The wind on the Northern Frontier was sharp as a blade, scouring the endless expanse of snow. In this realm of perpetual winter, the world seemed to hold its breath, leaving only the mournful howl of the gale and the ceaseless dance of swirling flakes.
Chu Hongying stood unyielding against the blizzard's force, her Lie Feng Spear driven into the snow beside her. Its crimson tassel fluttered violently, tugged by an unseen power. Her gaze was fixed on the sky, where beside the familiar, menacing black rift, a new anomaly hung—a pure, crystalline white 'scar' that reflected no light. It was not a tear, but something far more disquieting.
It was an eye.
"It's... 'looking' at us," Gu Changfeng's voice was a raw scrape. The Yun Bian Blade in his hand felt dead and heavy, its usual hum silenced. He felt exposed on the open plains, every secret, every emotion laid bare and judged by that silent, pearlescent gaze.
Shen Yuzhu's face was as pale as the snow. The streams of data in his heterochromatic pupils stuttered and froze, a needle of pain lancing deep behind his mirror glyphs. "It's not an attack," he strained, his voice tight. "It's a scan. It's reading the fundamental composition of our existence."
Lu Wanning clutched the Dark Heartlock at her chest. It was neither warm nor cold, but carried a leaden weight, as if the other end of the chain was tethered to the world itself. "I feel... it's measuring us," she whispered, her words nearly lost to the storm.
Just as the suffocating pressure threatened to crush them—
Hum!
A resonant frequency shuddered through them. The Crimson Flame Blood Lock, the mirror glyphs, the Yun Bian Blade, the Dark Heartlock—all their marks ignited at once, not as auras of light, but as dark, vein-like patterns that bulged beneath their skin. The patterns writhed, extended, and lashed out, intertwining the four of them in a web of living chains, binding them together in a sudden, painful symbiosis.
"Ugh!" Chu Hongying grunted, her vision blurring and then sharpening into a terrible clarity. In that instant, she understood.
It wasn't a being looking at them. It was the World, measuring them.
It wasn't a gaze of life. It was the observation of Rule itself.
A torrent of consciousness swept them away, revealing the bitter truth of their power—not a gift, but an inheritance:
Chu Hongying was swallowed by visions of blood and fire.
Blood is fire. Fire is oath. The oath was never a choice, but a legacy.
She understood now; her drive to protect was not her own decision, but an ancient covenant flowing in her veins, inescapable.
Shen Yuzhu plunged into a primordial sea of '0's and '1's.
For the first time, he saw his prized rationality for what it was: merely the echo of an ancient algorithm.
His intellect was not his own triumph, but a tool bestowed by the duty of the Mirror Seal.
Gu Changfeng felt the roar of countless wills within the Yun Bian Blade.
His blade was not his alone. It was the collective torch passed down by every soul who had ever stood and fallen on the Northern Frontier.
His battles were never for personal honor, but the continuation of a generational will.
Lu Wanning's silver threads connected to the pain of all living things.
She wasn't just perceiving it; she was bearing it for the world.
The essence of her healing was first to take the world's wounds into herself.
"We weren't chosen..." Shen Yuzhu's voice echoed in their linked minds, laced with a clarity that was almost bitter. "We are inherited vessels. Our power... is 'legacy'. And also, 'shackles'."
Chu Hongying, feeling the burning oath sear through her veins, whispered, "So, this burden is our destiny?"
"It seems so," Shen Yuzhu replied, his heterochromatic eyes swirling with complex light.
Deep within the Mirror Palace, The Imperial Capital.
The flowing walls of the palace, like a river of living mercury, reflected the heart-energy fluctuations of millions. The Emperor stood before it, a solitary, unmoving peak.
His focus was on a single point—the pure white mirror scar over the Northern Frontier. Below it, four distinct points of light, which should have been independent, were now resonating in perfect, impossible synchrony, forming a stable and powerful node.
The Emperor extended a slender finger, touching the resonant node. Ripples spread across the mirror surface.
"Variables of human nature..." he murmured, his tone devoid of emotion, holding only the pure interest of a scientist observing an unexpected result. "...to actually penetrate the defensive wall of the Order Network."
"You know what those four are," a faint shadow coalesced from the depths of the mirror, its voice a low hum of gathered thoughts.
The Emperor did not turn. "I know."
"They are not variables... they are keys," the shadow emphasized.
"I precisely need a key," the Emperor's voice was flat, unwavering, "capable of bearing the full price."
"The world has begun to permeate in reverse. The Mirror Realm... is looking back at you," the shadow warned, before dissolving back into the data stream.
The Emperor was silent for a moment, cascading data flowing in his eyes as he issued commands with thought alone, his voice calm yet absolute:
"Since the world has awakened ahead of time... then the plan must also be moved up."
"Activate 'Order Network Phase Two'—forcibly suppress all emotional fluctuations within the territory below the threshold."
"Recall all Mirror Vein Observers. Concentrate computational power to construct the 'Containment Field'."
"Seal all passages to the Northern Frontier. Total physical and conscious isolation."
"Prepare to 'receive' our four guests. The objective is not capture, but containment."
His final words were spoken with a divine, chilling benevolence:
"Emotion is noise. Noise disrupts order. Since that is the case—
I will take it all away.
Faulty hearts, chaotic feelings, runaway pain... should all be borne by me, for this world."
He turned. A page from the "Blood Mirror Fragmentary Record" materialized before him, its text seeming written in blood and light:
"When the Three Seals fall out of balance, the Price will surely seek its Master."
"To strip the impurities of human nature—pain, struggle, hesitation, madness... all irrational elements," the Emperor whispered, as if reciting an immutable truth, "from the perfect body of Order, and transfer them to... the chosen bearer."
His gaze fell upon the point of blazing red light representing Chu Hongying. Originally, she, with her Crimson Flame Blood Lock so close to the origin of Emotion, was the predetermined, most perfect 'vessel'.
But now, his calculations had found a superior option.
"The Heart Vow Covenant... the resonant structure of four as one... This is the most perfect Vessel of Price I have been searching for."
Northern Frontier Snow Plains.
The pressure of the invisible scan intensified violently.
"We're... losing something..." Lu Wanning's voice trembled. Through the Dark Heartlock, she felt something formless and immensely heavy being forced into their shared consciousness through the physical chains. It wasn't energy, but raw sensation. The sorrow, fear, and despair of countless beings.
"Not losing, bearing!" Shen Yuzhu gritted his teeth, his eyes bloodshot. "This Heart Vow chain... it was never an equal bond! It's a conduit for channeling pain! What we signed was a Covenant of Price!"
"Damn it! Was the trust we built all along a design?!" Gu Changfeng roared, trying to lift his blade to sever the chains, but the Yun Bian Blade was impossibly heavy.
"No." Chu Hongying's voice cut through the storm, firm and clear. Enduring the soul-deep burn of her Blood Lock, her gaze swept over her companions, unwavering. "The trust is real. The bond is real. Precisely because it's real... standing here together, bearing this 'Price', is us!"
She reached out, one hand gripping Shen Yuzhu's cold wrist, the other resting on Gu Changfeng's shoulder. "Whether this is fate or conspiracy, we face it together."
As her words fell, Situ Ming's phantom coalesced from the wind and snow, his form faint, translucent, on the verge of dissipation.
"You think I am your enemy," his voice was heavy with a profound exhaustion, and a trace of envy, "but I am merely the previous... failure. The one who could not bear this price, and ultimately chose betrayal and escape."
His gaze turned south, towards the Imperial Capital. "The core of the Mirror Palace, the Emperor's throne... is the greatest Price Transfer Device in this world. And you... are the living keys to activate it, to become its core."
His phantom began to shatter, scattering into the blizzard, his final whisper lingering in their minds:
"I did not betray you... I was simply crushed by this price, one step ahead of you.
Do not let your pure hearts... become mass-produced vessels in the hands of others."
The wind and snow seemed to abate, if only slightly.
The four supported each other, steadying themselves against the physical and psychological onslaught. Chu Hongying held fast to Shen Yuzhu, Gu Changfeng stood solidly beside Lu Wanning—an unbreakable formation.
Above, the pure white mirror scar began to close, leaving behind a stark, two-colored mark on the sky—half the icy blue of reason, half the burning red of emotion, locked in a fragile, intertwined balance.
The physical chains on their bodies faded, their power returning, but changed. A cool blue gleam now tempered Chu Hongying's spear flames. Shen Yuzhu's mirror glyphs carried a new, emotional warmth within their logic. Gu Changfeng's blade intent felt more grounded, and Lu Wanning's Heartlock seemed to delve into deeper, more profound depths.
"It seems we have no other choice," Shen Yuzhu said softly, data flickering in his eyes.
Gu Changfeng snorted, the Yun Bian Blade feeling light in his hand once more. "Then let's go meet this Emperor who wants to steal the hearts of the world!"
Lu Wanning gently touched the Heartlock on her arm, her voice soft but firm. "We will find a way. Just as we always have."
They all felt it then—a vast, icy pull emanating from the south, from the Imperial Capital. The Mirror Palace was calling for its 'keys'.
Chu Hongying took a deep, stinging breath of frozen air, sharpening her resolve. She looked at her companions, then turned her gaze southward.
"It's time we went to the Imperial Capital." Her voice was calm, final. "Not to fight against someone, but to face our shared destiny. To redefine—"
She paused, leveling her Lie Feng Spear towards the south.
"—what Price we are willing to bear."
Just as they prepared to move—
Crack.
High above, the newly formed two-colored mark split open once more, in reverse.
It was not a violent rupture, but a casual, effortless motion, like a slumbering giant brushing aside a veil that obscured its view.
Behind the rift was not void, not stars, but something incomprehensible—a pure, indescribable 'Presence'.
The next second.
Everyone—the four on the plains, the Emperor in his palace, every soul in the empire with a shred of spiritual sense—heard a voice speak directly into the core of their being.
The voice was no longer blurred. It was no longer human-like. It was ethereal, precise, and utterly devoid of emotion, the whisper of cosmic law itself:
"...Anchor point confirmed."
The wind died.
The snow hung motionless in the air.
The world, in that moment, fell into a perfect, absolute silence.