Hajin pushed Divine Eye past the broken shell, following the joined conduits through sand beneath the eastern terrace.
Every branch fed one deeper pulse, and each swell sent another volley cracking against Vella's barrier.
'Come on, come on, show me where all that juice is actually going.'
He waited through another strike, peeling the returning threads apart from the outward flow beneath them.
Then he saw it, a swollen heart forty feet beneath the terrace, tugging every conduit like a fistful of leashes. Lines ran to the ridge mouths and the shell's surviving segments, sitting deep below where his earlier punch never reached.
"Found you, you ugly little bastard," he muttered, curling his fingers around the Chain.
Helen stepped closer with six Shards circling her wrist, rapier held clear while she followed his pointing finger.
The terrace sat two hundred paces out, past the broken wall and every scrap of wagon cover.
