Chapter 397: The First Seal Opens
Hajin stored the Legendary Chain before he took two different artifacts into his hands. Collector’s Grasp covered his bare left palm with dark-gold lines.
Breaker’s Lever entered his right hand from inventory, its sealed metal head aligned against the Dominion seam Ferra had marked. Three Rings rotated around his forearm while the cracked temporary bracer held its remaining shape.
Didi kept the Underworld claim frozen through True Bearer while Vella held the child’s wrist and maintained her existing rhythm.
Rumi opened the marked approach while Nari held the retreat without closing through the prison, and Hajin checked positions before saying, "The Lever exposes the seam, but nobody pulls the child until Collector confirms body, soul, and core remain joined."
Ferra placed one final gauge against the spatial glass and said, "Apply force toward the black housing, then rotate away from the soul membrane, because the brace cracks after the first recoil and the Lever must remain wedged."
Hajin pressed the sealed head into the opening as Breaker’s Lever recognized a forced boundary and resisted his hand.
The artifact had opened gates, armor plus hostile structures in prior fights. This seam existed partly as law rather than material, so he aligned Phase Lock through Collector’s preserved frequency and gave the Lever one physical line to challenge.
"Incarnation structure detected," Aria said within his thoughts, "separation between the child’s core and the foreign lattice measures less than one stable interval."
Hajin applied leverage as the first backlash shattered the temporary bracer along Ferra’s prepared seams and metal ribs opened without cutting his arm.
The remaining force burned through his right-hand pathways while he kept the handle moving until the seam widened by one finger.
Ferra removed each broken rib before it could catch the Lever during rotation. She worked with mundane pliers because mana entering the seam would acquire Dominion pressure.
The cracked pieces landed in separate trays and preserved a complete record of how the refusal lattice distributed its single allowed impact as Collector’s Grasp entered from the left.
Dark-gold lines touched the child’s demonic core and found the living pause before every twelfth needle. The artifact wrapped body, soul membrane, and core as one held structure, refusing the Dominion lattice’s attempt to classify them separately.
"Joined pattern secured," Aria said, "external incarnation braid exposed."
The First Prince activated every remaining laboratory defense inside the established operational boundary. He also increased the twelve-needle cycle until the child lost her learned pause.
Vella supplied that missing rhythm through their joined fingers as she counted aloud without forcing the core, while Didi froze the final needle whenever the accelerated command tried to bypass the sequence.
The rescue and defense formed one operation, because nobody could defeat the chamber before returning for the patient when every hostile body used her circulation as its power source.
Divine bodies unfolded above the chamber while demonic extraction tools rose beneath the treatment floor and Juna intercepted the airborne mechanisms without crossing the prison.
Loccy carried the shifting foundation while Ferra marked each safe core and watched the Lever angle, but Hajin could not release either artifact to join them.
Rumi borrowed distance from one verified route and sent Juna’s solar cut through a marked shell while Nari fixed the mechanism’s last spatial exit so it could not redirect death pressure into the child.
Didi froze the royal command attached to its core, and the shell died beneath Juna’s returning cut.
[Laboratory Defense Destroyed]
[Hajin Experience Gained: 244,000]
The operation ledger advanced while another occupied body descended, and Vella separated its unwilling mortal remnant through Hajin’s Spirit Ring before signaling Ferra after the living residue reached safety.
Loccy crushed the empty housing against a prepared support as Juna removed the divine core and Rumi transferred its dangerous recoil into a second empty mechanism Nari had already bounded.
Experience receipts accumulated at the edge of Hajin’s vision without interrupting the rescue while Aria hid each individual panel after recording its value.
A visible reward at the wrong moment could cover the strain gauge Ferra needed him to watch. The total mattered only after all occupied defenses were reconciled.
Hajin kept his attention on the child’s joined frequency rather than the rising ledger as Breaker’s Lever shifted another fraction.
The sealed head caught behind the exposed incarnation lattice and created a physical wedge where none had existed as the artifact’s outer seal cracked along one engraved line.
[Breaker’s Lever - Seal Response]
[Condition Met: Forced entry into an exposed incarnation boundary]
[Partial Function Unsealed: Incarnation Wedge]
[Current limitation: Lever must remain physically wedged after handle release]
Hajin released the handle as the Lever stayed wedged in the seam, keeping body, soul, core, and prison separated for the next operation.
His right hand came away burned and shaking, while Collector’s Grasp remained closed around the child’s joined frequency from the left.
Ferra inspected the exposed angle and said, "The wedge is stable for thirty breaths if nobody increases foundation pressure."
The Prince increased foundation pressure immediately as stone shifted around the physical wedge and Loccy changed her grip from the chamber ceiling to the older arch beneath it.
She carried the full load without touching the Lever while her feet sank into the floor and the spatial glass stopped moving toward the child’s core.
Rumi opened a short route between two verified supports so Ferra could reach the opposite gauge, and Nari closed it after Ferra crossed to prevent foundation pressure from using it as an escape seam.
The Prince’s gallery descended toward the chamber as the remaining defenses attacked in one coordinated wave while Juna ran the upper boundary and killed marked bodies.
Loccy carried the physical recoil away from the prison while Rumi and Nari kept every spatial death inside Closed Hunt without trapping their allies.
Didi held True Bearer despite blood flowing from her palm while Vella maintained the child’s circulation through each destroyed mechanism.
The final active defense opened beneath Hajin’s feet. Nari fixed its exit, Rumi moved the traveled distance into Ferra’s prepared ground frame, and Loccy drove the core onto a mundane spike.
Juna’s narrow cut ended the occupied shell after Vella withdrew its last dead residue, and Aria reconciled the fixed laboratory ledger.
[Laboratory Defenses Destroyed]
[Operation Experience Reconciled: 2,720,000]
[Hajin Current Experience: 97,200,000 / 250,000,000]
No further mechanism moved inside the complete chamber while the Prince remained alive above them and the child remained attached to five unbroken anchors beyond the Lever’s exposed seam.
Juna confirmed the retreat door still opened physically as rescued guards and palace attendants reached medics outside with no new execution body approaching through the stair.
Eirwen held the civilian boundary without a functioning Zone, with royal clerks and ordinary warning lines instead, while the empty ground remained verified but the orchard’s exhausted memory could not answer again.
Ferra watched the loaded wedge and said, "Thirty breaths became twenty-two, and the artifact opened the first seal, not the entire prison."
Hajin tightened Collector’s Grasp around the joined pattern without pulling while his right arm could no longer hold another tool steadily, but the next requirement belonged to the Fragment rather than force.
Vella looked toward the child’s eyes and asked, "May I keep holding your hand while the wall moves?"
The child clung to her fingers while Didi repeated the protected designation and kept the ownership claim suspended, as the sisters stabilized the known approach.
Incarnation Wedge held the foreign lattice open through a real metal artifact that could still fail.
"Sanctuary conditions are visible," Aria said, "compatible circulation, endangered bloodline, reversible refuge, and an external claim currently denied."
The first seal had opened through leverage rather than proclamation as Hajin turned his damaged right palm toward the Fragment and offered no command over the life held in his left.
"We use Sanctuary only if it shelters her without becoming another wall," he said, "and we test that definition before the next seal moves."
The child remained outside the Fragment for now, held by the living frequency that Collector’s Grasp had preserved.
Hajin could feel the refuge waiting beneath his core, but he kept it separate from the girl until the final conditions were met.
Didi maintained True Bearer with one bleeding hand while Vella counted the next twelve breaths as the sisters guarded the known route.
Ferra checked whether the Lever’s wedge could survive the foundation pressure long enough for the shelter to receive its first failure.
Didi pressed her bleeding palm beside the opened seal without touching its edge. "One door," she said, "and five anchors still get to disagree with us."