Twenty brilliant Shards hovered in a motionless arc behind the sovereign, casting sharp radiance across the deserted throne room.
White-gold filaments of divine law coiled around King Atheron from his fingertips to his shoulders, welding his flesh to the imperial dais.
Every ounce of defensive power the monarch channeled through his Shards was instantly seized by the descending avatar network.
"The mechanism is inverted," Aria reported through the system interface, her diagnostic sensors tracking the citywide flow of divine mana.
"It uses the King's output as a hostage circuit," she explained, displaying the pulsing grid of municipal connections.
"If the sovereign attempts a counterstrike, the avatar redirects the violent discharge directly into the residential districts," she warned.
Hajin stood atop the roof of an adjacent archive pavilion, peering through the shattered stained glass with his divine perception active.
