All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 255: Inside the Gate

Hans’s runner reached Hajin beneath the portal as another pack pressed against the Gate surface behind him.

"The western checkpoint is open," he said, holding out the bell sheet, "every household reached the field road, while Vella has the wounded moving."

Hajin checked Lana’s names beside the treatment count, finding marks beside every family from the stockade plus surrounding farms.

"The bridge?" he asked, keeping Aegis across the ravine while the new pack searched for another exit.

"Loccy reports the riders have not moved," the runner said, pointing toward a second mark, "Elise still watches the two men beyond the field ridge."

Cassie’s party climbed the ravine behind him after leaving the final farm wagon with Hans.

Jonas carried two barrier plates from Ferra’s forge, while Toby brought rope plus a fresh bell for the upper path.

"Hans sent us to replace your barrier," Cassie said, placing her staff beside the ravine, "he wants you inside before another burrower leaves."

She raised two earth banks around the Gate spill, using Ferra’s plates to narrow the opening toward Jonas.

Toby fixed the bell above their fallback point, giving the hunters below a warning if the banks failed.

The first hound crossed after Aegis withdrew from one side, meeting Jonas’s axe before its pack found the new channel.

Cassie thickened the bank behind his rear foot, keeping the monster inside the space where Toby’s flash could reach it.

Their formation held without Hajin touching the hound, leaving Aegis free to pull away from the ravine.

"Thirty minutes," Hajin said, looking toward Cassie, "if the spill doubles or the banks break, leave the Gate and warn Hans."

"We know how to retreat," she said, checking both side paths before looking toward the portal, "find whatever keeps sending them out."

Juna reached the upper ridge as he released Aegis, keeping one hand near the markings fading along her forearms.

"The field lane is clear," she said, watching Cassie’s earth banks take the next impact, "I am staying outside until the last clinic cart reaches town."

"Your call," Hajin said, resting the chain against his shoulder, "take the ravine if Cassie needs another route."

Juna looked toward the Gate instead of asking to follow him, checking every scent that escaped through its surface.

"Do not make me drag you back through it," she said, moving beside the upper path, "we have people holding the outside now."

A second Ring formed around Hajin’s wrist, rotating beside the first as he faced the corrupted portal.

The original three-Shard rating no longer mattered after the purple lines broke the Gate’s circulation.

He entered with the chain in hand, leaving the Gate open behind him while Cassie’s commands continued outside.

Beyond the portal, three passages joined a wide burrow beneath a ceiling carved by claws.

Blue Gate mana covered the surfaces near the entrance, though purple roots had grown through it toward every outward passage.

Hajin activated Divine Eye, finding foreign mana moving against the Gate’s ordinary circulation instead of following it toward the core.

The corruption pulled power toward the exit, feeding monsters whenever the portal released another pulse into the village.

Two hounds waited inside the nearest passage, both facing outward before his arrival interrupted them.

They rushed together as his chain crossed the first monster’s jaw, driving it into the passage beside its partner.

One Ring fed Aegis across the corridor while the other tightened the chain around both corrupted bodies.

Hajin pulled them beneath the barrier, breaking their necks before either could call another pack from deeper inside.

The purple growths continued drawing Gate mana after death, keeping their limbs rigid until Divine Sever cut the foreign roots.

Their cores stopped pulsing once the corruption separated, leaving two dark pieces inside the opened chests.

Hajin stored one core in his inventory and left the other where Divine Eye could pass its mana pattern into Aria’s record.

[ Fragment’s Blessing applied: Corrupted Hound Core upgraded by ten rarity tiers. ]

"Repeat the outside report," he said, following the strongest root into the central passage, "start with the runner’s sheet."

"Hans moved the militia beyond the western checkpoint," Aria said through his interface, reading the runner’s sheet, "the last burrower is still tearing through the abandoned storehouse."

The runner’s sheet placed Vella’s clinic carts at the second shelter, while Juna watched the cleared field lane without reopening her Wing.

A second entry reported Loccy at the salt bridge with Dreth’s twenty riders, while both observers remained beyond the field ridge.

Cassie’s banks held the Gate mouth through another pack, giving Jonas plus Toby a controlled approach instead of an open ravine.

Every report continued without asking Hajin to leave the Gate, allowing him to move past the first passage alone.

"A new record just entered through Ash’s unknown designation," Aria said, projecting it into his vision, "I didn’t request or create it."

Lana had kept Ash inside Marrick’s office during the alarm, carrying him back whenever he blinked toward the door.

A forge runner entered with a sealed tray containing one core recovered from the hounds killed inside the stockade.

The record showed Marrick logging the source before he opened the lid, its next image catching the purple veins across the core.

Ash stopped fighting the boxes when the tray reached the table, turning his right wrist toward the corrupted core.

The core moved across the tray without anyone touching it, then lifted beside the child’s arm as a broken curve of pale light formed around his wrist.

The core and light moved partway around his wrist before stopping together, dropping back against the tray without completing the orbit.

Ash stared at the place where the curve had failed, then reached for the core until Lana closed the lid with her slate.

"Did it orbit?" Hajin asked, stopping inside the central passage while looking at the frozen image from the record.

"No," she said, holding the last image near his vision, "it reached forty-one percent of a circle before collapsing."

"Send this back through the same link," he said, walking again after the projection closed, "seal the tray, move it to Ferra’s storage, and keep Ash inside the registry."

"The warning went through," Aria said, returning to the Gate scan, "Marrick put two guards on the tray, and the record shows no new damage to Ash or the core."

Hajin left the failed curve in her records without naming it, following the purple root while two Rings continued around his wrist.

The central passage widened after the next turn, revealing five channels cut at different heights around the same chamber.

Every track crossed toward the exit behind him, though the core route should have drawn the strongest monsters farther inside.

He checked the lowest channel with Divine Eye, finding more foreign mana pulling through the Gate against its natural flow.

Outside, the upper bell rang once as Cassie redirected another pack into Jonas’s approach.

Hajin entered the lowest channel while the reports from the village continued moving without him.