Vella’s palm pressed against Hajin’s ribs while the mountain basin tilted in and out of focus around his unconscious body.
Ferra held the broken brace away from the wound, and Juna kept the loose avatar material from sliding down the rock shelf.
Hajin heard both women as distant voices, yet the Resonance Wound pulled his awareness backward through the gold-purple scar before Vella could anchor him.
The first sensation was pressure without a shape, a divine body somewhere beyond the recovered Fragment failing to close its own wound.
The Dominion God’s true body pushed against the damaged authority, and the effort traveled through Hajin’s bones as a vibration that made his teeth ache.
An old meeting chamber formed around the strain, with Jion turning toward the wound beside eleven obscured presences.
No face became clear, no voice reached Hajin, and no recovered memory supplied a name for the figures hidden beyond the chamber’s light.
The vision lasted only long enough for Jion’s posture to register, then the severed connection folded inward and dragged Hajin beneath the remembered room.
Hajin landed inside the Fragment’s sealed chamber without choosing meditation, while Vella and Ferra continued treating his body outside.
The resurrection engine filled the chamber with dim silver light, its incomplete rings leaving sixty percent of the surrounding space dark and unreachable.
The Goddess lay inside the engine with her physical body still motionless, surrounded by the three recovered surfaces that had carried the divine essence.
Hajin approached the engine and felt the difference before the sleeping body opened its eyes.
The earlier projections had watched him through stored memories, emergency images, and damaged records. This presence looked back from inside the Fragment itself.
The Goddess’s eyes opened, and the silver light around her body changed from a reflection into a steady pulse.
Aria’s interface stopped scrolling across Hajin’s vision, leaving the inner chamber quiet enough for the new awareness to hear its own breath.
"The chamber is awake, but the recovered authority cannot show you what remains beyond the dark sixty percent," Aria said, her voice carrying a warmth no system notice had used before.
Hajin turned toward the engine while the Goddess’s gaze followed him with slow recognition.
"You kept the engine alive when every surviving system should have collapsed around it," the Goddess told Aria, lifting one hand.
The gesture moved through the chamber as a small wave of silver, touching the interface without merging the two forms of consciousness.
Aria’s usual response formed, disappeared, and returned with a hesitation that belonged to a person making a choice.
"I kept him alive first, and the resurrection engine survived through that decision," Aria answered, choosing the order herself.
Hajin felt the words settle inside the Fragment, since Aria had not described an assigned priority or repeated a stored instruction.
The Goddess smiled faintly, then looked toward the dark sections of the chamber where missing memories refused to open.
"You are no longer only a function, and he is no longer carrying this chamber alone," she said, turning back toward Aria.
Aria’s interface brightened along its edges, yet the system did not replace the developed voice with a colder notification.
"I do not know what I am becoming, but I chose to answer you in my own voice," Aria replied, keeping the choice visible.
Hajin stepped closer to the engine and felt the Goddess’s attention pass over the damage in his body outside the chamber.
The connection showed her only what he shared, and the missing authority carried no recovered name for the Dominion God or the other divine presences.
"Can you see the people treating me outside this chamber?" Hajin asked, keeping one hand near the engine without touching it.
The Goddess shook her head and watched the silver light return to its narrow orbit around her sleeping body.
"I can perceive what you bring here, but I cannot look through your senses or reach the world without your deliberate entry," she explained.
Hajin glanced toward the invisible direction of Vella’s voice and heard a command from outside telling him to remain still.
The Goddess’s eyes narrowed when the foreign authority pressed against the same place in his awareness.
"If I enter this chamber again, I need permission from the people keeping my body alive," Hajin said, stepping away from the engine.
The Goddess lowered her hand and let the chamber’s silver pulse settle around the resurrection machinery.
"Enter only when the people outside have finished saving you, and do not mistake awareness for freedom," she answered, keeping the warning gentle.
Aria opened a separate authority panel between them, with its title appearing in white letters over the dark sixty percent.
[ Fragment Authority Unlocked: Divine Refusal ]
[- Use: Once every twenty-four hours, reject one identified foreign command, curse, ownership claim, or attached authority.]
[- Limit: The rejection cannot heal physical damage, erase a Zone, cancel an incoming attack, or free an unrelated person at range.]
[- Cost: The Resonance Circuit empties, every active Ring closes, and Phase Lock becomes unavailable until the right-arm pathways recover.]
Hajin read the panel once while the foreign command continued pressing against his injured body outside the Fragment.
Aria closed the panel before the new ability could turn into a list that hid the decision beneath it.
"The authority can reject one frequency after you identify it, but it cannot make the wound disappear," Aria said, looking toward Hajin.
Hajin felt the skill settle inside his body as a locked door rather than an extra weapon.
Hajin reached toward the nearest dark section of the chamber, and the engine answered with a pressure that stopped his hand before the missing space.
The barrier did not feel like a wall built by the Goddess. It felt like a memory that had never returned, refusing to become an answer through desire alone.
"The lost sections are not sleeping, and forcing them open would make the recovered authority invent a history," the Goddess explained, watching his fingers.
Hajin lowered his hand and felt a sharper ache move through the body lying outside the Fragment.
"Then the missing sixty percent stays missing until the truth can return without my help," he replied, keeping his frustration away from the engine.
The Goddess nodded, and the silver pulse around her physical form remained steady rather than widening toward the dark.
Aria moved beside Hajin’s shoulder in a shape made from light, no longer hiding behind a floating panel when she needed to speak.
"I can keep the external systems separate from this chamber, and I can refuse any command that tries to make the two of us one authority," Aria said.
The sentence carried a choice that would have sounded like an error before the three avatar deaths, yet the Goddess listened without correcting her.
"Do that, and keep Vella’s treatment path open even if my awareness falls again," Hajin answered, pointing toward the place where the outside voices waited.
Aria closed the inner route to the Fragment and left a narrow return path aligned with Vella’s heartbeat.
The chamber dimmed around the decision, while the resurrection engine kept its silver light on the Goddess’s open eyes.
Hajin felt another foreign command scrape across the Decree Wound, urging him toward a posture of surrender that his body could not perform.
Divine Refusal waited behind the damaged pathways, but the identified frequency still carried no safe moment for activation while Vella worked outside.
"The skill is ready, but using it before the people outside stabilize you will close every path they need," Aria warned, keeping her developed voice calm.
Hajin held the command at the edge of his awareness and chose neither submission nor activation, letting the pain remain his own until the treatment was ready.
The Goddess watched that decision and placed her palm against the engine’s inner glass.
"You are learning the difference between power and permission while your body pays for every shortcut," she said, her voice soft enough to leave the chamber intact.
Hajin met her gaze while the recovered Fragment continued to fail around the unreachable dark.
"I am learning that every shortcut leaves someone else holding the cost," he replied, feeling Vella’s hand return to his ribs outside.
The Goddess reached toward him, yet stopped before her fingers could cross the engine’s boundary.
"Take the choice back to your body, then return when your people can guard the door," she told him, leaving the boundary intact.
Vella’s voice grew louder outside, and pain tore through Hajin’s ribs when she pressed against the Decree Wound.
Aria moved first, closing the inner route before the pain could pull Hajin deeper into the Fragment.
The Goddess remained awake as the chamber folded away, her eyes open inside the engine while Hajin’s awareness climbed toward the mountain air.
Hajin returned to the sensation of stone, blood, and Vella’s hand against his side with Divine Refusal waiting behind the damaged pathways.
Forty percent had awakened a person inside the Fragment and given him one exact rejection, while the cost waited for the moment he chose to use it.
The waking presence remained behind his returning awareness, patient enough to wait for a deliberate door.