The Ordered Court attacked Ferra’s anti-divine stakes because prepared tools had become more dangerous to its authority than visible fighters.
Nine stakes survived across the western districts after the Hunting Avatar battle. White-gold nodes entered their grounding lines and tried to burn each fixture through its maker’s signature.
Ferra felt the first failure while working beside Hajin’s current pylon. Forge-light opened behind her in one Wing, and heat crawled along the mark in her palm.
Ferra said, "They found my maker marks, and if each stake burns alone, the backlash destroys the districts they ground."
She opened Masterwork senses across every personally forged piece without possessing a network skill while locations appeared through heat and stress rather than sight.
Three stakes rested in orchards, two supported bridge fixtures, one held an infirmary pin, and three anchored roads beneath the western ward.
Each fixture carried damage from its original battle while one orchard stake had lost half its grounding teeth, the infirmary pin remained bent around a repaired wall, and a bridge fixture supported ordinary iron braces.
Ferra included those limitations instead of imagining nine flawless tools. She sent local crews instructions to clear civilians from direct contact before linking the maker marks.
Hajin asked, "Can Rumi connect the routes?" while holding Court pressure behind Aegis.
Ferra said, "Not without carrying hostile law through unknown distance."
She kept her hands on the nearest stake and said, "The masterworks already share my signature, but I need to make that relationship carry force deliberately."
Forge-light traveled outward through every surviving maker mark as the separate fixtures answered with different temperatures and loads, resisting one rhythm because each had been built for local ground.
Ferra adjusted them individually until nine points entered a stable circuit. The response took longer than a single attack, yet the circuit preserved the real distance between the districts.
Active Court nodes attacked along the new connection while Vella identified occupied cores inside four of them, including two unwilling healers and two priests who had accepted Dominion possession.
Ferra refused to send destructive heat until Vella separated the unwilling minds. A clean circuit was useless if it treated living hosts as replaceable parts.
Vella said, "The northern bridge is clear, but the infirmary node still contains one resisting patient," through Hajin’s Spirit Ring.
Ferra routed pressure away from the infirmary stake and into three empty road anchors. One floating tool cracked beneath the unequal force and fell from her forge-light orbit.
Aria said, "Tool lost, but the circuit remains functional through eight fixtures," while recording the fracture before the piece reached the wardstone.
The patient separated after Vella entered through old treatment scars. Didi froze the Court command while Ferra closed the network around every willing hostile core.
Heat moved through the personally forged circuit as the anti-divine stakes released their stored grounding force together, though the synchronized impact arrived at different moments.
Occupied Court nodes shattered across the western districts without transferring backlash into civilians. Ferra’s contribution ledger reconciled only the active hostile bodies she destroyed.
The physical distances remained real as Ferra held the nearest stake until the far bridge fixture answered, carrying uneven force across her first Wing without pretending that the tools touched.
The cracked floating tool absorbed one final mismatch before breaking. Juna confirmed that every surrounding street remained clear, while Vella checked that no freed mind disappeared with the divine cores.
[Ferra: Experience Gained: 108,000]
[Wing 2 Threshold Reached: 300,000]
[Current Progress: 0 / 1,500,000]
A second forge-light Wing opened behind Ferra as floating tools formed along its edge, distinct from the first Wing’s rings, while lines of heat and force remained visible between every surviving masterwork.
The second Wing did not resemble feathers, because three interlocking forge-light arcs carried hammers, tongs, gauges, and one empty socket where the cracked tool belonged.
Its movement followed workshop sequence rather than flight as each instrument turned toward the circuit point requiring attention, then waited for Ferra’s choice instead of acting independently.
[Technique Acquired: Masterwork Network]
[Function: Move heat and force through a connected circuit of personally forged masterworks]
[Limitations: Requires intact maker marks and physical circuit continuity]
The evolution restored no spent mana and did not repair the cracked floating tool. Ferra caught the broken piece and placed it inside a marked pouch.
Ferra said through the new Wing’s strain, "The network is stable across eight fixtures, and I can keep the western supports grounded while beginning the weapons."
She had prepared two separate furnaces beneath the archive route. One contained preserved incarnation metal taken from the Hunting Avatar.
The other held cleansed Underworld alloy recovered from the child’s broken extraction lattice after Vella confirmed that no trapped soul remained.
Both furnaces rested on mundane foundations independent of the palace wards. Ferra had built their air channels by hand with royal smiths whose labels Vella had already severed.
If the Court captured Masterwork Network, Ferra could collapse each chimney and smother the heat without sending force into the archive.
Hajin followed her into the forge chamber after the current pylon fell. He kept the Chain stored, leaving both hands clear for the weapon sequence they had practiced.
Ferra used Masterwork Network to move heat from the western stakes into the furnace walls. The process consumed force already grounded from hostile nodes rather than drawing new pressure toward civilians.
Ferra said, "Keep their temperatures separate, because joining them before their structures stabilize creates one contaminated mass instead of two answers," as she adjusted both furnaces.
The preserved avatar metal softened into white-gold layers without accepting Dominion commands. The cleansed alloy glowed black-red, carrying demonic appetite without the child’s pain or Underworld ownership mark.
Vella inspected both through neutral Spirit perception and said, "No mortal residue remains in either furnace, and the black alloy remembers extraction pressure as material strain, not a trapped soul."
Didi froze one ownership phrase that survived inside the demonic metal. Ferra removed the commanded fragment and stored it as evidence rather than hammering it into a blade.
The divine metal carried a different danger as Dominion structure tried to align every softened layer toward one superior edge.
Hajin used the sampled frequency to keep those layers visible while Ferra hammered them apart. She preserved their authority-severing potential without allowing the blade to assign its wielder.
Neither treatment blended the opposing materials, because the future weapons needed separate answers capable of meeting only inside a controlled seam.
The Court attacked the network again from the central palace. Ferra redirected the force through six stakes, protecting the furnaces while one road anchor cracked.
Her second Wing wavered but remained open while Ferra closed the first Wing for twelve breaths and let the new network carry furnace heat alone.
The circuit held, and Ferra realized that the evolution extended her prepared craft rather than duplicating every tool automatically.
When the older Wing reopened, spent mana remained spent, and Ferra said, "Seven fixtures now, enough to maintain heat but not enough to waste another tool," while recording the loss.
She did not join the metals, so each furnace held one future weapon and neither possessed a name or a completed edge.
The promised matched set had begun through prepared craft rather than appearing with her evolution, and that distinction kept the work inside Ferra’s hands.
Royal smiths maintained the mundane bellows under voluntary shifts while Ferra watched every surviving maker mark for Court contamination and the furnaces stayed physically separate.
Masterwork Network carried heat between their walls without carrying the materials into one another. Vella labeled both billets pending another soul inspection before hammering continued.
Outside, the Ordered Court contracted around the archive routes while Ferra kept two incompatible answers hot inside and her second Wing carried the force of every masterwork still standing.
The forge ledger remained open beside both furnaces, recording every lost fixture and every volunteer shift while the next weapon waited for proof that the network could survive another attack.
Ferra marked the cracked socket with red chalk and refused to hide the missing tool inside the progress total. Eight connected fixtures were useful, but the broken ninth remained part of the circuit’s honest limit.