Vella entered the contracted possession choir through the scars left inside her pathways by the earlier severances.
The outer patients remained protected behind closures she had built, but every hostile priest and replacement voice now fed one central core beneath the throne.
White-gold healing traveled outward from that core, restoring the Crowned Avatar whenever palace defenders damaged its shell while the choir had become both weapon plus repair system.
"The choir has folded its branches inward," Vella said through Hajin’s Spirit Ring, "and I can reach the core, but keeping city treatment routes alive requires holding both divine and demonic ranges until separation finishes."
Hajin stood outside the Court boundary with four Rings closed around strained pathways. Aria isolated Sanctuary through the existing buffer before he opened Vella’s route.
"Protect the treatment network first," Hajin said, "and if the central core cannot be destroyed without killing patients, withdraw."
Vella entered through one healer’s scar, then split herself across every chosen medical bond still active inside the capital.
Patients received ordinary treatment without hearing the choir’s replacement voices while resisting healers retained control over their own hands.
Three surgical teams were operating when the central attack began. Vella maintained circulation around open wounds while isolating the foreign command one layer above.
She refused to collapse those routes merely because combat demanded a cleaner network while local medics received warnings whenever her attention shifted.
Mundane pressure and sutures replaced magic temporarily while the Crowned Avatar sent a command through the same network before the first warning could reach every ward.
"Healing assigns the corrected form," it said, "but remove every voice which resists treatment."
Vella caught the order before it reached the first mind. She separated its white-gold authority from the actual restorative current.
Closed wounds plus stable hearts remained intact while obedience lost its path, and the distinction required touching every connection individually through her prior scars.
Some patients had healed beyond needing active magic, so Vella closed those unused routes in full while others depended on ongoing support and received protected one-way channels.
Those channels carried treatment without returning a voice to the choir. Each closure reduced the central core’s options while keeping the hospitals functioning.
The choir retaliated with demonic extraction pressure taken from the First Prince’s laboratory, and black-red current entered Vella’s lower range.
It tried to tear patient souls away from their repaired bodies. Vella held the pressure inside her scarred pathways and kept her voice controlled.
"Demonic range burning," Vella said, "and I need thirty seconds to isolate willing priests from civic treatment."
Didi planted Crowned Frost outside the throne approach and denied the choir permission to classify healers as royal property.
Ferra used Masterwork Network to ground physical backlash around the infirmaries while Juna guarded the sky route without spending Daybreak Path.
Rumi and Nari carried messages between hospitals through known spatial marks. They never moved patients whose bodies depended on fixed equipment.
Eirwen’s captains supplied ordinary runners whenever a route lacked verified endpoints while the whole city contributed to keeping treatment alive as Vella entered the central structure.
Vella opened exits for every priest inside the contracted core, and four withdrew immediately into sealed treatment paths.
Three remained silent until she exposed the mortal minds beneath possession, while two resisted the core and accepted withdrawal.
The third revealed no surviving independent structure, so Vella preserved the dead remnant in a Spirit vessel and entered it into casualty evidence instead of the active core count.
The remaining priests spoke through the central voice and said, "We accept ordered union while maintaining the divine core, but treatment must not preserve diseased refusal."
Vella gave one final exit after displaying the consequence and said, "The central core dies when I close these routes, so release possession now if your mortal minds choose survival."
No hostile priest withdrew, so Hajin tracked the change through Divine Eye while Vella isolated them from every patient, resisting healer, civic ward, and chosen medical oath.
The active choir cores remained together beneath the throne with no unwilling circulation attached. The isolation cost Vella access to her longest demonic branches.
Black-red extraction pressure burned each route after she closed it, preventing later remote use while she kept the damage away from patients.
"All non-hostile minds separated," Aria said inside Hajin’s thoughts, "and Vella’s demonic range is at critical strain."
"Proceed," Hajin said.
Vella ruptured the choir’s tongue as every active core broke at once, and white-gold voices vanished from the treatment wards.
Black-red extraction pressure collapsed inside Vella’s scarred lower range. The deaths entered Hajin’s fixed Ordered Court ledger through the Spirit Ring host-kill rule.
The avatar attempted to divert its final healing pulse into the King. Didi froze the royal transfer while Ferra grounded the empty current beneath the throne approach.
Vella held the remaining pulse until Aria confirmed that no person occupied it, then let the authority dissipate.
[Contracted Possession Choir Destroyed]
[Unwilling minds harmed: 0]
[Chosen treatment routes preserved]
[Ordered Court ledger updated]
The Crowned Avatar lost remote healing and replacement voices while cracks Ferra had marked across its shell stopped closing.
Vella returned through the Spirit Ring and formed beside Hajin with her lower body wavering while demonic range failed beyond arm’s reach.
Her direct touch and remaining Spirit treatment stayed available while Hajin offered mana through the contract, but Vella accepted only enough to maintain physical form.
Additional energy could not restore burned range during the same fight, and it would also reduce the Rings needed for the next lock.
The limitation remained structural rather than simple exhaustion, and Vella said while accepting Hajin’s supporting hand, "No demonic projection for the remainder of this fight, but I can treat what I physically reach and maintain existing patient closures."
"Then you do not enter another remote core," Hajin said.
"Agreed," Vella replied, closing the burned pathways rather than testing them.
Aria recorded the cost as a battle-long limitation, not permanent loss or a renamed evolution, while Vella gained no Wings and no separate experience progression.
The central palace shook when the avatar attempted healing and found no choir voice available, so it pulled more pressure into the foundation mass instead.
Across the capital, healers reported silence inside their own minds. Some treatment wards lost magical efficiency after Vella isolated them.
None lost the repairs already completed, and Eirwen assigned supply crews to cover the practical deficit while every assigned support remained intact.
Loccy stepped toward the throne supports with four Wings ready. Juna began checking the empty tower route above while Didi approached the blood shield.
Vella visited the nearest infirmary before returning to Hajin’s side. She confirmed that substitute medical teams could maintain every critical patient.
She then closed the last vulnerable scar while the six priests who withdrew remained under guard and treatment, with their surviving minds reserved for later tribunals.
The willing cores destroyed inside the choir entered the battlefield ledger now. Aria kept those categories separate as the central palace lost its final healing response.
Vella remained beside Hajin with one hand touching his damaged shoulder. She had cut the Court’s tongue without cutting the city structures people still chose for healing.
Eirwen’s captains delivered medicine and water to every ward whose magical efficiency had fallen. Royal clerks recorded those practical costs beside the destroyed choir.
Vella’s remaining range ended where that hand could reach, so every later treatment would honor that physical boundary while Aria locked the remote demonic channels against accidental reuse.
She asked the nearest medic to repeat the substitute procedure aloud and corrected one step that depended on the vanished choir, so the ward could continue because ordinary hands had taken responsibility before the magic failed.
Vella stored that correction beside the battle limitation while saving the patients did not restore her range and losing the range did not erase the work those patients still needed.
She repeated the correction to the next ward team before leaving. The nurses wrote it down, then practiced the substitute route without waiting for magic that would not return during the fight.