The western palace bells announced a royal closure before Vella finished binding Hajin’s shoulder. Bronze gates descended across every public corridor feeding the damaged wing, leaving guards plus recorders stationed on both sides.
Servants watched from the open eastern court while the King pressed his seal against the closure register. Didi stood beneath her temporary suspension mark beside Captain Roen, whose five accompanying guards had submitted separate accounts of the kneeling law.
Two archive councilors carried the broken coronation inventory behind them without concealing its missing armor. Ferra’s sealed frame followed beneath four custody chains, holding the inert divine material apart from every registered piece of Crown plate.
The Stream remained open after broadcasting the avatar’s descent plus destruction across the full battle. Its audience could not enter a Crown evidence file, although nobody watching from Earth could mistake what happened.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] THEY ARE ABOUT TO CALL THE GOD ARMOR A WARD MALFUNCTION AFTER IT TRIED TO DETONATE THE PALACE
[ LoreSeeker99: ] The six guard statements, treaty witness, physical wreckage, and damaged archive remain admissible even if the Stream is not.
[ ashley (Mod): ] Hajin’s system classification is also private evidence, so the court still needs the material examination on its own terms.
Aria lowered the comments while the public court recorder finished naming every witness. The King’s closure kept the damaged wing visible behind him instead of moving the proceeding into another private chamber.
"The western archive plus coronation rooms remain sealed under my authority," the King announced, keeping one hand upon the register, "nobody removes records, armor, ward fittings, or foundation material without a witnessed commission order."
Gold lines crossed the bronze gates before entering every guard post around the wing. The closure preserved Ferra’s existing custody marks, preventing the palace inventory office from absorbing her divine-material frame through an ordinary transfer.
{Western palace wing: sealed by royal order.}
{Permitted entry: emergency stabilization / recorded evidence work / named commission holders.}
{Unwitnessed removal, repair, replacement, or destruction: prohibited.}
The senior archive councilor waited until the public seal completed before raising his classification page. Its heading called the Witness an advanced ceremonial construct produced by corrupted ward connections inside the restricted archive.
"That description preserves a usable finding until further examination," he said, holding the unsigned page toward both royal recorders, "calling it divine would create obligations beyond the evidence presently accepted by this council."
Hajin looked from the proposed label toward the frame that had held a soul without flesh. His burned right arm remained strapped against his chest, leaving his uninjured hand available when he pointed toward Ferra’s custody seal.
"Examine the material before selecting the safest noun," Hajin said, keeping every Ring closed beneath his healing pathways, "your ceremonial inventory can either identify what she recovered or record that it cannot."
Ferra opened only the outer inspection shutter while all four custody chains remained fastened. One separated fragment rested between ceramic grips beside a matching piece of ordinary procession armor taken from the same breastplate.
The palace metallurgist approached beneath two recorder marks, then tested both surfaces through approved silver gauges. Crown alloy returned its registered composition immediately, while the white-gold fragment rejected every preservation category inside his official instrument.
He repeated the examination through heat, mana, plus royal impressions before signing the failed comparison. None revealed a forge origin, registration, repair date, or known construct-core structure.
{Recovered white-gold material: absent from Crown armor inventory.}
{Known construct core, control crystal, or mortal soul housing: not detected.}
{Residual governing frequency: present / unclassified by royal instruments.}
{Advanced ceremonial construct classification: unsupported without further evidence.}
The councilor lowered his prepared page after the metallurgist added his seal beneath that final line. Hajin neither demanded a divine label nor allowed an ordinary one to pass before the object received examination.
Eirwen placed her sealed treaty strip beside the escort’s six separately signed accounts. Her statement described a descending authority, a room-scale hierarchy, plus an empty articulated body connected beyond the local vessel.
One diplomatic secretary leaned toward her before the royal recorder accepted the page. He requested that she replace divine incarnation with unidentified external magical agency until both courts could agree upon language carrying fewer treaty consequences.
"My Court did not send me here to make witnessed danger comfortable," Eirwen replied, keeping her twelve Shards closed beneath the public seal, "the memory root recorded divine grammar, while I personally endured its governing law."
She placed her signature beneath the original wording before returning the secretary’s unused amendment. The Alder treaty mark joined Didi’s testimony plus the royal guards without claiming ownership of any recovered material.
The King read every limitation from Hajin’s earlier warrant before replacing its expiration strip. His new seal expanded one foundation inspection into a commission covering the avatar material, connected palace wards, related records, plus physically joined routes.
{Royal Commission: western divine-material investigation.}
{Commission holder: Lord Hajin.}
{Technical evidence custody: Forgemistress Ferra.}
{Royal record liaison: Princess Didi / access beside two recorders during suspension.}
{Treaty witness place: High Envoy Eirwen / custody and command excluded.}
{Granted authority: relevant palace access, witnessed examination, evidence preservation, and case-specific custody.}
{Excluded authority: general search, standing arrest, execution, unrelated seizure, or permanent Crown command.}
"You remain outside my standing command plus the office you refused," the King said, signing beneath the exclusions, "this commission ends after its connected evidence receives a public disposition or another witnessed order."
Hajin accepted the commission with his left hand after both recorders copied every limit. Didi retained case-only access beside recorders while her wider suspension remained active.
A guild courier entered the eastern court before the closure witnesses dispersed. Three bonded-station seals covered Marrick’s first seven-day packet, matching the report schedule Hajin had signed before leaving the Sixth.
The cover confirmed every temporary office remained within its assigned authority, but Hajin turned past that section first. He opened Lana’s treatment page, then checked Marrick’s casualty register before reading anything concerning his own territorial standing.
Postwar treatment continued through both regional clinics without an interrupted supply line. The casualty register carried no emergency addition, while longer recovery schedules remained active beneath Vella’s earlier clinic standards.
Gold Mountain had produced no second response after the recovered socket left its boundary. Its lower chamber remained inert under Marrick’s closure, with Ferra’s replacement-support requirement still barring miners from the damaged route.
Ash had shown no second halo, Ringlet, designation change, or physical decline beneath Lana’s registry watch. Taren’s road summaries found ordinary convoy movement plus rebuilding traffic, with no divine frequency reported anywhere across the Sixth’s external routes.
{First scheduled territorial report: received.}
{Gold Mountain node: inert.}
{Ash response after departure: none.}
{Postwar treatment: continuing.}
{External-road divine movement: none detected.}
Eirwen watched Hajin reach the final page concerning his compact, tax receipts, plus provisional office status. Her attention moved back toward the treatment pages he had checked before learning whether the territory remained orderly beneath his name.
"You passed your authority page without reading it," she said, folding her copy of the commission, "the court spent an hour defining your new reach, yet you searched the packet for wounded people first."
"Marrick would mark an authority failure across the cover," Hajin replied, checking the final treatment seal again, "a worsening patient can disappear inside an ordinary report unless somebody reads every line."
She examined him without offering the diplomatic correction her secretary had requested earlier. Respect entered her expression through something more personal than Ring count, treaty leverage, or the authority written beneath a royal seal.
Ferra closed the divine-material shutter before lifting the common royal pin inside its ceramic cup. Beyond the sealed gate, Gazel’s prayer case remained indexed beside the socket records that the new commission could finally examine together.