Hajin saw the King through a broken gap between two palace towers, with smoke drifting across the rooftops and the Crowned Avatar standing beneath the damaged throne.
Twenty Shards hung behind the King in a motionless golden arc. Each one carried enough pressure to shatter a district ward, yet none moved against the avatar below.
The King held every inverted discharge inside his own pathways so it could not enter the occupied streets while white-gold law covered his arms from fingertips to shoulders.
Whenever he gathered enough force for a counterstrike, the First Prince’s blood authorization redirected that force toward a hospital, a residence block, or an evacuation route.
Aria said inside Hajin’s thoughts, "The avatar cannot overpower him directly, because it uses the King’s output as a hostage circuit."
Hajin widened Divine Eye over the throne, which rested above twelve foundation channels and eight city wards that matched the number of Shards held behind the King.
Every channel carried a civilian load signature before returning through his blood, and the Crowned Avatar raised one hand beneath the dais before it said, "The highest owner preserves property, so remain at your place."
The King gathered enough golden pressure to break the central shell while the avatar shifted one royal authorization, sending that pressure above the western infirmary instead.
Twenty Shards stopped moving as Juna crossed the roof, followed the interrupted route through the city’s ward lines, and said, "If he releases anything, the city receives it, so we cannot cut those channels while people remain attached."
She kept her Wings closed over the skyline while Hajin said, "Then we clear the attachments," then shared Aria’s map with Ferra and Didi as the King listened through the fractured royal line.
The King said, "Do not approach the throne to free me, but break the mechanism linking my blood to the occupied districts," through the fractured royal communication line with the weight of twenty held discharges in his voice.
Didi stopped beside a ward tower and looked toward her father as the white-gold routes crossed the tower’s foundation, then disappeared beneath a hospital road.
Didi said through the communication tag, "You will not survive every circuit failure," without softening the warning for the King or pretending that royal endurance could replace a plan.
The King said, "Then do not fail them at once, because you know enough about my mistakes to disobey the part of that order which is foolish."
The line strained when the avatar sent another command through his left arm, and the King’s seventh Shard turned half a degree to absorb pressure that would have crushed the hospital road.
Hajin reached the nearest pylon instead of approaching the throne. Ferra’s anti-divine stake grounded the outer law, while Vella separated two unwilling guards from the weapon labels powering its core.
The pylon had been built beside a public bathhouse where forty-three civilians still sheltered, and breaking its foundation would send heated water channels through the lower chambers.
Loccy descended into the service tunnel and carried the damaged pipes while Ferra rerouted stored pressure into an empty cistern.
Rumi established a known exit from the shelter, but steam distorted her spatial edge around the oldest patients. Nari closed the Court route through the furnace and left the ordinary stairs open.
Juna guided everyone out physically before Hajin struck the node. She kept the rescue inside the established operational boundary and confirmed each person had crossed the safe line.
Didi froze the royal blood shield around the node while Rumi opened a verified route behind it, and Nari closed the pylon’s transfer path after Juna cut the empty mechanism.
One of the King’s Shards moved again while the nearby formation held, sending golden pressure into an evacuated stone reservoir outside the palace.
The waterless masonry broke instead of the people below the bathhouse while the King redirected the released circuit there before the avatar could reclaim it.
Aria said, "One attachment severed, but nineteen remain active."
The Crowned Avatar answered by increasing the load through the other channels. Cracks spread across the throne platform, but the King’s posture remained fixed.
Hajin said, "Twenty Shards do not grant separate bodies, so he cannot defend the city and fight the source simultaneously."
Ferra said, "That is the mechanism’s purpose, because his strength prevents him from moving," while removing her stake before the backlash destroyed it.
They advanced through two more pylons, reaching one where noble owners willingly fed authority into the Court in exchange for protected estates.
Didi recorded their consent before Hajin severed the divine node. The record preserved a possible future collaborator ledger without declaring their earlier choice harmless.
One noble withdrew consent when the Court ordered guards to abandon an orphan shelter. Vella severed his willing channel only after he spoke the withdrawal clearly.
She protected his mind from the retaliating possession line, then left his earlier collaboration recorded beside his later refusal.
The other owners continued feeding the node inside the established operational boundary while Collector’s Grasp confirmed that their mortal bodies remained separate.
Hajin destroyed the divine core after that confirmation, leaving ordinary courts to judge the collaboration later while the battlefield permission remained no excuse to kill them.
The second pylon used servants compelled through household wards, so Vella freed every living mind before Juna destroyed its empty shell.
No experience reward went to Hajin for rescuing people while valid node kills entered a separate Ordered Court ledger to preserve the distinction between protection and destruction.
Two more Shards shifted behind the King, exposing the price of every release as golden cracks entered his shoulders where held circuits changed direction.
Vella could not reach him through the occupied throne routes without giving the Court access to Hajin’s Spirit Ring. She recorded the injuries and prepared treatment for after the blood shield fell.
The King neither claimed the pain was insignificant nor asked the team to slow down. He named which released channels remained safe and warned them when the avatar disguised an occupied route as empty.
He sent released pressure upward through the empty sky, where white-gold light broke harmlessly across the cloud layer while seventeen Shards remained fixed around occupied circuits.
The avatar tried another counterstrike through Didi’s blood. True Bearer refused assignment as royal subject, but retaliation entered her fourth Shard and reopened the wound in her palm.
The redirected strike searched for the King’s authority inside her lineage. Didi named herself as bearer of her own refusal and no successor to the avatar’s order.
That phrasing stopped the Court from using succession as another assignment, though it consumed enough blood to blur her sight.
Hajin placed Aegis between her and the physical pylon while Ferra finished the bandage. Protection covered Didi’s body without speaking through her royal claim.
Hajin caught her elbow without touching the frost line and said, "You need treatment before the pylon."
Didi accepted Ferra’s mundane bandage while keeping her eyes on the next royal route, then said, "I need cloth and three breaths, because Spirit healing near this blood shield gives the Court another path."
Vella confirmed the judgment as a foundation channel tightened beneath the King, and he said, "The First Prince built these authorizations over years, while my seal approved repairs whose destinations I never inspected, so record that failure beside his crimes."
"Survive and testify yourself," Vella said as she finished the bandage.
The King accepted the correction and said, "That is an acceptable correction, and I will testify to it."
Hajin mapped the attachments across Aegis and understood that the throne was a hostage circuit, not a prisoner they could free with force, because its mechanisms had to be dismantled while the person inside held still.
Every reckless strike would become another weapon against the city.
Sixteen connections remained after their current sequence, each carrying a district name, an occupied load, and a release destination approved by the King.
Aria numbered them visibly so the team could distinguish progress from spectacle. The count stayed useful even when the avatar changed the order of the channels.
The Crowned Avatar still occupied the central foundation, but twenty Shards denied it the city discharge it wanted while the King’s strength bought time rather than victory.
That time made every controlled pylon removal possible as Hajin turned toward the next occupied ward and followed the King’s order to break the structure rather than worship the strength trapped inside it.
Another golden line tightened around the King as Hajin reached the next occupied ward. The palace shook, and a residential block answered from beneath the attachment.