All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 317: The Mountain Answers

The pressure above Hajin’s barrier increased before the damaged circle finished splitting.

Aegis bent toward the chamber floor, carrying the force around Bren’s opening instead of letting it enter Hans’s rescue wedge. Three Rings turned around Hajin’s right forearm while the Chain held the creature’s severed pieces away from every rune.

Juna planted one claw beside his barrier, keeping her single Wing clear of the ceiling route. The white-gold crack passed beneath her hand without releasing heat, then continued toward the dark section at the chamber’s center.

"That line is moving away from us," she said, following its path across the floor, "but the pressure keeps coming here."

"It is using your barrier as the nearest complete surface," Aria replied, separating the routes across Hajin’s sight, "if you close Aegis now, the correction enters Bren’s opening."

Hajin lowered his left hand another inch, forcing the barrier beneath the broken circle. The array accepted the new path for one rotation before carving white-gold geometry across Aegis itself.

Divine Eye caught shapes forming inside the barrier, though none belonged to any language stored in Aria’s archive. Each symbol began as an incomplete orbit, gained one crossing line, then folded inward around an empty center.

Hans tightened the retrieval line under his arm as three pulls traveled down from Loccy. The first followed their normal hold code, while the next two arrived through separate braces without anyone touching them.

"Those last pulls came from below," he warned, shifting his spear across Bren’s narrowing gap, "the line is carrying the mountain now."

"Then stop it from reaching the miners," Hajin said, dividing Aegis into three connected sections, "tell me which support moves first."

The western panel settled beneath the route leading toward Lower Third, taking pressure before the isolated shelf could receive it. Another section covered Bren, leaving Hajin to hold the damaged circle with the smallest barrier directly beneath his palm.

Every division gave the array another surface to write upon, spreading its unknown symbols through all three panels. Aria rejected six separate attempted translations before a different warning replaced them.

[ Ancient structure communication event detected ]

[ Transmission medium: orbital designation link ]

[ Registered endpoint: unavailable ]

[ Unknown endpoint responding ]

The designation link opened without a request, pulling the symbols from Aegis into the gray lines beneath his right sleeve. No mana left his Rings, but the pattern traveled through them as though their rotation supplied grammar instead of power.

Pain crossed his forearm when the message reached the unknown designation attached to Ash. The system forced a registry record into view, preserving Hajin’s position inside the chamber while showing the linked response above.

Lana remained behind the witness desk with Ash seated beside her, their custody markers fixed beneath the same six guards. His right hand rested on the closed mine ledger until pale geometry appeared beneath his skin.

"Hajin’s still below," Lana said, pulling the ledger away from him, "you stay with me until Marrick sends the return count."

Ash looked toward Gold Mountain without leaving the chair, pressing his wrist against his chest. The geometry reached his forearm this time, tracing broken curves that matched the writing across Hajin’s barrier.

One guard moved toward him before Lana raised her marked hand between them. She had watched Ash’s previous halo collapse after the road anchor died, refusing to let a guard add another unknown pressure.

"Give him room," she ordered, keeping her other hand around his fingers, "if he stands or the desk moves, then you help me."

The child remained seated as a pale incomplete halo formed outside his right wrist. Its open edge faced Gold Mountain, turning once against the direction of Hajin’s Rings before stopping beside Lana’s hand.

No pressure entered the registry, while every lamp and guarded door remained unchanged. Ash stared through the missing section of the halo as unfamiliar words left him without changing his voice.

"Still here," he said, tightening his fingers around Lana’s, "do not come through."

The incomplete curve closed for less than a heartbeat, sending one white-gold symbol into the designation link. It vanished before the nearest guard crossed another step, leaving only the subdermal lines around Ash’s wrist.

[ Unknown designation response recorded ]

[ Local manifestation: one unstable halo ]

[ Displacement: none ]

[ Progression: none ]

[ Response language: untranslated ]

[ LoreSeeker99: ] The array sent a message through Hajin and the child answered it from the registry. That is not ordinary remote magic.

[ RationalSkeptic7: ] Their location markers never changed, so the connection moved information rather than either person.

[ Loccy_Defense_Squad: ] ASH SAID DO NOT COME THROUGH AND THE MOUNTAIN LISTENED TO HIM

[ CringeSlayer91: ] Reminder that our top-twenty Ranker is currently arguing with ancient infrastructure through a toddler

The registry record ended as the returning symbol struck Hajin’s three Rings below the mountain. All rotations stopped around his arm without closing, held in place by a command neither he nor Aria had issued.

Juna grabbed his shoulder before the fixed Rings could drag his hand into the damaged circle. Her Wing cut across the chamber wall, bracing them both without touching the ancient routes.

"That was Ash," she said, smelling the foreign mana along his sleeve, "his scent entered the lines, but he is not down here."

"The record kept him inside the registry," Hajin replied, forcing his first Ring through the unknown hold, "whatever crossed us only used the link."

Aria confirmed the response had originated from Ash’s designation, though its structure matched none of his previous defensive reactions. The halo had answered the array directly without granting a skill, changing his location, or exposing a readable soul classification.

Hajin broke the fixed command through his second rotation, causing the third Ring to resume beside it. Aegis dropped another inch during the interruption, allowing the cracked outer circle to strike the barrier with its full stored pressure.

The chamber floor split from the damaged rune toward its dark center. White-gold symbols entered the opening one after another, carrying Ash’s answer below every surface Divine Eye could follow.

Bren’s rescue wedge shifted behind Hans as the side opening narrowed across his injured leg. Hans drove his spear shaft beneath the support, buying space while the retrieval line pulled against his shoulder.

"I need the barrier here now," he called, refusing to release the wedge, "Bren loses the gap if that center moves again."

Hajin sent the eastern Aegis section beneath him, stabilizing the opening before the support could shear. The change left only two panels between the array plus the four miners, making another correction impossible to absorb cleanly.

Juna closed her Wing after the wall stopped moving, then placed both claws beneath the western panel. Mortal strength could not hold the array, but her position showed Hajin which section had begun taking the next load.

"The dark part is turning," she said, lowering her ears toward the floor, "something under it copied Ash’s circle."

Divine Eye passed through the new crack when another white-gold route opened below the chamber. It was not a second creature, core, or modern spell, leaving Aria without any target classification.

An orbital line rotated beneath Gold Mountain with a curve wider than the entire mine. A second line joined it farther down, carrying the same unanswered language beyond the limit of Hajin’s sight.

[ Ancient suppression network status: unknown ]

[ Local node failure continuing ]

[ Orbital response expanding ]

The retrieval line pulled from below again, matching the interval of the widening orbit. Hajin held Aegis beneath the trapped miners as another buried circle began turning outside the chamber walls.