
Words that looked like they were written by time itself.
The words formed one sentence.
"RETURNED EMPEROR: STATUS—UNRESOLVED."
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed.
The envoy's face appeared in the writing like a reflection.
His voice echoed through the coffin space, cold and far.
"You cannot run, Qi Shan Wei."
Shan Wei spoke calmly, as if the coffin was only another room.
"I am not running."
The witness voice whispered again, closer now.
"Then remember."
A new sound rose outside.
A roar.
Drakonix's roar hit the bell dome like a hammer.
The coffin walls shook.
The clean-law space cracked slightly.
A thin rainbow flame line cut through the pale gold air like a comet.
The witness voice whispered, almost pleased.
"Yes… that flame remembers too."
Shan Wei lifted the ruler.
His eyes stayed steady.
He spoke one calm line, like a promise made to the sky.
"Then we will break this coffin from the inside."
And the Bell Coffin's inner walls began to crack—
As if the "clean law" space had made one mistake:
It had locked the wrong man inside.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.