All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 297: Hands Behind the Line

Hans’s rear alarm reached Hajin before Loccy’s third Wing closed above the folded siege road.

"Ninety moving through the clinic-forge service lane," Hans said, reading Juna’s recovered relay copy, "twelve war mages behind seventy-eight flankers."

The central standards continued toward Dreth’s command ridge, making the rear attack their final attempt to break Hajin’s support line.

"Route me back," Hajin said, leaving Loccy with the custody reserve, "I stay there until both rear sectors hold."

Hans sent him through the quarry cut while militia engineers kept every prisoner beyond the collapsed road.

Hajin reached the clinic service lane after the first attack crossed its outer barrier, finding two bodies beside nine fresh serious-wound markers.

Noll, the forge worker who once reported his injured elbow instead of hiding it, had died near the brace gate.

Vera lay beside an overturned treatment frame, where she had shielded the captured healer maintaining its relay.

The nine living casualties occupied separate cots between clinic and forge, beyond Vella’s natural touch range from any single position.

A surrendered Flint field healer knelt beside her with one numbered restraint removed from his right wrist beneath two witnesses.

"Open the relay only if you choose," Vella said, resting her fingers above his field bracer, "your captured wounded are connected beside mine."

"They are why I kept the bracer," the healer said, pressing its center himself, "cut me out before their mages reverse it."

His device opened a pale lattice through the wounded lanes, reconnecting the treatment points his formation had carried into battle.

Vella maintained physical contact with his bracer, allowing her touch-range gold to enter the foreign relay without restoring natural range.

Golden threads reached all nine living Sixth casualties plus captured Flint patients already connected beyond the partition.

[ Vella’s violet reserve: depleted ]

[ Golden healing range: touch only ]

[ External healer relay: active through voluntary captured link ]

[ Natural reserves restored: no ]

Twelve hostile branches entered from beyond the service lane, forcing red pressure through the same lattice toward every treatment point.

Vella kept her golden web active while following that pressure into the separate network feeding it.

"Release your mana and break contact," Vella said, sending her voice through the healer bracer, "passive branches leave before I return what remains."

Field healers disconnected first, followed by assault troops who stopped feeding the lattice after feeling her presence inside it.

Vella severed each passive branch before it withdrew, including the surrendered healer beneath her hand and every patient route behind him.

The twelve war mages continued driving mana forward, trying to tear her golden treatment web through simultaneous overloads.

Aria traced the hostile power crossing Vella’s contact point without mistaking it for a recovered violet reserve.

[ Foreign lattice mana available while hostile branches remain active ]

[ Destructive conversion source: incoming hostile circulation ]

Vella converted their incoming pressure at the contact point, staining every remaining hostile branch violet from inside.

The color ran backward through twelve separate channels while her golden web held the nine wounded stable ahead of her.

Each war mage tried cutting his branch after the reversal entered, but Vella had already closed the network behind their active flow.

Twelve violet ruptures rose beyond the service wall, ending every hostile feed without touching the branches she had severed.

[ Hostile war mages eliminated: 12 ]

[ Hajin gained: 56,000 EXP ]

[ Hajin Ring Progress: 24,021,000 / 25,000,000 EXP ]

The simultaneous gold and violet webs tore three pathways across Vella’s arms before both remote structures collapsed.

Orderlies caught the nine treatment seals at their cots, preserving every living casualty after the foreign relay went dark.

[ Vella remote healing: unavailable for remainder of battle ]

[ Golden healing range: touch only ]

[ Violet reserve: depleted ]

Vella sank onto one knee while the surrendered healer’s disconnected bracer remained pale and harmless beneath her fingers.

"All nine are stable," Vella said, closing one hand over her torn pathways, "go before Ferra turns her alarm into an insult."

The forge bell struck through her final word, sending Hajin across the narrow service yard without leaving Vella outside orderly reach.

Seventy-eight Flint flankers surrounded the cold forge, throwing hooked assault cables over its gantry and outer ironwork.

The six structural braces remained untouched inside Ferra’s protected line, while her three unfinished Chain fixtures stayed locked upon the bench.

Ferra stood beneath one forge-light Wing, directing suspended tongs around the cables attackers had fastened to their own armor harnesses.

Twenty soldiers occupied the forward floor channels, twenty-eight pulled from the middle cable ranks, and thirty remained beyond the rear gate.

"Release every hook and kneel inside the clear bays," Ferra said, holding six cable lines motionless, "metal still touching you becomes my material."

The forward twenty dropped weapons plus hooks, entering the marked bays before Ferra closed ordinary iron tongs around their discarded equipment.

Militia binders moved behind those tongs while the middle twenty-eight continued pulling the gantry toward the fractured furnace.

The rear thirty cut their harness links instead of entering her floor channels, abandoning the attached armor before retreating toward Dreth’s standards.

Ferra rotated her Wing once, turning every connected assault cable through the cold forge’s empty draw channels.

The twenty-eight attackers still harnessed to those lines were pulled inward from opposing angles, carrying their weapons through neighboring ranks.

Iron cables crossed within the center channel and closed, crushing armor plus bodies between six converging lines of their own attack.

The gantry stopped before the furnace braces moved, leaving the surrendered twenty untouched inside clear bays without connected metal.

[ Hostile flankers eliminated: 28 ]

[ Summon Ferra gained: 84,000 EXP ]

[ Ferra Wing Progress: 108,000 / 300,000 EXP ]

[ Hajin gained: 84,000 EXP ]

[ Hajin Ring Progress: 24,105,000 / 25,000,000 EXP ]

Ferra held the crossed cables while militia custodians finished binding all twenty soldiers who had dropped their weapons.

The thirty retreating flankers cleared the service road without another attack, remaining inside Dreth’s active field force.

{Rear assault reconciliation: 90 Flint combatants.}

{War mages: 12 dead. Forge flankers: 28 dead / 20 captured / 30 withdrew / 0 unreconciled.}

{Sixth losses: Noll and Vera deceased / 9 new serious wounds.}

[ Active Flint siege force: 877 ]

[ Sixth campaign ledger: 27 deceased / 88 serious injuries ]

Ferra released the assault cables after the last captive left, keeping her one Wing open above the cold forge threshold.

"The rear holds," Hajin said, checking Hans’s final-advance signal beyond the service wall, "you can begin preparing the Chain."

He summoned the damaged Chains into his right hand, leaving the Divine Core plus severed pass-anchor fragment stored separately.

Worn links settled across his palm before he physically lowered the entire weapon into Ferra’s waiting hands.

[ Growth Weapon custody transferred: Hajin to Ferra ]

[ Weapon condition: Rare / 58% damaged ]

[ Equipped weapon available to Hajin: none ]

Ferra carried the Chain across both forearms toward her prepared bench while Hajin remained at the forge line without it.