New Covenant Era, Year Three.
The mist-sea around Skycast City was the same as ever.
Only now, there was a layer of invisible text hidden in the fog.
[All who bear names are born with basic rights.]
[The gods are entrusted guardians.]
[Disputes must go to arbitration; no side may rule alone.]
These lines were no longer just a light-screen over the Clocktower.
They had seeped into every chain in the city, every brick, every classroom and prayer room.
——And they'd seeped into Ruan Ji's work schedule.
"Next case."
She closed the dossier in her hand. Her voice was a little hoarse.
In one of the arbitration courts on the lower level of the new council chamber in the Clocktower, several spirit-chains hung suspended, connecting the two opposing parties:
On one side stood a proxy priest sent by some tower lord from the upper tier; on the other, representatives of the Rust Street contract-smiths and a few apprentices in threadbare clothes.
The case was simple and typical:
The main god's proxy had issued a "structural adjustment" order, demanding that a large number of lower-tier workshop positions be cut in a short span of time to "free up resources" for repairs to the divine legions;
Rust Street's side had brought the New Covenant clauses, pointing at "basic survival conditions"—arguing this was "collective starvation" dressed up as "rebuilding the temples."
In the Old Covenant Era, something like this would have been at most written off in one vague line as "maintenance of order." The complaints of the lower tiers wouldn't even count as clauses.
Now, it had landed in the arbitration court where Ruan Ji sat.
——The Shield of Humanity seat.
On her Covenant Chains, a new identity marker hung:
[Shield of Humanity]
[Duty: in New Covenant arbitration, examine first whether mortals' basic rights have been infringed.]
It was the old Hunter clause—"when divine and human interests clash, human rights take priority"—given a new name for the new era.
"Arbiter Ruan." The proxy priest bowed politely. "Under the Old Covenant, the tower lord has the right to reallocate resources in any district when order requires."
"The Old Covenant has been recorded as wrong," Ruan Ji said flatly. "Please cite the New Covenant directly."
The smile on the priest's face held for a second, then stiffened. He reluctantly raised his head to the light-screen hanging above the court.
On it, Volume × of the New Covenant slowly unfolded:
[Any large-scale structural adjustment must be carried out on the premise of preserving basic survival conditions.]
[If such adjustments cause more than one-third of a region's population to lose their means of livelihood in the short term, and no reasonable alternative is provided, this shall be deemed a "violation of basic human rights".]
"The tower lord bears no ill will," the priest argued. "Repairs to the divine legions concern the safety of the entire city—"
"I'm not questioning motive," Ruan Ji cut him off. "I'm looking at clauses."
She glanced at the Rust Street contract-smiths on the mortals' side.
They clearly weren't used to places like this. Their rough hands could barely hold the clean new paper, but their eyes were locked onto the words "basic survival conditions" on the light-screen like it was the only ladder within reach.
"After your workshops were cut," she asked, "was there any explicit transfer-of-position clause?"
"No." The contract-smith's voice was stiff. "Just one line—'after order stabilizes in the future, former craftsmen may reapply for positions.'"
"And in the meantime, what are you supposed to live on?"
"On prayer," someone snorted.
Several ill-timed chuckles sounded in the court, quickly smothered.
Ruan Ji raised her hand and pulled up the original text of that "structural adjustment order."
It was a textbook relic of old habits:
Paragraph after paragraph of pretty words about "the safety of the city-body" and "balance of order," with the real cost and alternative plans shoved into half a line.
"Same old." she thought.
She could feel it—someone who had once stood beside her would have given this wording that cold, irritated little smile of his.
——Only that face in her memory had gone blurred, wrapped in fog, leaving her only outline and voice.
"Arbitration conclusion," she said, looking up, voice steady.
"This structural adjustment was carried out in the New Covenant Era under inertia from the Old, without fully considering mortals' basic survival conditions."
"According to Article × of Volume Three of the New Covenant, it is ruled 'partial breach'."
"The tower lord's side must, within thirty days, provide affected craftsmen with alternative jobs of equivalent income, or pay compensation equal to six months' earnings. If full performance is impossible, the order must be scaled back such that no more than one-third of the total population is affected."
When the four words "partial breach" fell, a muscle in the priest's face twitched.
That wasn't a small term.
In the Old Covenant Era, most such incidents would be written as "necessary loss."
Now, the world would mark it in the ledger as: this is part of what was wrong.
"You're taking Rust Street's side," someone muttered under their breath.
"I'm taking the New Covenant's side," Ruan Ji replied.
Recording concluded; the light-screen folded shut.
The mortal representatives looked at one another, still not quite believing something could be "this simple" to rewrite.
Not until the world's script added a line above them:
[This ruling shall be recorded under "structural adjustment cases" as precedent.]
Only then did the Rust Street contract-smith jerk in realization, a complicated look spreading across his face.
"There's a ledger now," he said quietly to the man next to him. "Next time someone uses 'order' to push people down, we'll throw this case in their face."
"Who came up with all this crap anyway?" another contract-smith muttered, unable to hold it in. "'Partial breach', 'basic rights', 'precedent'… where'd they learn those words?"
Ruan Ji paused for a moment as she gathered the dossiers, her fingertips lightly rubbing the corner of the desk.
She knew the bones of those words far too well.
——They were the phrases a certain covenant-reviser had forced out of the High Gods' Group in the council that night, one by one.
He'd said "errors can't be cleared to zero," "disputes can't be ruled by one side alone."
He'd taken divine authority apart the way he dismantled Rust Street loan covenants—into "cost," "responsibility," "power," "ledger."
Now those words had been properly written into the New Covenant by the world itself.
And she was borrowing them.
Only… she could barely call that man's name anymore.
"…The reviser," the contract-smith finally landed on the title.
"That Key."
"The Key?" the man beside him asked.
"Everyone calls him that." The contract-smith shrugged. "Doesn't matter. No one remembers the name anyway."
As Ruan Ji packed up the files, those words slipped softly past her ears.
The Key.
The Key.
Her heart felt as if something had quietly tapped it.
——
After court adjourned, she did as usual and uploaded the case record into the world's "New Covenant database."
In one corner of the lower levels of the Clocktower, a newly installed covenant-query wall stood—
A white stone wall with a piece of half-transparent spirit crystal set into it. All New Covenant clauses, major arbitrations and corrections left their traces inside it.
Ruan Ji pressed her hand to it and called up the record for the "structural adjustment case."
[New Covenant Era, Year Three · Structural Adjustment Arbitration Case No. ×××:]
[Ruling: partial breach.]
[Parties: tower lord's proxy, Rust Street contract-smith representatives.]
[Arbitration seats: Shield of Humanity · Ruan Ji, etc.]
With her usual cold focus, she checked every line of the document.
Just as she was about to withdraw her hand, a line of text popped up on the surface of the crystal:
[Detected: you are a "Shield of Humanity" node. You may request access to special entries linked to the New Covenant backbone.]
[Enter "Backbone Signing Records"?]
Backbone Signing Records—
That was the "signature page" of the words they'd fought to write, between the great hall and the Clocktower that night.
Ruan Ji froze.
She had never actively looked for that page.
Not because she'd never thought about it, but because she knew all too well whose name lay on it.
She hesitated a moment, then pressed "Yes."
The light in the crystal dimmed by a layer, as if sinking from the busy everyday clauses down to deeper pages.
Lines of black text surfaced without adornment:
[New Covenant Backbone Signing Records:]
[I. "General Provisions for World Error Handling and New Covenant Enforcement"——]
[Signer: Temporary Administrator node (sigil recorded).]
[Consensus parties: world self-check module, divine representatives, representatives of all races.]
[II. "Errors May Not Be Cleared to Zero", "Old Wrongs Must Be Recorded"——]
[Signer: Temporary Administrator node.]
[Witnesses: remnants of the Fallen Knights (recorded as cost), various gods.]
[III. "Ultimate Relationship Clauses between Gods and Humans"——]
[Signers: High Gods' Group proxies · Yuan Heng, etc.]
[Witnesses: full seats of the New Covenant Council.]
More backbone records lined up below that.
At the very end was the one she'd never dared to read closely.
[Appendix · Temporary Administrator Clauses:]
[Content omitted.]
[——Cost node signature line:]
After it came a section that looked "blank."
——At least, to any ordinary reader, it was a blank space.
There was no name written in the usual manner, no ornate script of "so-and-so, child of so-and-so," no divine crest saying "blade of such-and-such god."
Only a small patch veiled under a faint shadow.
The light in the spirit crystal blocked out most of the details—but it couldn't block her training.
Ruan Ji stared at that "blank" for a long time, her pupils slowly narrowing.
…Not completely invisible.
Beneath that veil, there were lines as fine as hair—
Looking like Forbidden Sigils, yet also like the little stick-figure frames someone always liked to doodle at the edges of clauses.
She had seen lines like this once.
In the great hall, before the stones turned red-hot from godfire.
When he wrote himself into the world as a "cost node," she had watched through the light-wall as those sigils poured from his palm and burned into the paper.
She had thought that page would be sealed by the world entire.
Only now did she realize the world had merely smoked that line of the name into "blankness."
"Qi—" Her throat moved; the syllable kinked at the root of her tongue.
The world's prompt flickered on the crystal:
[This name has been converted into a "semi-transparent cost node".]
[For structural reasons, details of the name are hidden from public record; only the signature format and cost attributes are retained.]
[Access level: additional clearance required.]
Ruan Ji silently finished reading the cold, clinical phrases.
She knew what "hiding name details" really meant. It was that knife, slowly cutting.
In other people's eyes, this was probably just a blank patch—a symbol that the world had once accepted some price.
Only she could still see through that grey layer—the flow of sigils, the points where the strokes stopped, the way something as forbidden as those sigils was written with the lazy sloppiness of someone doodling.
"You refuse to write your name by the template even now," she murmured.
"Even with it covered, I can still tell it's you."
The crystal was silent.
The world did not answer words that weren't clauses.
Ruan Ji raised her hand, hovering her palm over that small "blank signature."
Before she could touch it, a line of warning popped up along the edge of the crystal:
[Reminder: direct contact with cost-node records may trigger resonance with your personal chains.]
[Possible effects of resonance include, but are not limited to: memory flow, emotional fluctuation, risk of structural information leakage.]
[Proceed?]
She gave a small laugh.
"Emotional fluctuation?" she muttered. "Since when did you start writing things like that into your clauses, world?"
She did not press "No."
Her fingertip slowly lowered toward that blank line.
At this moment, there was no one else on the arbitration floor. The chains above the Clocktower were quiet for once.
Only the wind from the abyss, slipping in through layers of stone, carried a faint chill.
Her fingertip was still half an inch from the "blank signature" when a sound came from the direction of the abyss—extremely light:
——DONG——
Not the everyday chime of the New Covenant Era.
It was farther, fainter than the Night Bell, like something from a long-ago night that had been folded a thousand times, now rebounding off some old page in the world.
It was an echo from one of the "three chimes of the Night Bell," arriving three years late from the cracks between pages.
Ripples shimmered across the surface of the crystal, holding her finger half an inch away from that blank, neither rejecting nor allowing her closer.
The self-check module gave its cool, ambiguous verdict:
[Cost node: current status stable.]
[Further contact not recommended at this time.]
[Note: any future invocation of this node must pass special procedure of the New Covenant Council.]
"…Are you protecting him, or protecting yourself?" Ruan Ji asked quietly.
The crystal did not answer, merely dimmed the light along the edge of that little blank patch once more.
As if someone, in a hurry, had laid a sheet of paper over a name in the ledger to avoid looking at it for the time being.
Ruan Ji drew back her hand.
She stood before the covenant-query wall in silence for a long while, then finally took a deep breath and drew a small, dog-eared booklet from her sleeve.
It wasn't the world's. It was her own copy of her god-covenant.
On the very first page were those ugly lines she'd once scrawled:
[Note: there exists a being named "Qi Luo" who, at the New Covenant Council, revised clauses for mortals, for gods, and for the world.]
[…]
Even these strokes were growing faint, washed bit by bit by the world's "semi-transparency" mechanisms.
She pressed her fingers over them and softly repeated:
"Qi Luo."
The syllables rolled over her tongue once, then fell into place, no longer knotting.
The world did not intervene immediately.
Maybe it was because these lines were just annotations in her personal covenant and posed no threat to the overall structure;
Or maybe even it needed someone to remember—that the blank signature had once had a name.
She closed the booklet and looked up again at the blank line in the crystal.
The shadowed patch lay quietly at the end of the backbone records.
"I'll keep standing in front," Ruan Ji told it softly, "according to the clauses you wrote."
"Wrongs must be recorded, disputes must go to arbitration, mortals can say 'no' to gods, gods can stand on paper on the mortals' side."
"If they really cut you out someday," she said, "I'll take this blank line and write down every name that raises a hand."
"Make the world remember—they all signed it together."
The crystal gave no reply in light, only let a faint new annotation rise at the corner of some deep page:
[Record: Shield of Humanity · Ruan Ji made a personal declaration before the Temporary Administrator clauses.]
[Content: willing to witness and record all voters' names when the cost mechanism is activated in the future.]
[This record will be filed in the "cost accomplice roster".]
Ruan Ji didn't see those words.
She only stepped back, leaving space in front of the query wall.
Outside the Clocktower, the mist-sea continued to churn.
The everyday noise of the New Covenant Era seeped through the stone—the contract-smiths and priests arguing over today's arbitration ruling, minor-god delegates bargaining over some new "guardianship job description," students reciting new basic theology clauses, children playing at the doorway of the Archive of Masterless Covenants.
The world was still noisy, still making mistakes, still writing new clauses and repairing old ones.
At the bottom of the abyss, that faint Night Bell chime had already faded.
Like a tiny scrap of the old era's echo that had drifted into the new age by mistake.
In the crystal, that blank signature lay at the very end of the backbone record.
No name, only a set of sigil strokes half-hidden in shadow.
Anyone passing by would take it as nothing more than some hazy cost the world had once paid.
Only a handful of people—like a former Hunter, now the Shield of Humanity—knew it wasn't "hazy" at all.
It was a key-shaped hole, temporarily covered.
Someday, when the world's ledger jammed again and the lines refused to fit,
Maybe a new hand would trace that blank shape and write a name back into it.
Or perhaps, from the abyss, there would once again come a Night Bell chime that did not belong to rollback.