All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 312: Disputed Rank

The hearing chamber held one curved table facing a witness rail divided by blue floor marks.

Hajin placed his provisional badge inside the central evidence recess before taking the nearest chair. Hans, Cassie, Juna, and Loccy remained behind separate marks with their sealed records unopened.

Allen sat beside Garret at the branch end, while Yenna’s field party occupied the opposite side. Three visiting senior Rankers shared the remaining seats with a guild evaluator plus two royal recorders.

The hearing chair checked every seal before touching Hajin’s badge against the ranking relay. Its engraved ninety-six faded from the silver, leaving a blank face inside the recess.

"Provisional placement ninety-six is retired," she said, passing the blank badge toward Allen, "today’s question is what the branch can defend in writing."

Cassie opened the interior Gate case beneath the clerk’s supervision, exposing her original sketch plus three separately sealed statements. She placed her guild badge beside them before the evaluator began questioning her.

"Where were you when the mountain separated?" he asked, pointing toward the lowest marked gallery, "answer from your own position."

"Inside that recess with Hans, Juna, and Loccy," she replied, tracing the protected ledge, "I saw the Chain enter the seam, then the split reached from the valley to the summit."

"Could you see the Gate entrance?" he asked, shifting his finger toward the map edge, "or anything outside it?"

"No," Cassie said, returning both hands behind the witness line, "the surface was opaque until it threw us through."

Hans confirmed the same strike from his own sealed account, including Aegis turning the falling section away from them. He stopped his statement at the forced ejection without repeating anything Hajin explained later.

Juna opened her separate combat statement, keeping her three-Wing attack plus the mountain strike under different entries. Her solar passage had removed the apex’s airborne formation before Hajin entered the valley below.

"The support bodies were gone before his Chain reached the seam," she said, marking their last position above the ridge, "I saw the full split from the protected gallery afterward."

Loccy confirmed that Burdenfall had broken the apex’s throat, exposing the opening Hajin used for the kill. She refused the evaluator’s attempt to classify either contribution as assistance granted by his Ring path.

"I hit my target, then he hit his," she said, placing one finger upon the separated mountain line, "his strike did not become smaller because mine happened first."

The evaluator recorded both contributions without subtracting them from Hajin’s verified contact output. Mission support explained how the opening existed, while the witnessed strike still established what he could drive through it.

The exterior packet recorded the blast, five bodies emerging inside one barrier, then a Gate disappearing without extraction. Jonas, Toby, the road defenders, and Dreth’s observers had signed beneath the limit that none saw inside.

"That gives us a verified peak event," the evaluator said, closing the mountain packet, "it does not give us sustained mountain output."

"My first field review said the same thing," Yenna replied, sliding her Chapter 263 seal across the table, "three Rings, one prepared seam, team-created opening, weapon-amplified contact."

Hajin watched the conservative side accept her answer before she placed a second campaign file beside it.

"Then I watched him enter Dreth’s army," she continued, opening the later record, "he stopped needing the mountain to prove the first number was wrong."

Mila supplied the reconciled field pages instead of summarizing them from memory. Thirty-seven execution guards died after seventeen surrendered, twenty-three Zone-bound elites died during the approach, while Hajin’s barriers kept wounded soldiers alive under the same hostile structure.

"Those are separate combat events across sustained operations," she said, moving each signed page into order, "the guild cannot keep treating them as one fortunate strike."

The evaluator turned toward Hajin after reading Dreth’s destroyed Zone entry twice.

"Your Chain carried a single Solar Anchor prepared from consumed materials," he said, tapping the empty charge line, "without it, could you have broken that Zone?"

"Not through the route I used," Hajin replied, leaving the answer where it belonged, "Dreth built the ground to redirect everything else."

"Could you sustain four Rings through a full duel today?" he asked, glancing toward Vella’s signed recovery page, "the fixed injury limit has ended."

"I have not tested that against somebody trying to kill me," Hajin said, resting both arms against the chair, "you can write recovered, permanent, and expensive."

One visiting Ranker laughed before covering it with a cough, while the evaluator wrote the limitation without changing its wording.

His proposed placement appeared upon the relay after the conservative review signed it.

{Recommended provisional placement: #27.}

{Basis: verified formation lethality, one weapon-amplified mountain event, army engagement, hostile Zone destruction with consumed unique charge.}

{Unverified: sustained four-Ring combat ceiling.}

The number sat above Yenna’s earlier recommendation, but she left her seal away from it.

"Twenty-seven assumes the consumed charge created his fourth Ring," she said, pointing toward Corven’s death record, "the Zone forced the breakthrough into view, it did not supply the power."

"Power without a repeatable measure remains uncertain," the evaluator replied, keeping one hand over his proposal, "we rank what a person can produce again."

"Then count what he repeated before gaining it," Orin said, placing the campaign terrain survey beside the mountain map, "the pass, elite formation, rescue barriers, and approach through a functioning Zone happened at three Rings."

Mara pushed the casualty appendix between both sides before the argument turned into pure destruction.

"Count where he spent that output too," she said, opening the nineteen stabilized Flint entries, "he surrendered position to preserve soldiers Dreth had consumed, then returned and broke the commander anyway."

Garret compared the proposal against the branch’s top-twenty emergency standard, while Allen checked each attached assignment restriction. Neither removed the team credit or converted Aegis into permission to skip evacuation planning.

The hearing chair requested separate seals from every field reviewer who supported placement twenty. Yenna signed first, followed by Mila, Orin, Mara, then two visiting Rankers who accepted the verified campaign record.

"Twenty is the strongest placement these files support today," the chair said, turning the relay toward Hajin, "anything higher needs a sustained four-Ring record against comparable opposition."

"I can live without arranging that for paperwork," Hajin replied, looking toward the signed casualty appendix, "twenty has caused enough administrative damage."

Allen inserted a new silver badge into the relay while Garret retained the blank retired one. Blue light crossed its face, burning a smaller number where clean metal had waited.

[ Guild Rank Review Complete ]

[ Previous Provisional Placement: #96 — retired ]

[ New Provisional Placement: #20 ]

[ Sustained Four-Ring Ceiling: pending ]

[ Assignment Restrictions: retained ]

Allen removed the new badge himself, then placed it directly into Hajin’s open hand.

"Nineteen people now stand above you," he said, closing Hajin’s fingers around the silver, "try not to make me replace it next week."

"That depends how many mountains file complaints," Hajin replied, fastening twenty against his coat, "your branch created the category."

Stream chat covered the hearing panel before he finished securing the clasp.

[ CringeSlayer91: ] FROM ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED TEN TO TWENTY, THE FRAUD DEPARTMENT HAS LOST THE WAR

[ LoreSeeker99: ] The restrictions matter, but every restriction now begins with verified mountain and Zone destruction.

[ JunaFanClub: ] JUNA’S TESTIMONY HELPED PUT HIM IN THE TOP TWENTY, THAT IS A POWER COUPLE RECEIPT

[ ashley (Mod): ] Provisional means the sustained ceiling remains under review, it does not erase the placement they just issued.

The chamber doors opened after both royal recorders sealed identical copies of the decision. Noise from the public guild floor stopped as Hajin stepped outside wearing a number with only two digits.