The Emperor Nail Core floated above Qi Shan Wei's palms like a trapped star.
It was still shaking.
Not from fear.
From anger.
From the way his prismatic glyph had slammed its "false" mark into silence.
The word EMPEROR on its surface glowed, then dimmed, then glowed again—like it was breathing through clenched teeth.
The Bell Throne Keeper behind him staggered backward, chest hollow, its bell-shadow collapsing into thin smoke. Without the Nail, it looked less like a judge and more like a broken statue.
The Ice Phoenix spirit hovered over the altar, wings spread wide, frost-fire dripping like cold rain.
"Do not listen to it," the spirit warned. "That Nail is a liar."
Shan Wei's eyes stayed calm.
"I'm not listening," he said quietly. "I'm reading."
He held the Nail Core closer.
He did not squeeze it like a weapon.
He treated it like a formation plate.
Like a machine.
Like a lock that could be understood and opened.
His fingers moved in a small circle, and seven thin prismatic lines formed around the Nail Core—an invisible cage of light.
A Prismatic Reading Formation.
Simple, clean, powerful.
The Nail Core fought.
It pulsed and tried to push his mind away.
It tried to speak its old judgment again.
But Shan Wei's formation caught the meaning before it could become law.
"Show me your maker," Shan Wei said.
The Nail Core trembled.
Then a new thing appeared on its surface.
Not a rune.
A scar.
A forge scar.
Like a burn mark left by a hammer and flame.
And from that scar, a voice rose.
Not loud.
Not in the room.
Inside his bones.
Inside the air.
Inside the space between heartbeats.
A voice that felt ancient and proud.
A voice that felt like a smith looking down at a blade he once made.
"...You…" the voice whispered.
The tomb shook.
The Ice Phoenix spirit stiffened.
Shan Wei's Prismatic Heart ring burned once, hard and hot, like a warning.
The voice continued, slow and heavy.
"You… still carry the same… light."
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed slightly.
"You are the maker?" he asked.
The Nail Core flared.
The voice became clearer.
And with clarity came pressure—like an unseen hand trying to press a crown onto his head.
Not a crown of gold.
A crown of ownership.
The voice spoke again.
"Return to me… my Emperor…"
The moment it said "my," Shan Wei's aura sharpened.
His prismatic flame did not explode.
It tightened.
It became dangerous in silence.
"My?" Shan Wei repeated softly.
The Ice Phoenix spirit shouted.
"It is trying to claim you!"
Shan Wei's voice stayed calm, but colder.
"I don't belong to anyone," he said.
His fingers drew a new prismatic glyph in the air—simple and sharp.
SEVER OWNER.
The glyph slammed into the Nail Core.
The Nail Core screamed without sound.
The claiming pressure cracked.
But the maker's echo did not vanish.
It just laughed—low and distant.
"A new Emperor always says that," the voice murmured. "Until the world kneels."
Shan Wei's eyes flashed.
He pushed his reading formation deeper.
The Nail Core's surface lit up.
Hidden lines appeared like secrets rising from deep water.
One line was a name.
A sealed forge name.
The letters tried to form.
The tomb wind howled.
The Ice Phoenix spirit backed away, trembling.
"Stop," the spirit whispered. "That name is poison."
Shan Wei didn't stop.
Because he understood the rule now.
Names were power.
And the Silent Bell Monastery was stealing names like weapons.
He would not let them keep another.
The name on the Nail Core completed itself.
FORGE SOVEREIGN — LUO KAI.
The moment the final stroke formed, Shan Wei's Prismatic Heart ring reacted like it had been stabbed.
A pain shot through his chest—fast, sharp, deep.
He did not cry out.
But his breath caught for one heartbeat.
And for one heartbeat, a memory not his own flashed behind his eyes.
A massive forge city floating above a sea of stars.
Seven furnaces burning in different colors.
A man in black-gold armor standing at the center, holding a hammer the size of a mountain.
His eyes were cold.
His smile was thin.
He lifted an Emperor Nail and spoke like he was blessing a weapon.
"Pin him," the man said.
"Even if the heavens scream."
Shan Wei's jaw tightened.
He opened his eyes again.
The memory vanished, but the feeling stayed.
Danger.
Old danger.
A danger that remembered him.
The Nail Core pulsed once—happy, almost.
The voice of Luo Kai returned, clearer now, like a door fully opened.
"Ah," it said. "You heard me."
The air in the tomb turned heavy.
Shan Wei's prismatic lines around the Nail Core trembled. The Nail was no longer just a trapped object.
It was a messenger.
A bridge.
And that bridge was starting to become two-way.
The Ice Phoenix spirit hissed.
"It's calling him back."
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed.
"Where is he?" Shan Wei asked.
The Nail Core glowed, and a new rune appeared:
FAR.ABOVE.WAITING.
The tomb shook again.
This time, the shake did not come from the Nail.
It came from outside.
In the Refuge Tunnel lane, the second execution spear was still pressing down on Zhen's Fifth Layer shield.
Zhen's knees sank deeper into the ground.
His chest core burned so bright it was almost white.
Cracks spread across his armor plates like spider lines.
"CORE FAILURE INCOMING," he reported.
Then, very calm, very blunt:
"I WILL CONTINUE."
Yuerin grabbed his arm.
"Zhen! If your core shuts down—"
Zhen turned his head slowly.
"If I shut down," he said, "YOU MUST RUN."
Yuerin's eyes narrowed.
"I don't run," she said.
Zhen paused.
"THEN YOU WILL DIE," he replied.
Drakonix's wing trembled.
His breathing was rough.
He tried to stand.
He couldn't.
But his eyes were bright—angry and proud.
He looked at the spear.
He looked at the sky scar.
He looked at Shan Wei's direction.
And then he did something small, but terrifying.
He opened his mouth and burned one single word into the air.
Not a long sentence.
Not a roar.
A word.
A word made of prismatic flame.
The word formed above the battlefield like a burning stamp:
PAUSE.
The execution spear froze.
The pressure stopped.
The spear didn't vanish.
It simply… held still.
Like a weapon forced to wait.
Yuerin's eyes widened.
"That… worked?"
Zhen's head tilted.
"WORD WAS ACCEPTED," he said. "MEANING: SOMEONE HAS AUTHORITY."
Yuerin's stomach tightened.
"Authority… from Silent Bell," she whispered.
Because only a Bell-coded system could freeze a Court tool.
And the scorch mark Drakonix made earlier had already proved the Court was being puppeted.
The sky scar above them rippled.
A hidden command line appeared in the air, faint and cold:
BELL OVERRIDE: PAUSE EXECUTION.
Yuerin's teeth clenched.
"They can pause," she said. "They can resume. Like we're toys."
Xuan Chi, still on her knees, lifted her face slowly.
Her eyes were different now.
Not empty.
Not lost.
Real.
The frost moon behind her stabilized, but it looked scarred—like a moon with cracks filled by ice light.
Frozen law scars remained on the ground around her.
They did not melt.
They looked permanent.
Xuan Chi breathed, shaking.
"I… remembered," she whispered.
Yuerin's gaze softened for one breath.
Then hardened again.
"Good," she said. "Now stay real."
Xuan Chi nodded.
Her voice turned quiet and sharp.
"They are still holding my crown," she said. "Even if I cracked it."
Drakonix made a tired, angry chirp again.
Like he was saying: I will burn it next.
Zhen's core dimmed suddenly.
His Fifth Layer shield did not drop, but it faded into a thinner form.
Zhen's eyes flickered.
"EMERGENCY SLEEP MODE… ACTIVATING," he said.
His body locked for half a second.
Then his arms lowered.
He stood like a statue.
Not dead.
Sleeping.
Yuerin swore softly.
Without Zhen's moving fortress, the dome was weaker.
And the enemy would feel it.
The air around them shifted.
Shadows moved.
A Thousand Masks assassin stepped forward on the ice like a ghost, mask glowing with a new line of contract text.
KILL WITHOUT KARMIC DEBT.
The assassin's dagger looked ordinary.
But the law around it was wrong.
Like it cut the rules themselves.
Yuerin's eyes narrowed.
"So that's their brutal clause," she whispered.
The assassin raised the dagger.
And aimed it at Drakonix's half-spread wing.
Because they understood something simple:
If Drakonix fully wakes, their contracts will burn.
So they had to kill him now.
Inside the Bell title chamber, Yuerin's shadow-self stared at the mirror plate.
THE EMPEROR TITLE CAN BE REASSIGNED.
The words made her skin crawl.
A bell sound rang softly in the chamber, like laughter.
Then another line formed on the plate.
A list.
A list of titles.
Emperor. King. Lord. Saint.
Next to them were name slots.
Empty.
And at the top, a slot that flickered like a wound:
PRISMATIC EMPEROR — [UNSTABLE]
A second slot appeared beneath it.
Like a replacement.
COURT EMPEROR — [READY]
Yuerin's shadow-self went cold.
"So they were going to swap him," she thought. "Not kill him. Replace him."
A door opened behind her.
Soft footsteps.
A monk in pale robes stepped into the chamber.
No mask.
No weapon.
Just a bell bracelet on his wrist.
He smiled gently, like he was greeting a guest.
"Welcome," he said.
Yuerin's shadow-self did not speak.
The monk tilted his head.
"You are clever," he said. "But cleverness is still inside time."
He lifted his wrist.
The bell bracelet chimed once.
The mirror plate flickered.
And a new line formed:
SHADOW INTRUDER DETECTED.
Yuerin's shadow-self's body stiffened.
The chamber's light turned cold.
The monk smiled wider.
"Now," he said softly, "tell me…"
He paused.
Then he spoke a name with perfect calm:
"Qi Shan Wei."
The instant the name was spoken inside the title chamber, the plate reacted.
The "Prismatic Emperor" slot pulsed.
The "Unstable" mark flared.
A bell-shaped chain began forming.
It wasn't going toward Yuerin.
It was going toward Shan Wei.
Back in the Ice Phoenix Tomb, Shan Wei felt it.
A pull.
A chain forming around his name.
He turned slightly.
The Nail Core in his hands pulsed, excited.
Luo Kai's echo whispered, pleased.
"They found your name slot," it said. "Now you can finally be corrected."
Shan Wei's eyes turned colder than the tomb's frost.
"Corrected?" he repeated.
He looked at the Nail Core.
Then he did something simple.
Something terrifying.
He squeezed.
Not like a man squeezing a stone.
Like an Emperor crushing a lie.
The Nail Core screamed.
Its runes flared wildly.
The word EMPEROR shook.
The echo of Luo Kai hissed.
"You dare—?"
Shan Wei's voice was calm.
"You tried to name me false," he said. "So I will name you…"
He paused.
His prismatic flame rose, tight and controlled, wrapping around the Nail Core like a collar.
"…useless."
He slammed the Nail Core onto the altar.
A formation circle flashed.
A seal locked.
Not a seal to destroy it.
A seal to contain it.
A prison seal.
The Nail Core trembled inside the seal, like a beast trapped in glass.
The Ice Phoenix spirit exhaled in relief.
But Shan Wei did not relax.
Because the chain pull on his name was still forming.
The Silent Bell Monastery had found a way to reach him.
Not with a spear.
With a title system.
And outside, an assassin's dagger was about to fall on Drakonix's wing.
Shan Wei's eyes sharpened.
He whispered one calm command into the air.
"Link."
His Prismatic Heart ring pulsed.
A prismatic thread shot outward from his chest, crossing the tomb walls like they were paper, reaching toward Drakonix.
The link formed instantly.
Drakonix's eyes widened.
He felt Shan Wei.
He felt the bond.
He felt the command.
Drakonix's half-formed wing flared.
Prismatic flame exploded—small but pure—and it burned straight toward the assassin's dagger.
The dagger screamed as its contract text caught fire.
For one breath, the words "kill without karmic debt" flickered.
Then they blackened.
Then they broke.
The assassin froze, shocked.
Because their "debtless" kill was suddenly full of debt.
Full of sin.
Full of record.
Drakonix's flames didn't just burn the dagger.
They burned the clause itself.
Yuerin's eyes widened.
"It's working," she whispered. "He can burn the rules."
Shan Wei's voice came through the prismatic link—calm, steady, deadly.
"Protect him," he commanded.
Drakonix roared—weak, but real.
And the burning word he had placed in the sky earlier still hovered there:
PAUSE.
A warning.
A threat.
A sign that the Court could be forced to wait.
But waiting was still dangerous.
Because it meant the real enemy was stepping closer.
Inside the tomb, Shan Wei stared at the sealed Nail Core.
The forge-name echo of Luo Kai had not vanished.
It pressed against the seal like a smile behind glass.
"You can seal a Nail," the voice whispered. "But you cannot seal the forge that made it."
The tomb trembled.
A bell sound rang faintly through space.
Not from the tomb.
From above the world.
From somewhere far.
A slow, steady chime that felt like a countdown beginning.
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed.
Because he understood.
The forge sovereign had heard him.
And now…
the real war was starting.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.