The first healer began screaming while Loccy’s bridge ledger was still being signed. Pain entered six ward stations through the Hunting Avatar, turning treatment routes into a choir that carried every wound from Veran’s vessel toward their patients.
Vella reached the canal station through Hajin’s Spirit Ring before the next transfer landed. She materialized beside a healer holding three golden lines together, yet none of those branches belonged to the woman’s natural magic anymore.
White-gold scripture covered her forearms and traveled through every patient receiving treatment. The healer fought the words while continuing to stabilize a child whose reopened wound now matched the cut across Veran’s armored chest.
"Do you want my help entering the foreign route?" Vella asked, keeping both hands away until the woman could answer.
"Enter it," the healer replied, forcing gold around the child’s wound while another line opened across her own shoulder, "remove everyone behind me before the priests realize I asked."
Consent opened the existing treatment connection without creating another branch; Vella pressed two fingers against the healer’s wrist, entering the possession choir through gold mana already carrying her into its hostile lattice.
Hajin felt the route through their two-way contract while remaining outside the station with two Rings closed. The choir connected six healer posts, ninety-three patients, twelve ordinary practitioners, plus seventeen priests actively inviting Dominion into their cores.
[ Foreign treatment lattice identified ]
[ Passive patients: ninety-three ]
[ Unwilling healer branches: twelve ]
[ Active possession nodes: seventeen ]
"You cannot reverse through the complete network until every passive branch is separated," Hajin said through their bond, watching the choir react to Vella’s entry, "the avatar will move Veran’s wounds faster once it notices you."
"I noticed the same problem," she replied, sending irritation along with the answer, "keep the station walls standing while I remove people who never agreed to sing."
The choir drove another blade wound into Veran’s vessel somewhere beneath the western district. Its pain crossed all seventeen priests before dividing among every patient still attached to their treatment lines.
Vella caught the transfer at the healer’s wrist and changed its direction without sending damage backward. Golden mana wrapped each passive branch, preserving treatment while removing the divine instruction that made injury follow it.
The first seven patients dropped from the choir without losing their ordinary healing. Their pain stopped increasing, although the wounds already transferred remained for local practitioners to treat.
"Seven clear," the healer reported, maintaining her original three lines while Vella moved deeper, "the western beds remain attached through Priest Solm, and he has locked his core around the command."
Vella followed that named branch before touching any other active node; Solm stood inside a distant station with white-gold scripture inside both eyes, pushing the avatar’s wound through six unconscious patients despite hearing their treatment alarms; "Release your patients and close the possession route," she warned through the choir, letting her voice reach every active priest, "anyone who stops feeding it leaves alive with damaged pathways, but no reversed mana enters the next attack."
Four priests severed their branches after recognizing another presence inside the lattice. Their cores remained human, while ordinary healers caught the patients they released before treatment failed.
Thirteen continued chanting through Veran’s borrowed voice; Solm tightened the western beds around himself, using their pain as insulation against Vella’s approaching gold.
"He understands the warning," Aria said, separating every response through Hajin’s system, "all thirteen remaining nodes are sustaining the possession voluntarily after receiving it."
"Record the choice, then keep watching for anyone who stops," Hajin replied, opening one Ring when ward pressure struck the station roof, "Vella will not kill a surrendering branch to make the ledger cleaner."
Constructs landed above the treatment hall before the choir completed another transfer. Juna met them with one Wing and kept every cut outside the occupied rooms, leaving Hajin to hold falling roof sections through narrow Aegis ribs.
Inside, Vella removed patient branches in groups small enough for local healers to receive. Each separation cost golden range, forcing her physical body nearer the consenting healer while violet mana remained gathered at the contact point.
Thirty-one patients cleared before Solm redirected the choir into another station, while Hajin tracked the change. Vella followed through the healer’s existing connection, severing nine unwilling practitioners before the active priests could use their cores as replacement doors.
The network contracted around the remaining fifty-five patients; Pain arrived faster as Veran fought elsewhere, cutting three people before Vella’s gold caught the transfer beneath their treatment magic.
"All ordinary healers are separated," she reported, carrying the last unwilling branch into the local station, "patients remain attached only through the thirteen priests who refused release."
"Can you preserve their treatment after breaking the choir?" Hajin asked, catching another roof beam before it reached the healer’s back.
"Their natural healers are ready beside every bed," she replied, converting the contact point from gold toward violet, "the priests have chosen to keep a divine weapon inside their cores, so I am removing the weapon with them around it."
Vella warned the thirteen nodes again before sending any lethal current; Two abandoned their chants during the final interval, releasing eight patients plus their own cores from Dominion.
Thirteen priests continued after the deadline ended, each feeding the next wound into patients already transferred toward ordinary care. No additional choir node entered once Vella separated the ordinary treatment routes.
She closed every patient branch before reversing violet through the first priest. Solm tried routing the destructive current into an empty bed, yet Vella had removed all living connections and left only the willing possession circuit behind.
Violet mana ruptured his foreign reinforcement before traveling through the chant he maintained. The same pattern reached sixteen linked cores, giving each another heartbeat to sever before their active choir burned backward.
None stopped; the possession network collapsed through all seventeen priests, killing the continuing nodes without touching the patients or ordinary healers Vella had removed.
[ Active possession nodes destroyed: eleven ]
[ Passive patient branches severed safely: ninety-three ]
[ Unwilling healer branches preserved: twelve ]
[ Host EXP gained through Spirit Ring contract: 356,000 ]
[ Hajin EXP: 43,746,000 / 50,000,000 ]
The system receipt arrived only after local healers confirmed every living patient remained under treatment. Seven carried new transferred wounds, while no additional injury crossed the dead choir after Vella removed her hand.
Her violet reserve fell below safe combat use, leaving gold limited to direct station contact for the immediate recovery. Vella remained beside the consenting healer instead of returning to Hajin’s ring, helping stabilize the seven wounds before discussing another fight.
"The avatar lost one transfer network," she said through their contract, with exhaustion sharpening every word, "it still has eight ward anchors, and I cannot enter another choir before these patients stop bleeding."
Hajin accepted the limit while Juna cleared the final roof construct, while Hajin tracked the change. Veran’s next injury remained inside his willing vessel, forcing the Hunting Avatar to carry its own damage instead of distributing it among the people being healed.
Royal medics marked every freed patient for follow-up before moving them from the ward. The separation ended possession without erasing circulation damage accumulated during the choir.
Eleven willing possession nodes had died, six had withdrawn, while every passive patient remained alive under ordinary treatment.