The payment window opened like a door that did not need permission.
Nothing "broke." Nothing "attacked." The air simply decided it belonged to the bell now.
Inside the dome, the light became thin. Sound became heavy. Even breathing felt slower, like the world was counting each breath and writing it down.
Then invisible hands touched the space.
Not hands of flesh.
Hands of law.
They slid through the dome's barrier without tearing it, because they were not entering by force. They were entering by right.
The Time-Debt Ledger line above the Court platform brightened, and the words PAYMENT WINDOW OPEN stayed steady like a judge's stamp.
The Silent Bell envoy's face was hard now. "Do not speak unnecessary words," he warned. "The Bell listens for names."
A Court elder tried to laugh. The laugh came out weak. "We are inside a barrier. We are safe."
The envoy's eyes cut to him. "No," he said. "You are inside a ledger."
That sentence made the crowd outside the dome go quiet.
Because a ledger did not care if you were strong.
A ledger cared if you were written.
Qi Shan Wei stood in the center like a calm pillar.
The Thunder Crown brand on his brow had faded, but the feeling of it remained. The lightning inside him did not roar. It stayed orderly. It flowed like a road being built.
Heavenpiercer hummed softly in his hand.
Not excited.
Not afraid.
Alert.
Above him, the hunting lightning spear still hovered like a crown that could bite.
The fourth rule still burned in the air.
FOURTH RULE: ONLY ONE MAY WALK BETWEEN STRIKES.IF ONE IS CHOSEN… THE OTHERS MUST PAY.
Ling Xueyao's throat tightened as she read it again.
She felt the Frost Thread above the platform tremble like a tight string about to snap. It was not just trembling anymore.
It was being pulled.
A thin, cold pressure slipped under her ribs, like someone had placed a hook behind her heart.
Her breath came out white.
Qi Shan Wei noticed instantly.
He did not turn his head fast. He did not panic. He simply shifted his stance half a step—quietly placing his body between her and the platform.
His voice stayed calm. "Hold your breath steady."
Ling Xueyao nodded once, jaw tight. "I am steady," she whispered, but her fingers were shaking.
Zhen's eyes flicked to the air, then to Ling Xueyao, then to Qi Shan Wei. His voice came out quick and flat. "Threat focus: Frost Thread is marked as preferred payment."
Drakonix's half-emerged wing twitched, irritated and protective. "Bell… greedy…"
A thin prismatic feather-flame drifted from his wing and touched the air.
The air hissed.
Not because it burned like paper.
Because it burned like writing.
A faint word appeared near the Court platform—an old leftover trace from the Pavilion contract that was still trying to cling to reality.
EXEMPT.
Drakonix's flame kissed it.
The word screamed without sound and collapsed into a dark scar-mark, like a burned letter carved into the sky.
The Silent Bell envoy's eyes narrowed. "He is wounding the rule layer," he said, voice careful. "That is dangerous."
Drakonix answered with a weak hiss. "Good."
The invisible hands of law moved again.
This time, they did not go to the Frost Thread first.
They drifted toward the Six Consort Threads together, like a collector checking which coin is easiest to take.
The Frost Thread shook hardest.
Ling Xueyao's body jerked slightly as the hook tightened.
Her Lunar Frost Domain flickered, trying to rise. A pale moon-shadow almost appeared behind her—big, quiet, deadly.
But it did not fully form.
It stuttered.
Because the bell's pressure was not only pulling her thread.
It was pulling her stability.
The Silent Bell envoy spoke, voice sharp now. "If her domain awakens during the payment window, the Bell will treat it as new debt."
A Court elder's lips curled. "Then let it awaken. Let the Bell take her thread. Prove the Prismatic One is unstable."
Qi Shan Wei's gaze did not move to the elder.
But his calm became heavier, like a mountain shifting.
His voice dropped, quiet and cold. "If you reach for her thread again, your next thought will be your last."
The elder's face twisted. "You threaten the Court?"
Qi Shan Wei answered without emotion. "I state a rule."
Lightning above the dome flickered, as if the sky liked that sentence.
The elder swallowed and did not speak again.
The invisible hands reached down.
They touched the Frost Thread.
The moment they touched it, the thread turned razor-cold.
Ling Xueyao gasped, and frost rushed up her neck like winter grabbing her by the throat.
Her eyes widened, not with fear of death—
With fear of being erased from the future.
Qi Shan Wei lifted two fingers.
Zhen moved instantly with him, because Zhen had learned how to move under command.
"Thunder-Path Lock," Zhen said.
A new shield behavior activated around the dome—thin prismatic rails appearing in the air like invisible tracks.
Lightning above the dome twitched.
Then it was forced to follow the tracks, bending away from random targets and into controlled paths.
The crowd outside the dome screamed.
"Lightning is being guided!"
"Who can do that?!"
A sect elder whispered, voice shaking, "That is not defense. That is governance…"
The Silent Bell envoy stared at the rails, stunned. "You are forcing thunder to behave like roads," he murmured.
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "Roads are safer than storms."
The invisible hands did not care.
They tightened on the Frost Thread anyway.
A faint cracking sound came from the thread itself—like ice cracking.
Ling Xueyao's lips parted in pain.
Qi Shan Wei stepped closer.
He did not embrace her. He did not do anything soft or childish.
He placed his palm over the bracelet-formation he had already anchored on her wrist.
His prismatic energy pushed into it like a steady heartbeat.
"Breathe with me," he said.
Ling Xueyao's throat tightened, but she matched his breath.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
Her shaking slowed.
The moon-shadow behind her steadied—still near-awakening, but not breaking.
The Frost Thread stopped cracking for one breath.
One breath was not enough.
The bell wanted payment now.
The Silent Bell envoy raised his hand slowly. "Returning Prismatic One," he said, voice strained, "the Bell does not bargain. It collects."
Qi Shan Wei did not look away from the invisible hands. "Everything collects," he replied. "Even heaven."
The envoy's eyes flickered with something like respect—and worry.
Because he understood what Qi Shan Wei was about to do.
Qi Shan Wei shifted his weight.
The thunder inside his meridians moved like a door opening.
The air around his feet brightened.
Zhen spoke quickly. "Master is preparing a between-strikes step."
Ling Xueyao's eyes widened. "Shan Wei—"
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "I will not let it take you."
Then he moved.
Not fast.
Not like a blur.
Like lightning itself deciding he was already somewhere else.
For one tiny moment, his body did not travel through space.
It traveled through the lightning path.
Heaven-Flash Dominion.
He stepped inside the rail of thunder Zhen had created and appeared at the Court platform in one silent breath, without distortion, without ripple, without warning.
The entire realm froze.
Even the invisible hands hesitated.
Because the chosen one had moved during the payment window.
The hunting lightning spear above the dome trembled like a beast pleased by the sight.
The Silent Bell envoy's voice came out sharp. "Do not touch the ledger!"
Qi Shan Wei did not touch the ledger.
He touched the space around it.
He raised Heavenpiercer and drew one clean line in the air—not a slash meant to kill.
A slash meant to separate.
A prismatic formation appeared with the stroke, thin as hair, bright as dawn.
It wrapped around the invisible hands like a gentle net.
Not to trap them by force.
To redirect their grip.
The hands loosened for half a breath.
The Frost Thread stopped tearing.
Ling Xueyao staggered, eyes wet for one heartbeat, then sharp again.
"Stay steady," Qi Shan Wei said without turning.
She nodded, unable to speak.
The bell responded.
A deep ring rolled through the sky again.
Not loud.
Absolute.
The Time-Debt Ledger flared.
The words PAY ONE THREAD flickered… then changed.
Because the Bell had decided.
IF NOT THREAD… THEN NAME.
The sentence formed slowly, like a knife being sharpened.
The Silent Bell envoy's face tightened. "No," he whispered. "It is choosing the worst payment."
A Court elder breathed, voice eager, "Good. Take his name. Rewrite him. End this."
Qi Shan Wei's eyes narrowed slightly.
His calm did not crack, but the air around him grew colder.
He understood what "name payment" meant.
A name was not just a label.
A name was a lock that held your life together across time.
If the Bell took a name, it could rewrite the person.
Rewrite their bonds.
Rewrite their fate.
Rewrite what they were allowed to become.
The invisible hands turned away from the Frost Thread.
They rose.
They reached toward Qi Shan Wei.
Not toward his body.
Toward the space above his heart, where invisible lines tied him to the world.
The air began to write again—old script, heavy and sharp.
A sealed name started to form.
Not "Qi Shan Wei."
Something longer.
Something older.
Something that carried titles buried inside it like a crown under cloth.
Outside the dome, Thousand Masks Pavilion watchers began to break completely.
They had been trained for fear.
But the sky was hunting panic, and panic was all they had now.
One masked figure grabbed another and hissed, "Say the buyer's name! Now!"
The other shook their head wildly. "I don't know! I swear!"
"LIAR!"
The first thought, kill them.
Lightning flickered.
The first watcher froze, terrified.
The lightning did not strike yet.
It waited.
Because the sky punished panic.
Not anger.
Not cruelty.
Panic.
The first watcher's breath broke.
Lightning struck.
The mask shattered into ash.
The second watcher screamed and fell back, and in that scream, a clue slipped out—half words, broken by fear.
"B-bell wax… from— from the Conclave route… a courier with— with a silent—"
Lightning struck again and erased the last words mid-air.
But the Silent Bell envoy's eyes sharpened.
He heard enough.
"Conclave route," he whispered. "A Silent… courier…"
His gaze snapped to the Court elders.
And for the first time, his voice carried real accusation. "Someone is moving Bell-Wax through your auctions."
The Court elders stiffened.
The Heavenly Auction Conclave was supposed to be neutral.
If Bell-Wax was moving through it, then this was bigger than the Court.
Bigger than the Pavilion.
Bigger than a single chapter.
The sealed name above Qi Shan Wei brightened.
The letters tried to lock into place like a verdict.
Qi Shan Wei lifted Heavenpiercer again.
He did not aim at the Court.
He aimed at the writing.
He spoke one calm line. "My name is not yours."
The hunting lightning spear above the dome flared.
Elder Tian Lei watched silently.
The Silent Bell envoy whispered, almost pleading now, "If you cut Bell-writing directly, you may create a second debt."
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed steady. "Then I will pay it later."
Drakonix growled weakly, flames rising. "No… name… stealing…"
Zhen's shield rails brightened, trying to hold the lightning paths stable as the whole realm shook under pressure.
The invisible hands tightened around the sealed name script.
The letters began to sink toward Qi Shan Wei's heart like nails.
Ling Xueyao's Frost Thread trembled again, like it wanted to jump in the way.
Qi Shan Wei saw it.
He did not allow it.
He moved one step—between the name-writing and the threads.
Calm.
Emperor-like.
Then he did something the crowd outside the dome could not understand.
He did not slash.
He anchored.
He lifted his left hand, two fingers together, and pressed them into the air beside the sealed name.
A small, plain formation disc appeared—public-grade, simple, "foundational."
Heaven-Anchor Bastion.
But he did not use it as a wall.
He used it as a nail.
He pinned the sealed name script in place—locking the writing so it could not sink into his heart.
The letters froze for one breath.
The bell rang.
The realm shook.
The writing fought.
Qi Shan Wei held.
His eyes narrowed to a calm point.
And in that breath of stillness, the hunting lightning spear above the dome finally wrote the fifth rule.
FIFTH RULE: IF YOU REFUSE PAYMENT… HEAVEN COLLECTS TWICE.
The air went cold.
Because it meant the next ring would be worse.
The next demand would be crueler.
The next payment might not be a thread or a name.
It might be a life.
Then the bell rang again—deeper than before.
The Heaven-Anchor nail around the sealed name cracked.
The letters surged.
And the first word of the sealed name finally became readable.
It was not Shan Wei's current name.
It was a title.
A title that sounded like an enemy.
A title that sounded like the bell itself.
The word burned into the air:
"BELLWARDEN—"
Qi Shan Wei's eyes sharpened.
The Thunder Crown Seed in his chest pulsed like it recognized a blade.
And the realm screamed silently, because everyone felt it:
The Bell was not only collecting debt.
It was trying to turn the chosen one…
into something it owned.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.