Hajin sat cross-legged on the wagon bedroll and drew the captured frequency inward while Vella slept beside him.
He kept the foreign signal apart from Vella's sleeping channels, unwilling to expose her to another uninvited claim.
Beside him, Vella lay fast asleep, her breathing deep and even as her exhausted spiritual channels finally found complete rest.
With a focused exhalation, he withdrew the sampled foreign frequency from his core, carrying it inward through his soul meridians.
His consciousness sank beneath the waking world, passing the six radiant physical Rings that orbited his spiritual core.
He emerged into the inner sanctuary of the divine Fragment, where the endless void transformed into a blooming memory garden.
Patches of wild, shimmering wildflowers swayed across the ethereal grass, though most of the blossoms remained gray and unopened.
