Juna found the escape apertures by refusing to chase what emerged from them.
Twelve outer Court pylons formed a ring around the capital. Each opened a white-gold route above occupied roofs and allowed executioners to enter near whichever district resisted.
Breaking one aperture made the next two widen, preserving the circle through shared authority. The pylon ring had to be mapped before it could be cut safely.
Juna said while studying Aria’s map from the western roof, "One cut cannot reach every pylon without crossing civilians, because the openings are connected by the routes between them."
Her Solar Vanguard afterimages remained wherever she physically traveled while previously marking pursuit angles and returning strikes.
Across the complete pylon ring, those remnants could record every interruption point if she ran the entire circuit, because a projected path would not meet the technique’s requirement.
Hajin asked while watching Loccy hold the falling palace section below, "You have three Wings available, so why start with one?"
Juna said as one pale-gold Wing opened, "Three would draw the executioners toward occupied roofs before I clear them, while one keeps the route narrow enough to inspect."
She began at the western archive while the surrounding witnesses watched from marked positions. The first roof held six displaced servants under an owner label.
Juna stopped and waited for Vella to clear their minds. She severed the ward command only after confirmation, then guided the six people down a physical stair.
Only when a garden captain confirmed all six names did she leave a solar mark at the pylon seam, recording a completed route rather than a promise.
The second route crossed a hospital chimney where Ferra certified the structure stable but warned that a direct solar cut would ignite stored medicines below.
Juna changed her path along an adjacent parapet and touched every stone herself before marking a safer interruption angle.
The detour added three roofs and a narrow laundry bridge to the circuit. Juna tested each support before allowing her afterimage to settle.
A hospital porter removed drying sheets from the route because ordinary cloth could have become falling fire during the later release.
Ferra recorded the altered geometry for every district captain because the original map no longer described the actual cut.
Executioners emerged behind Juna, but she did not fight them on the hospital roof.
She dropped into an evacuated market, let both enemies follow, then cut their flight lines after Vella confirmed willing cores.
The valid kills entered the Court ledger without adding to her planned Wing progression, and the bodies carried no independent contribution reward.
Juna returned to the exact roof point she had left. Her afterimage remained stable because the route had been physically completed rather than projected from a distance.
Aria said, "Two pylons marked, but ten remain with civilian checks incomplete across seven routes."
Rumi and Nari moved ahead through known streets instead of opening blind rooftop paths while Rumi identified short approaches between buildings she had touched.
Nari closed executioner apertures after local evacuations finished while Rumi’s route ended behind a locked attic occupied by three families at one tenement.
She canceled the opening before appearing among them and knocked through the ordinary stair. Nari held the Court aperture outside while local guards escorted everyone down.
The delay cost Juna another minute, but it kept spatial surprise from becoming a rescue hazard. The sisters could not mark Juna’s route for her.
Solar Vanguard recognized only ground Juna crossed through her own movement while the limitation made the route slow yet kept the record honest.
At the northern district, one pylon stood above a tenement with twenty-three people trapped beneath Court pressure, so Juna used the single Wing to support short climbs.
Ordinary guards carried children down while she waited until the last tenant reached the street before placing her third mark.
The Crowned Avatar noticed the growing pattern and reassigned roof wardens as weapons, ordering them to break Juna’s afterimages.
Vella severed the compelled commands where she could reach them while Juna avoided striking anyone whose mortal mind remained present.
Two wardens willingly accepted the Court role and destroyed one solar mark before Juna stopped them. She rebuilt that segment by running it again after Ferra repaired the damaged parapet.
The avatar said through the pylon bells, "Weapon abandons assigned combat, so return to visible targets."
Juna ignored the command and ran east while each route added an afterimage at the interruption point.
Some routes required combat, while others required minutes spent checking attics and roof gardens. An empty-looking tower contained pigeons tended by an elderly keeper.
The keeper refused evacuation until Loccy’s palace burden shook loose tiles around him. Another roof carried water tanks supplying an occupied district.
Juna moved her mark around the support beams rather than slicing the tanks away from the pylon. Royal engineers drained only one damaged vessel.
The remaining water stayed available for the shelters below while the route grew less elegant with every real obstacle and safer because of those changes.
Juna carried the keeper and both nesting boxes to a cleared courtyard. She returned after a clerk recorded his name, leaving the roof genuinely empty.
Her one Wing dimmed under continuous movement while no evolution restored its mana and no named path had appeared in the system yet.
A solar mark lingered after she passed, then broke into sparks when her Wing closed, leaving the route dependent on feet and memory rather than an unearned technique.
Juna watched the sparks fade before she drank, and the missing power made every occupied tower feel heavier since a future answer could not rescue a person she failed to count today.
She marked the failed spark on Aria’s map, then ran toward the next roof with the brace biting her shoulder, carrying only the route she could still reach.
The next pylon waited above a flooded stair, and she entered it alone while the Court’s map remained behind her with every counted name.
She drank water while running an ordinary stair and accepted a shoulder brace from Ferra at the next pylon.
Juna said through the team channel, "Seven marks, but the eastern river route contains two occupied towers and one unknown cellar."
Eirwen sent garden captains toward the cellar while Didi protected one crossing street by planting Crowned Frost without binding anyone inside.
Hajin and Ferra held the approaches around Loccy, leaving Juna responsible for the outer circle while the palace section still hung above the archive shelter.
The river towers emptied after local residents produced a more accurate occupancy list than the royal archive, and Juna checked every room herself.
She found one bedridden woman omitted from the official count, carried her down before marking the eighth pylon, then asked the residents another question.
She asked who slept on roofs during summer nights, and four names emerged that no housing ledger recorded.
Garden captains found three already evacuated while Juna located the fourth inside a collapsed stairwell and reopened the path with physical tools.
"The Court assumed excess labels did not require records," the local captain said, correcting the ledger.
"Then our route requires better records than the Court," Juna said, closing the tower door.
The final four pylons tightened their escape apertures while executioners began converging behind her, but Juna kept one Wing.
She refused to release broad attacks across uncleared roofs while Solar afterimages recorded every turn, interruption point, and physical descent around the city.
Her communication crystal failed beneath the eleventh pylon’s pressure, so Juna paused at a visual signal tower and confirmed the next street through flags.
She continued without assuming that silence meant clearance while the slower method preserved the requirement that every path be checked before becoming a weapon.
By dusk, she reached the southern wall with eleven marks complete while the twelfth route returned toward the western archive through the most densely occupied roofs.
The circle would close only after she crossed them again while archive captains reported three patients still beneath those roofs, each attached to equipment unsuitable for Rumi’s route.
Juna sent physical carriers and waited for separate name confirmations while one executioner tested the eleventh mark.
She drew it into an empty stairwell, broke its flight line, returned without spending the stored path, then looked across the afterimages earned through movement.
Juna said, "I have drawn the path, and now I clear the return line."
The twelfth pylon answered from beyond the archive as Juna lowered her Wing, checked the first roof again, and began the final circuit through the people still waiting below.
She carried the map in her body rather than trusting a line drawn by someone who had not walked it. Every interruption would have a reason before it became a weapon.