The narrow thread between five scars tightened after the court's image vanished, and Hajin felt attention return through the stone.
Five Rings remained around his arm while Didi held the sealed wound with Crowned Frost beneath the crater's fractured paving.
The thread did not reopen the entire road, though the pressure below it pulled at every person who had watched the throne.
Hajin kept his bare left palm near Didi's wrist, preserving Collector's Grasp without touching her royal current beneath the court's attention.
The five black scars widened together, then separated into five narrow windows beneath the city around the damaged foundation below the court.
The Underworld court appeared again through those windows, farther away than before while the seated King remained hidden inside deeper shadow.
The Royal Collector still knelt below the commanders, with its damaged arm pressed against its side and its head lowered.
