On the night before the public trial, Skycast City was unnervingly quiet.
So quiet that even the all-night swearing on Rust Street was cut in half. What was left was the bubbling hiss of oil in pans, and the occasional dog barking far away.
The Night Bell hadn't rung yet, but the temple clocktower was already lit.
Light seeped down along the fog like a translucent net, draping over the entire city.
Inside the Nameless Firm, it was even more stifling than outside.
The oil lamp had burned too long. Soot had turned the glass shade a sticky black. Luo Xiu pressed the wick down twice; the flame only gave a resentful jump. It didn't go out, but it didn't get much brighter either.
"Say something, will you?" Luo Xiu couldn't hold it in. "We've already said the same thing twice."
Qi Luo sat at the table, fingers tapping silently against the wood, out of sync with the distant grinding of the clock gears.
Garth leaned against the wall, arms crossed, saying nothing.
Sanya stood at the door with her back to the room, staring at the pipe opening outside as if the next second temple chains would come snaking through it.
They had just finished listening to Cen Duo's plan.
More precisely—his ultimatum.
"—You leave," Cen Duo had said, half an hour ago. "We'll hold the line."
His tone had been so calm it didn't sound like "I'm handing you a life," more like discussing who was buying vegetables tomorrow.
"You'll hold?" Qi Luo had given a cold laugh. "How? You gonna trade a few of your names for a 'trial postponement' clause?"
"Not postponement—deflection," Cen Duo had replied. "We Fallen Knights are already written into the World Rollback Covenant as a buffer layer."
He'd tapped the crooked chain at his own chest.
"If we blow once ahead of schedule—" Cen Duo had said, "the structure on the world's side will jolt."
"They can't conduct a full master-covenant reading while the structure's shaking. They'll have to push it back."
"And in that gap, you get your ass out of this cursed city."
Thinking of those words, Qi Luo's fingers paused briefly in their tapping.
"Old Cen's logic isn't completely wrong," Luo Xiu sighed from the other end of the table. "Right now your head's basically on the chopping block. He just wants to crack the chopping board a bit first."
"The chopping board is the master covenant of the world," Qi Luo said.
"Exactly," Luo Xiu said. "Which means it's even harder to crack."
Garth finally spoke. "What he's really saying is: we people written as 'buffers' go ram that page first."
"Shake enough dust off the paper," he said, "and you run before it settles."
"Run where?" Qi Luo looked up. "Out of the city? Out of the abyssal mist-sea? To somewhere the World Base-Covenant can't see?"
Garth fell silent.
"You know what's outside this city?" Qi Luo asked.
"Mist," Sanya answered from the doorway.
She knew better than anyone.
Rust Street brats spent half their childhood betting on who had the guts to climb closest to the city's edge and look at the mist without falling.
When they got older, they learned—the mist-sea didn't just hold the abyss. It held everything the world didn't want to remember.
"The clauses out there are rougher than the ones in here," Qi Luo said. "You're picturing me escaping, then leveling up like some main character outside and storming back in for a comeback?"
He gave a thin smile.
"Sorry. There's no protagonist aura waiting outside," he shrugged. "Just a 'system error' chain flailing through the fog."
Luo Xiu opened his mouth, wrestling with it, and finally squeezed out one line: "But if you go to the temple—"
"If I go to the temple, at least I get to touch that page," Qi Luo cut him off. "The one that says 'World Rollback Covenant' and plugs everyone's fate in as parameters."
"As the defendant, they'll put me dead center on the master covenant dais."
He lifted his hand and traced a circle on the table.
"That's a spot most covenant apprentices will never get near in their entire lives."
"They want to erase me from the world in front of everyone," Qi Luo said. "To do that, they have to flip the master covenant open."
"And once they flip it—" he said softly, "that's the one moment I'll ever have a chance to write on it."
The room went quiet for a beat.
"So you're sure you're not going to your own execution," Garth said slowly, "you're going… to take an exam?"
"It really will be the biggest exam of my life," Qi Luo said.
"The question is: 'Before the rollback key is pressed, how do you persuade the world to choose a better solution?'"
"Sounds harder than the academy graduation exam," Luo Xiu muttered.
Sanya still didn't turn around.
"You make it sound like you'll finish the test paper and walk out," she said, voice cold. "You think they're going to give you that much time?"
"They won't," Qi Luo said. "Which is why I have to gamble."
He didn't spell out exactly what the bet was.
He was betting the world, in a public trial, wouldn't want to look too much like a crude system that only knew how to press "delete."
Betting that under the eyes of gods and mortals, the Covenant Council wouldn't dare grind the words "basic human rights" into the dirt in front of everyone.
"Old Cen's trying to shield you," Garth said.
"I know," Qi Luo replied.
"But if we let them go take that first structural hit now—" He paused. "What do we use to hold off the second wave, the third?"
"The rollback contingency spells it out: city-level, continent-level, world-level."
"Old Cen and his lot are written into the first ring of the buffer." Qi Luo looked up. "I need them alive, standing near ring two and ring three."
"So when that day actually comes," he whispered, "I have someone there to tell me how far back the world's trying to roll us."
"You're treating them as witnesses," Sanya said.
"I'm treating everyone still breathing as a witness," Qi Luo said.
"That includes you. The priest at the little church. That disease-reminder god whose office got rewritten. Every stall owner on Rust Street who curses the gods the loudest."
"And—" he thought of someone, the corner of his mouth twitching, "a certain Hunter."
"Aren't you worried," Luo Xiu scratched his head, "they give you a chance to speak tomorrow, and the day after that they give you a chance to shut up?"
"I am," Qi Luo said. "That's why I'm using tonight to prepare everything I can."
"Starting with convincing Old Cen… to not die just yet."
He stood up and slapped some dust off his pants. "I'm going to see him. We'll talk again."
"And if the talk blows up?" Garth asked.
"Then I push his buffer clause down the order," Qi Luo said with a smile that didn't look good at all. "If he insists on dying first, I'll at least rewrite how."
As he spoke, he drew his hand through the air where Cen Duo's chain hung and left a barely visible line of text:
[Execution order for Fallen Knights' buffer layer: may not precede formal activation of the rollback contingency.]
This is me being sorry, Qi Luo thought. At least he won't die before the contingency even moves.
The chain gave a faint shiver—"reluctantly accepted."
The World Base-Covenant wasn't that sensitive to little tweaks in "execution order." It had bigger things on its mind right now than haggling with a "faulty Key."
Qi Luo didn't head out right away.
He opened the other door of the firm and climbed the ladder up toward the old pipe mouth.
Two flights of rungs, a narrow passage, and the night wind of Rust Street hit him in the face.
On the rooftop, a corner of the old tarp had been lifted by the wind, giving a blurry view of the distant temple.
He sat on a jut of stone, back to the pipe opening, and tipped his head up.
The night sky was hanging low. The glowing ring around the clocktower flickered far away.
"You really plan to go?" a voice sounded at his ear.
Not a whisper in the air—more a faint vibration in the Chains.
"You already guessed I would," Qi Luo said without turning.
A few steps later, a figure stepped out of the shadow.
Ruan Ji wore her Hunter cloak, hood pulled low. The badge at her chest was hidden under cloth, only the faintest gleam slipping through.
She stepped onto the roof without kicking up the slightest bit of dust.
"From the chains' perspective," she said, "you could have chosen to 'disappear' tonight."
"The Hunter system suggested a 'recommended escape route' for you."
She flicked her fingers. A fine chain projected a shadowy map in the air—
Rust Street, old pipes, the edge of the mist-sea, thin lines marking "concealed exits."
Those were the routes the system usually used to track prey.
Run them backwards, and they became "the best paths to flee without being easily caught."
"You saw it?" Qi Luo asked.
"I did," Ruan Ji said.
"Then I deleted it," she added.
Qi Luo couldn't help laughing.
"A Hunter deleting a tracking recommendation, just so the target can stand still and wait to be caught," he said. "That sounds… very against professional ethics."
"My profession has already been rewritten by you once," Ruan Ji said coolly.
The night wind slipped under her cloak. The Hunter chains on the inside brushed together with a faint metallic whisper.
"Cen Duo told you to leave," she said.
"You know a lot," Qi Luo arched a brow.
"The Fallen Knights' 'buffer layer clause' hangs right beside the rollback contingency," Ruan Ji said. "I pass by on my way to work every day. Hard not to sneak a look."
"That line tugged outward once," she went on. "You just pushed it back in again."
Qi Luo shrugged. "Before I rewrite how I die, I should at least push other people's deaths back a little."
Ruan Ji looked at him quietly.
"You really won't run?" she asked.
"If I run, I'll be exactly what they're calling me," Qi Luo said. "A 'traitor to the world'—and a traitor to people."
"If I run, what are all those anonymous testimonies worth?"
"A bunch of idiots being abandoned?" he said softly. "I'm not capable enough to be a conman to that many people."
Ruan Ji made a small sound, like filing a note away.
"Then how do you plan on living?" she asked.
"By going into the Council," Qi Luo said.
"Through the main gate."
"Walk into their trial circle and put my hands on the master covenant."
"You think just anyone gets to touch that?" Ruan Ji's brows lifted.
"Not just anyone," Qi Luo said. "But someone branded 'World Traitor'—that comes with certain privileges."
"They want to copy my 'crimes' line by line next to the master covenant in front of the whole city, to prove 'the world is not wrong, only people are.'"
"In that moment, the master covenant will open a 'cross-check chain' to my name."
His eyes gleamed in the dark.
"I can ride that chain and shove things into the master covenant."
"Your 'new order' draft," Ruan Ji said, understanding.
Qi Luo nodded.
"You're not afraid they'll cut the chain with a Name-Erasure order before it fully opens?" she asked.
"I am," Qi Luo said. "That's why—"
He looked at her.
"You're here."
Ruan Ji didn't deny it.
She reached under her cloak and took something out.
A Hunter badge.
Not the one on her chest—another one, older, its silver rim worn down to dull iron.
It had the same design as hers: a simplified chain sigil in the center, wrapped in Hunter array lines.
But on the back of this badge, there was an extra ring of script so fine it was nearly invisible.
"Temporary co-hunter · permission fragment," Qi Luo read at a glance in the Chains.
"I applied for an identity for you," Ruan Ji said. "Inside the Hunter system."
"You're giving me a job?" Qi Luo was actually surprised.
"You don't need the pay. Just the access," Ruan Ji said.
Her thumb rubbed lightly over that ring of tiny characters.
"There's a regulation in the Hunter system," she said slowly. "Any Hunter assigned to trial security may apply for one 'co-hunter,' responsible for assisting with recording and execution."
"The co-hunter can, inside the trial grounds, call on certain internal records, pull evidence chains, and propose supplementary entries for incomplete clauses."
"This co-hunter—" she looked up, "can be a non-Hunter."
"You registered me as that 'co-hunter'?" Qi Luo blinked.
"You've been cooperating with me this whole time already—just from a different angle," Ruan Ji said.
"Right now the system tags you as 'violating contract-smith, World Traitor,'" she went on. "I added a little box next to that."
"It says—'temporary co-hunter.'"
She held the badge out to him.
"Take it into the trial circle," Ruan Ji said. "When the Covenant Council calls on Hunter system records as evidence against you, you can, as a co-hunter, demand access to the full chains."
"Including the redacted parts they don't want mortals seeing."
"Including turns of phrase in the trial contingency that were written in ahead of time."
She lowered her voice.
"Including the segment of the wake-up routine tied to the World Rollback Covenant."
Qi Luo's fingers hovered over the badge. He still hadn't taken it.
"The Hunter system will accept this?" he asked.
"It will," Ruan Ji said.
"Because the one who wrote that requirement is 'Core Hunter · Ruan Ji.'"
"She wrote this into her own duty clauses: 'When a trial involves world-level sigil-lines, there must be a co-hunter present to attend and cross-check.'"
"The system doesn't like being supervised," Qi Luo said.
"The system likes even less being recorded in the World Base-Covenant as 'making unilateral rulings,'" Ruan Ji countered. "I just reminded it—there's a mortal willing to share the responsibility."
"It's quite happy to add one more person to take the blame."
Qi Luo huffed a laugh.
The amusement flashed and faded quickly.
"You do realize what it means to write me in?" he asked. "Once they find out—"
"They'll say I expanded my own authority in secret," Ruan Ji said. "The Hunter system will conduct an internal review on me."
"And you?" Qi Luo held her gaze. "You'll be branded a 'Hunter traitor.'"
"I already signed up under that 'Alliance of Defectors' column," she said mildly. "One more label won't kill me."
She shoved the badge into his hand.
"Didn't you say you wanted to touch the master covenant?" Ruan Ji said. "Then you'll need an entrance they can't easily turn off."
"The Hunter system is the Covenant Council's eyes," she said softly. "Take this eye in with you, and at least you'll see the paragraphs they don't want you to."
Qi Luo looked down at the badge in his palm.
In the real world, it was just a cold piece of metal.
In the Chains, it was a dense permission node, almost overflowing its own outline.
He could see the thinnest of lines inside it:
[Special permission for co-hunter: when a trial involves world-level sigil-lines, may submit one 'clause cross-check request' to the World Base-Covenant self-check module.]
—A clause cross-check request.
In other words, on the trial platform he could, in his capacity as co-hunter, demand that the world itself reread the clause behind the charges laid on him.
If that clause was logically flawed or in direct conflict with the Base-Covenant's bottom lines, the self-check module would issue a warning.
And that warning was something the entire world would hear.
"You're…" Qi Luo's throat felt dry, "giving me one more chance for the world to cough in the middle of my trial."
"More or less," Ruan Ji said.
She tapped the back of the badge with a fingertip.
Only then did Qi Luo notice an even smaller line hidden inside that ring of script.
So small he'd missed it at first glance.
[When the co-hunter detects a direct conflict between 'god-authority clauses' and 'basic human rights,' the self-check module's alert may be made visible to the entire city.]
"You dared write 'made visible'?" Qi Luo looked up.
"The World Base-Covenant doesn't like being embarrassed," Ruan Ji said. "But it hates even more being accused of 'not self-checking.'"
"I used its own vocabulary," she pointed at the words. "'Self-check,' 'maintain stability,' 'prevent abuse'—it has a soft spot for those terms."
"On the level of clauses, it's more reasonable than the Covenant Council."
Qi Luo's fingertips stroked that line. His heartbeat thudded hard against the sigils carved into his chest.
The Key-sigil warmed.
Like it was saying:
—The entrance is here.
—Go.
"You're doing all this for me," Qi Luo whispered. "You know the cost."
"You knew the cost when you rewrote my Hunter covenant," Ruan Ji shot back.
She lifted her gaze to meet his.
"You gave me a hidden priority once—'when gods' interests conflict with mortals', prioritize human rights,'" she said. "You wrote that at the deepest layer of my Hunter covenant."
"I'm just… flipping that priority outward a little," she said.
"Flipping it out onto tomorrow's trial platform."
The night wind scraped across the rooftop, sweeping away some of the dust on the iron.
They were quiet for a moment.
"You didn't have to," Qi Luo said.
"I know," Ruan Ji replied.
"Then why—" he started.
"Because I don't want to watch people stand by the master covenant and use 'the world can restart' as an excuse to wipe their own slate clean again," Ruan Ji said calmly.
"You're the Key," she said. "I once held a Name-Erasure order and was ready to erase you myself."
"Now—"
She raised her hand and wrote a small character in the air:
"Witness."
"Now I want to see," she said, "what a Key branded 'World Traitor' will write in front of the master covenant."
The sentence weighed more than any oath.
Qi Luo stared at that stroke and closed his hand tight around the badge.
"Thank you," he said, with utter seriousness.
"Don't thank me yet," Ruan Ji said. "Inside the trial circle tomorrow, I'm still a Hunter."
"The system will expect my blade to be ready to fall at any time."
"Then let it fall," Qi Luo said.
Ruan Ji paused.
"According to your current Hunter covenant," Qi Luo said softly, "when gods and mortals clash on a clause… whose side will you take—"
"Tomorrow, I want to see that too."
Ruan Ji was silent for a beat.
In the end, she answered with a quiet "mm."
"Don't count on me holding back," she said.
"Don't count on me holding back on the world," Qi Luo shot back.
They faced each other for a moment, then looked away at the same time.
"Wear the badge against your skin," Ruan Ji broke the silence. "Hunter permissions work best when they're right on the flesh."
"The world likes 'proof in flesh and blood,'" she added.
"It likes pain," Qi Luo said.
He slipped the badge inside his shirt, pressing it to the patch of skin already covered in carved sigils.
In that instant, the Key-sigil and the Hunter badge collided.
Not physically, but in the Chains—two complex structures overlapping for a heartbeat.
Qi Luo's vision swam. In the depths of his sight, a new panel appeared—
"Hunter System · Internal Auditing View."
He saw a new line appear:
[Temporary co-hunter: Qi Luo.]
[Duty: assist in cross-checking clauses and facts in trials involving world-level sigil-lines.]
[Remark: roster status anomalous; currently under special observation.]
"They've already noticed the tail you tacked on for me," Qi Luo said.
"They were always going to notice," Ruan Ji said.
She backed up a few steps. Her cloak fluttered, and she melted back into the shadows.
"Qi Luo," she called once more from the dark.
"Yeah?" he answered.
"Inside the trial circle tomorrow," Ruan Ji's voice was very soft, "stay alive at least long enough to use that badge."
"You're setting the bar a little high," Qi Luo laughed.
"That's the minimum requirement a co-hunter can have for the one he's assisting," Ruan Ji said.
"Then I've got a requirement for you too," Qi Luo said.
"Say it."
"Don't be the first to hit Name-Erasure," Qi Luo said. "Give the world a chance to cough first."
"…I'll try," Ruan Ji said.
The rooftop was wind and silence again.
Qi Luo sat there a while longer, took a deep breath, and headed back down.
When he returned to the firm, Luo Xiu was standing with a rag, pretending to wipe the table while actually pressing his ear to the door.
"Done talking?" Luo Xiu rushed over. "What about Old Cen—"
"Not dying yet," Qi Luo said.
Luo Xiu let out a long breath. "What about you?"
Qi Luo touched the cold badge under his shirt.
"I'm going to be a co-hunter," he said.
Luo Xiu stared at him, wearing the expression of "you're using human words and I still don't understand you."
Sanya understood enough. Her brows drew together slowly. "The Hunters opened a door for you?"
"Mm," Qi Luo answered simply.
Garth gave him a long, steady look. "Then go."
"Come back," he said. "Even if… it's just as a name."
Qi Luo nodded.
The Night Bell hadn't rung yet.
Outside, the city was as quiet as a blank page already opened, but not yet written on.
He lay back down on the broken bed in the corner of the firm, pressing the badge to his chest and closing his eyes.
The Key-sigil burned in slow circles beneath his sternum.
Hunter permissions slid softly under his skin.
Deep in the world, the page of the master covenant hovered mid-turn, waiting for someone to write its last lines.
"Night before the trial," Qi Luo said in his heart. "The choice is made."
—No running.
—No hiding.
—Take the Key, borrow the Hunters' eyes, and walk into the circle they've drawn.
And see whether the old covenants get to bite him to death first—
or he carves one new character into them before they do.