Ferra lifted the shared royal pin by less than a fingernail while Vella held its pulse against the maintenance rail. All three active armors turned toward her hand before the retaining collar stopped moving.
"The core is crossing toward the coronation breastplate," Vella said from the unranked passage, keeping gold mana beneath her fingertips, "the northern and western shells remain ready to receive it."
Hajin shifted separate Chain arcs around both escape bodies without striking either one. His three Rings kept him mobile inside the hierarchy while Didi remained pinned beneath the royal claimant mark.
Eirwen’s raw control trembled around the servant arch after holding every evacuation route. The guards, councilors, lamp workers, plus coronation attendants had already crossed beyond the lower screen.
"Ten breaths remain," she said, lowering one pressured shoulder against her silverwood bow, "the passage has fulfilled its purpose, and keeping it open now spends strength without moving another civilian."
"Release it from the safe side," Hajin replied, watching the avatar’s three sight lines, "you proved the route before the room could turn everyone into cover."
Eirwen withdrew through the arch beside Vella while her twelve Shards still held its edges apart. She pulled the silverwood bow after herself, allowing white-gold boundary script to close across the empty servant entrance.
No guard or servant remained inside the measured room after Eirwen withdrew her silverwood bow. Eirwen kept her witness record beyond the boundary, while Vella maintained physical contact through the service-side section of the same preservation rail.
The coronation armor straightened when its concentrated core returned beneath the cracked breastplate. Its northern and western bodies moved with reduced light, carrying active escape occupancy without holding the central presence.
Hajin loosened the Chain around the coronation shell deliberately while separate arcs held both escape bodies. One plated hand opened toward Didi’s removal mark, while the damaged breast section separated around a hollow white-gold core shape.
"You cannot catch it by striking the plate," Aria said, following the next transfer tension, "Collector’s Grasp can bypass that defense if your left hand reaches the core before it changes shells."
"Then tell Ferra which direction it chooses," he said, opening his gloved fingers beside the loose Chain, "I will give it one hand worth closing around."
He crossed the nullstone circle before the armor completed its removal command. Three Rings resisted the surrounding law, leaving his fourth Ring closed while the Witness continued measuring his bloodline response.
The coronation gauntlet turned away from Didi when Hajin placed his left hand inside the breastplate opening. Condensed plate folded across his wrist, trapping the fingerless Collector’s Grasp within the shell.
His physical hand remained outside the solid metal’s ordinary path, but the Divine glove entered through its enchanted defense. Five-percent authority reached the moving incarnation core without breaking, bending, or opening the royal plate.
[ Collector’s Grasp contact established ]
[ Target: Witness Avatar incarnation core ]
[ Mortal soul within contact: none ]
[ Defense bypass: active ]
[ Core withdrawal route: three connected shells ]
The glove’s contact neither absorbed the incarnation core nor claimed control over its divine authority. At five percent unlocked, Collector’s Grasp could touch what the armor protected while Hajin supplied every moment of restraint himself.
That limit kept the contact from becoming effortless capture through a sealed artifact. The avatar could still withdraw through its connected bodies whenever his grip, Ferra’s wedge, or the surrounding Chain arcs failed.
Cold white-gold pressure closed around his fingers before the core could transfer north. Hajin curled the Grasp through its outer circulation, holding a structure that possessed authority without any mortal heartbeat beneath it.
The contact revealed no distant chamber, face, throne, or complete divine body. It showed only a relationship of scale running through the incarnation route beyond Ouro’s closed boundary.
The three armors were one articulated fingertip inserted through a narrow opening. A distant authority remained beyond that joint, moving the local body as a hand would move one finger without crossing after it.
[ Incarnation relationship observed ]
[ Local avatar body: partial extension ]
[ Remote authority: connected / unavailable for direct measurement ]
[ True body location, identity, and complete scale: unavailable ]
Hajin could infer the direction plus incomplete nature of the descent from that narrow relation. He could not measure the remote being, follow the route beyond its closed joint, or treat this partial contact as access to another realm.
"This body is a finger," Aria said, copying the structural relation without inventing its unseen source, "the authority beyond it has not descended fully into the coronation room."
The core pulled toward the northern shell while Collector’s Grasp remained closed around its frequency. Ferra pressed her first ceramic wedge beneath the common pin, slowing that transfer without pretending the connection was isolated.
Vella followed the divine pulse through her gold contact and called every change aloud. The western branch brightened first, the northern branch received the withdrawal load, then the coronation shell tried dividing its core between both escape paths.
Hajin held through the split instead of following either armor with his Chain. White-gold strain traveled into the black leather glove, tightening its sealed surface around every knuckle upon his left hand.
[ Divine core frequency recording initiated ]
[ Stable contact required ]
[ Collector’s Grasp seal under sustained authority pressure ]
Aria captured the first complete rotation while the avatar pulled against his fingers. Its frequency carried command, measurement, plus incarnation functions inside distinct phases rather than one indistinguishable divine current.
The second rotation entered Hajin’s hybrid circulation before she isolated it across the left-to-right route. Gold-purple mana prevented immediate rejection, although the foreign sample remained uncontrolled beneath the route crossing his core.
The Witness pulled harder through all three ceremonial bodies during the third rotation. Coronation plate compressed around Hajin’s wrist while both escape shells tore against the Chain arcs holding their shoulders.
Collector’s Grasp tightened through the core pressure without losing physical contact across three competing withdrawal routes. Another section of its old seal separated beneath the strain, widening the stable interaction around his fingers before the avatar could withdraw.
[ Witness Avatar frequency: recorded ]
[ Collector’s Grasp advancement condition satisfied ]
[ Direct contact with hostile divine incarnation core ]
[ Collector’s Grasp: 5% unlocked → 7% unlocked ]
[ Improvement: core-contact stability and duration ]
[ Fundamental defense-bypass function: unchanged ]
The incarnation core tore free before the improved hold could become permanent containment. It abandoned a thin outer layer of white-gold circulation inside the Grasp, then transferred through the common pin into the northern armor.
Coronation plate opened around Hajin’s left wrist as its body collapsed against the Chain. The glove remained intact, although red pressure lines crossed the exposed skin between its finger openings.
Ferra prevented the shared pin from snapping when the violent transfer struck her wedge. She held the retaining collar by hand, keeping its royal impression seated while the northern shell rose with the concentrated presence.
"Seven percent kept the last rotation stable," Aria said, sealing the frequency record apart from his ordinary mana, "it still cannot hold an unwilling avatar indefinitely through three connected escape bodies."
Hajin withdrew his left hand while keeping three Rings open against the room law. The distant authority remained unseen, yet its local frequency now existed inside a bounded sample Aria could measure.
All three crowned helms turned toward that captured trace together inside the measured coronation room. A reversed white-gold pulse followed the torn core contact into Hajin’s circulation, and the recorded frequency began drifting toward the gray pathways inside his right arm.