[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing Corridor — 10:41 AM]

Alex was standing.

Not well. But standing.

[HP: 491,700 → 482,800]

[Corruption: 76%]

[F4 — active interference with F1 due to sustained damage]

The corridor between him and Davan had twenty meters of rubble and two broken walls in between. Raven to his right, evaluating angles. The team regrouping via communicator but still scattered throughout the Academy.

Davan at the far end of the corridor with the necklace glowing and his eyes still choosing what color to be.

"You know you can’t win," said Alex.

"You’re carrying two Fragments." Davan. "I’ve had mine for twenty minutes." A pause. "And I threw you twenty meters."

Alex didn’t answer.

Because he was right.

---

[F1 — Soul Sight — activated]

The spiritual plane of the corridor appeared in Alex’s vision.

Davan surrounded by F5’s field — visible as concentrated pressure, denser near the necklace, radiating outward in layers. It wasn’t offensive energy yet. It was something more like gravity. Everything that entered that radius became heavier, slower, more inclined to yield.

And F4 in Alex responded to that pressure in the wrong way.

*Incorrect* was the only word Alex had to describe it.

F4 had spent months without fully integrating — the two parallel conversations Emily had described, the Veil and the Core operating in the same space without having grown accustomed to each other. Under normal conditions that was manageable.

Under F5’s suppression from Davan, F4 was losing coherence.

Like trying to speak two languages simultaneously while someone was shouting at you in a third.

[F4 — critical interference under F5 suppression]

[F4 skills: -45% effectiveness]

Alex closed Soul Sight.

Useful information. The situation was worse than it seemed.

---

Davan advanced.

Not running. Walking. F5’s field moving with him, adjusting its radius, learning in real time how Dominion worked against an active Core.

The necklace guiding him — not with a voice, with instinct. As if F5 were rewriting Davan’s combat reflexes with the logic of something that had spent centuries knowing how to subdue wills.

Alex activated [Shadow Step].

He appeared to Davan’s right — outside the field’s central radius, at the weakest angle according to Soul Sight.

[Blood Weapon — crimson dagger]

The dagger connected with Davan’s side.

[Davan HP: X → X-2,400]

Davan turned.

Without the reaction time someone with twenty minutes of experience with a Fragment should have.

F5 was compensating — Dominion didn’t increase Davan’s speed, it reduced the environment’s resistance to his movements. As if space itself yielded a little faster when Davan needed it.

The counterattack arrived before Alex finished repositioning.

[F5 — Directed Suppression — focused]

Not on the whole body. On Alex’s right hand. On the hand holding the dagger.

[F1 in right hand: -60% localized stats]

The dagger went out. Not disappeared — went out, like a flame deprived of oxygen.

Alex pulled back.

---

From the side corridor — three of Cael’s Inquisitors entered.

Not attacking Davan. Attacking Alex.

Levels 71, 74, 76.

Maximum priority according to Agustín’s orders — the F1 bearer was the primary target, not the F5 bearer who could still be recovered by the Temple.

The first with a wave of concentrated energy toward Alex’s torso.

[Alex HP: 482,800 → 474,100]

[Corruption: 76% → 78%]

Raven intercepted the second before he arrived.

[Army of Bones — blocking skeletons]

The third slipped between the skeletons — specifically trained for combat against undead, Raven’s skeletons weren’t enough of an obstacle for someone level 76.

Alex took the third one’s blow on his left shoulder.

[Alex HP: 474,100 → 463,800]

[Corruption: 78% → 80%]

*Threshold.*

F1 responded to the number with its usual alarm. And F4, destabilized by F5’s suppression and now under corruption pressure, did something it hadn’t done before.

It offered alone.

Without F1. Without coordination.

Just F4, directly, with the urgency of something that saw the threshold approaching and decided to act on its own.

*Let me.*

Alex pushed it back.

It cost more than it should have.

---

Davan was four meters away.

The necklace glowed with a different intensity than at the start — warmer, more settled. F5 learning Davan with each passing second.

And Davan learning F5 the same way, with the logic of someone who had spent his entire life following a chain of command and had just found one that answered only to him.

*Faith in the Temple as fuel.*

That was what Alex saw on the spiritual plane when he looked at Davan.

F5’s corruption didn’t work the same way as F1’s — it didn’t erode identity, it replaced it. It took what Davan already believed and amplified it until the belief was more real than the person holding it.

Davan wasn’t losing control.

He was voluntarily handing it over to something that promised him his faith was right.

"The Temple is right about the Fragments," said Davan. Not specifically to Alex. Like someone confirming something they needed to confirm. "Look what it does. Look what it does to you."

"The Fragment is using your own faith to control you," said Alex.

"Or it’s giving me reason to have it."

F5 oriented itself again.

Massive pressure on the plane between life and death where Alex’s F4 operated — crushing F4’s interference as if crushing a conversation it didn’t need to hear.

[F4 — partial disconnection under maximum suppression]

[F4: 0% effectiveness while suppression lasts]

Alex lost perception of the plane.

All at once. Like going blind in one eye.

The third Inquisitor took advantage of the moment of disorientation.

[Alex HP: 463,800 → 451,200]

[Corruption: 80% → 82%]

F1 offered.

F4, even suppressed, offered from where it was.

Both at the same time.

Corruption responding to the number, to the damage, to the accumulated pressure of three Inquisitors and an F5 bearer and F4 destabilized and Raven occupied with the side corridor and the team still regrouping.

Alex against the wall.

[Corruption: 82% → 84%]

Grim through the synchronization, from the perimeter, more urgent than any time before:

**"MASTER. LISTEN TO ME."**

Alex gritted his teeth.

He pushed back.

The Fragments yielded a centimeter. Just one centimeter.

Enough for it still to be Alex looking at Davan at the end of the corridor and not something else.

But the side corridor brought more footsteps.

More Inquisitors.

And Davan, with the necklace glowing and the faith of the Temple amplified until it became something F5 could use as a weapon, raised his hand for the next strike.

[Corruption: 84% → 86%]