Chapter 547: Blood Pull

Didi caught the damaged route before it could turn toward the protected room, and Crowned Frost spread across the crater.

The black scar answered her five Shards with a royal pressure older than the human Crown, while Hajin stood beside her with five Rings open.

His left palm remained bare beneath the waiting mark of Collector’s Grasp, though the old sample still burned beneath his skin.

"It knows your blood," Hajin said. "The route is using recognition as permission."

Didi tightened the frost around the scar, and the black line stopped its movement toward the bed beyond the broken square.

"The route can identify me without gaining a right to touch me," she replied. "It only hears the part of the law that still answers."

The route pulled toward her hand, while Crowned Frost held the movement at the crater’s center beneath the five scars.

Black light climbed Didi’s forearm without entering the Shards, and the old royal current pressed against her refusal beneath the frost.

"I can close it," Didi said. "Closing it leaves the court blind, while the next hand may choose the bed instead."

Hajin watched the exposed frequency move beneath her frost, then looked toward the black line drawing itself toward the protected room and asked, "What do you want to do?"

Didi looked at the scar, then at the room behind him where the one-Ring clone still held the doorway beyond the protected room.

"Turn the claim backward."

Lucan took one step away from the crater, while Cessy remained near Vella beneath the outer boundary beside the broken route.

"That route was built to pull authority downward," Lucan said. "A backward current shows whoever sits at the source."

"I know," Didi replied. "I need three heartbeats to turn the current without letting it reach the bed."

Hajin extended his left palm toward the exposed scar, keeping the Grasp mark away from Didi’s skin until she gave permission, then asked, "May I hold your wrist while you turn it?"

Didi looked at his hand before answering, while the route pulled one black thread beneath her boots toward the bed.

"Hold it, but do not pull me through."

She placed her wrist in his palm, and the contact carried her pulse through the Grasp mark without making her another item.

Collector’s Grasp opened across his hand, then reached into the damaged route with the frequency sampled from the severed limb.

Hajin felt the source turn, and five Rings held his body against the crater’s broken foundation beneath the black pull.

[ Collector’s Grasp: Frequency Anchor Active ]

[ Foreign Route: Exposed ]

[ Cross-Realm Pull: Reversed ]

Didi raised her free hand, then pressed Crowned Frost into the scar while the black route opened beneath them toward the hidden court.

"This person is not your property," she said. "This blood does not accept your recovery order."

The frost crossed the route without erasing it, and black distance opened downward through the broken square beneath the city.

The first heartbeat struck through the crater, taking stone away from the wound and revealing depth beneath the city beyond ordinary distance.

The second heartbeat followed, pulling light from the square before returning it as a narrow line aimed toward a distant throne.

The third heartbeat arrived before Hajin could breathe, and the Underworld appeared below the world that held the Last City.

It was not a landscape with a horizon, and it was not a chamber reached by ordinary distance beneath the foundation.

Black ground stretched below the wound without dust, while a vast court waited around one seated figure in deeper shadow.

The Royal Collector stood far below the opening, kneeling on one knee with its damaged arm held against its side.

Five figures stood between the Collector and the throne, though the route displayed only their silhouettes beneath the black ceiling.

None of the five moved, yet each outline bent the air around it before the court’s pressure reached the upward road.

Didi’s blood answered the court before anyone below spoke, and her five Shards flared beneath the returning pressure from the throne.

The light dimmed again, while Didi’s wrist tensed inside Hajin’s hand and the royal current pulled toward its source beneath the wound.

"Do not let go," Didi said, her voice tightening beneath the court’s pressure.

"I am holding the frequency," Hajin replied.

"Hold me too."

Hajin tightened his fingers without pulling her toward the wound, and the request carried more weight than the route beneath them.

Behind the crater, Juna’s voice crossed from the guarded boundary while the clone kept the first line outside the bed.

"Hajin, the room still holds, and the clone is keeping the route away from the Sanctuary."

The prepared report reached him through the route team rather than through live control of the autonomous body inside the guarded room.

Hajin answered without turning away from the court, while the Grasp anchor burned beneath his palm through the royal route.

"Tell the clone to keep its boundary," Hajin said.

Juna repeated the correction through the marked signal, and the one-Ring body answered by holding the doorway without changing its objective.

The route below did not close after the third heartbeat, though the reversal window had already ended beneath the foreign court.

Collector’s Grasp kept the sampled authority exposed, while Didi’s Crowned Frost prevented the foreign claim from folding back toward the bed.

Lucan stared through the wound with an expression Hajin had never seen on him, and Cessy’s hand tightened around Vella’s sleeve.

"The court is real," Lucan said. "The Collector is not the highest body there."

Cessy’s voice reached the crater from the protected boundary, carrying old fear beneath the punishment lines around her throat and chest.

"Do not let them learn you are looking."

Hajin kept the Grasp anchor stable while the black court remained visible beneath the city through the reversed route beneath the crater wall.

"They already know the route is reversed," Hajin replied.

The seated figure remained still, though the black air behind the throne changed shape around the five waiting commanders beneath the shadow.

One silhouette shifted its weight by a fraction, and the route shuddered beneath Didi’s frost across the broken square under the city.

Didi’s Crowned Frost climbed toward her shoulder, while one of her five Shards flickered under the pressure returning through the royal current.

The backlash did not heal when the flicker passed, and Didi’s breathing turned shallow beneath the five Shards beside Hajin.

Hajin watched the strain travel through her royal current without pushing his own mana into the refusal or pretending pain was restoration.

"You can stop now," he said. "The court has shown itself, and seeing it has already changed the danger."

Didi held the frost line steady with her free hand, while the black route searched for the bed beyond the square.

"I am not stopping to make the danger comfortable. I am stopping when the route can no longer use the bed as its answer."

The black scar attempted to fold toward the protected room, and Collector’s Grasp caught the sampled frequency before the movement completed.

Juna placed a solar marker beside the scar without crossing Didi’s refusal, then called across the broken road toward the boundary.

"The route has one exposed direction, and I can cut an empty line if it turns without touching Didi’s blood."

Didi nodded once, keeping her wrist in Hajin’s hand beneath the narrow black opening above the crater beside the marked boundary.

"Then cut the empty direction," Didi said.

The five scars beneath the crater answered the continuing attention with separate pulses, though none of the lesser cores crossed.

Their pressure gathered behind the wounded route, waiting for the court to finish observing before choosing a body from below.

Lucan stepped toward the nearest scar, then stopped before his boot touched its edge beneath the black attention thread beside the crater.

"They are waiting for the court to finish observing," he said. "The order sends them after the route closes or breaks."

Cessy lifted one hand from Vella’s support, while another punishment branch tightened around the safe edge of her chest beneath the old order.

"The first body tests the Sanctuary, and the others follow whichever opening survives."

Hajin kept his palm against the exposed frequency while the distant court remained silent below them beyond the wound beneath the Last City.

"Then we make the opening face us."

Didi’s eyes stayed on the shadowed throne, and the frost around her wrist held the route away from the child.

"The blood pull has lasted longer than three heartbeats. The court is holding the other end open."

The route below them widened by one finger, and the five commanders remained silent while the kneeling Collector lowered its head.

No command crossed into Didi’s blood, though foreign attention tightened around the scar beneath their hands from the court beneath the exposed route.

No lesser core entered Ouro, and no experience panel appeared while the court continued watching the reversed road beneath them.

The Stream caught the throne beneath the world, and every regular viewer recognized that the image had changed the story.

[ NewViewer_02: ] there is an actual court under the route

[ ShadowMage44: ] bro that collector is kneeling and five people are standing above it

[ CringeSlayer91: ] no shard estimate, no fake number, just a court that breaks the measuring system

[ ashley (Mod): ] clip preserved, and nobody should mistake the image for safe access

Hajin saw the route’s edge beginning to burn around Didi’s frost, while the one-Ring clone remained at the bed beyond the guarded room.

"We have to close it," Hajin said. "The route is learning how to look back."

Didi looked into the black depth with her wrist still held in his palm, while the royal current pulled toward the seated shadow.

"Not until I know whether my blood is being summoned or recognized."

"Those are different dangers," Hajin said.

"I know," Didi replied.

The fifth silhouette turned its head toward the wound, though it did not look at Hajin or Didi directly across the foreign court.

It looked at the space between their hands where the royal current had reversed, and the court noticed the path.

Hajin tightened the anchor while Didi held Crowned Frost against the scar beneath the city beyond the broken square beneath the guarded room.

The route stayed open beyond its promised three heartbeats, and the five waiting cores gathered behind it beneath the court.