All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 315: What the Runes Kept

Juna dropped beneath the ceiling shape before its outer edge crossed her throat.

A curved metal band passed through the space above her, striking the opposite wall with one evenly spaced knock. Two more bands followed around a pale body suspended beyond their lamp range.

Hajin raised Aegis between Juna and the passage while his single Ring maintained its controlled rotation. The barrier received no impact because the creature withdrew upward, using its moving bands instead of feet.

"It knew where my neck was," Juna said, holding both claws above her shoulders, "but I cannot hear it breathe."

"Keep its position, not its nature," Hans replied, lowering his lamp until the moving edges caught light, "we only need Bren before it earns a name."

The creature crossed above them through a section too narrow for its visible body. Six dark bands rotated around its torso, gripping separate surfaces and carrying the flesh between them without touching the passage floor.

Four crystal fittings had been driven along its back beneath cracked plates. Their color shifted between dead gray and corrupted purple whenever one band completed a turn.

Divine Eye found no ordinary core inside the body, though nested circulation moved behind its chest in several incomplete orbits. Every outer fitting fed that rotation through a different route, keeping the creature alive without forming a modern Shard pattern.

"Those crystals were added later," Aria said, marking the punctures where each fitting entered, "the body beneath them was built for another circulation system."

"Built?" Hajin asked, keeping Aegis between Juna and the last moving band, "you are calling it equipment?"

"I am calling it modified," she replied, following the inner rotation, "I cannot prove what existed before the fittings entered."

The eastern passage opened after the creature passed, leaving a smear of dark fluid across the upper seam. Juna tested it with one claw, finding the same bloodless scent mixed through Bren’s trail.

Hajin gave Loccy one hold signal through the retrieval line before following. Hans added the new route to his map, refusing to draw the creature where no fixed position existed.

The uncut passage descended around two turns before their lamps found Bren’s hammer beside a collapsed opening. Blood crossed its handle, while one drag mark continued through the gap into a larger space.

"Bren," Hans called, keeping his voice below the copied signal volume, "answer with words if you can."

"Four got clear?" a man asked from beyond the collapse, his reply weakened by distance, "tell me they stayed on the shelf."

"They are alive with supplies," he said, securing one rescue wedge below the opening, "keep your leg still and stop striking anything."

Bren confirmed a support edge had entered below his knee when the lower route closed. He had crawled after the moving draft until the pale creature crossed behind him, trapping him beyond another side collapse.

It ignored his body whenever he remained still, then copied every hammer strike through the bands around its torso. Bren abandoned the tool after realizing each signal taught it another interval.

"Can you see another route?" Hajin asked, examining the collapse without feeding mana into it, "anything wider than the opening beside you?"

"There is a chamber behind me," Bren replied, shifting once before pain stopped him, "the walls light whenever that thing passes through."

Juna found enough space above the collapse for one person without armor, but the creature’s dark fluid crossed the same route. Entering alone would place her between its ceiling path and the injured miner.

Hans marked Bren found alive before sending the update toward Loccy with the retrieval line. Her single return pull reached them through every secured brace, preserving the count without carrying another sound into the chamber.

Hajin dismissed his narrow Aegis panel, then flattened himself beneath the upper gap. One Ring supplied only the strength needed to widen a loose edge by hand without sending mana through the closed surface.

The opening gave them a view into a chamber larger than the entire mapped lower mine. Pale lines covered its walls, floor, and ceiling in circles that crossed without touching one another.

No modern Shard socket interrupted their geometry, while every carved route faced a dark central section beneath the floor. White-gold light traveled inward whenever the shaft creature moved along the outer wall.

Hans compared the nearest carved circle against every line Bren’s crew had cleared before the siege. The chamber rested below their gold seam without sharing one cut, support hole, or haul route.

"The miners never opened this wall," he said, tracing the folded descent back toward Lower Third, "their working floor opened into a route that existed underneath them."

Juna followed the creature’s dark fluid across the upper band, finding older stains beneath its current wound. Its path circled the chamber instead of entering the mine until Bren’s crew fell through.

"It was staying around the pale lines," she said, watching the suspended body, "the miners moved into its route, it did not climb toward theirs."

"That explains where it was," Hajin replied, checking Bren’s trapped opening, "we still need to stop it from learning how to leave."

Aria dropped every mine overlay after none aligned with the chamber’s ancient geometry. A separate warning formed across Hajin’s sight as his Ring completed another rotation.

[ Ancient orbital structure detected ]

[ Modern Shard architecture: absent ]

[ Array direction: inward ]

[ Active suppression pressure: unstable ]

[ Translation: unavailable ]

The nearest circle brightened in the same direction as Hajin’s rotating halo, then stopped before completing its route. Pressure crossed his right arm without attacking, tracing the old gray Resonance lines from his wrist toward his shoulder.

He closed the Ring immediately, preventing another rotation from entering the chamber’s pattern. The pale route continued for one additional span before fading around the central section.

"It recognized your circulation," Hans said, watching the last line withdraw, "the mountain did not light for my lamp or Bren’s hammer."

"Ash made the rock answer months ago," Hajin replied, remembering the line beneath the first mine face, "Aria found nothing that time either."

Another record opened through the unknown designation inside Hajin’s interface before she could answer.

[ Unrequested Registry Record Received ]

[ Source Link: Unknown Designation - Ash ]

The record remained fixed inside the restored registry, where Lana sat behind the witness desk with Ash beside her. Their custody markers stayed together beneath six assigned guard positions around the registry approaches.

At the moment Hajin’s Ring touched the chamber pattern, Ash released Lana’s sleeve and turned toward Gold Mountain. Pale geometry moved beneath the skin of his right wrist without forming an external curve.

"Below," Ash said, pressing his palm against the desk, "wrong."

Lana moved his hand away before the geometry reached his forearm, then recorded the exact word beneath the mine alarm entry. No halo, local force, movement, or injury followed before the record ended.

[ Unknown designation progression: none ]

[ Subject location: registry - unchanged ]

Hajin returned to the chamber view as one pale line brightened beneath the shaft creature. The six bands stopped rotating together, suspending its body above the inward-facing array.

Corrupted purple entered the four grafted fittings before the ancient light could reach its chest. The creature turned its blind head toward Hajin, then struck Bren’s copied interval across three separate bands.

Juna placed herself beneath the upper gap while Hans covered the injured miner’s opening. Hajin summoned the Legendary Chain into his right hand as the creature released every ceiling grip at once.