High above the Abyssal Clocktower, before the Night Bell had even tolled, the world swung its own hammer first.
It wasn't the clash of metal on metal, but the low hum unique to "structural adjustments," rising bit by bit from the back of the paper.
——Vmm——
In that instant, all the spirit-chains in Skycast City quivered.
The Clocktower of Star-Signet Academy, the prayer halls in the temple spires, the shabby loan stalls on Rust Street, the winged clans' aeries, the runic machinery in the abandoned pipes…
Countless tiny clause-characters lifted their heads at the same time, as if an unseen hand had pinched them all up at once, then dropped them back down into newly arranged positions.
[New Covenant backbone: now officially in effect.]
[World Recovery Contingency: transferred to backup; special procedure required to invoke.]
[New world timeline: this moment shall be the divide; prior span recorded as "Old Covenant Era", following span recorded as "New Covenant Era".]
This was the world's own proclamation.
——
Rust Street.
The wall that had been tormented back and forth by multiple rollbacks finally froze in a bizarre state:
Half of it blotched with years of greasy grime, half of it the stark pale of fresh paint, the dividing line like someone had run a ruler straight down the middle.
At the base of the wall, an old poster had been pasted there since forever: "Covenant Loans · A Lifetime Without Worry."
During rollback tests it had briefly snapped back to its golden, shiny glory, only to be beaten back to its torn, filthy state.
Now, that sheet of paper curled on its own. The ink on its surface rearranged itself:
[Old clause:]
["A lifetime without worry" loan (Note: actually "spend a lifetime in debt").]
[Error: using vague phrasing to conceal a high-interest burden.]
[Correction:]
[Loan covenants must list interest rate, term, and consequences of breach in clear, explicit terms. The cost shall not be obscured under the name of "divine grace".]
[Note: this shop repeatedly and maliciously exploited Ambiguous Clauses; it has been entered into the "Old Covenant abuse cases" ledger.]
The stall owner stared blankly as the words on his poster rewrote themselves.
"Who the hell changed that?" he swore on reflex. "Who stuck extra notes on my—"
Before he could finish, the chain above his head bounced out a small line of text:
[Reminder: certain Old Covenants will auto-correct according to New Covenant backbone clauses, with errors explicitly marked.]
[Compensation plans for the original victims will be addressed in follow-up provisions.]
The stall owner shuddered and snapped his mouth shut.
At the mouth of the alley, a cluster of Rust Street residents crowded together, craning their necks to read the wall and whisper to each other.
"You see that?" the contract-smith stretched his neck. "Those two characters, 'Error'—the world wrote them itself."
"We used to just say this was a scam."
"Now it's admitting on its own—this is 'wrong'."
The old priest stood at the back of the crowd, leaning on his cane, looking up for a long time.
"That kid… said this would happen," he muttered under his breath. "Said one day, he'd make the words 'the gods were wrong' appear on the paper."
Someone beside him asked, "Which kid?"
The priest started, frowning. "The one… the one who used to fix covenants for people on Rust Street…"
Halfway through, he stalled.
What was his name again?
His memories flipped like someone had crudely turned a page, leaving a blank behind.
He could still recall a lanky boy crouched behind the loan counter, spreading out people's clauses one by one and reading them aloud to those who couldn't read;
could still recall how that kid liked to doodle little stick figures in the corner of the page while talking, then rub them away with his fingertip afterward.
But the name—
It was like someone had erased it with a rubber, leaving nothing but a smudge of grey.
"The contract-fixing brat," the Rust Street contract-smith cut in quickly. "The one who always argued with the theology clerics."
He waved, excited. "Back then he already said it—sooner or later, he'd make the world keep its own books."
Only after he'd said it did he realize he couldn't recall the guy's name either.
He froze for a second, the smile on his face going a little stiff.
"That's weird."
"I definitely drank with him."
"How… can I not remember what he's called?"
——
Star-Signet Academy.
On the blackboard in the great theology hall, a few lines had been written out neatly:
[Old version Basic Covenant master clause:]
[All who bear names are born owing the duties of obedience, tax, service, and confession.]
Now, one third of that line had been crossed out by an invisible stroke of chalk.
New handwriting slowly appeared below the original text:
[New Covenant addendum:]
[All who bear names are born with the right not to be arbitrarily killed, not to be arbitrarily rolled back, not to have their memories arbitrarily rewritten, and not to be arbitrarily stripped of basic conditions for survival.]
[The gods' duty is to govern and judge without violating these basic rights.]
On the podium, the old professor held a stick of chalk in a trembling hand.
It wasn't that he didn't know about this clause.
He'd already seen the draft in the New Covenant Council spirit-chain days ago. He just hadn't dared believe the world would actually write it into the textbook.
"Professor." Someone in the front row raised a hand cautiously. "Excuse me—did They write this?"
"'They'?" another student was confused. "You mean… the High Gods' Council, or that… Temporary Administrator?"
The first student blinked. "I mean… that… what's-his-name?"
For a moment, several people in the hall frowned at the same time, like they'd all been jammed by the same question.
They still remembered the firelight in the Covenant Council hall, remembered someone standing amid the ashes of the Fallen Knights and demanding a new covenant from the gods;
remembered someone on top of the Abyssal Clocktower saying to the Shadow that "errors can't be cleared to zero"; remembered him slouched on the back windowsill of the theology hall, listening to old theology lessons with that little smirk at the corner of his mouth.
They remembered that face, that back, even the old coat that always carried Rust Street dust.
It was just the name.
Like that line had been torn out of everyone's memory book at once.
"Who are you talking about?" In the corner of the hall, a newly enrolled apprentice asked his senior in a whisper.
The senior froze for a beat, opened his mouth, then shrugged. "Forgot."
"But I remember there was someone."
"He gave the professor a hell of a time."
On the podium, the professor withdrew his gaze and looked back at the line on the board: "born with basic rights."
He suddenly chuckled softly.
"Doesn't matter who," he said, putting down the chalk, his voice hoarse but clear.
"Just memorize it first."
"Starting today, this will be on the exam."
The students whispered amongst themselves and quickly bowed their heads to copy.
The scrape of chalk on the blackboard overlapped, for a brief instant, with the world's low hum behind the paper.
——
Upper tier, a private prayer room in one of the noble spires.
A tower lord in a robe embroidered with threads of gold knelt before a statue, praying in a low voice:
"Lord above, grant me the authority to cleanse and restore Rust Street, that the disobedient craftsmen may remember—"
Halfway through his words, the spirit-chain in the ceiling suddenly flickered.
Cold, world-script fell down:
[Reminder: according to New Covenant · Volume IV, the gods no longer hold absolute dominion over mortals.]
[Any command involving collective punishment or deprivation of basic survival conditions must pass through the New Covenant Arbitration Procedure.]
[Basic rights clauses for mortals: now in effect.]
The tower lord lifted his head, face darkening.
"I'm praying," he said through gritted teeth. "Since when is it your turn to butt in?"
The god-chain behind the statue flashed as well, and a slow line of text emerged:
[This petition exceeds this god's scope of duty as an entrusted guardian.]
[Suggestion: request "mediation", not "suppression".]
That was the god's own note.
It no longer dared pretend to be deaf.
The New Covenant had jammed the hat of "entrusted guardians" down on their heads and written the mandatory clause: "disputes must go to arbitration."
If it fell back into its old habit and said, "I grant you authority to burn the city," the world would record that command in ink as a "case of power abuse."
The light behind the statue dimmed a little.
The being that could once casually grant him "authority" now kept its silence.
The tower lord stayed kneeling for a long time, then slowly sat back on the prayer chair, clutching his prayer booklet, his face shifting between dark and pale.
"…Who wrote the clauses like this?" he muttered.
The attendant didn't dare speak, only answered softly, "My lord, that day in the great hall, they said it was… a covenant-reviser."
"A reviser?" The tower lord's brows furrowed tighter. "Called what?"
The attendant opened his mouth. "He was…"
The sound knotted on his tongue.
He clearly remembered a thin figure standing before the gods, ripping open the Old Covenant line by line;
remembered how that person was almost unnervingly calm when he spoke, saying, "You are not heaven. You are employed guardians."
But the name—
It was like the world had deliberately smeared a layer of fog over it.
"…I forgot, my lord," the attendant could only say.
"I just remember there was someone."
"They called him… the Key?"
The moment that title left his lips, the lights in the prayer room flickered faintly.
The self-check module popped out a line of very faint script:
[Reminder: specific personal data regarding this name has entered semi-transparent status. Only role-memory such as "covenant-reviser" and "Key" will be retained.]
The tower lord rubbed his temples and waved, irritated. "Leave me."
The attendant bowed and backed away to the door. He couldn't help looking up once at the ceiling as he went.
There, a new wall of spirit-chains was slowly taking shape, etched with a few lines:
[Petitions mortals make to the gods are likewise subject to the New Covenant.]
[The gods may not use "prayer" as justification for acts of violence beyond the scope of their guardianship.]
The world really had changed.
he thought to himself.
There used to be only the mortal side of "asking." Now even the gods' "answers" had to be written into the contract.
——
Outer ring of the Clocktower, edge of the abyss.
The chain of the Recovery Contingency that Qi Luo had forced into backup no longer extended automatically.
It lay coiled in one corner of the abyssal interface like a dangerous tool thrown into storage, its surface wrapped in loop after loop of glaring warning text:
[Backup protocol: may not be invoked without special procedure.]
[Invocation may not erase existing error records.]
Around it, the once-rampant black fissures had halted under the binding of the new backbone clauses, like wounds sewn shut only halfway.
The Shadow lounged in one of those cracks, moving lazily.
"The Old Covenant didn't manage to drag you all down," it said to the world.
"And the New Covenant didn't manage to wash the Old clean."
"You're very good at compromise."
The world did not answer.
It merely left a dry summary at the corner of the paper:
[Old Covenant backlash: partially absorbed by the New Covenant.]
[World rollback: forcibly halted.]
[Error handling: now in "record and correct" mode.]
[Major changes:]
[——Masterless covenants now auto-archiving.]
[——Godly permissions auto-dialed down to New Covenant–defined upper limits.]
[——Mortals now protected by basic rights clauses.]
——
The archiving of masterless covenants was visible to the naked eye.
All across Skycast City, those clause-scraps that had lost their bindings when main gods fell or minor gods died had drifted through the world in all sorts of warped forms—
Turning into plagues, into madly laughing signs on street corners, into things that knocked on windows in the night.
Now it was as if someone had suddenly called them by name.
Strips of half-transparent spirit-chains floated up from cracks in the ground, from corners of walls, from the wind itself, all drifting toward the same place—the newly built archive under the Abyssal Clocktower.
[Archive of Masterless Covenants]
[Status: auto-receiving.]
Deep in the abandoned pipes, runic machinery hummed, slowly rolling up those wandering, long-biting clauses and slotting them into clearly labeled compartments.
On each scroll, a small line appeared:
[Origin: fall of XX god]
[Wrongly harmed: XX, XX, XX]
[Error recorded.]
"We won't get bitten by them anymore?" A kid from the lower levels leaned over a rail, eyes shining.
A minor god working in the pipes brightened with a faint glow. "You won't get bitten at random anymore."
"But the bites?" It pointed at the child's foot. "Those will be written down."
"The scar on your ankle," it said, "will be on the compensation ledger from now on."
The child froze, then looked down at the ugly mark left by a masterless covenant that had burned him.
For the first time, he had a strange feeling: that this shameful scar might, somewhere, have its own record.
Not as a "divine trial," but written down as "a past mistake."
"Who wrote that?" he whispered.
"Hm?" The minor god blinked.
"Who made the world do this?" the child asked carefully. "Who said… wrongs aren't tests, they're debts to be owned?"
The little god's glow trembled.
It answered slowly, "…A covenant-reviser."
"Called… the Key?"
The words surprised even it, as if that title had leaked out through a crack in some drawer that was supposed to be sealed.
"Is he a god?" the child asked, curious.
"He was," the minor god said. "And somehow wasn't."
"So where is he?"
The minor god fell quiet.
It knew the answer—at some half-transparent point along the spirit-chains.
But the world's latest update flashed across its own chain:
[Reminder: this name's concrete existence-status is partially hidden for future structural use.]
[Suggestion: use vague titles such as "covenant-reviser" and "Key" in place of specific personal data.]
"He…" the minor god said at last, "is probably looking at the ledger."
"Helping the world write down the wrongs it used to skip."
The child nodded, half-understanding.
——
Mid-level of the Clocktower, the New Covenant Council spirit-chain ring was slowly decelerating.
The world wrote a new heading along it:
[New Covenant Era · Day Zero]
[First agenda item: proclamation of the New Covenant backbone clauses taking effect.]
[Second agenda item: begin drafting detailed rules, compensation schemes, and arbitration procedures.]
[Third agenda item: confirm Temporary Administrator cost node.]
Qi Luo leaned back on the Temporary Administrator's Observer Seat, head tipped up slightly, watching those cold, indifferent words.
"The first toll of the new world," Ruan Ji murmured beside him. "Doesn't sound that nice."
She meant the noises from the city outside the tower—
Someone cheering, someone cursing, someone crying;
people ripping old prayer slips off walls, people storming into little chapels to demand the priests explain what "basic rights clauses for mortals" were supposed to mean.
"Normal," Qi Luo said. "Whose world wouldn't go nuts after being rewritten once?"
He paused, then suddenly winced.
"What is it?" Ruan Ji caught it immediately.
"Nothing." Qi Luo rubbed his temples. "Just… some things moved around in my head."
He tried to recall tiny, scattered scenes:
One night in Rust Street, the Fallen Knights telling jokes around the fire;
that one time they scaled the wall at Star-Signet Academy to eat noodles at midnight;
his first failed job revising a covenant in the lower black market, getting cursed out until his ears rang.
All of that was still there.
But when he tried to recall the word "self," little lines appeared at the edge of the images:
[This name carries the attribute of "semi-transparent cost node".]
[Certain personal details will gradually fade, to facilitate potential deletion in the future.]
"The world's started," the Shadow's voice came from the crack in the floor.
"It's leaving itself room."
"You're getting lighter."
Qi Luo looked down at his hands.
The bones of his fingers were clearly defined; his palm lines were still there; he could still feel the chill of the stone under his fingertips.
But when he used spirit-sight on his own spirit-chain, that chain was quietly growing fainter, like ink being slowly drowned in water.
"Will I forget who I am?" he asked.
The question was very soft.
The Shadow hesitated for a second.
"Not for now," it said. "You're a cost node."
"You have to keep the books."
"But everyone else will slowly forget you."
"Not forget what you did."
"Forget who did it."
"They'll only remember there was a 'covenant-reviser', a 'Key'."
"The name will blur."
"That way, if they really cut that line out someday, the wound won't look quite so… empty."
Ruan Ji's fingertips went cold.
"What about me?" she asked. "Will I forget?"
The self-check module sent her a separate prompt:
[Since your god-covenant contains clauses linked to the Temporary Administrator, your memories of this name will be partially retained.]
[However, some specific details may still be affected by "semi-transparent cost node" treatment.]
[Suggestion: if necessary, add records to your personal covenant to preserve memory by manual means.]
Ruan Ji closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.
"Give me some paper," she said to Qi Luo.
"What?"
"You like cluttering the margins of clauses with your scribbles so much," she said coolly. "My turn."
Qi Luo blinked, then real amusement rose in his eyes. "Oh."
"All right."
He opened a corner of his personal god-covenant's light-screen and handed it to her.
Ruan Ji lifted her hand and wrote a few lines in handwriting so ugly it almost hurt to look at:
[Note: there exists a being named "Qi Luo" who, at the New Covenant Council, revised clauses for mortals, for gods, and for the world.]
[He once told me the gods can stand on the side of mortals.]
[He once revised loan covenants for people on Rust Street, once tore open the Recovery Contingency in the great hall, once signed "this name may be deleted at any time" in the Clocktower.]
She paused, then added another line:
[If, some day in the future, his name no longer appears in the world's ledgers, then when I see these words, I must remember—]
[——this is an error.]
"This is your written 'I won't forget'," Qi Luo said softly.
"The ink will fade," Ruan Ji said. "Then I'll engrave it in my bones."
She tapped her chest.
"If you ever get cut off every chain, I'll take these lines to the arbitration council and slap them in their faces."
Qi Luo laughed lightly.
"Deal."
"Sorry to trouble you in advance."
——
Over the abyss, the Night Bell finally began preparing the first toll for the "new world."
This time, there was no oracle to pre-announce its rhythm.
The world itself wrote a line along the rim of the paper:
[New Covenant Era · First toll of the bell:]
[Marks the divide between new and old.]
[Not a command to roll back.]
Once that line was set, the massive hammer slowly rose.
——DONG——
The toll rolled from top to bottom, shaking every brick, every chain, every sheet of paper in Skycast City.
Someone on Rust Street looked up, clapped their hands over their ears, and cursed, "Loud as hell."
Someone in the archives of Star-Signet Academy looked up and whispered, "New Covenant Era."
Someone in the temple spires closed their eyes, silently reciting the old prayers, and then added one more line: "May we learn to admit our own wrongs."
In the Archive of Masterless Covenants, scroll after scroll trembled, as if holding a brief mourning for the past being boxed and labeled away.
On the New Covenant Council spirit-chain ring, every name flashed once.
One particular spot, its light was very faint.
When the toll passed over that point, that tiny glimmer lagged an imperceptible half-beat before catching up with the rest of the rhythm.
"The first toll of the new world," Ruan Ji said, watching that light. "You hear it?"
Qi Luo leaned against the stone wall of the Observer Seat, eyes half-closed.
"…Yeah," he murmured.
"Annoying."
"So the world didn't get gentler?" she asked.
"A bit," Qi Luo said.
"Used to be it just hit rollback."
"Now it only rings a bell."
He opened his eyes and looked at the world's paper, packed tight with writing.
"From now on," he said slowly, "this toll won't just be the gods speaking."
"It'll also be the mortals, the minor gods, the Rust Street contract-smith, that old priest, the winged kids—"
"——and all those little nobodies in the archive whose files say 'once bitten in error'."
"They'll know that behind this sound, there's a heap of wrongs written down."
"Not nameless fate."
"But debt in a ledger someone kept."
——
After the toll faded, the noise of Skycast City returned.
Only, beneath all the clamor, one very subtle change was underway:
Everyone who had known Qi Luo could still say, when they thought back on the last few days, "someone stepped out to revise the covenants," "someone forced the gods to sign new clauses," "someone shoved rollback back into backup."
They could describe what he'd done, could even argue heatedly over that figure in conversation.
"Was he a god?"
"He was obviously human."
"He was just the Key."
Only when it came to "who was he," no one could give a complete answer.
The name knotted on their tongues and finally collapsed into blurred titles:
"The covenant-reviser."
"The Key."
That was real—and also part of the world carrying out the Temporary Administrator clauses:
Taking one concrete "person," and slowly shifting him into a "role."
So that if, someday, that line "Qi Luo" really was snipped from the paper,
What remained in the world would not be an empty blank,
But a story:
——Once there was a covenant-reviser.
——On the edge of Old Covenant backlash, he wrote the first line of the New Covenant.
——And under the first toll of the bell in the new world, he wrote his own name into the cost ledger.