Gu He and the engineers brought the tested reserve coil frames into the central bay. Each frame was marked with its load limit and the stations it could support. Qinghe checked the drawings against the console layout while Yan continued the active Final Offering at the inner ring.
The art had not stopped since 899. Its body, foundation, soul, and lifespan costs continued to reverse into strength, coherence, and added vitality. Yan held the central load while the crew prepared a separate path beside him.
The coil crew bolted the first frame to the isolation rail. It sat outside the furnace ring and did not touch Yan’s anchor path. Gu confirmed that the return line had its own cutoff, so an unstable coil could be separated without interrupting the central current.
“The full central connection still needs a live check,” he said. “The smaller nodes passed. That isn’t the same load.”
A pressure surge shook the frame before the second bolt was seated. An engineer caught the loose plate with a clamp and waited for Qinghe’s reading. Yan held the central load while Gu stabilized the frame. The vibration remained dangerous; no one treated the furnace’s strength as protection for the hardware.
