Five planar tears opened across the civic plaza, and an abyssal hound stepped through each fracture beneath the defenders' eyes and scattered the nearest militia.
Captain Gareth pulled the scattered militia behind the street barricades and counted five open fractures before sending his runners toward the clinic.
These were not astral illusions or disposable projections, but the five committed retrieval officers whose true cores were pledged to the crossing.
Hajin stood in the center of the terrace, his six bronze bands humming with restrained power as his companions took their designated positions.
"Identify your targets and read their approach vectors," he commanded quietly, keeping his gaze locked on the advancing vanguard.
"They did not come to skirmish... they came to bundle our household into an imperial recovery parcel."
"The extraction protocol is designed to treat living souls like freight cargo," Cessy explained, adjusting the quiver at her hip.
