Qi Shan Wei appeared inside the dome like a thought that had already happened.
There was no flash that the eyes could track. No loud boom. No wind blast. One breath he was not there—then he was standing between Ling Xueyao and the invisible pull in the air, calm and still, like a wall that had always been in this spot.
A thin thunder mark sat on his chest now, small but sharp, like a crown made from lightning lines.
The moment the mark appeared, the air changed.
Lightning outside the dome did not "hit" the barrier anymore.
It hesitated.
It curled.
It circled, like a hunting beast that had suddenly smelled its true master.
But the bell did not care about lightning.
The bell cared about what was tied to Shan Wei's heart.
Above the Court platform, the Frost Thread was already under strain. It looked like a pale line of moonlight pulled too tight. Tiny cracks ran along it, like glass that had been forced to bend.
Ling Xueyao's breath came out white. Her lips were pale. Her eyes were bright, but not in a normal way. They looked like the sky had dropped a cold moon into them.
Her Lunar Frost Domain was right there, pushing against the edge of awakening.
Not because she wanted glory.
Because the bell was forcing her to either break… or become something bigger.
The Silent Bell envoy stood with hands together, his face still, his chest bell trembling like it was listening to a voice no one else could hear.
The Court elders hovered above with hard eyes.
They did not look brave anymore.
They looked hungry.
They looked like judges who had been waiting for a reason to kill someone they feared.
The Frost Thread yanked again.
Not softly.
Not carefully.
This pull was brutal.
Ling Xueyao's body jerked. A small sound escaped her throat, sharp like a piece of ice snapping.
Qi Shan Wei moved at once.
He did not rush in panic.
He moved like a ruler giving an order that must be obeyed.
He placed two fingers in the air and drew one simple line.
A Heaven-Anchor pattern.
Not a big disk. Not a giant wall.
Just a clean nail of light that pinned the thread's "place" to the sky.
The bell's hook fought it.
The air screamed without sound.
The Frost Thread stopped tearing for one breath.
One breath was enough.
Qi Shan Wei stepped closer to Ling Xueyao. His voice stayed low and steady.
"Look at me," he said.
Ling Xueyao's eyes flicked to him. Her pride was still there, but fear was there too, small and real.
Not fear of dying.
Fear of being taken away and never found again.
The bell pulled again.
Harder.
Qi Shan Wei's Heaven-Anchor nail cracked.
The Court elder at the front leaned forward, lips thin. "Let it take her thread," he hissed. "If the bell demands it, then it is law."
Qi Shan Wei did not even glance at him.
His calm ignored the elder like a mountain ignores a mosquito.
Instead, Shan Wei lifted his palm and placed it over Ling Xueyao's wrist, right where the prismatic bracelet formation still glowed.
It was not a chain.
It was a guard.
He pushed his prismatic energy into it like a steady heartbeat.
"Breathe with me," he said again.
Ling Xueyao's throat tightened. She nodded once.
Their breaths matched.
One.
Two.
Three.
Her shaking eased by a hair.
The frozen law scars around her stopped growing for a short moment.
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "Do not open the domain yet."
Ling Xueyao swallowed hard. "It's pulling me into it."
"I know," he said.
Two words.
No sweet talk.
No long speech.
But the truth in them made her eyes sting.
Because he was not asking her to be strong for pride.
He was trying to keep her safe.
The bell rang.
Not loud.
But clear.
The sound spread through the dome like a thin net.
And the Frost Thread yanked with it.
This time, Qi Shan Wei felt something new.
The bell did not just pull with force.
It pulled with permission.
The Silent Bell envoy's eyes lifted slightly, and his voice finally became heavier.
"The debt is registered," the envoy said.
A Court elder's voice came out sharp. "Explain."
The envoy's bell rang once on its own, like a warning to speak carefully.
"When the Returning Prismatic One paid a year," the envoy said, "Time accepted the payment."
The crowd outside the dome went quiet.
Even the Thousand Masks watchers stopped shifting.
The envoy continued, slow and steady. "A paid debt becomes legal inside the flow."
Qi Shan Wei's eyes narrowed by a small amount.
The envoy looked straight at him. "It does not mean the debt is finished," he said. "It means the Bell can now collect the rest without being called a thief by the laws."
A cold went through the dome.
Not frost.
Not wind.
A cold that felt like a door locking.
The Court elder smiled a little, ugly and pleased. "So now the bell can take his consort threads as payment."
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm, but it turned colder. "It will not."
The envoy did not argue.
He only spoke the truth.
"The Bell does not bargain," the envoy said. "It collects."
The Frost Thread pulled again.
A crack spread along the light line like a spiderweb.
Ling Xueyao gasped.
Her Lunar Frost Domain pushed forward like a moon trying to rise behind her.
A pale circle shimmered in the air, huge and quiet and terrifying.
For one heartbeat, the whole battlefield felt like it was inside a winter sky.
The Court elders stiffened.
Some outside the dome backed away.
A weak cultivator whispered, "That's… not just ice… that's law…"
Qi Shan Wei's mind moved fast.
If she awakened right now, it would save her from the pull.
But it would also leave scars.
Frozen law scars that never fade.
And the bell might use that awakening as a handle to pull harder next time.
Qi Shan Wei did the thing he always did.
He chose control.
He chose timing.
He lifted Heavenpiercer.
Not to threaten the Court.
Not to strike the envoy.
He lifted it toward the invisible hook in the air.
The place where the bell's pull "did not exist."
The bell rang again.
The hook became clearer in Shan Wei's sight, like a shadow line made from old rules.
Qi Shan Wei did not swing wildly.
He drew one clean cut.
A prismatic line with thunder inside it.
Heavenpiercer's tip touched the hook—
And lightning screamed.
Not outside.
Inside the law.
For a moment, the bell's pull hesitated, like a hand flinching from heat.
The Frost Thread loosened a little.
Ling Xueyao sucked in air, sharp and shaking.
Zhen stepped forward at once, eyes blank, voice flat and calm.
"Imperial Shield Matrix: Fortress Lock," Zhen said.
The dome changed.
It was still a dome, but now it felt like a moving fortress around them. The shield lines thickened. The air inside became heavier, like sound could not travel in a straight line anymore.
The bell's pressure hit the shield and bent, forced to crawl around it instead of stabbing through.
A Court elder's eyes widened. "He is blocking Bell-Law with a formation."
Someone outside shouted, "That's impossible!"
Zhen tilted his head. His timing was strange, as always, and his blunt voice made it worse.
"Correction," Zhen said. "We are not blocking Bell-Law. We are reducing efficiency."
For a breath, even some terrified people blinked like they did not know if they were allowed to laugh.
From the cracked cocoon, Drakonix made a rough sound like a proud baby beast that had just heard his name.
Then his voice came out broken and stubborn.
"Good… metal…"
Zhen replied without emotion. "I am not metal. I am Zhen."
Drakonix hissed, weak but offended. "Still… metal…"
The tiny humor lasted only a breath.
Then the bell pulled again, and the air became sharp as a blade.
Qi Shan Wei's thunder mark flared once.
Lightning lines ran through his meridians like living roads.
For a moment, Shan Wei felt the sky watching him.
Not like a friend.
Like a test.
If he failed here, the sky would not protect him from the bell.
Qi Shan Wei did not care about being "protected."
He cared about not losing what was his.
He stepped forward again.
Not fast like a normal speed technique.
He stepped inside a lightning gap.
Flashbreak Interval.
For a fraction of a heartbeat, he was not inside the moment the bell expected.
The hook tried to pull—
And found nothing to grab.
Qi Shan Wei appeared half a step to the side, and Heavenpiercer traced another clean cut through the invisible line.
This time, thunder followed the blade like a silent shadow.
The hook burned.
Drakonix felt it too.
His prismatic flame surged from inside the cocoon, and a newborn thunderflame roar shook the dome.
Not big like a grown dragon.
But sharp enough to bite.
"Stop… touching… ours…" Drakonix growled.
His first full prismatic wing spread wider, trembling, half-wet with power and pain.
The flame touched the hook.
For a heartbeat, Bell-Law stiffened.
Like old paper held above fire.
The Court elders' faces changed.
Not fear of Drakonix.
Fear of what Drakonix meant.
A flame that could hurt the bell meant the bell was not untouchable.
That meant laws could bleed.
That meant the world could change.
The Silent Bell envoy's eyes narrowed.
"A thunderflame that bites Bell-Law," he murmured.
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed calm. "Do not force it, Drakonix."
Drakonix huffed, stubborn. "Mine…"
The Frost Thread trembled again, but it did not tear.
Not yet.
Ling Xueyao's eyes were locked on the thread above, then on Shan Wei.
Her voice came out thin. "If it takes it… will you lose me?"
Qi Shan Wei's gaze did not waver. "No."
Just one word.
And yet it landed like a vow.
Because Shan Wei did not speak empty words.
He made them true.
The bell rang again.
The dome shook.
And a sentence appeared above the Court platform, written in ancient light:
PAY WITH TWO THREADS.
The words were not loud.
They were absolute.
The Court elders froze.
Then one of them smiled.
A greedy, sick smile.
"Two," the elder whispered. "So it is not only the Frost Thread."
Outside the dome, the Thousand Masks watchers shifted at once.
One masked woman took a step back, voice shaking. "That is not a contract clause…"
Her mask turned slightly toward the envoy. "That is pure Bell demand."
The envoy's face stayed calm, but his eyes were colder now.
"Time has decided," he said.
Qi Shan Wei's thunder mark flared again, and lightning outside the dome answered with a low roar like a sky-beast waking up.
The bell did not wait.
The Frost Thread yanked again—hard.
At the same time, another thread lit up.
Not frost.
Not moonlight.
A thread with a faint, proud, burning glow.
A phoenix color.
Feng Qingyue's thread.
The moment it lit, far away in the dome's shadow, Feng Qingyue's breath caught.
Her eyes widened.
Her hand went to her chest like she had been stabbed by invisible heat.
"No…" she whispered.
The bell's pull touched her too.
A second hook formed.
A second invisible hand closed.
The sky above the dome cracked with a flash.
Lightning hunted, restless.
It felt the thunder mark on Shan Wei.
It felt the bell's demand.
It felt the conflict.
Qi Shan Wei's calm turned heavier, like a mountain about to fall.
He looked up at the two threads now pulling at once—Frost and Phoenix.
Then he looked at the Silent Bell envoy.
His voice was steady and cold.
"If I refuse," Shan Wei said, "what happens?"
The envoy's bell trembled.
His answer came out quiet, and it felt like a knife.
"Then the Bell will take them anyway," the envoy said. "And it will take more later. Because refusal is also recorded."
The Court elder's smile widened. "So you cannot win."
Qi Shan Wei's eyes moved to that elder for the first time.
His gaze was calm.
But it carried the kind of pressure that makes people remember to kneel.
"You misunderstand," Shan Wei said.
"I do not need your permission to win."
The bell rang again.
Two hooks pulled.
Ling Xueyao's Lunar Frost Domain surged, the pale moon behind her shaking like it wanted to rise fully.
Feng Qingyue's phoenix glow flared, hot and sharp, like a firebird waking in pain.
Zhen's fortress shield groaned under the stress.
Drakonix's wing trembled, thunderflame spilling like newborn rage.
And Qi Shan Wei lifted Heavenpiercer—calm, serious, emperor-like—
As if he was about to cut the bell's law again.
But this time, he was not aiming at one hook.
He was aiming at the rule that demanded two.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2026
All rights reserved.