A frigid wind solidified in mid-air. Billions of snowflakes hung suspended in their trajectories, as if time itself had been frozen. On the Northern Frontier snow plains, Chu Hongyan stood poised, her Lie Feng Spear held ready, its red tassel frozen mid-flutter. She watched, helpless, as a single snowflake hung motionless before her eyes—she couldn't even shift her gaze.
This was no ordinary stillness. It was a stagnation of something far deeper—the very operating laws of all creation had been forcibly paused.
Inside the Imperial Capital's Mirror Palace, the flowing rivers of data that coursed through the walls instantly turned blank. The mirror patterns on the wrists of the Night Raven Division members dulled. In Black Fog City, the churning dust-mist stilled. Above the chessboard in the Seven Princes' Manor, the locked pieces hovered in mid-combat. Even the flickering of candle flames was captured,凝固成永恒的姿态.
In this absolute silence, all Mark-bearers simultaneously flared with their respective lights. The Blazing Bloodfire Chain on Chu Hongyan's arm burned like a brand. The mirror pattern in Shen Yuzhu's eyes swirled with incandescent data. Gu Changfeng's Cloud-Edge Blade hummed and vibrated in his grip. A dark,幽光 shimmered over Lu Wanning's chest, where the Heartshadow Lock resided. Far to the north, at the peak of the frontier, Helian Sha's wolf-blood boiled around him. And deep within the capital, the Nine Dragon Mystic Light on the Emperor's robes flowed with unending intensity.
They had all been… named by an intangible presence.
Deep within the Mirror Palace, the new Emperor stood before the dead mirror walls. A fissure—the first—appeared on his ever-impassive face. The order he had dedicated his life to building seemed as naive and crude as a child's scribble before this… this indescribable existence.
"Is this… true Order?" he whispered, the sound hollow in the congealed air.
On the snow plains, the bodies of Chu Hongyan and her three companions were trapped, but their minds raced under the immense pressure. She could feel Gu Changfeng's desperate, minute struggle to move a finger. She saw the frantic, data-bright whirl in Shen Yuzhu's eyes. She noticed the faint, almost imperceptible tremor in Lu Wanning's fingertips.
Then, It arrived.
Without form, without direction. Only pure 'Scrutiny' poured down like light, washing over every inch of their existence, every thought, every strand of their karma.
[Anchor Points Confirmed.]
[Initiating Scan of Civilization Microcosm.]
Icy, emotionless intents flooded directly into their soul-cores.
Chu Hongyan's vision was swamped with scenes—the burning Lu Manor, mountains of corpses on Northern battlefields, the faces of those she'd failed to save, dying again and again before her eyes. The blood lock on her arm burned as if trying to cauterize her very soul.
[Blood Mark: Disordered. Detection of unresolved obsessions of past bearers. Crimes of forced inheritance. Cost borne by individual exceeds autonomous choice parameters.]
The duty she thought was her purpose… was it just a destiny shackled by bloodline?
Shen Yuzhu felt his soul being torn open. The rational fortress he'd so carefully constructed was transparent under this gaze, its flawed framework exposed. All the buried emotions, the suppressed instincts… laid bare.
[Mirror Mark: Isolated. Core Logic: Suppress instinct, seal emotion. Warning: Detected fragmented soul structure. Has been forcibly stripped of 'Counter-Mark' connection.]
He always believed himself a complete, self-possessed strategist. Was he merely… "a half-system, functioning post-disassembly"? That missing "Counter-Mark"... could it be Helian Sha?
Gu Changfeng stood in stunned silence. He, the perpetual variable, the unstable element, was now defined as—
[Will: Pure. Attribute Analysis: Not variable, not turbulence. Designation: Reality Anchor. Civilization's Geocentric Gravity.]
Lu Wanning felt a recognition from a higher dimension. Her healing path, her rationality, were judged as—
[Logic Mark: Temperate. Core Logic: Inclusion and Healing. Control Group: Imperial Order (Purification & Elimination). Verdict: A Balancing Force within Chaos.]
The final judgment struck at the bond they cherished most:
[Heart Oath Structure: Incomplete. Verdict: An emergency suture driven by survival instinct. Not a state of complete resonance.]
These words cut deeper than any blade. The trust and connection they held sacred was, in the eyes of cosmic law, just a ragged, incomplete patch.
Just as the chill of despair threatened to consume them—
In the Mirror Palace, the Emperor's eyes blazed with data streams. With sheer, terrifying will, he forced life back into the dormant Order Net beneath his feet.
"Activate—[Order Net, Tier Two]!"
He wasn't trying to attack the unknowable. He was trying to steal the truth of the world's laws. The Net's light struggled, twisted, and ignited, becoming billions of law-threads lashing towards the formless Scrutinizer.
Then—
Nothing.
No explosion, no conflict. The law-threads, upon contact, simply… ceased to be, as if they had never been defined. The Order Net collapsed once more.
The Emperor staggered, blood trickling from his lip, but his eyes shone with rapturous fire.
"So that's it… Not conquest. Theft!"
He remembered the prophecy from the Fragmentary Scroll of the Ordered Heart:
"The one who balances the Three Marks shall become the 'Lord of Costs'."
The Scrutinizer wasn't destroying. It was tempering vessels for him! These four would become living artifacts to bear the ultimate power!
"Temper them well…" he murmured, voice thick with suppressed fervor. "When the time is ripe, I will personally seize this power and become the true—Lord of Costs!"
On the snow plains, the pointer on Lu Changfeng's bronze compass shattered.
In the eerie stillness, the compass surface rippled. A semi-transparent figure in simple gray robes materialized. His aura was ephemeral, features blurred, as if composed of ancient texts and symbols.
"Be not alarmed, Recorder." Xuan's voice was preternaturally calm. "This is no calamity, but a civilization's… 'physical examination'. Your mission is to witness, not intervene."
Lu Changfeng's pupils contracted, but he was powerless to speak.
When the Scrutinizer delivered its final verdict on their Heart Oath, Xuan raised an ethereal finger and traced a line in the air. A gentle, yet firm intent—like a vermilion annotation in a ancient text's margin—echoed clearly in their souls:
"Annotation: However, where there is suture, new flesh must begin to grow. Its name is—Choice."
These words, like a meteor slicing through darkness, instantly illuminated their despairing hearts!
Chu Hongyan's consciousness, drowning in bloodline guilt, fiercely grabbed hold of this straw named "Choice."
Shen Yuzhu's sealed rationality found a crack pried open by those two words.
Gu Changfeng's adrift will found a direction.
Lu Wanning's shaken conviction solidified once more.
Trust might be incomplete, but choosing to trust… that is our own will!
Xuan's intervention, light as a brushstroke, had rewritten the meaning of the trial. He didn't oppose the Scrutinizer; he merely added a deeply human "footnote" to its冰冷 text.
He turned his calm gaze upon the formless Scrutinizer. "Diagnosis recorded. Suggest granting opportunity for reconstruction. The value of civilization sample 'Humanity' lies in its 'Potential.'"
The Scrutinizer's "gaze" lingered on him for a moment. No approval, no denial. Only pure "recording."
The final verdict fell:
[Civilization Sample: Emotion-Rationality structure imbalanced. Individual Samples: Possess reconstruction potential. Initiating Deep Assessment Protocol—Mark Resonance Trial.]
The black-and-white rift in the sky violently expanded, transforming into four light-devouring abysses that swallowed Chu Hongyan, Shen Yuzhu, Gu Changfeng, and Lu Wanning whole!
The Trial Begins—
Chu Hongyan plummeted into a hellscape where the snow plains merged with the burning Lu Manor. The vengeful spirits of past Blood Mark bearers shrieked at her, pressing the weight of their sins upon her. She gripped her spear, but found she couldn't point it at these roots of her bloodline. A voice echoed in her heart: "Is protection about bearing all burdens… or… allowing yourself to be protected?"
Shen Yuzhu was adrift in an absolutely silent sea of countless mirrors. Each reflected a future of him growing old alone, having calculated every move, yet ultimately solitary. An ultimate cold enveloped him. Just as his rationality was about to freeze solid, one mirror before him shimmered. It didn't show his reflection, but a blurred figure with wolfish golden eyes and a wild, defiant grin—Helian Sha! A scorching, utterly foreign tremor exploded from the depths of his soul.
Gu Changfeng stood upon intangible wind currents, the cries and expectations of the Northern Border's countless dead souls pressing up from below. The weight of the entire world seemed to bear down on him. He would prove if a mortal's will could anchor this divine sky. "I AM HERE—" he roared, driving his Cloud-Edge Blade fiercely into the void beneath him, "AND HERE IS THE MORTAL REALM!"
Lu Wanning stood before a spiral tower built from the world's "Conflict Laws" and "Stagnation Logic." It was clogged with causal loops, self-enclosed systems, and stagnant energy—like congealed arteries blocking the world's breath. Destroy it utterly and rebuild? Or… understand its blockages, guide its flow, grant it new possibility? She lifted her Reversal Silver Needle, whispering to herself and declaring to the tower: "Healing is not replacement… but awakening the dormant flow itself."
Four trial realms. Four ultimate inquiries into self and fate.
When Chu Hongyan, in the blood-soaked snow, faced the ancestral spirits, and slowly, resolutely, lowered her spear, opening her arms in a gesture of utter vulnerability to embrace the crime and punishment…
When Shen Yuzhu, in the silent mirror sea, for the first time actively reached out to touch that wild, inverted reflection of Helian Sha…
When Gu Changfeng's will resonated with the hopes of the dead, nailing the concept of "the Mortal Realm" firmly upon the wind currents…
When Lu Wanning's silver needle guided the "Stagnation Logic," not to cut it out, but to lead it into new, vibrant cycles…
Four dazzling, triumphant beams of light erupted from the four trial spaces! No longer incomplete patches, but a resonance—tempered by scrutiny, doubt, and agony, and reforged by their own will into something purer, stronger!
Chu Hongyan's voice, calm and unyielding, echoed through the spaces, through the stagnant world:
"World—
We may be incomplete.
But we are real.
The human heart is never perfect… but it never ceases!"
The Scrutinizer's "gaze" withdrew, as silently as it came.
Global laws resumed their flow. Wind and snow fell anew. Data rivers ran again. Chess pieces clattered onto the board. Candle flames danced.
As if nothing had changed.
Yet, as if everything had.
In the Mirror Palace, the Emperor watched the four points of resonance in the mirrors, now purer, more potent, his eyes alight with voracious triumph.
At the Northern peak, Helian Sha, feeling the shackles in his soul shudder, let loose a long, earth-shaking howl.
On the Overseer's compass, Xuan's phantom faded, his final whisper lingering: "Annotation complete. Variables injected. The story… enters a new chapter."
Chapter 75 ended, suspended on the silhouettes of the four, ascended within their trials.
The world's judgment had paused.
But the true war for destiny had just begun.