The silver hook was inside Qi Shan Wei's chest, not in flesh, but in the place where names and bonds lived. It pulled like a cold finger, trying to rip a picture out of him.
For one blink, he saw it again.
Moonlight. A quiet breath in winter. A girl's eyes that looked like a calm blade.
Ling Xueyao's face went white as if that same picture brushed her heart too. Her fingers shook. The air behind her flickered, and the shadow of a pale moon tried to form again.
"No," she whispered. It was not a cry of pain. It was a fear of loss. "Not that… not that."
Zhen stepped closer. His moving fortress shield tightened, and the light lines became thicker, like a wall growing bones. His voice stayed flat, but his speed was sharp.
"Threat detected: memory harvest. Priority: protect master's stability."
Drakonix's new wings lifted, and his prismatic flame rose like a storm that wanted to bite the sky. His growl was rough, half-born, but the meaning was clear.
"Bell… thief…"
The Silent Bell envoy's bell trembled on his chest without ringing. His eyes stayed locked on the Time-Debt Ledger, and his voice turned tight.
"Do not fight the hook directly," he warned. "It is not a weapon. It is a law. If you rip it, time will rip back."
Qi Shan Wei did not panic.
He did not shout.
He did not look for pity.
His calm became heavier, like a mountain sitting down.
He lifted Heavenpiercer until its tip was level with the glowing ledger words. His golden eyes stayed steady.
"I will pay," he said.
The crowd outside the Court barrier dome went silent. Even the Court elders stopped breathing for a beat, like they had just heard a king accept his own execution.
Then Qi Shan Wei added the part that made the realm shiver.
"But I choose what is taken."
The silver hook tightened like it did not like being answered.
The Time-Debt Ledger glowed brighter, and the ancient words in the air sharpened.
PAYMENT DUE: NOW.PAY WITH: MEMORY.
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed even. "No."
The word was small, but it hit the dome like a hammer.
Ling Xueyao turned her head slowly. Her eyes were bright, wet for a moment, then hard again. Pride held her up, but fear lived underneath.
"Shan Wei…" she said softly, like she did not want the bell to hear her heart.
Qi Shan Wei did not look away from the ledger. "You will not be used as payment," he said.
His voice did not sound romantic.
It sounded imperial.
The Court elders hovered above, robes fluttering like nervous birds. One elder's lips curled.
"So he refuses the law," the elder said coldly. "Good. Let the bell take what it wants. Let the Frost Thread break. Let the Court see the proof."
Zhen's head turned. His eyes glowed with a red line.
"Observation: elder's desire is disgusting."
The elder flinched like he had been slapped.
Drakonix hissed from behind Zhen's shield. "Metal… bite…"
Zhen answered with perfect seriousness, "I do not have teeth."
That tiny moment of bluntness lasted one breath. Then thunder pressure returned like a blade pressing down.
Qi Shan Wei lifted two fingers.
A simple formation disc appeared in the air—plain bronze, the kind sold in auctions with the word Foundational stamped on it like a joke.
Five-Axis Resource Stabilization Array.
To the world, it was a "logistics tool."
To Shan Wei, it was a way to control flow.
He activated it.
The air around the silver hook changed.
Not in a loud way.
In a quiet way.
The hook's pull slowed, like it had to walk through deep water.
The Silent Bell envoy's eyes widened. "You're… stabilizing the debt flow."
Qi Shan Wei replied calmly, "Debt is movement. Movement can be guided."
He turned his gaze slightly, just enough to see Ling Xueyao.
Her wrist still held his prismatic bracelet formation. It was not a chain. It was a guard. It pulsed in time with his breath, steady like a heartbeat.
He did not touch her face.
He did not do anything playful.
He placed his palm gently over her wrist, over the bracelet, and pushed his prismatic energy into it with controlled force.
It felt like warmth in winter.
It felt like a ruler saying, stay with me without needing many words.
Ling Xueyao's breath hitched. The moon-shadow behind her flickered, then steadied for one heartbeat.
Her voice came out rough. "I am not weak."
Qi Shan Wei's reply was quiet, and it landed like a vow.
"I know."
The words were simple, but they held weight. They told her he saw her as she was—sharp, proud, and real.
The silver hook tried to pull again.
Qi Shan Wei raised Heavenpiercer a little more.
Then he spoke to the ledger like he was speaking to a stubborn official.
"Take years."
The world went still again.
The Court elders' eyes widened in shock. The Silent Bell envoy's mouth parted slightly, and his bell rang once by itself, like it had just heard something dangerous.
"Years?" the envoy whispered. "You would offer time?"
Qi Shan Wei's gaze stayed calm. "I offer my own."
The ledger flickered.
The ancient words trembled as if the law itself was thinking.
PAY WITH: MEMORY.PAYMENT DUE: NOW.
Qi Shan Wei did not move. His voice stayed level.
"Memory is not yours," he said. "It stabilizes what you are trying to keep from breaking. If you take it, you create a larger fracture."
The Silent Bell envoy froze. The Court elders stared at Shan Wei like they had just been reminded that he was not a young genius playing games.
He was someone who spoke to laws like he understood them.
Above the dome, the cracked sky flashed once.
The thunder-path from earlier glowed again.
Elder Tian Lei still stood half outside time, watching like a storm that had found a new shape.
He did not speak.
But his presence pressed on everything.
The Time-Debt Ledger brightened.
A new line began to form under the demand, written in thin silver light.
ALTERNATE PAYMENT: YEARS.
The Silent Bell envoy sucked in a breath. "If it accepts… it will take from your future. It will make your next steps harder."
Qi Shan Wei answered without blinking. "Then I will step harder."
The ledger's silver hook trembled.
Then it shifted.
It slid away from the "memory" inside Shan Wei's chest… and moved deeper, toward something colder and more dangerous.
Toward time.
A thin silver thread formed, linking the hook to Shan Wei's spine, to his breath, to the invisible clock inside his bones.
The moment it connected, the air changed.
Qi Shan Wei's vision did not blur, but the world felt like it aged by one day in one breath.
His hair did not turn white.
But one thin streak of silver appeared at his temple like a quiet scar.
Ling Xueyao saw it. Her eyes widened. "You—"
Qi Shan Wei cut her off, calm and firm. "Stay steady."
He did not want her voice to shake. He did not want the bell to smell fear.
The Time-Debt Ledger's words changed.
PAYMENT ACCEPTED.COLLECTING: YEARS.
The silver hook pulled.
Not violently.
Smoothly.
Like a river draining.
Qi Shan Wei's aura dipped for one heartbeat—just enough for the sharp cultivators outside the dome to feel it.
Some of them smiled.
Some of them trembled.
Because they realized something terrifying.
He was paying a cost… and still standing like an emperor.
The Court elders leaned forward, greedy again. One whispered, "Good. Weaken him."
But the Silent Bell envoy's face did not look happy.
It looked worried.
"Years taken by the bell do not vanish," he said quietly. "They are stored. And time does not like to hold things for free."
Zhen lifted one hand. His armor runes flashed. "Request: define risk."
The envoy's eyes stayed on the ledger. "Interest," he said. "Time collects interest."
Before anyone could speak again, the Thousand Masks Pavilion struck.
They did not use contracts this time. Drakonix's flame had already burned contract words like dry paper. They came with needles again—thin, pale tools that carried one purpose.
Name damage.
Three new assassins appeared at the edge of the dome, slipping through a crack the Court barrier should have sealed. Their masks were different—older, with carved lines like grave marks. Their movements were not fast.
They were exact.
One needle aimed for Shan Wei's silver streak.
One needle aimed for Ling Xueyao's Frost Thread line.
One needle aimed for Zhen's command core, trying to break the moving fortress shield.
The Silent Bell envoy snapped, "They're using the bell moment! They're attacking while time collects!"
Qi Shan Wei moved like cold lightning.
Not loud.
Not messy.
He took one step along the thunder-path line still faintly hanging in the air.
It was not a teleport.
It was not speed.
It was a step into the place lightning had already been.
For the assassins, it looked like he vanished without warning.
For the world, it felt like reality blinked wrong.
Qi Shan Wei appeared in front of the first assassin and caught the needle between two fingers.
The assassin froze.
Because the needle did not move.
Because his own killing intent had been crushed flat by Shan Wei's calm.
Qi Shan Wei's voice stayed level. "You came for my name."
He turned the needle slightly.
The assassin's wrist bones cracked. The needle fell.
Qi Shan Wei did not kill him.
He did something worse.
He flicked one prismatic line into the assassin's mask.
The mask lit up.
And the mask started to burn from the inside, not with fire, but with clean prismatic light that erased hidden seals.
The assassin screamed as the old time-mark under his mask got exposed like rot under paint.
"Tagged," Qi Shan Wei said quietly, looking at the mark. "You are not only a Pavilion tool. You are a Bell tool."
The assassin's scream turned into fear. "No—!"
Drakonix snarled. "Bell… dog…"
Zhen stepped forward and punched his shield matrix outward, slamming the other two assassins away from Ling Xueyao.
"Imperial Shield Matrix: Second Layer. Push protocol."
The moving fortress shield became thicker and faster, turning into a walking dome inside the dome. The assassins hit it like insects hitting glass.
One tried to stab through with the name needle.
Zhen's shield did not break.
It absorbed the motion and locked it.
The needle stopped in midair, shaking, trapped inside light like it had been pinned to a wall.
Zhen's voice was calm. "Conclusion: needle cannot proceed. Request: master permission to crush."
Qi Shan Wei did not look away from the ledger hook draining years. "Crush."
Zhen clenched his fist.
The shield compressed.
The assassin's arm cracked, and the needle shattered into dust.
The last assassin tried to retreat.
That was when Drakonix finally roared.
Not a baby roar.
A true roar.
Sky-Devourer Roar.
The sound did not travel like normal sound. It ate the air. It ate the fear. It ate the thunder noise itself.
The roar caught a hunting lightning line mid-flight.
And bit it.
The lightning bent, shuddered, and got pulled into Drakonix's prismatic flame like food.
The entire battlefield froze in shock.
Even the Court elders stared with open mouths.
The Silent Bell envoy's voice went thin. "He… ate tribulation lightning…"
Drakonix's wings spread wider. His eyes glowed with pride and hunger.
"Mine," he growled, like the sky belonged to him.
Zhen looked at him and spoke with blunt timing that almost made someone laugh, but fear swallowed it.
"Reminder: do not eat the entire sky. Master requires sky."
Drakonix hissed. "Shut… Zhen."
Zhen replied, perfectly calm. "I am not shutting. I do not have a shut function."
Then the roar ended.
The pressure returned.
The Time-Debt Ledger's hook finished draining.
Qi Shan Wei's silver streak brightened slightly, like the bell had taken a clean slice of his future.
The ledger glowed and wrote a final line.
PAYMENT COMPLETE.
The Court elders' faces twisted, angry. They wanted him broken. They wanted him weak.
But Qi Shan Wei was still standing.
Still calm.
Still emperor-like.
Ling Xueyao stared at his silver streak, her throat tight.
She did not say "thank you."
She did not beg him to stop.
Her pride would not allow it.
Instead, she stepped closer until her shoulder was near his arm. She kept her chin high, but her voice came out low.
"I will not be your debt," she said.
Qi Shan Wei's gaze stayed forward. "Good."
Then his voice lowered, just enough for only her to hear.
"You are not a payment."
Those words hit like a vow.
A mythic vow, not spoken to impress anyone, but spoken like a ruler setting a law inside his own fate.
Ling Xueyao's eyes softened for one heartbeat.
Her moon-shadow steadied again.
Then the Silent Bell envoy flinched.
His bell rang once, sharp.
"Too late," he whispered. "Interest is coming."
The Time-Debt Ledger shivered.
New words began to write themselves, slow and cruel.
INTEREST WILL BE COLLECTED.SOURCE: A CONSORT.
The battlefield went silent.
The Court elders smiled.
The Thousand Masks watchers went still.
Even Drakonix's flame paused, like a predator sensing a bigger predator.
Ling Xueyao's Frost Thread above the platform lit up, cold and bright.
It pulled taut.
Like an invisible hand had chosen it.
Ling Xueyao's body jerked slightly, and frost crawled up her neck like winter snapping shut.
Her voice cracked once. "No…"
Qi Shan Wei's calm finally turned sharp.
He lifted Heavenpiercer.
Not toward the Court.
Not toward the assassins.
Toward the glowing words of the ledger itself.
His golden eyes narrowed to a single point.
"Collect from me," he said.
The ledger did not answer like a person.
It answered like a law.
The Frost Thread yanked again.
Harder.
And the pale moon behind Ling Xueyao flared brighter than ever, trying to awaken fully—
Right as the bell prepared to take her as interest.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2026
All rights reserved.