The ring in the sky did not fade.
It stayed there like a cold crown placed around the whole realm. The clouds inside it moved in strange ways, as if they were being pulled by invisible hands. The hunting lightning above the dome grew brighter, but it did not strike right away. It watched.
Elder Tian Lei still stood in the air.
He did not float like a normal cultivator who wanted to show off. He floated like the sky itself had decided he belonged there. His robe did not flap in the wind, because the wind did not dare touch him. His eyes were calm, but they were not kind. They were the calm of a storm that does not need to explain itself.
The crowd outside the dome shook. Some fell to their knees, not because someone forced them, but because their legs forgot how to stay proud.
A Court elder swallowed hard and forced his voice to sound strong. "World Elder Tian Lei," he said, "this is a Court matter."
Elder Tian Lei did not answer.
He did not even look at the elder.
He only lifted his gaze toward the hunting lightning spear, like he was checking if it was behaving properly.
The Silent Bell envoy's fingers tightened together. "Do not speak to him like that," he whispered, almost like a warning to a child.
The Court elder's face twitched. "He is a guest in our realm."
The envoy's eyes turned cold. "He is not a guest," he said. "He is a rule."
That sentence made the air feel heavier.
Inside the dome, Qi Shan Wei remained still.
His calm did not change. His golden eyes stayed sharp, and Heavenpiercer stayed in his hand like a silent promise. He looked at Elder Tian Lei without bowing, without kneeling, without acting arrogant. He simply stood the way an emperor stands—straight, controlled, and ready to carry the weight of the world if he must.
Elder Tian Lei's gaze finally moved.
It slid down from the lightning to Qi Shan Wei.
In that moment, the hunting lightning spear reacted.
It leaned closer, as if it wanted to listen.
A faint ripple moved across the sky-ring, and then the air above the dome began to write.
Not with ink.
With lightning.
A line of bright marks formed slowly, each mark simple, sharp, and old.
The words were not in any common script, but the meaning pressed into everyone's minds anyway, like a bell hitting their bones.
FIRST RULE: LIGHTNING HUNTS THOUGHT.
A wave of fear rolled through the crowd.
Someone outside the dome thought, Run.
A thin bolt snapped sideways through the air.
The person froze mid-breath.
Then their body turned pale, like all color was pulled out at once, and they fell like an empty robe.
No blood.
No scream.
Just a life ending because a thought was wrong.
Another person saw it and thought, Kill him first.
Lightning struck again.
That person vanished so fast the people beside them did not even understand they were gone until their shadow disappeared from the ground.
The crowd panicked harder.
And the hunting lightning began to move more.
Not striking the ground.
Striking minds.
The Silent Bell envoy's face went pale. "It has started," he whispered.
Zhen's eyes lit faintly as his mind began to calculate. "New threat model confirmed," he said bluntly. "The enemy is not only the sky. The enemy is our own thoughts."
Drakonix's cracked cocoon gave a low, angry rumble. "Sky… rude…"
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "Everyone inside the dome," he said quietly, "listen."
His voice was not loud.
But it carried.
It cut through panic like a blade cutting fog.
"Do not think of running," he said. "Do not think of killing. Do not think of fear."
A Court elder sneered. "You expect people to control their minds under Heaven?"
Qi Shan Wei did not look at the elder. He looked at his allies.
"Think of one simple thing," he continued. "Breathe. Count. Hold your intent steady."
Ling Xueyao's breath was shaky. Her Lunar Frost Domain wanted to awaken again, because pressure like this was exactly the kind of thing that pushed a person over the edge. The frozen law scars on her skin flickered like pale cracks in ice.
Qi Shan Wei stepped closer to her.
He did not touch her face.
He did not soften into jokes.
He placed his palm lightly over her wrist again, over the prismatic bracelet formation, and pushed one clean, steady pulse of energy through it.
It felt like a heartbeat that was not hers.
A strong heartbeat.
A stable one.
"Breathe with me," he said.
Ling Xueyao swallowed. Her pride wanted to refuse help.
But her fear was not fear of death.
It was fear of being lost.
Fear of the Frost Thread being cut.
Fear of waking wrong and breaking forever.
She nodded once.
Their breathing matched.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
The moon-shadow behind her steadied slightly, becoming less wild, more shaped—still terrifying, still beautiful, but no longer trying to explode without control.
The hunting lightning above them twitched, as if it noticed her mind quieting down.
And for the first time, the lightning did not strike her.
It moved on.
The Silent Bell envoy stared at Qi Shan Wei, and his throat moved as if he was forcing himself to admit something he did not want to admit.
"You are stabilizing minds," the envoy said quietly.
Qi Shan Wei did not answer with pride. "It is necessary," he said.
Outside the dome, the Thousand Masks Pavilion watchers shifted.
They were trained.
They knew how to keep calm.
But their contracts were built on tricks—on clauses, on hidden rules, on killing intent made "clean" by law.
Now lightning was hunting thoughts.
And lightning did not care about clever clauses.
A masked watcher lifted the black coin again, the one stamped with Bell-Wax.
The coin spun in the air, and the words returned.
KILL CLEAN. CUT THE THREAD. NO KARMA.
But the moment those words formed, the hunting lightning spear above the dome jerked like a predator smelling blood.
The spear leaned toward the coin.
The watcher's eyes widened under the mask. "No—" they started.
Lightning struck their mask.
The mask shattered into dust.
The watcher's mind went blank for one heartbeat.
Then their body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
The coin fell and hit the ground with a sharp, lonely sound.
A second watcher stepped back in shock. "The sky is reading the clause," they whispered.
A third watcher whispered something worse. "The sky is angry that a contract is trying to tell it what is 'clean'."
Inside the dome, Drakonix's prismatic flame flared.
It touched the fallen coin.
The coin's words tried to rise again, like a stubborn insect crawling back to life.
Drakonix growled, low and rough. "No… more… writing…"
His flame burned the words away.
But the coin did not melt.
It only darkened, like it was laughing quietly at fire.
Drakonix hissed in pain, and the cocoon cracked wider with the force of his anger.
"One of theirs," Drakonix rasped, voice rough like stone grinding. "Bell… wax…"
The Silent Bell envoy's eyes snapped to the coin.
He looked sick.
"That is Bell-Wax," he said again, louder now, like he could not hide it anymore. "That is Monastery material."
A Court elder's eyes flashed. "So your Monastery sold it to assassins!"
The envoy's gaze sharpened like a knife. "We did not sell it," he said. "It was stolen."
The words fell like a stone dropped into a lake.
Stolen.
That meant there was a hole inside the Silent Bell Monastery.
That meant someone had reached into time-keeper territory and taken a tool meant to seal rules into objects.
That meant the buyer behind the Thousand Masks Pavilion contract was tied to time… or was protected by it.
Qi Shan Wei's golden eyes did not change, but his calm grew heavier.
"The Monastery has an enemy inside," he said calmly.
The envoy's throat tightened. "Yes," he admitted. "And if Bell-Wax is in the Pavilion's hands… then the traitor is not small."
Above them, Elder Tian Lei still did not speak.
But the sky wrote again.
SECOND RULE: LIGHTNING PUNISHES PANIC.
The crowd outside the dome began to break.
People tried to force their minds calm, but fear made fear grow bigger. The moment someone thought, I will die, lightning struck. The moment someone thought, Please spare me, lightning struck.
The sky was not cruel for fun.
It was selecting.
Only those who could hold their mind steady could survive long enough to see the end.
Qi Shan Wei watched the deaths without changing his face.
Not because he had no heart.
Because he had no time to waste.
He lifted two fingers.
The Nine-Fold Stillwater Barrier was already active inside the dome, but now he changed it. He widened its calm ripple. He tuned it toward one thing only.
Mind stability.
The air around his group became quieter.
Not silent.
Just less sharp.
Like a storm outside a room with thick walls.
Ling Xueyao felt it and exhaled slowly, like she had been drowning and found a small pocket of air.
Zhen's voice came out flat. "Master has deployed a calming field. Efficiency increased. Survival probability improved."
Drakonix's wing twitched out of the cocoon again, jealous even while half-born. "He… protects… all… but… don't… touch…"
Zhen replied without emotion. "Your jealousy is inefficient during selection."
Drakonix hissed. "Still… mine…"
The humor lasted one breath.
Then the dome shook.
Because the hunting lightning spear moved again.
It did not strike the crowd.
It struck the dome itself.
A thin line of lightning hit Zhen's shield.
The shield did not break.
But it screamed.
Not with sound.
With pressure.
The shield's pattern bent, then forced itself back into shape.
Zhen's eyes lit brighter. He moved his hands, and formation lines spread fast, like a net.
"Thunder path analysis," he said. "Lightning is leaving scars in air-space. I can read them."
A Court elder spat. "Nonsense. Lightning has no path."
Qi Shan Wei replied calmly, "Everything has a path."
Zhen's hands moved again, faster now.
He was not only shielding.
He was studying.
He was learning the sky like a map.
He paused.
Then spoke in the same blunt voice, as if he was saying something simple like "the ground is stone."
"Next strike in three breaths," Zhen said.
The words hit like a slap.
Three breaths.
That meant they could prepare.
Qi Shan Wei did not ask how.
He trusted Zhen's strength.
He trusted his companion's role.
That was part of why people followed him.
He did not treat allies like tools.
He treated them like pillars.
"One," Qi Shan Wei said quietly.
He raised his hand.
The Imperial Shield Matrix shifted under Zhen's control, but this time it shifted before lightning moved, not after. The dome became a moving fortress wall, turning slightly to change the angle of impact.
"Two," Qi Shan Wei said.
Ling Xueyao's breathing stayed matched with his. Her moon-shadow flickered, but it did not burst. The prismatic bracelet held her steady.
"Three," Qi Shan Wei said.
Lightning struck.
It hit the dome where it would have hit before.
But the dome was no longer there.
It had rotated.
The lightning slammed into a thicker layer and slid sideways, forced to travel along a guided route like water pushed into a canal.
The crowd outside gasped.
A Court elder's eyes widened in true shock. "He… redirected it."
Zhen's voice stayed calm. "Result: correct prediction. Shield integrity maintained. Strike diverted."
The hunting lightning spear above the dome hesitated.
It had expected the dome to flinch.
It had expected the dome to break.
Instead, the dome behaved like it had been built for this.
Because it had.
Qi Shan Wei's "simple systems" were never simple.
They were stable.
They were clean.
They did not panic.
The sky wrote again, slow and sharp.
THIRD RULE: LIGHTNING RESPECTS CLARITY.
Elder Tian Lei's gaze returned to Qi Shan Wei.
And for the first time, something changed in the air between them.
Not warmth.
Not friendship.
Recognition.
Qi Shan Wei met the gaze without blinking.
He did not think, Please choose me.
He did not think, I want your power.
He only held one thought, clean and steady.
I will protect what is mine.
The hunting lightning spear trembled.
Like it heard that thought and did not hate it.
Then the Silent Bell envoy made a small sound, like he had just realized the worst truth.
"The Bell-Law coin," he whispered. "It was not only bait for the Pavilion."
Qi Shan Wei's gaze did not move. "Say it," he commanded calmly.
The envoy swallowed. "It is bait for Heaven," he said. "Someone is trying to push the selection to choose the wrong person… or to kill the right person."
A Court elder laughed sharply. "Heaven cannot be tricked!"
The envoy's eyes turned hard. "Heaven can be guided," he said. "That is why the Monastery exists. That is why we keep flow stable."
His bell shook on his chest, like it agreed but also feared what it was admitting.
Ling Xueyao's voice came out tight. "If they push the selection… then the sky will hunt harder."
Qi Shan Wei nodded once. "Yes," he said.
He looked at the Court elders. "And they will not be spared."
That sentence chilled the air.
Not because it was loud.
Because it was true.
The Court elders finally understood something.
This was not only about Qi Shan Wei's name.
This was about the realm surviving seven days.
Then the Frost Thread above the platform trembled again.
The invisible hook did not pull yet.
But it tested.
Like a hand touching a rope, checking if it could be torn.
Ling Xueyao's body stiffened.
Her Lunar Frost Domain surged again, trying to awaken, because law pressure and thread pressure were forcing her toward the edge.
Her breath broke.
"I can't keep it down," she whispered.
Qi Shan Wei stepped closer.
He did not look away from the sky, but his hand stayed on her wrist, steady as stone.
"Then we do it properly," he said.
Ling Xueyao's eyes widened. "Now?"
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "Not a full awakening," he said. "A lock."
Her pride flared. "Lock my domain?"
Qi Shan Wei's gaze sharpened, not angry, just firm. "Stabilize it," he corrected. "So it does not awaken like a broken blade."
Ling Xueyao's throat tightened.
This was not control.
This was protection.
A high-level kind of protection that required trust.
Her eyes flicked to the Frost Thread above, trembling.
Then to the hunting lightning spear.
Then back to Qi Shan Wei.
She whispered, very quietly, like it cost her something to say it.
"Do it."
Qi Shan Wei did not smile.
He did not make it romantic with jokes.
He made it romantic by treating her like someone precious enough to protect with law itself.
He lifted one finger and drew a small circle in the air.
A prismatic nail of light formed—thin, clean, and heavy with meaning.
Heaven-Anchor.
But not the public version.
This one was deeper.
This one had his authority inside it.
He pressed it gently into the prismatic bracelet on her wrist.
The bracelet flared, and the moon-shadow behind her steadied into a clear shape for one heartbeat—a pale moon that did not explode, did not spread, did not scar itself.
Then it folded inward, locked safely behind her ribs, like a sleeping giant placed into a calm cage.
Ling Xueyao gasped, not in pain—relief.
Her frozen law scars dimmed slightly.
Her breathing became easier.
Her eyes went wet for a moment, then she forced them sharp again, because she was still Ling Xueyao.
Qi Shan Wei's voice was quiet. "You will awaken when you choose," he said. "Not when Heaven forces you."
Ling Xueyao nodded once.
That nod was not a girl agreeing.
It was a sword accepting its sheath.
Above them, Elder Tian Lei lifted his hand.
One finger rose.
The hunting lightning spear trembled.
Then, like a beast obeying an older beast, it bent.
A thin line of lightning formed in the air, stretching from the spear toward Qi Shan Wei.
It did not strike like punishment.
It offered itself like a leash being handed to someone worthy.
The crowd outside screamed and whispered at the same time.
"A leash!"
"The sky is giving him a path!"
"The Unbound Thunder Sovereign is choosing him!"
The Silent Bell envoy stared, shaking. "He is offering you the space between strikes," he whispered. "If you take it… you will no longer be chased."
Zhen's eyes lit brighter. "Master," he said bluntly, "accepting increases survival probability across seven days by extreme margin."
Drakonix growled from the cocoon, pride and jealousy twisting together. "Take… it… but… don't… become… sky's… pet…"
Qi Shan Wei did not rush.
He did not look greedy.
He did not look afraid.
He lifted Heavenpiercer slowly.
The sword's tip touched the lightning line.
For one heartbeat, the whole realm went silent.
Then the lightning did not explode.
It flowed.
It poured into Heavenpiercer like water entering a channel it had been waiting for.
Qi Shan Wei's grip did not tighten.
His breathing did not break.
His eyes did not widen.
He simply accepted the law like an emperor accepting a crown.
But the moment the lightning entered the sword, the hunting spear above reacted again.
It snapped brighter.
Like it realized something too late.
Because the lightning was not only touching the sword.
It was touching the man holding it.
And the sky-ring above the realm began to turn.
Slowly.
Like a lock rotating.
Like Heaven deciding the next test.
Qi Shan Wei felt it in his bones.
This was only the first step.
If he took the leash, the sky would demand payment.
If he refused, the sky would crush them.
So he took it.
Calmly.
And the lightning line tightened around his fate like a promise.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.