All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 324: Custodian Without a Master

The mine runner reached Hajin with broken brace splinters across his coat. He stopped beside the evidence table, forcing the warning through two breaths before pointing toward Gold Mountain.

"The five-band creature came through the service shaft," he reported, keeping one hand against the yard wall, "it is tearing apart Ferra’s braces and pulling light from below."

Ferra transferred the recovered band plus cracked plate into her sealed ceramic compartment. She released the Legendary Chain only after every fragment rested behind separate clamps.

"I follow with the evidence wagon," she said, placing the Chain into Hajin’s left hand, "do not let its remaining fittings touch the copied plate."

Hajin wrapped the center links around his bandaged right palm while Juna opened two Wings. She caught his coat beneath one claw, carrying both of them across the empty service road toward the mountain.

The third emergency bell sounded before they reached the mine approach below Gold Mountain. Workers remained beyond the upper ore yard, while Hans controlled the gold line beside Loccy’s strained surface wheel.

Five rotating bands cut through the segmented brace route below them, stripping timber from its ceramic joints. The wounded creature hung beneath the broken lift frame with white-gold pressure turning behind its chest.

Three cracked Shard fittings remained along its back, forcing corrupted purple through the stolen charge. Each completed orbit pulled another white-gold line from the damaged shaft into its older circulation.

"It is feeding through the brace contacts," Aria warned, separating both structures across Hajin’s sight, "the ceramic breaks keep it from taking the route together."

"Keep them broken," Hajin ordered, opening his first Ring around the burned forearm, "Juna, clear the quarry track."

She left him beside the gold line and crossed toward the abandoned cutting yard. Her two Wings drove every remaining guard beyond its wagon entrance without touching the creature.

Hajin shaped three narrow Aegis ribs between the creature plus the surface wheel. Their faces kept turning, denying its bands a stable curve while Loccy released another damaged brace line.

The creature abandoned that separated contact and struck toward Hajin’s complete Ring instead. One band crossed the approach before Aegis redirected its edge into an empty ore cart.

Iron folded around the impact, carrying the band toward the quarry track without holding it. Hajin retreated along the same route, keeping one stable Aegis panel behind his left shoulder.

"It is reading the complete surface," Aria said, marking the creature’s changing approach, "the moving ribs remain outside its selected path."

"Then it gets one good choice," Hajin replied, angling the stable panel toward the cutting yard, "make every other route worse."

His second Ring formed as all five bands entered the quarry track together. Two Aegis ribs closed behind them, protecting the mine braces while the stable panel withdrew toward the abandoned yard.

The creature followed its remembered curve, driving three bands against the barrier’s left edge. Hajin rotated that section downhill, turning the complete assault through the cutting yard’s single wagon entrance.

Juna cleared the final guard before the pale body crossed beneath the retaining banks. She landed upon the quarry rim instead of joining the fight, preserving one open withdrawal route behind Hajin.

"Yard clear," she reported, closing one Wing while watching the mine approach, "the creature is the only body below us."

Hans answered from the gold line by releasing the final brace cable still touching the quarry route. Loccy caught its weight at the surface wheel, then lowered the separated section away from every worker platform.

The custodian turned one band toward that movement, but Hajin’s rotating ribs denied it a continuous path back uphill.

Juna crossed the quarry rim while keeping herself between the creature plus the open wagon entrance. She checked the retaining banks, the abandoned carts, then Hans’s closure board before raising one claw.

Every possible impact now ended inside the cutting yard instead of carrying through a support line toward the mine.

"Surface route separated," Aria reported, removing the workers from her projected danger paths, "its remaining choices all terminate inside the quarry."

"Keep one route behind us," Hajin said, shifting the stable panel farther downhill, "the creature gets the rest until the fittings come off."

Juna left the narrow entrance uncovered for his withdrawal while closing her second Wing around the quarry wall. The custodian followed the only complete curve still facing it, committing all five bands beyond the last brace connection.

Hans fixed the released cable beneath the quarantine pin, preventing any later pull from rebuilding that route during the fight.

Hajin dismissed the stable panel after the fifth band entered the empty quarry. The creature struck through its previous location, burying two edges inside the floor while its remaining fittings discharged.

Purple pressure entered the old orbit core, forcing its stolen white-gold charge outward through every band. The cutting yard walls caught the release without carrying it toward workers or mine supports.

A third Ring opened around Hajin’s forearm as he sent the Legendary Chain through the exposed circulation. Divine Bind caught all five bands near their inner edges, stopping their separate rotations before the creature could copy another defense.

The sudden pull opened Ferra’s wrap across his right palm, pressing hot metal against the boundary burn. Pain reached his wrist without entering the dull gray pathways, leaving three-Ring control intact.

"The fittings still bridge its refusal sockets," Aria warned, isolating three later bore routes, "destroying the body first sends their corruption into the old core."

"Then the new parts leave first," Hajin said, dividing the Chain above its pale back, "mark every fastening route that does not belong."

Three link sections passed beneath the cracked plates while Aegis raised the creature from the quarry floor. Each Chain loop followed a modern bore channel, avoiding the incomplete curves inside its older body.

The fittings discharged together when Divine Bind tightened around their drilled bases. Corrupted purple traveled toward Hajin’s injured grip, but three-Ring force held the links steady beyond the burn line.

He pulled every section outward before the discharge reached the old circulation. All three fittings tore free together, bringing their drilled anchors plus corrupted channels away from the white-gold core.

The separated plates struck the quarry floor inside three closed Chain loops. Their purple pressure collapsed against Divine Bind, leaving the creature suspended with only its original orbit moving.

[ Modified circulation removed ]

[ Shard fittings separated: 3 ]

[ Ancient body classification recovered: refusal custodian ]

[ Command source: absent ]

Without the grafted routes, the custodian turned every remaining band toward the mountain. Its old orbit repeated one incomplete command, seeking a node that no longer controlled the surface path.

"It has no master response," Aria reported, tracing the unanswered command through its chest, "the local routine continues while the body remains active."

The five bands reversed against Hajin’s Chain, trying to pull the custodian back toward the service shaft. Three Rings held its body over the empty yard while Divine Eye separated its central socket from the surrounding circulation.

Hajin crossed the quarry floor without giving it another stable Aegis surface. He placed his left hand against the Chain, then sent Divine Sever through the links around the outer orbit.

Gold-purple force cut every circulation line feeding the pale torso without entering the negative-space center. The five bands stopped together, dropping the custodian inside the restrained loops.

[ Refusal Custodian eliminated ]

[ EXP gained: 650,000 ]

[ Ring Progress: 26,850,000 / 50,000,000 ]

No ordinary monster core formed anywhere inside the custodian after its body stopped moving. Its chest casing separated around an intact white-gold socket, preserving the same deliberate absences Ferra had reconstructed from the severed band.

[ Intact Refusal Socket recovered ]

[ Classification: ancient construct component ]

[ Active command: none ]

Hajin closed all three Rings before their output could enter the recovered socket. His palm wrap had darkened across the grip line, though Aria found no new pathway damage beneath it.

Hans entered the cutting yard only after Juna confirmed every band had stopped. Behind him, Loccy kept the damaged surface route standing while workers remained beyond the ore yard.

"Brace count lost three sections," he reported, checking the dead body from outside the Chain, "worker count remains clear."

Hajin separated the three corrupted fittings from the intact socket, locking each inside its own links. Ferra’s evidence wagon reached the quarry entrance as he finished wrapping the final white-gold component.

None of the separated plates retained enough pressure to reconnect through the secured Chain.