The three coalition forces reached the mountain basin from different directions over the course of the morning, but none of them entered far enough to commit to the interior before Xuanyin had a stable picture of the terrain. The basin had formed around an old chain of Blue Sphere mountains whose lower slopes had collapsed inward long before the current war, leaving steep ridges surrounding a broad sunken floor crossed by abandoned roads, dry waterways, and exposed shelves of stone. Abyss construction filled much of the lower ground without covering it completely, so natural terrain and formation architecture remained tangled together in ways that made every approach different. Haotian's northern force saw the central depression from a high broken ridge, Tianlan's legion approached through a narrower north-eastern valley, and Shuyue and Yanfei's eastern formation entered beneath a sequence of cliffs where the old mountain road descended in long turns.
Xuanyin established her mobile command position on elevated ground south-east of the basin rather than attaching herself to any of the three armies. Blue Sphere specialists around her maintained the shared formation map using reports from the advancing fronts, while Celestara observers supplied visual information whenever ridges or formation interference prevented the ground commanders from seeing one another. The three forces remained several miles apart at their outer edges, yet their command relationships were already functioning as one network before their physical formations met. Xuanyin used that advantage immediately, telling every commander to report changes in enemy movement between the approaches rather than focusing only on whatever stood directly ahead.
The inner junction itself occupied less ground than the convergence complex they had destroyed earlier, but the pressure inside it was considerably denser. Three major receiving corridors entered the basin along the same directions the coalition had followed inward, each carrying burden toward a broad central transfer area whose stone floor had been reinforced so heavily that very little natural terrain remained visible there. Six tall formation structures stood around that central region at uneven distances from one another, some embedded partly into the mountain shelves while others rose from reinforced platforms near the lower basin. Beneath all of them, Haotian could feel another relationship buried deeper than the visible controls, though the concentrated pressure above it prevented him from distinguishing its shape cleanly.
The Abyss had also filled the basin with troops pulled inward from the withdrawing complexes. Several large formations held the receiving corridors, while additional forces occupied the spaces between them so that no coalition army could simply advance toward the central structures without exposing its side to another defensive line. Portable formation platforms, supply wagons, and technical crews had been positioned behind those troops instead of being stripped for withdrawal. Celestara reports from farther west showed more demons entering the basin rather than leaving it, confirming that the contraction of the outer network had ended here for the time being.
Haotian studied the six visible structures through the Dao Palace of the Universe without assuming they all performed the same function. Their spatial relationships overlapped too heavily to separate from the outer ridge, and pressure moved among them often enough that one structure could appear important merely because another had just changed. The northern receiving corridor passed close to two of the towers before bending toward the central transfer basin, while the north-eastern route touched another set and the eastern corridor divided around several reinforced platforms before entering the same interior region. He told Xuanyin that he could follow the overall direction toward the buried core but could not yet identify which visible structures mattered most.
"Then we do not decide from the ridge," Xuanyin said while the Blue Sphere elders around her continued adding reports to the map. She instructed the three armies to begin entering their corridors without trying to race one another toward the center. The first objective was to secure enough of the basin that the coalition could observe how the junction responded under pressure. Haotian accepted that and returned his attention to the northern formation rather than extending Universe farther into a system that was still presenting too many overlapping relationships.
The Abyss attacked the gaps before any coalition army reached the first visible pylon.
A large demonic formation moved out of the central basin toward the open ground separating Haotian's northern force from Tianlan's north-eastern legion, while another formation farther east advanced toward the space between Tianlan and Shuyue. Neither attack directly threatened the leading fronts. Their purpose became clear when both groups turned sideways across the basin and began building defensive lines where the coalition armies would eventually need to reconnect.
Tianlan saw the first movement from the ground before either Falcon needed to show it to him. The north-eastern valley opened onto a broad shelf where he could see part of Haotian's formation advancing along the northern ridge, but several smaller rises blocked the lower approaches between them. He sent two mixed teams toward the nearest connection and kept the rest of the legion moving forward instead of turning everyone north. When one of his Blue Sphere officers asked whether they should establish the connection before continuing toward the basin, Tianlan told him, "We establish enough of it that they cannot cut us apart. We do not abandon our own corridor just to stand beside Father's army."
The higher Frost Rainbow Falcon changed its circle several minutes later.
Tianlan opened a brief sensory bond and saw another demonic group descending behind the first through terrain the ground formations could not yet observe. The hidden force was not moving toward Haotian's northern front; it was aiming for the narrow route Tianlan had just assigned to the connecting teams. He released the Falcon's senses and redirected a reserve formation before the enemy reached the lower ground.
The connecting teams encountered the first demonic line while the reserve moved behind them. Blue Sphere cultivators formed across the usable road, and Marephoros spread their footing so the demons could not force everyone backward with one concentrated charge. Veridian Prime worked along the edges, where broken mountain soil made the road appear wider than the stable ground actually was. The second demonic group arrived expecting to strike the connecting force from behind and instead found Tianlan's reserve already crossing the route toward them.
Tianlan remained with the main legion rather than moving personally into the side fight. The north-eastern receiving corridor ahead was already under pressure from another enemy formation, and abandoning the front would have let the Abyss replace one gap with another. He sent the reserve commander clear instructions to hold the road and avoid chasing any withdrawal farther north. The connection to Haotian's force remained narrow, but it stayed open.
Shuyue encountered the same tactic from the opposite side.
Her eastern legion had descended through the last mountain turn when several hundred demons moved into the lower terrain between her and Tianlan. They did not attack her front directly and instead began fortifying a broken embankment that crossed the easiest route toward the north-east. Yanfei noticed the movement while examining the reinforced road under their own feet and asked whether Xuanyin wanted the eastern army to clear the gap immediately. Shuyue checked the command map and answered that Tianlan was already maintaining the northern connection, so they needed only to stop the Abyss from making their own isolation permanent.
She assigned a supporting force to the embankment and kept the rest of the legion advancing toward the eastern receiving corridor. Her Virtue Dao Palace remained active around her cultivation without expanding into a spectacle across the whole formation, strengthening her ability to support the people moving closest to her as the first demonic attacks came down from the cliffs. Blue Sphere maintained the formation line, while Celestara fighters above prevented the defenders from using the vertical terrain without challenge. Yanfei stayed near the technical group until the corridor exposed enough Abyss construction to justify moving forward herself.
The eastern approach brought them closest to one of the six pylons first.
The structure rose from a broad reinforced platform cut partly into the mountain wall, with dark metal ribs running from its base into the surrounding stone. Several conduits connected it to the receiving corridor below, while other lines disappeared toward the central basin. The defenders around it fought harder than the troops on the lower road but still avoided allowing broad techniques to strike the structure itself.
Yanfei noticed the construction before anyone tried to interpret its formation behavior.
The outer ribs looked similar from a distance, but once she reached the first damaged section of the platform she saw that they had not been forged to carry equal loads. Two supports contained layered reinforcement through their entire length, while a third narrowed deliberately near its connection to the lower housing. A fourth support was built from a different alloy around the joint, one that would tolerate repeated vibration but fail more cleanly under a sudden overload.
She pointed the difference out to the Blue Sphere specialist nearest her. "Do not let Pyrelith strike the lower brace on the south side. It looks strong because the outside is thick, but the joint is deliberately weaker." The specialist crouched beside the exposed housing and asked whether she thought it was a demolition point. Yanfei ran her fingers along the scored edge and answered that she could not tell what formation function it carried, but she was certain the physical support had been designed to fail before the two reinforced ribs beside it.
The warning changed how the eastern force approached the pylon.
Pyrelith shifted its attacks away from the base and concentrated on defenders standing on the outer platform, while Veridian Prime traced the conduits beneath the structure instead of trying to root directly through the reinforced foundation. Blue Sphere specialists moved closer behind Shuyue's front formation and began reading how pressure entered and left the pylon. None of them yet knew whether capturing it would help or simply force its load somewhere else.
The demons around the pylon tried to pull Shuyue away from the technical group.
Two high-level cultivators attacked the eastern front from different directions, one driving toward Shuyue while the other moved toward the specialists whenever she responded. Shuyue refused to turn the fight into two separate duels. She held the first attacker with the mixed formation around her and used the Virtue Dao Palace to support their circulation while another coalition Immortal Lord intercepted the second.
The first demon fought with a broad blade and tried repeatedly to break through through direct force. Shuyue met him close enough that his attacks could not build the full momentum the weapon preferred, relying on footwork and compact strikes rather than techniques that would send pressure through the pylon platform. When he shifted toward the technical group, Blue Sphere closed the opening instead of waiting for Shuyue to follow. The fight remained part of the formation rather than becoming centered entirely around her.
Yanfei stayed with the pylon's outer housing while the battle continued several yards away. Another strike from Pyrelith broke a defensive emplacement on the far side and exposed more of the internal support, revealing that the two heavily reinforced ribs connected to the same central sleeve. She pointed that out to the Veridian elder, who traced the physical conduit beneath it and discovered that the stronger supports aligned with the pylon's deepest load path. The weaker brace, by comparison, tied mostly into an outer platform section that could be sacrificed without collapsing the core.
The Blue Sphere specialists began using that information to separate the pylon's physical support from its formation function. Pressure moved through several channels, but most of the load passed inward through the reinforced sleeve Yanfei had identified. When a local commander asked whether they could destroy the sacrificial brace to open the platform, Yanfei told him they probably could once Veridian confirmed it was isolated. "Probably is not enough for me to stand beside it while you test the idea," she added, and the commander agreed to wait for the confirmation.
Veridian Prime isolated the brace several minutes later.
Pyrelith struck it with a narrow destructive technique after Blue Sphere confirmed the surrounding conduits were not carrying active pressure through that section. The support failed along the weak joint exactly where Yanfei expected and dropped part of the outer defensive platform away from the pylon. The core structure remained stable.
Shuyue used the opening rather than celebrating the prediction.
Her formation entered the exposed side while the defenders were still adjusting to the platform loss. Marephoros turned the first heavy counterattack away from the Blue Sphere specialists, and Veridian roots held enough of the broken edge that the technical teams could cross safely. Shuyue remained close to those teams until they reached the pylon's control area.
The defenders tried to damage the controls once they realized the structure could not be held.
Umbrel cultivators attached to the eastern force moved through the lower platform under Veil Shroud — Empty Silhouette while the fighting above created enough formation disturbance to mask their presence. Silent Flow — Soundless Crossing carried them across the last exposed gap to the control chamber before the demolition crew finished its sequence. They attacked the crew rather than the mechanisms and prevented the inner housing from being destroyed.
The pylon came under coalition control section by section.
Blue Sphere secured the outer controls, Marephoros reduced the local pressure before it could transfer violently, and Veridian Prime remained below the platform to confirm the reinforced sleeve had not shifted during the fighting. Yanfei examined the captured structure only after the specialists told her the immediate pressure was stable. Shuyue kept the surrounding formation in place because demonic troops were still fighting along the receiving corridor and could attempt to retake the position.
Xuanyin received the first full pylon reading soon afterward.
The captured structure carried significant pressure into the central basin, but its relationships appeared broader and less spatially complex than some of the other pylons Haotian could feel from the north. Blue Sphere adjusted one outer control slightly and watched the result travel toward two neighboring structures before the central basin corrected. Haotian followed the response through Universe and told Xuanyin that the captured pylon seemed to support pressure distribution and structural stability rather than troop movement.
Yanfei heard that report through the eastern command formation and returned her attention to the pylon's construction. The absence of several internal components now made more sense to her. The pylon had substantial load-bearing reinforcement but lacked the additional nested housings she had seen on two of the distant structures through Celestara observation. She told the Blue Sphere specialists that if the others were physically built differently, they should stop treating all six pylons as variations of the same design.
The coalition did not have enough information yet to classify them.
Haotian's northern force was still fighting through the first receiving corridor, and Tianlan's legion had not reached a pylon at all. Xuanyin therefore left the eastern structure under Shuyue's control and told the other fronts to report any physical differences they found before attempting major pressure manipulation. The captured pylon remained useful mainly because it gave them one stable point inside a system that was otherwise still controlled by the Abyss.
The central basin revealed another function before anyone found the next control.
Haotian's northern force had been pressing a demonic formation backward along a broad road between two mountain shelves. The defenders gave ground in disciplined sections, allowing Blue Sphere and Marephoros to advance without the exchange turning into a chaotic retreat. When the demons reached the edge of the central basin, roughly a third of their formation moved behind a reinforced screen and disappeared from Haotian's direct sight.
Haotian expected them to emerge along another physical road.
They did not.
Less than a minute later, Tianlan reported fresh enemy pressure against the north-eastern corridor from a direction his scouts had already cleared. The number of demons was too large to have crossed the exposed basin unnoticed, and Celestara confirmed that no comparable formation had moved over the surface between the two fronts. Tianlan asked whether Haotian's northern defenders had withdrawn at roughly the same time.
Haotian looked toward the central basin through Universe. "Some of them disappeared from our side before your reinforcement arrived."
Tianlan's answer came through the command formation while his legion absorbed the unexpected attack. "Then they crossed somewhere we cannot see."
Xuanyin ordered both fronts to record the timing rather than deciding immediately how the transfer worked. The demonic reinforcement at Tianlan's position fought for several minutes and then withdrew toward another interior route. This time Celestara watched the surface carefully enough to confirm that only part of the formation physically crossed the basin.
The rest vanished again behind a reinforced interior platform.
Haotian followed the spatial change more closely.
Two of the six pylons altered at nearly the same moment.
One stood west of the central basin near his northern route, while the other occupied a raised position farther east of Tianlan's approach. Their pressure did not simply rise or fall; their local spatial relationships folded inward, touched the central transfer basin, and then opened toward another corridor.
The movement remained entirely within the junction.
Haotian could feel no relationship extending beyond the basin during the transfer. Whatever the system was doing, it was not transporting troops across Blue Sphere World or even between distant complexes. It was moving them through a short internal spatial path that allowed the defenders to cross the basin without using the exposed surface routes.
He told Xuanyin what he had found.
"Two pylons changed together?" she asked.
"Yes. The first gathered the local relationship. The second received it."
"Can either do it alone?"
"I do not know yet."
Xuanyin did not ask him to guess.
The Abyss provided another example before long.
Shuyue's eastern force began pushing beyond the captured pressure pylon toward the receiving corridor, forcing several demonic units to withdraw toward the center. Celestara saw some of them enter the basin physically, but another group disappeared behind one of the raised structures Haotian had identified. Tianlan's north-eastern force received reinforcements again several moments later.
The same two pylons changed.
Blue Sphere specialists at the captured eastern pressure pylon saw only secondary fluctuations.
Yanfei compared the distant structures through an observation plate and noticed that both routing pylons carried additional metal housings around their upper sections. Those housings did not resemble the reinforced supports of the pylon she had just helped capture. They were built around narrower internal channels with several nested rings, suggesting repeated controlled alignment rather than simple load-bearing.
She told Xuanyin that the physical differences supported Haotian's spatial reading. "The one we captured is built to take pressure. Those two are built around something that has to line up precisely." Xuanyin asked whether Yanfei could tell what the nested rings did, and Yanfei answered that she could explain how the metal was meant to move and survive repeated alignment but not what formation law the Abyss ran through it. Haotian supplied the missing part by confirming that both pylons altered local spatial relationships whenever the troop transfers occurred.
The six pylons began separating into two functional groups.
Four carried broad pressure and structural support relationships similar to the captured eastern pylon, though their exact loads differed according to location. Two combined pressure control with the short-range routing system tied directly to the central basin. The distinction explained why the Abyss could move troops among receiving corridors so quickly without exposing them to Celestara observation. It also meant destroying a random pylon could affect an entirely different part of the junction than the coalition intended.
Tianlan's immediate problem remained the gap between armies.
The Abyss used the routing system to move another formation against the road connecting his legion to Haotian's northern force, this time reinforcing the attack before the coalition reserve could reposition normally. Tianlan opened a brief bond with the lower Falcon and saw the connection road from above, including a second group moving through natural terrain behind the routed troops. He released the bird's perspective and sent Yinxue and Ziyue, who had been held with a high-level reserve nearer Xuanyin's central command, toward the threatened area.
Yinxue reached the northern side of the road first.
The demonic formation was already pressing against Blue Sphere's connecting teams, using repeated heavy strikes to drive them toward unstable ground beside the route. Yinxue entered where the pressure was strongest and used controlled frost through her sword and footing to reduce the defenders' ability to accelerate across the broken stone. She did not freeze the entire approach; the mixed teams still needed the road.
Ziyue arrived farther south and stopped another group from widening around the connection. Her sword changed according to the formation in front of her, using cutting wind pressure against closely packed defenders and heavier elemental force when several demons tried to anchor themselves around a broken wall. The two women did not attempt to clear the entire gap alone. Their intervention gave Tianlan's reserve enough time to reinforce the road without stripping the north-eastern front.
Tianlan remained with the main legion while receiving their reports.
The decision was harder once he saw how heavily the demons were pressing the connection, but moving himself there would have given the Abyss exactly the opportunity it wanted at the north-eastern receiving corridor. He placed another reserve formation along the route to Shuyue's eastern force and told its commander to expect a routed reinforcement rather than waiting to see one. The demons attempted that movement less than ten minutes later.
The eastern connection held as well.
Xuanyin watched both gap attacks and began thinking about the routing pylons as more than technical targets. As long as the Abyss controlled them, every coalition advance created a possibility that defenders from another corridor could arrive without crossing the open basin. The coalition could continue reinforcing its own gaps, but it would spend more people and time doing so while the enemy moved internally through a shorter system. She asked Haotian whether one routing pylon could be taken first without destroying the local spatial relationships they needed to study.
Haotian followed both pylons through the next troop transfer.
The western routing pylon gathered the spatial relationship from the northern side, while the eastern structure received and redistributed it. When the transfer reversed later, the functions changed. Neither appeared permanently assigned to sending or receiving.
"If we take only one," Haotian said, "the other may accept more of the routing burden."
Xuanyin asked whether that was certain.
"No."
"But it is possible."
"Yes."
She looked toward the captured eastern pressure pylon and the reactions they had already observed when outer structures changed load. The inner junction had been designed with redundancy everywhere else they had tested it. There was no reason to assume the routing system would be the exception.
Xuanyin ordered both routing pylons approached but not taken immediately.
Haotian's northern force would work toward the western routing pylon, which stood beyond a heavily defended section of the receiving corridor. Tianlan's north-eastern legion would approach the eastern routing pylon through a raised stone shelf where the terrain narrowed around several old mountain supports. Shuyue's eastern force would continue securing the eastern side and keep pressure on the central basin so the Abyss could not move every reserve toward the two routing positions.
The northern pylon's defenses were built around mobility.
Demons repeatedly withdrew through short interior routes whenever Haotian's formation threatened to surround them, then reappeared several hundred yards away along another section of the receiving corridor. Blue Sphere stopped trying to seal every retreat and concentrated instead on taking physical ground around the pylon itself. Marephoros kept the advance orderly whenever defenders returned with momentum from another approach.
Haotian remained with the front rather than moving directly to the controls.
A high-level demonic spear user met him near the base of the western routing pylon and used the narrow space between two reinforced platforms to prevent Blue Sphere specialists from advancing behind him. Haotian entered the spear's reach with his injured left forearm kept close to his body, using the right arm to redirect the shaft and his shoulder to deny the weapon full recovery. The wound from the Demon General had been treated but still pulled whenever he rotated sharply, so he adjusted his entries rather than behaving as if healing had erased the injury.
The demon adapted after the first several contacts.
He shortened the spear and used the shaft more aggressively at close range, forcing Haotian to work around the weapon instead of assuming the reduced distance had already solved the problem. Haotian attacked the man's stance and weapon elbow through compact body mechanics while the formation around them continued moving. He did not need to kill the opponent immediately as long as the spear user remained occupied away from the technical teams.
Blue Sphere reached the outer pylon housing from another side.
Veridian Prime traced three reinforced conduits beneath the platform and reported that two carried heavy spatially responsive pressure while the third behaved more like ordinary support. Yanfei's earlier construction notes had already been copied to the other fronts, so the specialists knew to examine the nested housings before allowing Pyrelith near them. The pylon's physical architecture matched what she had observed from the eastern side.
The north-eastern routing pylon was harder to approach.
Tianlan's legion had to climb through a shelf where defenders held the upper ground and repeatedly received routed reinforcements from the central basin. Celestara could contest the air but could not remove the defenders from the stone without risking the active structure behind them. Veridian Prime therefore worked along a lower mountain path while Blue Sphere kept enough pressure on the obvious ascent that the demons could not turn all of their attention toward the side route.
Tianlan used the Falcons carefully.
The higher bird watched the upper platforms and revealed when one reinforcement group appeared from the routing system rather than approaching physically. The lower Falcon remained farther east and helped him see whether the demons were preparing another attack on the connection toward Shuyue. He opened each bond only long enough to answer a specific question, returning to his own senses before issuing orders.
The lower path eventually brought several mixed teams to the side of the pylon platform.
The defenders noticed and tried to shift another formation through the routing system before the coalition could establish a foothold. Tianlan saw the eastern pylon activate beneath them and sent the front forward despite the additional enemies arriving. Blue Sphere established a narrow position at the platform edge, while Marephoros kept the routed demons from using their sudden appearance to drive the coalition back down the slope.
Xuanyin now had technical teams near both routing pylons.
She did not order either one captured yet.
Blue Sphere specialists at the western structure reported that they could isolate the outer controls within several minutes if Haotian kept the defenders away. Tianlan's team on the eastern platform needed longer because the demons still held one inner ring. Xuanyin told Haotian's force to maintain pressure without taking the final controls.
The Demon formation around the western pylon interpreted the pause as hesitation.
They counterattacked hard enough to push several northern mixed teams off the lower platform. Haotian's spear-wielding opponent tried to use the movement to break free toward the Blue Sphere specialists, but Haotian caught the shaft near the demon's upper hand and turned with the man's forward step. His elbow entered the shoulder, followed by a short palm that forced the demon sideways instead of backward toward the controls.
The high-level defender recovered and struck Haotian across the side with the lower shaft.
The impact aggravated the recently treated wound beneath Haotian's armor, but the wrap held and no fresh blood spread immediately through the cloth. Haotian gave only enough ground to keep the spear from trapping his body against the platform. Another coalition Immortal Lord entered the exchange from the side, allowing Haotian to leave the demon occupied and move toward the technical group.
He asked the Blue Sphere elder how quickly the western controls could be taken once Xuanyin gave the order.
"Assuming the defenders do not get back inside, less than a minute."
"And if the eastern pylon is still active?"
The elder glanced at the formation readings. "Then we find out whether your suspicion about inheritance is correct."
Haotian looked toward the eastern structure across the basin. "We do not need to find out that way."
Tianlan's force needed another quarter hour to reach the same position.
The eastern routing pylon had two inner control levels, and the demons used the upper one to keep shifting defenders from the central basin even after Blue Sphere reached the outer platform. Shuyue's force increased pressure from the east during that period, forcing the Abyss to divide its routed reinforcements instead of sending everything north-east. The captured pressure pylon also allowed Xuanyin to create small local shifts that made the eastern defenders spend more attention stabilizing their support.
Shuyue did not remain at the first captured pylon.
Once Blue Sphere had enough people to hold the controls, she moved forward with the eastern legion and fought along the corridor approaching the central basin. Her Virtue Dao Palace continued supporting the people closest to her, especially the mixed teams rotating through repeated high-pressure exchanges. Yanfei stayed with the technical elements behind her, comparing the construction of additional pylons as they came into view.
The next pressure pylon showed the same broad load-bearing design as the first but with thicker reinforcement around the lower sleeve. Yanfei warned the Blue Sphere specialists not to assume the different thickness meant a different function by itself. She pointed out that the surrounding terrain carried more of the basin's physical burden at that position, which could explain the heavier structure without implying another formation role. Her restraint prevented the coalition from turning useful material observations into conclusions the evidence did not support.
At the north-eastern routing pylon, Tianlan's front finally reached the inner controls.
One demonic commander attempted to hold the last narrow passage with a heavy halberd while formation specialists behind him worked the routing ring. Tianlan met the man personally because the technical group could not enter the passage while the weapon controlled its full width. He kept his spear close, refusing broad movements that would strike the nested housings along the walls.
Their first exchange remained almost entirely physical.
The halberd tried to catch Tianlan's shaft near the head and pull it into the wall, but Tianlan released enough pressure to let the spear slide before recovering at a shorter grip. His return thrust forced the demon to turn, which gave a Marephoros cultivator behind Tianlan enough space to redirect the next committed strike away from the technical team. Blue Sphere gained several steps.
The demonic commander changed tactics and stopped trying to drive Tianlan backward.
He held the passage instead, using compact cuts and the halberd's hook to keep the spear from establishing a clean line. Tianlan accepted that the fight would take time and concentrated on preventing the man from supporting the specialists behind him. Another mixed team moved through a side maintenance opening discovered by Umbrel and reached the control level from a different angle.
The specialist ring broke apart.
Blue Sphere reached the inner controls.
The eastern routing pylon was ready.
Xuanyin confirmed both fronts before giving the instruction.
"Take the controls together. Do not destroy either structure, and if one side loses access before the other succeeds, both forces stop and hold."
The western Blue Sphere elder answered first.
Tianlan's north-eastern commander responded several breaths later.
Both operations began.
Haotian's northern force pushed the remaining defenders away from the western pylon while Blue Sphere specialists entered the inner ring. Marephoros managed the pressure change as the first control layer passed into coalition hands, preventing the pylon from dumping its burden suddenly into the rest of the junction. Veridian Prime watched the reinforced conduits under the platform for any sign that the spatial load was being redirected elsewhere.
The eastern pylon changed at nearly the same time.
Tianlan kept the halberd commander occupied while Blue Sphere and Umbrel took the remaining controls behind him. The demon tried to disengage once the inner ring began changing hands, but Tianlan followed just enough to prevent him from reaching the specialists. Another coalition Immortal Lord entered from the side when the defender shifted toward the platform.
The routing network reacted.
Pressure rose sharply through the western pylon as though the system were trying to push more local spatial burden into it before full control was lost. Marephoros absorbed the non-spatial component while Haotian used Universe to track the changing relationship. The eastern pylon showed the same attempt within moments.
Xuanyin had expected some kind of redistribution and told neither front to stop.
Blue Sphere completed the western capture.
Tianlan's specialists completed the eastern one before the first pylon could inherit the entire routing function.
The two structures remained active, but their controls no longer answered exclusively to the Abyss.
The immediate effect appeared inside the central basin.
A demonic formation retreating from Shuyue's front entered one of the old routing points and failed to disappear. The spatial relationship formed partially, touched both captured pylons, and then collapsed because the existing control request no longer matched the new station states. The demons were forced to continue across the basin physically, where Celestara could see them and Shuyue's advancing teams could follow their movement normally.
Haotian spent several minutes examining the captured routing system before anyone attempted to use it. The local spatial folds remained intact, but Blue Sphere did not yet understand how the Abyss specified origin, destination, formation size, and timing. Universe allowed Haotian to see the relationships without giving him the technical language built into the control plates. He therefore worked beside the specialists rather than replacing them.
The western elder tested one inactive control channel and watched a small spatial relationship form toward an empty section of the basin. Haotian told him where the fold had opened, and a Celestara observer confirmed a brief distortion at the matching location. The elder adjusted another plate and discovered that the system could call for support from a pylon without actually transferring troops. Xuanyin became interested in that function immediately.
She asked whether they could make the routing network appear to need pressure in a region where no real transfer was occurring. The elder said he believed so, but warned that the remaining four pressure pylons might respond differently depending on how the original controls evaluated demand. Xuanyin told him to begin with the smallest possible request and use the captured eastern pressure pylon as a reference. "We already know how one support structure reacts normally. If the others do something different, we learn from the difference instead of increasing the command."
The first test created a false routing demand near the western side of the central basin.
The captured routing pylon requested support without opening a full spatial transfer, and one hostile pressure pylon responded by releasing a small amount of burden toward the basin. Another pylon changed more weakly several breaths later. The captured eastern pressure pylon also tried to participate, but Blue Sphere limited its contribution before the false demand became large enough to disturb Shuyue's front.
Xuanyin compared the responses.
The nearest hostile pressure pylon had unloaded first.
She asked Yanfei whether that structure's physical supports showed any sign that repeated unloading would destabilize it.
Yanfei examined the observation plate and told her the lower sleeve remained heavily reinforced, but the outer sacrificial braces would carry less pressure if the main load dropped. "If you want to capture it, unloading helps. If you want to break it, I still want Veridian to tell me what those conduits are doing first."
Xuanyin had no intention of breaking it yet.
The coalition repeated the false demand, increasing it only slightly.
The hostile pylon unloaded farther.
Blue Sphere and Marephoros teams near the structure moved into position while the Abyss tried to understand why its own support system was responding to a routing request it had not issued. By the time the local defenders began altering the controls manually, the pylon was carrying substantially less pressure than it had at the beginning of the test.
Shuyue's force attacked the platform.
The defenders had less formation support than before, but they remained disciplined enough to make the capture difficult. Shuyue stayed with the leading mixed teams, keeping the pressure on the control area while Blue Sphere specialists followed inside the formation. Her Virtue Dao Palace supported the people around her through the repeated exchanges, but Marephoros still handled momentum, Veridian still controlled the ground, and Pyrelith still waited for safe destructive openings.
Yanfei moved with the technical teams once the outer platform became accessible.
She identified one sacrificial support that could be removed without touching the reinforced load sleeve, allowing Pyrelith to open a side approach rather than fighting through the most heavily defended stair. The structure failed where she predicted and exposed a maintenance level beneath the control ring. Umbrel entered through that opening and forced the Abyss specialists away from the lower controls.
The pressure pylon passed into coalition hands.
Its remaining burden was routed through the already captured support structure and the two routing pylons rather than dumped into the remaining hostile pylons. Marephoros controlled the transfer gradually while Blue Sphere kept the false demand active just long enough to prevent the central system from immediately restoring its previous balance. Two of the four pressure-support pylons now belonged to the coalition.
The Abyss adjusted before Xuanyin could repeat the same method unchanged.
The next false demand caused one hostile pylon to unload only partially while the other increased pressure, trying to compensate for the growing number of captured structures. Haotian followed the spatial relationships and told Xuanyin that the routing system was still being accepted, but the support network had begun resisting through broader balancing rules. She changed the next request instead of increasing its strength.
The false demand moved to another section of the basin.
The pylon that had refused to unload fully reacted differently once it believed the routing need had shifted farther from its position. It released pressure toward the central basin while the other hostile support structure picked up more of the background burden. Xuanyin had the Blue Sphere specialists hold that state rather than chasing perfect symmetry.
The northern force approached the newly weakened pylon.
Haotian did not leave the routing controls to lead every part of the assault. Yinxue and Ziyue had finished reinforcing the coalition gap and moved north with a high-level formation, taking responsibility for the strongest defenders around the platform. Blue Sphere and Marephoros advanced behind them while Veridian Prime checked the conduits exposed along the lower slope.
Yinxue's sword controlled the front without filling the pylon structure with indiscriminate frost. She restricted footing around several high-level defenders and forced them away from the control approach, leaving Blue Sphere enough room to establish a formation around the lower platform. Ziyue handled a second concentration farther west, using her elemental sword cultivation according to the defense in front of her instead of throwing one broad technique across the entire position.
The pylon's defenders tried to regain pressure through manual controls.
Umbrel scouts interrupted the crews before they could complete the adjustment.
Marephoros held the reduced burden where Xuanyin wanted it.
The third pressure-support pylon came under coalition control before the Abyss could force its load back upward.
Only one pressure pylon remained hostile.
The inner junction had not become harmless simply because five of the six visible structures now answered to the coalition. The central basin still contained thousands of demons, the buried routing core remained under Abyss control, and the final hostile pylon carried more support pressure than it had when the battle began. Xuanyin could also see that the system beneath the basin had started changing in ways none of the captured structures had requested.
Veridian Prime noticed the physical signs first.
Roots and ground-sense techniques around the central basin began reporting heat and vibration beneath conduits that had previously carried steady pressure. Several buried channels contracted abruptly as if internal control rings had closed around them. One Veridian elder told Xuanyin that the changes were occurring beneath the surface support network, closer to the routing core itself.
Yanfei saw another warning from the captured pylon structures.
Several sacrificial housings around the central basin began taking load despite no corresponding increase in the visible support pylons. Their metal seams brightened where weak joints had been designed to split under extreme pressure. She looked at the readings and told Shuyue, "They are loading the parts meant to fail."
Shuyue passed the warning through the eastern command formation.
Xuanyin received it at the same time as Haotian's report from Universe.
The buried spatial relationships were beginning to contract toward the central core, but the contraction did not resemble an ordinary withdrawal. Several control paths were closing while others were being forced together, creating a pattern designed to erase the routing relationships rather than preserve them for another transfer. The Abyss had begun a deliberate self-collapse of the junction.
Xuanyin stopped trying to capture the final pressure pylon through gradual unloading.
The coalition already controlled enough of the visible network to prevent one remaining support structure from dictating the entire basin. She ordered the local front to isolate it and keep its burden from transferring back into the captured pylons while the deeper problem became the priority. "Do not spend twenty minutes perfecting the last surface control if the core is gone in ten," she told the Blue Sphere commanders.
The final pylon's defenders understood the same shift.
They stopped trying to preserve their platform and began pushing pressure toward the central basin, using the remaining support structure to accelerate the demolition state below. Blue Sphere and Marephoros contained as much of the transfer as possible, while Veridian Prime closed one conduit after confirming it no longer carried a useful deeper relationship. Pyrelith destroyed only that isolated channel.
The central transfer basin began failing from inside.
Stone plates lifted slightly as pressure accumulated underneath them, then settled again when another relationship closed. Several old routing points darkened completely, and one section of the basin floor cracked along a line Yanfei recognized as deliberate structural separation rather than random damage. The Abyss was preparing to break the core into disconnected sections before the coalition could read how its deeper routes were organized.
Haotian left the western routing pylon once Blue Sphere had enough control to maintain it without him.
He moved toward the central basin with a mixed high-level force rather than alone. The path crossed ground still occupied by demonic formations that had lost their internal routing advantage but remained numerous and organized. Their commanders began concentrating around the approaches to the buried core.
The first Immortal Lord-level defender met Haotian near a sunken control road.
The man carried a long sword and fought with enough cultivation pressure to slow the leading Blue Sphere formation, but Haotian did not treat him as a final opponent requiring the entire battlefield to stop. He entered the sword line, redirected the weapon with his right forearm, and used a short shoulder strike to deny the demon clean recovery. The injured left arm remained close, helping control position without taking the full force of the blade.
The demon adjusted quickly and forced Haotian through several exchanges.
He used the wider basin well, creating enough distance for the sword to regain its preferred reach whenever Haotian tried to crowd him. Haotian accepted the movement instead of forcing a damaging entry through an unfavorable line. His purpose was to open the road toward the core, not prove that every Immortal Lord in the basin had to die by his hands.
Xiangyin and another coalition Immortal Lord reached the fight from the side.
Xiangyin's spear entered the demon's outer line and forced him to turn away from Haotian. The second cultivator closed from the opposite direction, giving Haotian enough room to leave the exchange without abandoning the enemy to ordinary soldiers who could not handle him. The three high-level coalition fighters continued containing the demon while Haotian moved farther into the basin.
Another group of Immortal Lords waited near the central descent.
Yinxue and Ziyue arrived from the northern pylon front before Haotian needed to engage them all. Yinxue held one defender on the stone approach while Ziyue and several Blue Sphere elites took another, leaving Haotian free to push toward the technical objective. The battle continued around him rather than disappearing simply because he changed priorities.
Shuyue's eastern formation entered the central basin from another side.
She kept the mixed teams around the technical groups while Yanfei and Veridian Prime examined the failing floor. The sacrificial structural lines Yanfei had identified were beginning to split in sequence, allowing the basin to sink inward toward the buried routing core. She directed Blue Sphere away from two sections likely to fail next and toward a reinforced route that appeared designed to remain intact longer for demolition crews.
One commander asked how certain she was.
Yanfei looked at the thickened supports and the pattern of glowing seams around them. "Certain enough to stand on this side instead of the other one."
The commander moved his people.
The floor behind them collapsed minutes later.
The reinforced route remained.
Haotian reached the central descent through that same surviving structure.
The buried routing core sat beneath a broad stone chamber whose outer walls were already cracking under the demolition sequence. Several controls had been stripped, but unlike the withdrawing complexes, the Abyss had not had time to remove everything before the coalition reached the basin. Pressure still moved through three deeper relationships beyond the core.
The local defenders were trying to destroy those relationships before Haotian could read them.
Umbrel scouts entered through two maintenance passages and attacked the demolition crews while Blue Sphere specialists pushed down the main approach. The crews did not abandon their work immediately; several continued activating controls while high-level guards held the coalition back. One deeper relationship flickered as part of the routing core lost continuity.
Haotian extended the Dao Palace of the Universe into the chamber.
The surviving spatial relationships separated in his perception.
The central core contained far more than one route, but much of the local network had already collapsed into dead branches that no longer led anywhere. He ignored those and concentrated on the three deeper connections that still remained continuous beyond the basin.
The Dao Palace of Creation joined after he understood what still existed.
Creation did not rebuild the damaged control plates or restore routes already severed. It preserved the lawful function remaining inside the core long enough for the surviving relationships to continue behaving as themselves instead of collapsing into the demolition around them. The Law of Equilibrium settled between the preserved functions and Universe's spatial structure, keeping one surviving route from distorting another as the core lost support.
Xuanyin felt the stabilization through the command network.
She told the Blue Sphere specialists in the chamber to stop trying to restore every damaged control. "Give Haotian the functions that still exist. If a plate is already dead, leave it dead." The specialists shifted their work accordingly, supporting three live routing relationships while allowing broken outer controls to fail.
The Abyss increased the demolition pressure.
One wall of the routing chamber split and sent stone across the lower floor. Veridian Prime reinforced only the route the specialists needed for withdrawal, while Pyrelith removed one isolated collapsing support before it could strike the central controls. Marephoros controlled the local pressure rebound each time another dead branch failed.
Haotian followed the first deeper relationship.
Its pressure behavior was unusually stable even while the surrounding core collapsed. The route carried less raw burden than the second relationship, yet its spatial geometry remained rigid enough that every local change produced an immediate corrective response farther inward. Universe showed that the relationship was tied to maintaining a larger opening rather than simply carrying energy or troops.
He told Xuanyin what he was seeing.
"This line is holding geometry. Every time the local fold shifts, something deeper corrects the shape."
Xuanyin asked whether it corresponded to the Main Rift.
Haotian did not answer more strongly than the evidence allowed. "It leads toward the same deeper system. Its function is spatial stability."
The Blue Sphere specialists marked the route separately.
The second relationship was easier to distinguish once the first had been isolated conceptually. It carried enormous burden in comparison, with pressure moving inward and outward according to the needs of the deeper network. Marephoros cultivators near the core could feel its flow even without understanding the full spatial structure.
One of them told Xuanyin that the route behaved more like a massive supply channel than a control line. Haotian agreed after following the pressure farther inward. The relationship was feeding energy and rift burden toward the same deeper region supported by the spatial-stability route.
The third relationship behaved differently from both.
Its raw pressure was lower than the second, and its geometry was not as rigid as the first. Instead, it carried frequent smaller changes, layered control signals, and intermittent spatial relationships resembling the internal routing system the coalition had already captured. Haotian could also feel traces of reinforcement movement through it, though the local transfer was too distant to identify individual troops.
Xuanyin compared the three behaviors.
"One holds the opening's geometry," she said. "One supplies the burden sustaining it. The third carries control and reinforcement relationships."
Haotian followed the routes one more time before agreeing.
The three surviving relationships converged toward the same deeper Main Rift system.
They were not three unrelated roads.
They were three different support functions maintaining the same final structure.
The realization changed what the coalition needed from the routing core.
They no longer required the inner junction to remain functional indefinitely. They needed the direction, folding pattern, pressure behavior, and timing of each support relationship recorded well enough to follow farther inward after the local links died. Xuanyin ordered redundant copies made at the core and at her mobile command position so losing one set of controls during withdrawal would not erase the map.
The deeper Abyss recognized the compromise.
The first remote severance began along the reinforcement-and-control relationship.
Haotian felt the far end narrowing before the local control plates reacted. He did not try to force it open. Universe followed the direction and folding pattern while Blue Sphere recorded the pressure sequence and the timing of each collapse.
The control relationship died from the far side toward the junction.
Creation preserved only the local function that still genuinely existed.
When the far connection ceased to be continuous, Haotian let it end.
The energy-and-burden route began severing next.
Its collapse produced a heavier local pressure rebound than the first, forcing Marephoros to spread the release through the captured pylons and receiving corridors. Blue Sphere kept the local controls stable long enough for the specialists to record the final direction. Veridian Prime abandoned two conduit sections when the stone around them became unsafe.
The spatial-stability relationship remained longest.
Haotian could feel it maintaining a rigid fold toward the deeper system even after the other two local connections had died. The Abyss appeared more cautious about severing it, possibly because the relationship supported the Main Rift geometry in a way that could not simply be interrupted without redistributing the burden elsewhere. That hesitation gave the coalition more time to map its direction.
Xuanyin did not mistake the delay for permission to pull on it aggressively.
She ordered only passive recording while Haotian followed the existing relationship. "We have what it does. We need where it goes." Haotian kept Universe centered on the spatial fold and allowed the relationship to reveal its own structure without trying to force a response from the far side.
The final severance began several minutes later.
The rigid geometry narrowed in sections, and each section disappeared only after the next inward part had already adjusted. The process suggested the deeper network was transferring the Main Rift's spatial support before cutting the local junction away. Haotian memorized every fold that remained until continuity ended beyond his reach.
When the spatial-stability route finally died locally, the routing core became much simpler.
Its surviving relationships led only to captured pylons and receiving corridors inside the basin. Creation no longer had anything deeper to preserve, so Haotian withdrew it gradually while Universe confirmed that no hidden external connection remained active. The Law of Equilibrium settled as the local system lost the tension created by competing deeper routes.
The battle above continued throughout the technical work.
The final hostile pressure pylon was still under demonic control when the first remote severance began, but its defenders could no longer use the central routing system to receive reinforcements quickly. Shuyue's eastern legion and Blue Sphere forces approaching from north-east closed around the platform while Marephoros prevented the remaining support burden from being dumped into one captured structure. Veridian Prime isolated the last active conduit before Pyrelith was allowed to damage the outer housing.
Yanfei remained near the technical team rather than joining the front line.
She identified which braces could fail safely once the conduit was unloaded, allowing the coalition to open another approach without collapsing the core platform. Blue Sphere captured the final control ring after the defenders lost access to the central network. The sixth pylon passed into coalition hands intact enough to drain safely.
The remaining demonic garrison concentrated around the central basin and mountain exits.
Haotian did not leave the routing core to clear them.
Xiangyin, Yinxue, Ziyue, Shuyue, Tianlan, and the coalition's Immortal Lords handled the high-level resistance while ordinary mixed teams closed the lower routes. The fact that the deeper relationships had been mapped did not remove the need to finish securing the physical battlefield.
Tianlan moved his north-eastern legion into the basin only after both connecting roads were stable.
The Falcons had helped him preserve those links through the worst of the routed counterattacks, but by then both healthy birds had begun showing fatigue and remained in wider observation patterns. He stopped using sensory bonds unless one of the mountain exits disappeared behind terrain the ground scouts could not inspect. The third Falcon remained with the rear recovery formations and had not been brought forward.
One large demonic formation attempted to break south between Tianlan and Shuyue.
Tianlan moved reserves into the route before joining the front with his spear, while Shuyue redirected another mixed formation from the east. They met the breakout from different sides without collapsing their entire commands around it. Marephoros removed the formation's downhill momentum, and Blue Sphere closed the road once the front ranks lost their initial speed.
A demonic Immortal Lord tried to open the route personally.
Tianlan met him near the center while Shuyue remained with the eastern side of the formation. The demon's saber struck heavily enough to bend the spear line, but Tianlan let the shaft guide part of the force away instead of blocking rigidly. His return thrust forced the man to turn, and another coalition Immortal Lord entered before the duel could pull Tianlan away from the broader breakout.
The remaining formation broke apart over the next several exchanges.
Tianlan returned to command instead of following the retreating Immortal Lord.
Shuyue stayed with the mixed teams until the southern route closed fully.
The basin became progressively quieter without ever changing into a single dramatic moment when every enemy stopped fighting. Small groups remained in maintenance passages, high-level defenders continued resisting near two mountain exits, and technical crews tried to damage captured controls wherever they could still reach them. Umbrel spent much of the next hour clearing those passages and preventing sabotage rather than pursuing fleeing infantry across open ground.
Xuanyin did not begin dismantling the junction until every captured pylon had been checked again.
The six structures had carried different loads by then, and several had been stressed by the false-demand manipulations and the remote severance of the deeper routes. Blue Sphere mapped which relationships remained purely local, Marephoros emptied pressure from the heaviest channels, and Veridian Prime marked physical supports that had been weakened during the battle. Pyrelith waited until those checks were complete.
The routing pylons were shut down before they were destroyed.
Blue Sphere closed the internal spatial controls and allowed every local fold to settle before Haotian confirmed through Universe that no troop-routing relationship remained active. Marephoros removed the residual pressure from their support channels. Only then did Pyrelith break the hardened housings that could not safely be left behind.
The pressure pylons followed in a different order.
The three structures captured later carried more redistributed burden than the first eastern pylon, so they had to be drained through the receiving corridors gradually. Veridian Prime kept the physical sleeves stable while Blue Sphere closed one control layer at a time. Yanfei remained with the technical teams long enough to identify which sacrificial braces were likely to fail during unloading.
The first pylon Shuyue had captured survived the dismantling almost intact until the end.
Yanfei stood beside its lower housing while the final pressure left the reinforced sleeve and remarked that the structure looked much less mysterious once it no longer had thousands of demons trying to kill everyone around it. Shuyue, who had returned after the basin was secure, told her that most things probably improved under the same condition. The nearby Blue Sphere specialist laughed quietly without looking away from his controls.
The buried routing core was dismantled last.
Haotian returned to it with Xuanyin after the local pylon network had been emptied. The three deeper support relationships were already gone from the junction, but their recorded direction and functional signatures remained on multiple formation plates around the chamber. Blue Sphere closed the local routing controls while Veridian Prime stabilized the cracked floor.
Xuanyin laid the three mapped support relationships beside one another.
The spatial-stability trunk followed the deepest fold and remained the most structurally rigid in the recovered records. The energy-and-burden trunk carried the largest pressure volume, while the reinforcement-and-control trunk contained the most frequent smaller changes and routing behavior. Their local connections had been severed, but the trunks themselves continued farther inward beyond the destroyed relationship to the junction.
Tianlan joined them after handing the basin sweep to another commander.
He looked over the three records and asked whether cutting one would make the other two stronger. Haotian answered that they did not yet know, because the inner junction had only shown what each support function did, not how the Main Rift redistributed loss among them. Xuanyin added that this was exactly why the coalition would not march directly at the Main Rift just because they had finally identified its supporting architecture.
Shuyue and Yanfei arrived a short time later.
Yanfei examined the maps without pretending the spatial diagrams meant as much to her as the physical structures she had studied all day. She asked whether the three trunks had their own major housings or whether they existed mainly as formation relationships. Haotian told her that they would probably encounter physical infrastructure along each route, but the current records could not show how much or how it was built.
Yinxue and Ziyue reported that the last organized resistance in the basin had been eliminated.
Several smaller groups remained trapped in maintenance passages, but Umbrel and Blue Sphere were already clearing them and none had access to an active pylon or deeper route. Xuanyin therefore began reorganizing the coalition while the battlefield was still being dismantled. The next operation would require three forces again, though the reason was different from the pursuit that had brought them here.
The army had divided during the withdrawal because several moving networks had to be followed before they disappeared.
Now the three groups would each be attacking one part of the same final support system.
Xuanyin assigned Blue Sphere formation specialists according to the records each trunk would require, adding more Marephoros to the energy-and-burden route and more spatially capable cultivators to the force preparing to follow the stability trunk. The reinforcement-and-control route received additional Umbrel and Celestara elements because surviving command and movement infrastructure was more likely to involve concealed personnel and rapid troop repositioning. She did not finalize every commander yet, because scouts still had to determine the terrain and physical structures along each trunk.
Haotian looked again at the three routes through the surviving records rather than extending Universe blindly into the severed network.
The inner junction had brought them closer to the Main Rift than any previous operation, but the local severance meant they no longer possessed an open connection they could simply follow from the basin. They had direction, folding patterns, pressure signatures, and functional behavior instead. That was enough to begin reconnaissance without pretending the final approach had already been solved.
Xuanyin ordered Umbrel ground scouts onto all three directions before the main army finished reorganizing.
Celestara would examine the broader routes from above where terrain permitted, while Veridian Prime followed closely enough to identify buried conduits and stable marching ground. Blue Sphere specialists accompanied every scouting group so physical structures could be compared with the records recovered from the routing core. The coalition would know what each support trunk did before it found the exact place where that function could be severed safely.
The first scouts left the basin while Pyrelith was still dismantling the last empty pylon housings.
Haotian remained near the buried core with his family and the senior commanders, his left forearm still wrapped from the earlier fight at the convergence complex. Tianlan's two healthy Falcons rested on a nearby mountain shelf instead of being sent immediately after the scouts, and the third remained farther south in recovery. The main army used the pause to rotate wounded cultivators, replace damaged formation plates, and reorganize mixed teams that had lost members during the three-front assault.
The Main Rift itself remained deeper inside the Abyss network.
Nothing in the captured core suggested that attacking it before the three support trunks were dealt with would be simple or safe. Its geometry was still being maintained, its burden was still being supplied, and its reinforcement-and-control relationship remained functional farther inward even though the local junction had been severed away from all three. The coalition had finally learned what supported the opening, which meant the next advance could be built around removing those supports instead of striking blindly at the rift they sustained.
Xuanyin kept the three trunk records open on the command table while the first reconnaissance markers moved away from the basin. She asked the officers around her to treat every future pressure change according to function rather than distance alone, because a nearby structure on the energy route might matter less than a more distant junction carrying the actual burden. Haotian agreed and added that the spatial-stability trunk would require particular care, since changing its geometry without understanding how the Main Rift redistributed support could alter the opening before the coalition was prepared to close it.
No one proposed advancing the entire army immediately.
The scouts needed time to identify the three physical routes, and the mixed legions needed enough recovery to avoid entering the final support operation with exhausted receiving teams and damaged formation equipment. The basin therefore remained active with practical work long after the last organized demon formation had been destroyed. The coalition dismantled the inner junction behind itself while three new reconnaissance lines extended toward the remaining support system of the Main Rift.