[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing Corridor — 10:44 AM]

Six more arrived.

From the side corridor. Levels 68 to 75. Containment formation — not to kill, to surround. Cael’s orders were clear: capture the F1 bearer, contain the F5 bearer.

The problem was that containing Davan and attacking Alex at the same time meant no one was doing either job well.

Raven with Army of Bones absorbing three of the six before they reached Alex. The other three got through.

[Alex HP: 451,200 → 441,600 → 433,100]

[Corruption: 86% → 87%]

Alex wasn’t striking back to kill. He couldn’t. Four thousand students in the Academy, Inquisitors following orders they hadn’t chosen, people who in another context weren’t the enemy.

They didn’t have that problem with him.

---

Davan in the center of the corridor with the necklace glowing.

He no longer walked the same way. Something in his posture had changed in the last three minutes — more settled, more direct, as if F5 were finishing adjusting its bearer’s center of gravity. Dominion wasn’t violent. It was patient. It took what it found and made it more of that.

What it found in Davan was faith.

Faith in the Temple, in the chain of command, in the idea that there was a correct order in the world and that order was worth defending. F5 took that faith and amplified it until it was no longer belief — it was absolute certainty. The certainty of someone who doesn’t need to doubt because doubt no longer has an entry point.

Alex could see it on the spiritual plane even though F4 was suppressed. F1 was enough to read it.

"Davan." Alex dodging an Inquisitor’s strike, repositioning. "The Fragment is using your faith. What you’re feeling now isn’t yours — it’s F5 amplifying what you already believed until you can’t distinguish it from yourself."

"I can distinguish it perfectly." Davan. "That’s how I know I’m right."

"That’s exactly what someone who can’t distinguish it would say."

F5 pulsed. The Dominion field expanded another meter — the Inquisitors closest to Davan felt the instinct to submit even though they were on his side, even though they were from the Temple, even though the necklace was on the neck of someone theoretically their ally.

One of them stepped back without meaning to.

Davan didn’t notice.

---

Cael entered from the north end of the corridor.

Without his squad. Alone.

He evaluated the situation in four seconds — Alex against the wall with three Inquisitors on him, Raven holding the side corridor, Davan in the center with F5’s field affecting everyone present indiscriminately.

"Davan."

Davan turned.

Something in his expression changed when he saw Cael. Not F5’s field — that remained steady. But Davan himself, the person beneath Dominion, recognizing someone who mattered.

"Inquisitor." The same tone as always. But slower. As if processing it cost more than before.

"Stop." Cael took a step. Not toward Alex. Toward Davan. "Listen to me."

"I’m listening."

"What you have around your neck is not a Temple tool. It’s not an advantage you can use to convince Agustín of anything." Cael. "It’s exactly what the Temple has been saying the Fragments are for decades. And if they see it in you, they aren’t going to see value. They’re going to see a threat."

Davan processed that.

F5 processing it too — evaluating the information, searching for a way to reframe it within the certainty it had already built.

"Then help me control it," said Davan. "If you’re on my side, if we go together to Father Agustín and explain that I can use it with discipline—"

"It doesn’t work that way."

"Why not?"

"Because Agustín doesn’t evaluate bearers." Cael two meters away now. "He classifies them. And once classified, there’s no argument that changes that classification. I know because I’ve spent twenty years being the one who executes those classifications."

Davan looked at the necklace.

Something in his expression moved — not doubt, something smaller than doubt. A question that F5 still hadn’t completely crushed.

"Then what do you propose."

"Give me the necklace." Cael extended his hand. "It’s better that it be in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what to do with it than in the hands of someone with a good heart and dreams. Because a good heart and dreams are exactly what the Fragment will use to consume you."

Silence in the corridor.

The Inquisitors had stopped attacking Alex. Listening. Without anyone ordering them to stop — just the scene absorbing everyone’s attention.

Alex also stopped. With his back against the wall, corruption at 87%, both Fragments pushing from inside. But listening.

Davan looked at Cael.

Looked at the necklace.

Looked at his own hands.

And F5, which had been learning Davan for minutes, which had found faith as fuel and amplified it into certainty, which had taken loyalty and made it absolute —

Found the moment of doubt.

And closed it.

"No." Davan’s voice more settled than before. Colder. "You are no match for me."

F5’s field oriented itself toward Cael.

"I am Dominion."

---

[F5 — Directed Suppression — target: Inquisitor Cael — level 89]

The pressure hit Cael like a physical wall.

Cael at level 89 with twenty years of experience resisting — pushing back, his own magical containment skills activating, creating resistance on the plane where F5 operated.

Enough not to fall.

Not enough to advance.

[Cael — partial suppression: -25% stats under Dominion field]

Cael standing one and a half meters from Davan, unable to close the distance, with the expression of someone who had just seen exactly what he feared confirmed.

*Exactly like Seraph. But worse. Because Seraph ran, and Davan is not going to run.*

---

The Inquisitors resumed their attack on Alex.

Six now. The original ones plus those from the side corridor. Alex without F4 operational, with corruption at 87%, not striking to kill.

[Alex HP: 433,100 → 421,400 → 409,800]

[Corruption: 87% → 89%]

F1 offered.

F4 offered from where it was suppressed.

Both of them.

*Let us.*

Alex against the wall again, with a level‑74 Inquisitor grabbing his shoulder and another preparing the blow that would drop HP into critical range—

The corridor shook.

Not from magic. From weight.

---

Three meters of translucent armor landed in the corridor from the ceiling — Grim’s Form 2/7, permanent crimson flames, the double‑bladed scythe that had existed only since the Catacombs, his flame‑eyes fixed on the Inquisitors surrounding Alex.

**"Enough."**

It wasn’t a shout. It didn’t need to be. Grim’s voice in Form 2/7 carried the weight of something that had existed before the Temple had a name.

The Inquisitors stepped back.

Instinct. Not decision.

[Grim — Form 2/7 — Death Aura active]

[Effect on radius: progressive weakening of living presences]

The level‑74 Inquisitor released Alex.

Grim positioned himself between Alex and the six Inquisitors with the naturalness of something that had been doing this since before the world needed to classify things by level.

**"He’ll handle the necklace."** His crimson flames not leaving the Inquisitors. **"We’ll handle this."**

Alex stood up.

Corruption at 89% pushing.

F1 and F4 pushing.

And Davan at the end of the corridor with the necklace glowing and Cael one and a half meters away unable to advance and the faith of the Temple turned into something F5 had learned to use as a weapon.

Alex wiped the blood from his lip.

He looked at Davan.

He walked toward him.