The contracted Court displayed six protections around the throne, each designed to punish the wrong specialist.
Hajin stood above Ferra’s forge chamber while Divine Eye separated the layers, then the possession choir supplied remote healing plus replacement minds.
The foundation mass converted palace stone into a weapon while a sky route offered the avatar an escape, and the royal blood shield redirected attacks through the King.
Ordered Court law sealed every boundary while the incarnation core remained hidden beneath the other protections.
Rumi and Nari added a seventh line to Aria’s model, and Rumi said, "Mountain road, the only safe release," while touching the marked palace mouth with one amber claw.
She held the distant endpoint through their paired sense and said, "It is not ready for mass, but it is still one road."
The surveyed basin remained the only direction where a palace-scale release could occur without occupied districts, active mines, protected ruins, or headwaters.
Their two Wings could not sustain the mass yet, but every final plan needed to preserve that destination. A known road remained valuable even before it could carry the palace.
"We assign locks by existing strength," Hajin said, expanding the model across Aegis, "and nobody saves a finishing blow for status."
The possession choir belonged to Vella, who carried the scars from its first two forms and could separate willing hostile cores from treatment routes without destroying patients.
Aria displayed every branch Vella still needed to preserve, including infirmary heart wards, surgical stabilization lines, and chosen healer-patient connections.
Destroying the choir without isolating those bonds would turn one successful strike into a citywide medical failure. Vella marked physical fallback teams for each infirmary before accepting the lock.
"I can rupture the central choir," Vella said, "but doing so will burn the demonic side of my range for the remainder of this fight."
"Then your task ends at the choir," Hajin said, "so continue treatment only within whatever range remains safe."
The foundation mass belonged to Loccy, and Worldbearer could declare the avatar-occupied structure while excluding civilian walls, but Loccy would become immobile until a safe release direction opened.
Ferra overlaid the palace supports and identified which western section already rested on ordinary braces, so Loccy’s declaration would exclude that stabilized mass.
That distinction prevented the earlier rescue work from becoming unnecessary weight. Royal engineers painted the exact boundary across every accessible column.
Loccy tested the splints around her recently treated wrists and said, "I carry it after the final archive supports clear, and someone else protects both approaches."
Juna received the sky route while Daybreak Path could store a cut around the aperture only after she physically ran the certified empty towers and completed the return line.
Eirwen assigned two verification crews to the towers. One checked occupants before Juna entered, while the second confirmed that nobody followed after her path formed.
Daybreak Path would receive no automatic exemption for a late ally or returning civilian. The route remained safe only when the route itself was clear.
"I hold the cut until the core tries to leave," Juna said, keeping four Wings closed, "and visible targets below do not change that signal."
Didi accepted the royal blood shield, and True Bearer could enter her brother’s law without becoming his subject while Crowned Frost opened a protected line others could follow.
The King marked ten paces where the shield redirected force into his Shards, and Didi rehearsed her stopping point because blood relation granted no immunity, leaving her fourth Shard damaged from the protected street while Vella offered only touch treatment.
"I take the first ten paces alone," Didi said, studying the shield, "because following early makes the Court route retaliation through me and the King."
Ferra claimed the Court boundary, where Breaker’s Lever could expose a seam and her finite incarnation pin could hold it for thirty seconds after Hajin applied Phase Lock.
She tested the pin against three practice seams and destroyed each disposable frame. Masterwork Network could not retrieve the artifact after placement because its maker mark would sit inside hostile authority.
Ferra would need to drive it and abandon it if timing failed, so she said, "The pin survives one placement, but if I miss the exposed seam, Masterwork Network cannot retrieve it," while showing the unfinished metal.
The incarnation core belonged to the entire finishing sequence, with Hajin using Collector’s Grasp on his bare left hand and Breaker’s Lever in his right.
He would release both after the pin entered, then draw the separate Growth blades Ferra had not completed, so inventory order became part of the plan.
The Chain had to be stored before the Lever entered his right hand because Collector’s Grasp could not be worn beneath another weapon.
Both Growth blades remained singular objects drawn only after the first artifacts released, and Aria placed those steps visibly beside the six locks.
"Five Rings supply leverage," Hajin said, "but they do not reveal the core without Didi’s line, Vella’s severance, Loccy’s burden, Juna’s cut, and Ferra’s pin."
Aria assigned no step to the child, and Bloodline Sanctuary remained protective rather than a weapon.
Nobody routed Court pressure through her demonic core merely because its frequency matched part of the avatar, and a matching frequency did not become permission.
Eirwen received civilian command outside the contracted palace while her Zone remained empty, so she used Alder witnesses, garden captains, and ordinary maps.
Those tools kept every release boundary clear, and Eirwen said, "The mountain basin needs another occupancy confirmation before any mass moves, and my riders will verify both passes and every water line again."
The King retained the city discharge as twelve Shards held occupied channels while eight released Shards protected outer districts from the Court contraction, and each district captain confirmed the discharge route the King would use after a lock fell.
Empty reservoirs, evacuated squares, and open sky received separate designations.
No one called a location safe merely because it looked empty from the throne, so a safe destination required a recent physical confirmation.
"I cannot attack the core until the blood shield falls," the King said through the royal line, "but I can keep the capital from receiving what you remove."
"That is one lock held, not an absence from the plan," Hajin said.
Ferra placed six metal tokens around the Aegis model while Vella removed the choir token after rehearsing her entry.
Loccy lifted the foundation token and left it in her palm. Juna marked the sky route, Didi covered the blood shield, and Ferra placed the pin against the boundary.
Rumi and Nari held the mountain road between separate fingertips while the team watched their connection.
No specialist possessed the complete answer, but the plan remained readable because each person owned one consequence and knew when another person’s work made theirs possible.
Hajin required everyone to name the condition that would make them stop, so Vella stopped if unwilling minds remained attached.
Loccy stopped before an unverified structure entered her burden, while Juna stopped for anyone inside the sky path and Didi stopped if her refusal transferred ownership.
Ferra stopped if the seam could not hold the pin, while Rumi and Nari stopped before any blind endpoint.
Hajin stopped if Collector’s Grasp found the Prince no longer willingly fused, and the stop conditions kept the operation reversible where possible.
Hajin closed the model after Eirwen’s final survey team reported both mountain passes empty, and Aria preserved every condition beside its assigned lock.
Retreat became part of the operation rather than failure, and Hajin said, "Six locks, one release road, and we break them in the order people survive," while looking toward the contracted throne.
Nobody asked to exchange assignments for a more visible victory. The plan had one purpose, and every specialist understood what their strength could not do.
Aria kept the six tokens separate even after the model closed. If one lock failed, the team would know which consequence had escaped instead of calling the entire plan broken.
Ferra placed the six lock tokens beside the mountain map. The road stayed outside the palace until the team could move a mass without carrying a stale civilian report into danger.