The march Toward Longjing

Longjing was more than a capital.

It was a monument to divine arrogance.

Built atop the intersecting lines of five ancient ley-glyphs, the city spanned a hundred terraces carved into the cliffs of Mount Zhen, each tier housing a different Sect, Family, or Guardian Order. It was here that the Divine Council met. Here that the Oracles once whispered to the wind. And here, a millennium ago, the First Flame of Heaven had descended and birthed the Great Cycle.

Now, Longjing prepared for war.

Banners of the Four Realms hung heavy across the city's archways, dull with ash and time. Palanquins lined the southern gate, bearing envoys from the North, South, West, and East. Among them, cloaked in silence, a single skyship drifted downward—no fanfare, no horns.

Inside stood Orion Jiang, the Mistaken Vessel.

And every noble eye was already watching him.

"Are they always this dramatic?" he muttered.

Beside him, Commander Ruan adjusted her bracers, unimpressed. "You're arriving with the last surviving Seal Crystal, in the company of a disgraced commander and a Witness who broke three protocols to speak your name aloud. Yes. Expect dramatics."

Behind them, Witness He Sheng gave a tight smile. "The Divine Council has summoned you for testimony, not recognition."

"And if they don't like my story?"

Ruan gave a small shrug. "They'll call for your execution. Or your elevation. Possibly both."

Before Orion could ask what that meant, the skyship docked.

Dozens of masked Guardians stood in formation. A crowd had gathered behind the cordon—commoners, scribes, low-tier cultivators—all craning to see the boy whispered about across the Realms.

The boy who stole power not meant for him.

The boy who wielded a forbidden glyph.

The boy who should not exist.

As Orion stepped off the skyship, silence fell.

Every glyph-lamp dimmed slightly, as if reacting to the hum of the glyphs under his skin.

From the crowd, someone hissed: "Mistaken."

Another voice: "Curse-bearer."

But no one approached.

Not yet.

Then a voice rang out, deep and ceremonial.

"Jiang Orion of the Southern Realm."

The speaker stood atop a flight of polished obsidian stairs, flanked by twin burning banners and robed in crimson and jade.

"By decree of the Divine Council and the Concord of Sects, you are summoned to the Great Tribunal. Your glyphs will be tested. Your soul examined. Your claim… weighed."

Orion stepped forward, chin raised.

"I never claimed anything," he said. "You all did."

Above them, deep within the gold-and-white halls of the Tribunal Tower, twelve seats awaited.

Some were already filled—others cloaked in veils of glyphic mist.

But all eyes, divine and mortal alike, turned toward the doors below.

The Mistaken Vessel had arrived.

And judgment was about to begin

The Tribunal Tower was shaped like a lotus in bloom.

Each petal was a court. Each stem a path of divine authority. At its core stood the Seat of Echoes, where testimony was more than words — it was memory, spirit, truth, and lie, laid bare beneath glyphlight.

Orion stood beneath it now.

Cloaked in silence. Surrounded by judgment.

A sea of robed figures lined the tiered chamber. Councilors from every realm. Archons of the Five Major Sects. Envoys from ancient bloodlines. They watched him like scholars studied a beast.

He didn't blink.

From the central dais, an old man rose. His robes shimmered with ancient script, and his beard flowed like calligraphy ink down his chest.

Master Zhou Wentan (周文潭 / Elden Zhou), the High Arbiter of the Council.

"State your name," Zhou said.

"Jiang Orion," he replied. "Born in the Southern Realm. Formerly of the Cloud Needle Academy."

A quiet ripple at the mention of Cloud Needle — a low-tier academy with no ties to the divine clans.

"State your claim."

"I make no claim."

A pause.

He Sheng, standing beside the dais, stepped forward. "He bears the glyph 误 — 'Mistake.' It manifested during the breach at Yunlong Seal. He saved the city. He sealed a war-wraith with a glyph no Oracle predicted."

More murmurs. Some skeptical. Some intrigued.

Zhou Wentan turned to Orion. "Do you understand what you carry?"

Orion looked up, eyes steady.

"No," he admitted. "But I know it's real."

He held out his arm.

The glyphs along his body shimmered and aligned again — not violently, but with a strange, rhythmic purpose.

Then, above his heart, 误 appeared. Calm. Silent. Watching.

And every seal in the room shuddered.

A woman in bone-white robes stood.

Lady Mei Qirong (梅启容 / Grace Mei), Matriarch of the Northern Ice Sutra Sect.

"This cannot be allowed," she snapped. "A glyph that does not belong to the Cycle threatens the foundations of our reality."

"A forbidden glyph that resonated with the Seal," Ruan said coolly. "And stabilized it."

"It's still blasphemy."

"And so was letting the war-wraith through," Orion added. "Which none of you seemed able to stop."

Gasps.

Grace Mei's eyes narrowed.

"You are not divine," she whispered. "You are a hole. A flaw. A—"

"A mistake?" Orion interrupted. "I know. I hear it enough."

He looked around the chamber, gaze burning.

"But sometimes a mistake is what saves you from your assumptions."

Silence followed.

Zhou Wentan did not speak right away.

Instead, he lifted a hand, and a scroll of golden thread unfurled before the chamber.

"The Oracle's final prophecy," he said. "Recorded five years ago. Interpreted by six Orders."

A projection flickered above the scroll — a memory, recorded in divine ink.

The Oracle appeared.

Weeping.

"The vessel shall be flawed. The chosen shall be wrong.

That which is cast aside… will hold the blade of judgment."

Zhou looked at Orion.

"You match this prophecy."

Orion felt something deep inside him twist.

"Then why," he asked, "did she run". The question struck like a hammer on crystal.

Even the flame-glyph torches dimmed.

Why had the Oracle vanished?

None in the chamber answered.

None dared.

Zhou Wentan's fingers tensed on the scroll, but he said nothing. His eyes flickered toward the side dais, where a lone chair sat empty — the Seat of the Oracle, untouched since her disappearance.

"She ran," Orion said softly, "because she knew the prophecy was wrong. Or worse — misused."

He stepped forward.

"And now that it's come true anyway, you don't know what to do with me."

A councilor from the Western Realm stood. His robes bore the tiger-glyph of the Bai family.

Lord Bai Duren (白渡仁 / Marcus Bai), head of one of the Great Four.

"This is a dangerous precedent," he growled. "If prophecy can be bent, what else have we misread? If 'mistake' is a glyph that lives—"

"It means our entire system of divine governance is flawed," Kara Xiang finished from the gallery above. "And you'd rather burn the boy than face that truth."

Gasps.

Duren turned on her. "You speak out of turn."

"And you speak out of fear," Kara snapped back. "You're not protecting the Realms. You're protecting your legacy."

The chamber began to hum with tension — glyphs in the floor and walls flickering as argument flared into low, angry murmurs.

Then Zhou Wentan raised one hand.

The chamber fell silent.

"Bring forth the Seal Crystal," he commanded.

Two Guardian-priests approached, bearing the crystal Orion had extracted from the war-wraith — still pulsing softly in containment runes.

Zhou turned to Orion. "If this glyph is yours… then prove it again. Awaken the seal. Let it speak."

Orion hesitated.

Not from fear — but from uncertainty. He had no training, no ancestral bloodline guiding him. Every time the glyphs responded to him, it was instinct, not ritual.

Still… he stepped forward.

The crystal shimmered.

A tremble echoed in the air.

He placed one hand on the surface — and closed his eyes.

The glyphs inside him stirred.

But this time, they didn't flare wildly.

They listened.

Aligned.

And together, they whispered one word:

误.

The glyph leapt from his chest and entered the crystal.

The chamber lit up — not violently, but gently.

From the crystal, a projection bloomed: a memory of the war-wraith before its corruption. A Guardian once, noble and proud, twisted by misuse of prophecy and sealed fate.

Orion's voice came low.

"He wasn't a monster. He was a weapon discarded after the prophecy passed him by. The system we worship created him."

The image faded.

And the chamber was utterly still.

Zhou Wentan sat back in his chair, eyes heavy with centuries of wisdom.

"The glyph accepts him," he said at last. "The Seal obeys him. And the prophecy… foretold him."

A beat.

"By Council law, we cannot ignore what has been made manifest."

He turned to Orion. "From this moment forward, you are recognized as a bearer of divine glyphs. Your rank is provisional — but protected. You are to be trained, watched, and tested."

Another pause.

"And you will be sent to the Fourfold Crucible."

Orion blinked. "The what?"

"The place where the chosen are broken. And remade."

After the hearing, Kara found him on the terrace outside the Tribunal.

The wind was cold. The city below glowed with glyph-lamps and fear.

"You did well," she said.

"I said what they needed to hear."

"No." She looked at him. "You said what they couldn't ignore."

He met her eyes.

"What is the Fourfold Crucible, really?"

Her smile was grim.

"It's where they send the ones they're afraid of."

Far away, beneath the still-cracked seal of Yunlong, something shifted in the dark.

A second war-wraith stirred.

And above it, a thousand forbidden glyphs blinked awake, whispering in unison:

"The mistake lives."