The sky still held the Prismatic Emperors Record open.
It was not just a list anymore.
It was a weapon.
Every name on it felt like a law carved into the world.
And now, under Shan Wei's eyes, the second crossed-out name burned like an insult.
LING XUEYAO.
For one breath, Qi Shan Wei did not move.
His face stayed calm.
His golden eyes stayed steady.
But the air around him changed.
It became sharper. Heavier. Like the world itself could feel his anger and was scared to touch it.
The Ice Phoenix spirit's voice shook. "They erased her… across cycles."
Shan Wei's hand tightened around the bell chain he had pulled into his Name Anchor formation.
He did not shout.
He did not roar.
He just spoke, quiet and clear.
"If they crossed her out," he said, "then they have been doing this for a long time."
The sealed Emperor Nail Core trembled on the altar, trapped under his prison seal. Behind the seal, the forge echo whispered like a snake behind glass.
"You finally understand," it murmured. "They do not fear your strength. They fear your bond."
Shan Wei did not answer the echo.
He looked up at the Record again.
Under his crossed-out name, his own words still burned:
CLAIMED BY SELF.
But above that, the Silent Bell monk's pressure returned—smooth and gentle like warm silk, yet cold like a knife.
"Do you see?" the monk's voice drifted through the sky. "The Record is clean. You are the stain."
The crossed-out line over Shan Wei's name moved again.
Not fully.
Not yet.
It hovered close, like a blade lifted but waiting for the perfect cut.
The monk's voice stayed calm.
"Your Name Anchor is a childish trick," it said. "A candle in a storm."
Shan Wei's eyes narrowed slightly.
"A storm," he thought, "can also hide lightning."
He pressed his palm against his chest. His Prismatic Heart ring pulsed once, heavy and deep, like a bell answered by a mountain.
His Name Anchor formation circle glowed.
Seven rings. Seven colors.
And inside the rings, tiny new lines appeared—small, simple, and firm.
They were not attack runes.
They were identity runes.
They were the kind of runes a person would carve into their own soul when they refuse to be owned.
The monk's voice turned colder.
"Very well," it said softly. "Then we will correct you in front of everyone."
Above the Record, the pale "eye" of the Silent Bell opened wider.
A new command line appeared in the sky, written in pale law letters:
PUBLIC CORRECTION: ENABLED.TARGET: PRISMATIC NAME ANCHOR.ACTION: CROSS OUT.
Yin Yuerin's breath caught.
"That's a killing move," she whispered. "If they cross out the anchor itself… he won't even be 'contested.' He will be 'nothing.'"
Xuan Chi pushed herself up, shaking. Her frost moon behind her was still cracked, but it was steadier now—like a wounded moon that refused to fall.
Her eyes locked on the sky.
"If I freeze the command line…" she whispered.
Yuerin snapped her head to her.
"Don't," Yuerin said fast. "That is Bell law. If you touch it wrong, it will bite you."
Xuan Chi's jaw trembled.
"I'm already bitten," she whispered.
Then her Lunar Frost scars flared, and a thin white line appeared in the air in front of her.
It was not a sword.
It was not even a blade.
It was a straight moonlight line—clean, quiet, sharp.
A cut made from frozen law itself.
Xuan Chi's eyes widened as she felt it.
Her voice broke.
"I… I can cut without holding anything."
Yuerin stared, shocked.
"That's… the moon line."
Xuan Chi swallowed hard, then lifted her hand a little higher.
The moon line moved with her, silent and deadly.
But she did not cut the Record.
She did not cut the Bell.
She cut something smaller.
She cut the air around the assassin contracts, freezing their movement and slowing their "reaction" lines.
Because if the Bell was going to strike, the Thousand Masks would strike too.
And they were already moving.
Across the battlefield, shadow figures shifted.
More masks appeared at the edge of sight.
Not one.
Not two.
A whole set.
Their contract text glowed on their arms and blades, and even though Drakonix had burned one clause, the Pavilion had many.
Their leader's mask had a new line that made Yuerin's blood run cold:
IF BELL FAILS: TAKE THE BEAST.
They weren't only trying to kill.
They were trying to steal Drakonix.
Drakonix lifted his head, panting. His prismatic wing trembled, still half formed. The pain inside his wing bones had not left.
But his eyes were fierce.
He stared up at the Record.
Then he stared at the crossed-out name: Ling Xueyao.
A low sound came from his throat.
Not a joke.
Not a cute chirp.
A warning.
A sacred beast warning.
Yuerin leaned close and whispered, "Little menace… can you still burn a word?"
Drakonix's eyes narrowed.
He breathed in.
His chest shook.
Then his wing suddenly jerked, and he made a sharp cry.
Invisible pale chains had appeared around his wing—thin, bell-shaped links that wrapped the bone lines.
A retaliation clause.
The sky wrote it like a curse:
RETALIATION: WING BINDING.CAUSE: ILLEGAL WORD "BREAK."
Drakonix's wing pulled against the chain.
The chain tightened.
His face twisted with pain.
Yuerin swore softly.
"They're binding his wings like a criminal."
Drakonix snapped his jaws at the air.
Then, through pain, he made a tiny angry sound like he was saying, I bite bells too.
Yuerin almost laughed for one breath, even in terror.
"You're insane," she whispered. "Good."
Zhen stood nearby, still in sleep mode, but his armor plates began to shift.
A deeper protocol line lit up under his chest cracks:
IMPERIAL SENTINEL PROTOCOL: STEP FORWARD.PRIORITY: PROTECT NAME.
Zhen moved.
Slow.
Heavy.
Like a giant walking while asleep.
He stepped between the battlefield and the sky, like his body believed it could block a law written in heaven.
Yuerin stared.
"Zhen," she whispered, "you can't block a Record."
Zhen answered without emotion, blunt as a stone.
"BLOCKING IS WHAT I DO."
Then he raised both arms.
Not into a full dome.
Something worse.
Something forbidden.
A thin black-gold frame unfolded behind him like a giant shield spine.
A second frame unfolded.
Then a third.
They clicked into place like a moving fortress.
The air trembled.
A line appeared on his chest, burning brighter than before:
FORBIDDEN MODE: IMPERIAL SENTINEL — SIXTH LOCK.RISK: CORE FRACTURE PERMANENT.
Yuerin's throat tightened.
"He's going to crack himself," she thought.
But Zhen did not hesitate.
He never did.
In the Ice Phoenix Tomb, Shan Wei felt Zhen's shift through the link he had built.
He did not panic.
He did not yell "stop."
He simply understood.
Zhen was doing what a guardian does.
So Shan Wei did what an Emperor does.
He began to build a new system.
Not a battle move.
A counter-law.
He lifted his hand and drew a prismatic glyph, slow and clean.
Then another.
Then another.
Each glyph was simple, like a child could understand, but the meaning behind them was huge.
NAME.THREAD.BOND.WITNESS.REMEMBER.
The glyphs floated around his chest like five stars.
The bell chain in his grip shook, trying to escape.
He tightened it.
Then he spoke one calm vow.
Not loud.
But it hit the tomb like thunder.
"Ling Xueyao's thread is not yours," he said. "If you crossed her out, I will cross you out."
The Ice Phoenix spirit trembled.
The sealed Nail Core shook harder, as if it was laughing behind glass.
"Good," the echo whispered. "Now you sound like an Emperor."
Shan Wei ignored it.
He pressed his palm to his Heart ring again.
His Prismatic Heart pulsed, and the five glyphs sank into it.
The Name Anchor formation circle flared brighter than ever.
Then Shan Wei did something that made the tomb air freeze.
He turned his Name Anchor outward.
Like a lamp facing the world.
Like a mirror showing truth.
He whispered one command.
"Witness."
A wave of prismatic light spread outward from his chest, reaching the battlefield, touching Yuerin, touching Xuan Chi, touching Zhen, touching Drakonix's chained wing.
The world felt it.
Not as heat.
Not as cold.
As meaning.
As proof.
And far away, inside the Silent Bell title chamber, Yuerin's shadow-self felt the wave too.
She was trapped in the shrinking bell prison. The walls were closing like a coffin.
Her breathing was calm, but her time was almost finished.
She held the second copied proof in her hands—shadow ink shaped like a thin sheet.
Titles.
Slots.
Confirm triggers.
Cross-out methods.
The whole system.
She couldn't escape with it.
Not in time.
So she made a choice.
A harsh one.
A brave one.
She raised the shadow sheet, and she stabbed it into her own chest.
Not a real wound.
A shadow wound.
The proof turned into pure information and poured into her shadow veins.
Then she used her last breath of movement to throw that information into the prismatic wave.
Straight toward Shan Wei's Name Anchor.
The monk outside the prison noticed it too late.
His gentle face turned sharp.
He raised his bell bracelet and chimed it hard.
"Seal."
The bell prison snapped shut like a final lock.
Yuerin's shadow-self froze in place.
But her eyes stayed open.
And her last whisper escaped through the prismatic wave like a secret knife:
"Take it… Emperor…"
Outside, the real Yuerin gasped as the information slammed into Shan Wei's Name Anchor.
The air around Shan Wei's chest pulsed.
New lines appeared in his Name Anchor formation.
Not his own.
Stolen from the enemy.
Proof.
System maps.
How the Bell crosses names.
How it reassigns titles.
How it labels bonds as "obsession" and calls it "destabilizing."
Shan Wei's eyes sharpened with cold understanding.
"Now I can hit the mechanism," he thought. "Not just the blade."
The Silent Bell monk's voice returned from the sky, calm again.
"Correction begins," it said.
The public cross-out line moved.
It drifted toward Shan Wei's Name Anchor words—toward CLAIMED BY SELF—like a pale knife about to scrape it off.
Zhen's forbidden Sentinel frames trembled and rose higher, trying to shield the space.
Xuan Chi's moon line trembled, ready to cut.
Drakonix's wing chain tightened, biting deeper.
Then Shan Wei spoke one quiet sentence.
"I learned your method."
The monk paused for one breath.
"What?" the voice asked.
Shan Wei lifted one finger, and a single new glyph appeared.
A small one.
A dangerous one.
It was made from prismatic light and Bell chain logic.
A stolen key turned into a new lock.
The glyph said:
BELL ECHO REVERSE.
He pressed it into his Name Anchor.
The bell chain in his grip screamed.
The sky shuddered.
The public cross-out line suddenly stopped.
Not because the monk chose to stop.
Because the command line had been forced to read itself backwards.
The monk's voice sharpened.
"Impossible."
Shan Wei's voice stayed calm.
"Everything is possible," he said, "when you show me the rules."
The Record trembled.
And then—without anyone touching it—an unseen page turned.
Like the heavens were flipping to a hidden section.
A new heading appeared, huge and cold:
PRISMATIC EMPEROR — CONSORT THREADS
Six empty slots formed under the heading.
Each slot looked like a thread ring waiting for a name.
The world held its breath.
Then two slots lit up at once.
Not shining.
Not healthy.
Marked with the same crossed-out scar.
SLOT ONE: LING XUEYAO — CROSSED OUT.SLOT TWO: [UNKNOWN] — CROSSED OUT.
Shan Wei's Prismatic Heart ring slammed like a drum.
His eyes widened just a little.
Because the second crossed-out slot did not show the name yet.
It was hidden.
But his heart still reacted.
Like it knew that missing name.
Like it was hearing family behind a wall.
And above the Record, the Silent Bell monk spoke softly again, like a person whispering in a victim's ear.
"Now you see the truth," it said. "We do not only erase Emperors."
It paused.
Then it said the cruel part.
"We erase love."
Shan Wei's aura sharpened like a drawn sword.
He looked up at the six slots.
His voice was quiet.
But it shook the tomb stone.
"Then I will make a new Record," he said.
And the world trembled, as if it believed him.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.