The Execution Bell rang fully.
The sound did not explode like thunder. It was clean and cold. It entered the bones. It slid into the mind. It felt like a rule being forced into the world, one ring at a time.
The white corridor around Qi Shan Wei lit up with pale lines, like invisible writing was being revealed. The stone under his feet turned bright for a heartbeat, then dim again. With each ring, the corridor "breathed," like it was alive.
Qi Shan Wei stood still. His face was calm. His golden eyes were sharp. The Heavenpiercer Ruler rested in his hand like a mountain that could cut heaven.
Across from him, the monk in white robes did not rush. The bell mask stayed smooth and empty. In the monk's hand was the bell needle, long and thin, with one word written on it like a wound:
XUEYAO.
The needle did not look sharp like a normal weapon. It looked like a tool. Like a writing brush made for cutting.
The monk raised it slowly.
"Execution is not punishment," the monk said, voice quiet and sure. "It is repair."
Qi Shan Wei answered with one calm line.
"You repair by breaking people."
The monk's head tilted slightly, as if listening to a far bell.
"People are small," the monk said. "Threads are large. Threads drag worlds."
The Execution Bell rang again.
This ring did not hit Qi Shan Wei's name-circle first.
It went for the word on the needle.
The writing on the needle flashed bright, and the corridor air turned heavy. For a heartbeat, Qi Shan Wei's chest burned with a sharp pull, like an invisible string was being yanked.
And in his mind, he saw her.
Ling Xueyao.
She stood in a cold white hall made of ice and temple stone. A pale moon hung too close above her, like it was watching her breathe. A thin bell chain wrapped around her wrist. Frost crawled up her fingers, but her eyes were still clear.
She did not scream.
She simply looked up, like she felt Qi Shan Wei's gaze.
Then the monk in the corridor moved.
The needle stabbed forward—fast, clean, and cruel.
It did not stab Qi Shan Wei.
It stabbed the air.
The air broke like glass.
A thin pale line shot out from the needle, racing through the corridor like a rope of light. Qi Shan Wei felt it hook onto the pain-thread in his chest and pull hard.
On the far side of the world, Ling Xueyao's wrist jerked. The bell chain tightened. A thin line of blood appeared under the ice, bright red against white skin.
Qi Shan Wei's calm did not crack.
But the air around him changed.
His killing intent rose like a heavy sky.
He stepped forward and swung the Heavenpiercer Ruler once.
It was not a wild attack. It was a perfect cut.
The ruler's edge hit the pale line and sliced it in half.
The broken line fizzed, then fell apart into soft ash, like burnt paper.
The monk paused.
The Execution Bell rang again.
This time, the corridor doors on both sides began to open.
They opened slowly, like eyes waking.
Behind each door was a small cell, carved into the wall. The cells were not dark. They were bright and clean. Too clean. Like a place meant to hold "mistakes" forever.
Qi Shan Wei saw figures inside.
Some were humans with white bell chains around their necks.
Some were old cultivators with hair turned fully gray, eyes hollow from years of silence.
Some were strangers whose faces looked… wrong, like their names had been erased and only the body remained.
Then Qi Shan Wei saw something that made his eyes narrow.
One cell held a man who looked like a shadow version of himself.
Silver hair, but dull.
Golden eyes, but empty.
A ruler-shaped scar on his chest.
The prisoner's lips moved without sound.
But Qi Shan Wei understood the message anyway, like it went straight into the soul.
RUN.
The monk raised the needle again.
"You see the Returned," the monk said. "You see the cost."
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm.
"I see your prison."
The monk's needle moved, drawing pale writing in the air. The writing became a circle, and the circle tried to lock onto Qi Shan Wei's name-circle again, like it wanted to "correct" his identity.
Qi Shan Wei lifted his free hand and drew a prismatic glyph with three strokes.
NAME-LOCK.
The glyph sank into his chest circle. The circle hardened again.
The monk's writing hit it and shattered.
For the first time, the monk's voice carried a thin edge.
"You invent symbols in a place where symbols are law," the monk said. "That is why the Court fears you."
Qi Shan Wei stepped closer, ruler angled toward the needle.
"Tell your Court something," he said softly. "Fear is wisdom."
The monk stabbed again.
The needle did not aim for Qi Shan Wei's heart.
It aimed for the thread pain.
It aimed for Ling Xueyao.
The needle cut the air again, and the pale line shot out.
Qi Shan Wei moved faster.
He did not chase the line.
He cut the needle.
The Heavenpiercer Ruler swung down with a clean emperor strike, and the black-iron edge hit the bell needle—
Clang!
The sound shook the corridor.
The ruler cut metal.
But the needle did not break.
Instead, the needle flashed and turned into a bell chain, wrapping around the ruler's edge like a living snake.
The chain tightened.
The Heavenpiercer Ruler hummed, angry.
The monk's voice stayed calm again.
"The needle is not a weapon," the monk said. "It is a key."
The chain pulled.
The corridor floor under Qi Shan Wei's feet lit up, and a pale circle appeared. Inside the circle was one word:
SURRENDER.
The Execution Bell rang.
The word became stronger.
The circle began to rise like a wall of pressure, trying to push Qi Shan Wei to his knees.
Qi Shan Wei did not bend.
He planted his foot and pushed down with his will.
The ruler's runes blazed, matching his heartbeat.
He spoke one calm sentence.
"I do not kneel in cages."
He drew another prismatic glyph into the air, but he did not place it on himself.
He placed it on the chain.
BURN-WRITING.
A small flame appeared, not wild, not loud. It was clean. It was prismatic. It crawled along the chain like fire eating ink.
The chain hissed.
The pale writing on it began to melt.
The monk's hand tightened.
The monk's voice dropped.
"That flame… burns contract."
Qi Shan Wei's eyes sharpened.
He understood something new.
The Silent Bell law was not only time.
It was also contract.
It was a "deal" forced onto the world.
And Drakonix's flames—those prismatic flames—could burn deals.
Qi Shan Wei pulled on the bond in his chest.
Not to call Drakonix here.
Not to beg.
Just to share one heartbeat of power.
Outside the coffin, far away, Drakonix felt it.
His wing was still hurt. Prismatic fire still bled from cracks in the half-formed feathers. But his eyes turned fierce, like a sacred beast refusing to lose.
He let out a low growl.
Not cute now.
Not jealous now.
A vow-growl.
His flames surged.
And a thin thread of that flame traveled through the bond, through the anchor line Qi Shan Wei had forged into the coffin floor, and into the corridor itself.
Qi Shan Wei's hand lit up with a small prismatic glow.
He grabbed the bell chain with his bare fingers.
The chain tried to crush his skin.
Qi Shan Wei did not flinch.
The prismatic glow burned the writing.
The chain cracked.
Then snapped.
The monk stepped back half a step.
The Execution Bell rang again.
The corridor doors opened wider.
The prisoners inside began to shake.
Some lifted their heads slowly, like the bell woke them from deep sleep. Their eyes turned toward Qi Shan Wei.
A woman in one cell pressed her palm to the barrier and mouthed a word.
Qi Shan Wei read it.
CONSORT.
A man in another cell smiled without joy.
He mouthed two words.
SAVE HER.
Qi Shan Wei's jaw tightened.
The corridor was not only a prison.
It was a warning.
It was filled with people who had lost threads, lost names, lost selves.
People who were "corrected."
Then the wall ahead of Qi Shan Wei changed.
A white panel slid open in the stone like a hidden book page.
On the panel was a sentence carved deep, glowing with pale bell light:
EXECUTE THE CONSORT THREAD. SAVE THE WORLD.
Qi Shan Wei stared at it.
For one heartbeat, the corridor felt colder.
The monk spoke softly.
"You see?" the monk said. "This is mercy. A single thread can drag a realm into collapse."
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm, but it carried steel.
"You call it mercy because you do not bleed."
The monk raised the needle again. Now the needle's word changed.
It did not say XUEYAO anymore.
It flickered.
It tried to rewrite itself into something else.
THREAD.
Then—
LOST THREAD.
The monk's voice was steady.
"The Court audit confirmed it," the monk said. "One thread is already marked as lost. When a thread is lost, it becomes a crack in the flow. When cracks grow, time breaks. When time breaks, worlds die."
Qi Shan Wei took one step toward the sentence on the wall.
He lifted the Heavenpiercer Ruler.
The monk moved fast, trying to block him.
Qi Shan Wei did not strike the monk's body.
He struck the wall sentence.
The ruler's edge hit the glowing words—
And sparks exploded.
But the sentence did not break.
Instead, the words flared brighter and pushed back like a shield, and the ruler's runes hummed with anger.
Qi Shan Wei's eyes narrowed.
The sentence was not normal writing.
It was a sealed law.
A core rule of the Monastery.
The monk's voice stayed cold.
"You cannot break it with force," the monk said. "Law does not fear blades."
Qi Shan Wei's reply was calm.
"Then I will forge a law that does."
He raised his free hand and drew prismatic glyphs in the air, simple but sharp. The glyphs formed a small ring, then sank into the ruler's runes.
The Heavenpiercer Ruler changed.
Not in shape.
In meaning.
The blade did not glow brighter like a show.
It grew quieter.
Sharper.
As if the world itself stopped breathing around it.
Qi Shan Wei raised the ruler again.
The monk stabbed with the needle.
A pale line shot out—
Qi Shan Wei cut it.
A clean cut.
The line died.
The monk stabbed again.
Qi Shan Wei cut again.
The monk's needle moved faster, trying to land even one strike to send the execution signal back to Ling Xueyao.
Qi Shan Wei stayed calm and stopped every line.
Each cut was simple.
Each cut was perfect.
Then the monk changed tactics.
The monk lifted the small apple bell and rang it once.
The corridor shook.
The prisoners' doors flared with pale light.
The cells did not open.
But the prisoners inside began to speak.
Not with mouths.
With echoes.
Hundreds of whispers poured into the corridor at once—fear, regret, broken names, lost threads.
The whispers rushed toward Qi Shan Wei like a storm meant to drown his mind.
Qi Shan Wei's eyes stayed steady.
He did not panic.
He drew one prismatic glyph over his forehead.
MIND-ANCHOR.
The whispers hit the glyph and slid away like rain off glass.
The monk's voice grew colder.
"Your mind is too stable," the monk said. "That is why you are dangerous."
Qi Shan Wei answered, calm.
"My mind is stable because I choose who I am."
Outside, far away, the battlefield was still screaming.
Zhen's dome moved like a fortress in a storm. Cracks spread across his armor, but he held the shield lines perfectly. He stepped in front of Mei Yulan like a wall.
Mei Yulan was on her knees. Her face was pale. Her breathing was weak. The Life-Clamp Pill had saved Xuan Chi, but it took a real price.
Years of her cultivation were gone.
Not stolen by an enemy.
Spent by her own choice.
She pressed a shaking hand to her chest.
"I… I'm okay," she lied softly, because she did not want anyone to worry.
Zhen looked down at her with blunt puppet eyes.
"LIE DETECTED."
Mei Yulan blinked, half crying and half shocked.
Zhen added, perfectly serious:
"CULTIVATION YEARS: EXPENSIVE."
It was not meant as a joke.
But it hit like one small pressure valve in the middle of hell.
Mei Yulan let out a broken laugh through tears.
"Thank you… for caring," she whispered.
Zhen answered, flat as stone.
"MASTER ORDER: PROTECT IMPORTANT PERSONS."
Then, after one pause, he added:
"YOU ARE IMPORTANT."
Mei Yulan's breath caught. Her eyes shined.
Drakonix, half out of his cocoon, heard that word "important" and made a low, unhappy sound, like a sacred beast who did not like sharing "important."
It lasted one heartbeat.
Then Drakonix hissed in pain again as another time-chain snapped back and cut his wing edge.
His flames flared, angry.
And those flames climbed upward and burned another pale seal in the sky.
The Court envoy's third seal shook.
The envoy turned their bell mask slowly, like they finally understood something.
"This beast… burns judgment," the envoy said.
Yin Yuerin's shadows circled in silence. Her eyes were cold and sharp.
She did not smile.
She did not tease.
She watched the envoy like a knife watches a throat.
Inside the corridor, Qi Shan Wei felt all of it at once—Zhen's cracking wall, Mei Yulan's weakening breath, Drakonix's hurt wing, Xuan Chi's unstable frost, the Court's pressure, and the Silent Bell needle still hunting Ling Xueyao.
He did not let it shake him.
He focused.
He stepped closer to the monk.
The monk lifted the needle again.
Qi Shan Wei did something unexpected.
He did not cut.
He reached out.
He grabbed the needle.
The monk's hand tightened instantly, trying to pull back.
Qi Shan Wei's grip was stronger.
His palm glowed with prismatic flame borrowed through the bond.
The word on the needle—THREAD—began to burn.
The monk's voice sharpened.
"Stop," the monk said.
Qi Shan Wei's answer was calm.
"No."
The writing melted.
The needle shook.
For a heartbeat, the corridor rang like a bell being hit from the inside.
The monk pulled hard.
The needle slipped.
Qi Shan Wei held only the tip now.
The monk stepped back and raised the small apple bell again, ready to ring.
Qi Shan Wei moved faster.
He slammed the needle tip into the floor.
Not to stab.
To anchor.
His prismatic line on the floor lit up again. The Return-Step glyph glowed, and the corridor trembled.
The monk froze.
"What are you doing?" the monk asked, voice tight.
Qi Shan Wei's eyes were cold.
"I am sending protection," he said.
He pressed his hand over the needle tip and forged one simple glyph into it.
SHIELD-HER.
The glyph sank into the needle's metal like a brand.
Then the needle tip flared once—
And a thin prismatic thread shot out through the air, not toward the Monastery, but away from it.
Qi Shan Wei felt it connect to Ling Xueyao's pain-thread like a hand grabbing a wrist.
Far away, in the ice hall, Ling Xueyao's bell chain loosened for one heartbeat.
A small prismatic shield appeared around her wrist.
The blood stopped.
Ling Xueyao looked down, then up.
For the first time, her cold face softened—only slightly, only for a blink.
She whispered one word.
"Shan Wei."
Back in the corridor, the monk's voice turned colder than before.
"You just confirmed the thread," the monk said. "You admit the bond is real."
Qi Shan Wei's answer was calm and deadly.
"I admit nothing. I protect what is mine."
The Execution Bell rang again.
And this ring was different.
It did not strike the corridor walls.
It struck the sentence on the wall.
EXECUTE THE CONSORT THREAD. SAVE THE WORLD.
The sentence glowed so bright it hurt the eyes.
The corridor doors slammed wider.
The prisoners inside pressed forward against their barriers like waves hitting glass.
The shadow version of Qi Shan Wei in the cell lifted his head fully now.
His empty golden eyes met Shan Wei's.
His lips moved, slow and heavy:
THEY WILL MAKE YOU CHOOSE.
Qi Shan Wei's heart beat once, hard.
The monk lifted the apple bell.
"By Silent Bell law," the monk said, "the next ring will carry the execution order through the confirmed thread."
Qi Shan Wei raised the Heavenpiercer Ruler.
The ruler's runes were quiet now, sharp and ready.
He stared at the monk.
"Ring it," Qi Shan Wei said calmly, "and I will shatter your corridor."
The monk's bell hand paused.
The corridor shook.
Because something else was coming.
A deeper bell sound rolled through the stone, far away, like a giant bell turning in its sleep.
A door at the end of the corridor began to open.
Not a cell door.
A real gate.
On that gate was carved a single symbol that made Qi Shan Wei's eyes narrow.
A prismatic circle—broken.
A broken prism.
The monk's voice became quiet.
"That gate is for Returned Emperors," the monk said. "The ones who failed."
Qi Shan Wei stepped forward anyway.
The gate opened wider.
Cold pale light poured out.
And inside that light, Qi Shan Wei heard a voice.
Not the monk's voice.
Not the Court's voice.
A voice older than both.
A voice that said his name like it had owned it before:
"Qi Shan Wei…"
The voice paused.
Then spoke a second name.
A name that did not belong to this life.
A name that made Shan Wei's name-circle burn like it was being remembered by the world.
"Prismatic Emperor…"
The Execution Bell lifted into the air by itself.
The apple bell in the monk's hand rang—
And the corridor screamed.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.