The Prismatic Emperors Record hung above the world like a sky made of law.
It did not feel like a normal list.
It felt like the heavens were holding a book open and forcing everyone to look.
Names shined like stars.
Titles hummed like thunder.
And one name, carved right there in front of everyone, was crossed out like a mistake.
QI SHAN WEI.
For one heartbeat, the battlefield went quiet.
Even the wind seemed scared to move.
Yin Yuerin's eyes narrowed as she stared up. Her lips parted, but she didn't speak. It felt wrong to speak under a sky like this. Like even words could be punished.
Xuan Chi's face turned pale. Her frost moon behind her pulsed once, cracked and scarred, as if it hated what it saw.
Drakonix lifted his head, eyes burning. His half-formed wing trembled. Pain shivered through his bones. But his anger was bigger than pain.
Zhen stood like a sleeping statue, his Auto-Guard shield flickering weakly.
Then, in the Ice Phoenix Tomb, Shan Wei lifted his chin.
His face stayed calm.
But the air around him turned sharp.
The Ice Phoenix spirit whispered, trembling, "They erased you once… and the world accepted it."
Shan Wei's voice was quiet and cold.
"Then the world will learn to remember," he said.
He reached up with his prismatic thread and pulled the bell chain tighter. The chain hissed like a living snake of law. It tried to slip away. It tried to crawl back to its master.
Shan Wei did not let it.
He pressed the chain into his Name Anchor glyph.
The glyph glowed brighter.
PRISMATIC NAME ANCHOR became heavier, stronger, more real.
His Prismatic Heart ring pulsed once—like a hammer striking a bell.
The bell chain shook violently.
And a small line of text appeared under Shan Wei's crossed-out name on the Record.
Not written by the Monastery.
Written by the world reacting to Shan Wei's anchor.
STATUS: CONTESTED.
The Ice Phoenix spirit gasped.
Yuerin's eyes sharpened.
"Good," she murmured. "Now it's a fight. Not a death sentence."
But then the sky chimed.
Slow.
Happy.
A bell sound like a smile.
A pale circle of light opened high above the Record, like an eye in the heavens.
From that eye, a gentle voice spoke. Smooth. Calm. Warm.
Too warm.
"Poor child," the voice said. "Still resisting your correction."
The sound was not shouted.
Yet it rolled through the air like a command.
The Silent Bell monk's voice.
Everyone felt it.
A pressure pressed down on their shoulders.
A pressure that wanted them to agree.
To accept.
To submit.
Shan Wei's eyes turned colder.
"You are the one crossing names," he said.
The monk's voice remained gentle.
"We do not cross names," it said softly. "We clean mistakes."
The Record flickered.
The crossed-out line over Shan Wei's name began to glow brighter.
It started to move.
Like a living ink stroke.
Like a blade being lifted again, ready to cut.
Yuerin's stomach tightened.
"He's going to cross him out again," she thought. "Right now. In front of everyone."
Xuan Chi clenched her hands, shaking.
"I can stop it," she whispered, but her voice sounded unsure.
Her Lunar Frost scars throbbed.
Her frost moon pulsed behind her.
Frozen law spread under her feet like white glass.
She was still unstable.
Still half-awakened.
Drakonix growled, low and furious.
He tried to stand.
Pain stabbed through his wing bones again.
He almost fell.
But he did not.
He stayed up, shaking like a wounded storm.
Because he understood one simple thing.
If Shan Wei's name was crossed out again, the world would treat Shan Wei like a ghost.
A person with no right to exist.
And Drakonix would not accept that.
Zhen's head twitched slightly in sleep.
His chest plate flashed faintly.
IMPERIAL SENTINEL PROTOCOL: LISTEN.
Like he was hearing something deeper.
Like old orders were waking.
—
Inside the Silent Bell title chamber, Yuerin's shadow-self fought inside a bell-shaped prison of time law.
The walls were pale and smooth, like frozen air.
Every step felt slow.
Every move felt heavy.
The bell prison wanted to make her late.
Late enough to be sealed forever.
The monk stood outside the prison, hands behind his back, smiling politely.
"Your shadow is clever," he said. "But cleverness becomes dust under time."
Yuerin's shadow-self did not speak.
Her eyes were cold.
She raised her hands and pulled a thin strip of darkness off her own arm—like tearing cloth.
A sacrifice.
The darkness turned into a tiny mask, small as a coin.
She tossed it to the floor.
The bell prison paused for half a breath, reading the "payment."
In that half breath, Yuerin's shadow-self slipped one hand out through a crack and stabbed the floor with a silent glyph.
DELAY STEAL.
Time inside the prison jumped.
For one second, she moved at full speed.
She lunged at the mirror plate and pressed her palm against it.
A burst of shadow copied the whole system again—deeper this time.
Titles. Slots. Confirm triggers. Cross-out protocols.
Everything.
Then the bell prison snapped shut.
The crack sealed.
The monk's smile faded slightly.
"You should not have done that," he said softly.
The bell prison began to shrink.
Yuerin's shadow-self finally spoke—one short sentence, sharp and controlled.
"This proof will kill you."
The monk tilted his head.
"Proof," he repeated gently. "Only matters if the world is allowed to remember."
—
Outside, the battlefield shook as the Record's crossed-out line began to descend again.
It drifted toward Shan Wei's name like a slow blade.
The Silent Bell monk's voice spoke in the sky, still gentle, still warm.
"Second correction," it said. "Permanent."
The crossed-out line brightened.
If it completed the mark again, Shan Wei's status would flip from "contested" to "deleted."
Yuerin's hands shook with anger.
She looked at Shan Wei.
Then she looked at Drakonix.
"Can you burn one more word?" she whispered.
Drakonix's eyes narrowed.
He understood.
Burning words into the sky was not free.
The last word, PAUSE, had already cost him pain.
His wing bones still glowed with fire cracks.
But he still lifted his head.
He breathed in.
His chest shook.
He began to burn a new word in the air.
Not a long phrase.
Not a roar.
One word.
A word that could break Bell control.
But the world did not want him to finish.
A Thousand Masks assassin, half-erased and desperate, screamed and threw a dagger upward.
Not at Drakonix.
At the Record.
Because the assassin's orders were simple:
"Help the Bell finish the cross-out."
The dagger was coated with contract ink.
It spun toward the Record like a cursed needle.
Xuan Chi's eyes widened.
If that dagger touched the Record while the cross-out line was moving, it could "seal" the deletion.
She moved without thinking.
Her Lunar Frost scars flared.
She stepped forward and lifted her palm.
A frost wall formed in the air—clear, thin, and deadly.
The dagger hit the wall.
For a breath, it stopped.
Then the dagger shook violently.
Because it was full of karmic debt.
And frozen law was forcing that debt to "settle" right there.
The dagger began to explode.
A black karmic blast, full of erased sins, trying to burst and swallow everyone.
Xuan Chi's face turned white.
If that blast went off, it would hit allies.
It would hit Drakonix.
It would hit the sleeping Zhen.
Xuan Chi gritted her teeth.
She whispered, "Not them."
Then she did something brave.
She pulled the blast inward.
Into her frost wall.
Into her own frozen law scars.
The air screamed.
The blast compacted.
It became a tight black ball inside clear ice.
Xuan Chi's arms trembled.
Blood ran from her nose.
But she held it.
She held the karmic explosion.
Yuerin's eyes widened in real shock.
"She's… containing it."
Xuan Chi's voice was shaking, but real.
"I choose pain," she whispered again.
Then she clenched her fist.
The frozen ball shattered.
The karmic blast died.
The danger vanished.
Xuan Chi fell to one knee, breathing hard.
But she was still alive.
And her frost moon stabilized a little more.
—
In the Ice Phoenix Tomb, Shan Wei watched the crossed-out line approaching his name.
His face did not change.
But his eyes sharpened.
He lifted his Heavenpiercer Ruler.
He did not swing at the sky.
He swung at something deeper.
He slammed the ruler into the ground again and carved a new glyph circle—bigger than before.
A circle with seven layered rings.
A formation inside a formation.
It was simple in shape.
But heavy in meaning.
The Ice Phoenix spirit gasped.
"That… that is not a normal formation."
Shan Wei spoke one calm sentence.
"If the Record is a book," he said, "then I will write in it."
His Prismatic Name Anchor flared.
The bell chain in his grip screamed.
He pulled it all the way into his formation circle.
The chain tried to resist.
But Shan Wei's will was like a mountain.
The chain snapped into place.
And the formation circle became a new thing.
Not just defense.
A printer.
A stamp.
A writing tool.
Shan Wei raised his hand.
His fingers drew one final glyph—simple and deadly.
REMEMBER.
The glyph shot upward like a beam.
It hit the sky.
It hit the Record.
The crossed-out line trembled.
For one breath, it stopped moving.
The Silent Bell monk's voice in the heavens went colder.
"You cannot write into the Record," the monk said.
Shan Wei's voice stayed calm.
"Watch me."
The word REMEMBER burned into the Record's surface.
Not over the cross-out line.
Under it.
Like a foundation being rebuilt.
And beneath Shan Wei's crossed-out name, a new line appeared.
A line that was not gentle.
A line that was a challenge.
CLAIMED BY SELF.
The sky trembled.
The Silent Bell monk's voice hardened.
"Then you choose war," it said.
Shan Wei's eyes turned colder still.
"I didn't choose it," Shan Wei replied. "You started it when you crossed my name out the first time."
Drakonix's chest shook.
He finally finished burning his new word into the sky.
A prismatic flame word appeared above the battlefield, bright and fierce:
BREAK.
The bell chain above the Record shook.
The monk's bracelet chimed wildly.
The Record flickered, like the Bell system was losing its grip for one breath.
And in that breath, something else appeared on the Record.
A second crossed-out name.
Not Shan Wei's.
Another name, crossed out long ago.
Shan Wei's Prismatic Heart ring reacted the moment he saw it.
Like it recognized blood.
Like it recognized family.
The Ice Phoenix spirit whispered in fear.
"No… that name…"
Shan Wei's eyes locked on it.
The second crossed-out name was:
LING XUEYAO.
Shan Wei's heart slammed in his chest.
Not confusion.
Not surprise.
A deep, cold fury.
Because he understood what it meant.
They weren't only erasing Emperors.
They were erasing his consorts too.
And the Silent Bell Monastery had been doing it across cycles.
The monk's voice returned, calm again, like a blade hidden under silk.
"See?" it said. "We can cross out anyone you love."
Shan Wei's aura sharpened like a sword being drawn.
His voice was quiet.
But it shook the tomb.
"Then I will burn your bell down," he said.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.