The crack in the sky did not close. It grew wider, slowly, like a wound that refused to heal.
The white spear of hunting lightning stayed above the dome, hovering. It did not rush. It did not waste power. It waited like a judge who already decided the ending but still wanted to see who would kneel first.
Then the whole sky changed.
A thin ring of pale light formed far above the battlefield, stretching outward until it wrapped around the realm like a giant halo. It was not pretty. It was not holy. It felt like a fence made of law.
The air inside the ring became heavy.
The air outside the ring became empty.
People at the edge of the ring tried to step back.
They could not.
Their bodies moved, but the space did not accept the step. It was like walking into a wall made of wind.
A scream rose from the crowd outside the dome. "We can't leave!"
Another voice cried, "The sky locked us in!"
The Silent Bell envoy looked up and went still. His bell trembled against his chest like it wanted to hide inside his ribs.
"The selection zone," he whispered.
A Court elder's face tightened. "What did you say?"
The envoy's voice stayed quiet, but the words landed heavy. "For seven days," he said, "the sky will hunt inside this ring."
The elder scoffed, trying to keep pride alive. "Seven days? That's nonsense."
The envoy did not argue. He only pointed.
A small bolt of lightning moved sideways through the clouds, slow and thin, like a silver snake. It did not strike the ground. It touched a mountain peak far away.
The peak did not explode.
It turned into glass.
Not melted. Not broken.
Just… changed.
The crowd went silent.
Even the Court elders stopped speaking for a breath.
Inside the dome, Qi Shan Wei stood like he always did—calm, straight, and cold enough to make the air feel sharper. His golden eyes watched the ring, then the hunting lightning, then the faint writing Heaven kept trying to stamp into the air above him.
He did not show fear.
But his calm had weight now, like an emperor placing his hand on a throne.
Ling Xueyao's breath shook beside him.
The moon-shadow behind her flickered again, pale and huge for half a heartbeat, then faded. The frozen law scars on her skin made tiny cracking sounds.
She looked up at the ring and swallowed. "It's pressing my laws," she whispered.
Qi Shan Wei did not look away from the sky. "It is pressing everyone," he said.
Ling Xueyao's fingers curled into a fist. Pride tried to keep her steady, but pain kept pulling at her bones.
"I can awaken," she said, voice tight. "Right now."
Qi Shan Wei's gaze shifted to her at once.
Not soft.
Not teasing.
Just sharp, like a sword checking another sword for a crack.
"And if it awakens wrong?" he asked.
Ling Xueyao's throat moved. She did not answer fast.
Because she knew the truth.
If her Lunar Frost Domain awakened while Heaven's pressure was twisting the air, it could scar her laws. It could make her domain wild, unstable, and full of holes—like broken ice that looks strong until someone steps on it.
A broken domain did not just hurt.
It ruined a person's future.
The Silent Bell envoy spoke again, voice low. "A domain awakening inside a selection zone will be marked," he warned. "Heaven will remember it."
Ling Xueyao's eyes narrowed. "Then what am I meant to do? Let it tear me apart?"
Qi Shan Wei raised two fingers.
The prismatic bracelet on her wrist brightened. It was still gentle, but now it had a deeper layer inside it, like a hidden wall.
"It will not awaken wrong," he said.
Ling Xueyao stared at him. "How can you say that so easily?"
Qi Shan Wei's answer was simple. "Because I will not allow it."
Those words were not romance spoken like a song.
They were a promise spoken like a law.
The air around them shifted, as if the world itself heard the promise and had to decide whether to accept it.
Above them, the hunting lightning moved again.
It bent toward Qi Shan Wei's hidden name-space.
It tried to stamp another symbol.
Zhen's Third Layer shield rolled slightly, changing angle, trying to dull the sky's "hearing." The shield made the lightning hesitate for a breath, but only a breath.
The Silent Bell envoy's eyes tightened. "It is learning your defenses," he said.
Qi Shan Wei replied calmly, "Then I will learn its rules faster."
Outside the dome, the Thousand Masks Pavilion assassins shifted again.
More had appeared at the edge of the crowd, stepping into place like pieces on a board. Their masks were plain, but their bodies moved with trained calm.
They were not here to win a fight.
They were here to make something break.
One assassin lifted a small black coin. It looked like obsidian, but it carried a thin time-mark, like a scar burned into the edge.
They flicked the coin into the air.
It spun.
And with each spin, a whisper formed, not in the air, but in people's bones.
KILL CLEAN. KILL CLEAN. KILL CLEAN.
The Silent Bell envoy's face changed. His calm cracked for the first time.
"That coin…" he murmured. "That is not Pavilion craft."
A Court elder turned sharply. "What do you mean?"
The envoy did not answer the elder. He stared at the coin like it was a snake in his bed.
"That time-mark," he said, voice tight. "It is Bell-Wax."
Everyone froze.
Bell-Wax was not a pill.
It was not metal.
It was a rare, sacred material used to seal time rules into objects.
Only the Silent Bell Monastery used it.
Qi Shan Wei's golden eyes narrowed slightly.
So the buyer behind the Pavilion clause was not just rich.
They had stolen from the monastery.
Or they were inside it.
The coin spun again.
A second clause formed in the air, clearer now, as if the sky itself was helping it write.
CUT THE THREAD, NOT THE BODY.
Ling Xueyao's breath caught.
Her Frost Thread reacted at once, trembling above the Court platform like a living line pulled by invisible hands.
Zhen's head turned. "Threat priority updated," he said bluntly. "They are not trying to kill. They are trying to remove stability."
Drakonix growled from the cocoon, low and rough. "Cowards… hate… bonds…"
One assassin stepped forward, needle hands ready again, but their target was not Ling Xueyao's wrist now.
It was the place above her—where her Frost Thread floated and trembled.
They wanted to cut it in the air.
Like cutting a rope above a bridge.
Zhen's shield shifted. The Storm-Silence Vault tried to deny the path again.
But the black coin flashed.
For one breath, the coin's time-mark "paused" the shield's movement, not fully stopping it, but slowing it like thick mud.
The assassin lunged through that slowed gap.
The needle rose toward the Frost Thread.
Ling Xueyao's eyes widened. Pain and anger flashed together. The moon-shadow behind her trembled hard, trying to form fully.
Qi Shan Wei moved first.
Not fast like panic.
Fast like command.
He placed his palm lightly over Ling Xueyao's wrist again, over the bracelet.
A prismatic line ran from him into her, steady and clean, like a ruler drawing a straight path through chaos.
"Do not awaken," he said quietly. "Not yet. Stabilize."
Ling Xueyao's jaw clenched. She wanted to fight. She wanted to explode into moon-frost and freeze everything.
But she felt the prismatic line inside her.
It did not push her.
It held her.
It gave her a place to stand.
Her breathing matched his again, one beat, then another.
The moon-shadow steadied.
The frozen law scars stopped spreading.
Then Qi Shan Wei lifted his other hand and made a simple formation disc appear—thin, bronze, almost plain.
Silent Meridian Guard Array.
A public estate-protection formation.
A "simple" thing.
Qi Shan Wei used it in a way no noble ever could.
He did not place it on a wall.
He placed it on Ling Xueyao's intent.
The formation bloomed around her like a quiet veil that reacted to hostile pull. Each time the Frost Thread trembled, the veil answered with soft resistance, like still water refusing to spill.
The assassin's needle touched the thread-space—
And stopped.
Not because the needle hit a hard wall.
Because the formation stole the needle's "hostile intent" the moment it tried to bite.
The assassin's eyes widened in shock.
They pushed harder.
The veil adjusted.
The needle's power drained into nothing.
The assassin's arm went numb, like their qi forgot how to move.
Zhen's voice came out flat. "Their attack requires hate. The formation removed it."
Drakonix hissed, proud and rough. "Good… take… their… hate…"
The assassin stumbled back, shaking.
But the black coin spun again.
This time, it did not aim at the thread.
It aimed at the sky.
The coin's time-mark flared, and the hunting lightning above the dome reacted like it had smelled blood.
The white spear brightened.
The crack in the sky widened a little more.
And the sky's writing returned—one huge symbol trying to stamp itself into Qi Shan Wei's name-space again.
The Silent Bell envoy's voice went tight. "They are feeding Heaven," he whispered. "They are making Heaven angry faster."
A Court elder's eyes gleamed, greedy and fearful at the same time. "Let it be angry," he said. "Let Heaven erase him."
The envoy snapped his gaze to the elder. "If Heaven erases him while the ledger is open," he said, "the debt will not end."
The elder stiffened. "What do you mean?"
The envoy's face turned pale. "It will roll," he said. "It will look for what remains. It will collect from what is tied to him."
The elder's greed died for a moment.
Because that meant the bell and sky could collect from the entire realm.
From the Court.
From everyone.
Qi Shan Wei heard it all, but he did not waste time on fear.
He raised Heavenpiercer again.
The sword did not glow with wild light.
It looked calm.
But the calm was sharper than fire.
He looked at the sky's symbol and the hunting lightning line behind it.
Then he looked at the faint grid his World-Grid formation had shown him earlier.
Qi Shan Wei's mind moved like a machine built from logic and silence.
"Lightning is movement," he said softly, almost to himself. "And movement always has a path."
Zhen's eyes lit faintly. "Master," he said, "I can calculate the path."
Qi Shan Wei did not look away from the sky. "Begin."
Zhen's Thunder-Logic had not fully awakened yet, but Zhen was still Zhen. He lifted both hands, and tiny formation lines spread from his fingers like spider silk.
They touched the air.
They touched the lightning's faint marks in the sky.
Zhen's voice stayed calm and blunt. "Collecting lightning scars. Reading path memory. Predicting next strike."
The Court elders stared.
Because Zhen was not reading qi like a normal cultivator.
He was reading the world's rules like a book.
Drakonix's wing twitched out of the cocoon again, jealous and proud even in pain. "Metal… thinks… he… is… sky…"
Zhen replied without emotion. "I am not sky. I am calculation."
Drakonix hissed. "Annoying…"
The humor lasted half a breath.
Then Heaven answered.
The hunting lightning spear snapped downward—
Not to the ground.
To the air above Qi Shan Wei.
The symbol stamped.
The air screamed.
And time… bent.
For one heartbeat, everything stopped.
Dust hung still.
Blood hung still.
Even Drakonix's flame froze in mid-flicker.
Ling Xueyao's breath stopped in her chest like she forgot how to inhale.
In that frozen heartbeat, Qi Shan Wei's eyes stayed open.
He could still move.
Not his body.
His mind.
Because his prismatic lines were already holding the "still water" of the moment.
And inside that frozen heartbeat, a figure appeared.
Not with a portal.
Not with a teleport flare.
The figure simply existed in the gap between lightning flashes, like he had always been there.
He wore simple robes, not fancy, not bright.
His hair was white, but his face looked neither old nor young.
His eyes were calm like storms waiting behind mountains.
The Silent Bell envoy went stiff, like a child seeing a legend step out of a story.
His lips parted.
"Elder… Tian Lei," he whispered.
A Court elder's mouth fell open in fear.
Because they all felt it.
This was not a sect elder.
This was a World Elder.
The figure looked at the hunting lightning spear, then at the stamped symbol, then at Qi Shan Wei.
His gaze did not carry hate.
It carried judgment that did not need emotion.
Qi Shan Wei did not bow.
He did not kneel.
He simply held Heavenpiercer steady and met the elder's eyes.
The world was frozen.
But their eyes spoke.
Then the figure spoke one sentence.
Just one.
It was quiet.
But it sounded like thunder inside a skull.
"Walk between strikes, Prismatic one… or be crushed by the space you refuse to understand."
The sentence ended.
The heartbeat ended.
Time snapped back.
Dust fell.
Blood hit stone.
Drakonix's flame flared hard again.
People screamed as the pressure returned.
The hunting lightning spear pulled back slightly, like it had stepped aside to let the elder take the lead.
The figure—Elder Tian Lei—still stood in the air.
Not floating like a cultivator showing off.
Floating like lightning itself accepted him.
The Silent Bell envoy swallowed hard. "He has not spoken in a hundred years," he whispered, almost shaking.
Qi Shan Wei's golden eyes narrowed, calm sharpening into focus.
He understood the sentence.
It was not advice.
It was a test.
And the sky's hunting lightning brightened again, as if Heaven had decided:
Now the real selection begins.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
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