[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing Corridor — 10:54 AM]

Davan fired.

[F5 — Concentrated Suppression — 3m radius — maximum intensity]

Alex with [Shadow Step] exited the radius before the suppression closed — appearing four meters to Davan’s right flank with the crimson sword and the F4‑channeled‑through‑F1 chain simultaneously.

The sword from above.

The chain from below wrapping around Davan’s right ankle before F5 could read the angle.

[Blood Weapon — sword — impact]

[F4 via F1 — chain — bind]

[Davan HP: 312,000 → 291,400]

Davan turned with his free shoulder — the left one, which still had full mobility. His elbow connecting with Alex’s side with the force amplified by the Dominion field.

[Alex HP: 371,600 → 358,900]

[Corruption: 91% — stable]

The chain broke. F5 orienting toward the channel between F1 and F4 and cutting it for 0.8 seconds — enough for the chain to lose coherence.

Davan free.

---

Behind Alex, Grim held off the six Inquisitors.

[Soul Prison — active — 3 Inquisitors suspended]

The other three retreated before the Death Aura but didn’t surrender — waiting for the moment when Alex took enough damage for F1 to lose stability.

Grim without taking his eyes off the three.

**"Master. The channel."**

"I know." Alex repositioning. "I have 0.8 seconds before he cuts it again."

**"Then don’t use it twice in a row."**

Alex processed that.

*Use the channel. Let F5 cut it. Use something else while it recharges. Go back to the channel.*

It wasn’t efficient. It was what he had.

[Shadow Step — left flank]

He appeared one and a half meters from Davan — inside the suppression radius this time, deliberately.

[F1 — suppressed 35%]

[F4 — suppressed 50%]

But inside the radius, F5 couldn’t use directed suppression without affecting itself.

Davan understood in the same second.

"You’re using my own field against me."

"Your field has a blind spot in the center." Alex. "Everything with a radius has a blind spot in the center."

Davan looked at the necklace.

F5 processing the information — learning, recalibrating, searching for how to close the blind spot without collapsing the outer coverage.

Two seconds of recalibration.

Alex used the two seconds.

[Necrotic Burst — F4 via F1 — channeled into right fist]

Not the standard Burst outward. The energy collapsing inward at the point of contact — the same pattern that had worked in the Catacombs against the Veil.

The fist connecting with Davan’s chest.

[Davan HP: 291,400 → 264,800]

Davan flew two meters backward.

He landed on his feet — F5 absorbing part of the impact, Dominion redistributing the damage through the field before it fully reached the bearer.

But his knees gave way a centimeter before stabilizing.

---

Davan looked at Alex.

For the first time since putting on the necklace, something in his expression wasn’t certainty.

It was calculation.

"You’re using both Fragments in coordination." Davan. Not a question. An evaluation. "That shouldn’t be possible with F4 still unintegrated."

"F5 helped me."

"How?"

"By suppressing it so much that F4 looked for another route." Alex holding the crimson sword. "Thanks."

The necklace pulsed.

[F5 — Dominion Field — emergency expansion — 12m radius]

Not directed suppression. Massive expansion — flooding the entire corridor with Dominion pressure, affecting everything with magical presence within the radius indiscriminately.

The three Inquisitors Grim was holding fell to their knees — the instinct to submit before Dominion crushing their resistance.

Grim feeling the field’s weight in Form 2/7 — stat reduction, Death Aura competing against the Dominion field in the same space.

[Grim — F5 Expansive Field — stats -20%]

And Alex inside the radius with corruption at 91% and both Fragments pushing under accumulated pressure.

[F1 — suppression 35% under expansive field]

[F4 — suppression 55% under expansive field]

[Corruption: 91% → 93%]

F1 offered.

F4 offered.

*Let us.*

Alex closed the offer.

He pushed outward with what remained of his margin.

[Corruption: 93% → 91%]

It cost more than any previous time.

---

[Celestial Academy — Director’s Monitoring Room — same moment]

Magnus looking at the screens.

Four magical surveillance cameras covering the central courtyard, the main corridors, the administrative wing. The entire Academy in real time.

The administrative wing corridor — Alex and Davan.

F1 and F5 energy visible even on the basic‑level cameras as distortions in the magical plane.

The corridor walls with new cracks.

The floor with impact marks that would cost weeks to repair.

The central courtyard — Emily, Maya, Kira. Akari in full form. Nine Inquisitors with visible damage.

The side corridors — Raven advancing with Army of Bones toward the administrative wing.

Grim in Form 2/7 visible on the administrative wing camera — three meters of translucent armor with permanent crimson flames that the cameras couldn’t fully capture because part of his form existed on the spiritual plane.

Magnus processing all of this.

"Davan is capable." He said it quietly. Not as praise.

"With proper training, that Fragment could be an asset to the Temple. Look how he uses the field, how he adapts the suppression in real time—"

"No." Agustín without taking his eyes off the administrative wing screen. "We already had this conversation about Seraph fifteen years ago, Director. And about Carter last year."

"This situation is different. Davan is of the Temple. His loyalty—"

"Look at the screen." Agustín pointed to the administrative wing camera.

Specifically the frame from four minutes ago, paused. Davan with the Dominion field oriented toward Cael.

The level‑89 Inquisitor under partial suppression, unable to close the distance. "He attacked Cael. His mentor. The man who recruited him at fifteen."

Magnus looked at the frame.

"The Fragment—"

"The Fragment used his faith as fuel and convinced him that attacking Cael was consistent with that faith." Agustín. "That’s how corruption works, Director. It doesn’t erase what the person is. It amplifies it until the person can no longer distinguish where they end and the Fragment begins."

Magnus didn’t answer.

"If this continues," Agustín continued, "in weeks he will attack the Temple with the same certainty with which he now defends it.

The Fragment will find a way to convince him that that is also consistent." A pause. "Fragments have no loyalties. They have bearers."

Magnus looked at the screens. The corridor. The courtyard. The side corridors.

"Then what do you propose?"

Agustín looked at the screen without answering immediately.

His eyes on Alex. On Davan. On the team scattered through the Academy causing a level of damage that none of the reports had anticipated.

"What I should have done all along."

He turned to the communications operator in the corner of the room.

"Prepare the containment wagons on the southern perimeter. All of them."

The operator looked at him.

"All of them, Father Agustín?"

"All of them."

---

[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing Corridor — 10:57 AM]

F5’s expansive field remained active.

Alex holding position six meters from Davan — the point where suppression was tolerable without being zero, where he could use F1 at 65% capacity and F4 at 45%.

Davan with the necklace glowing and his eyes that color no longer just something choosing what to be. It was something that had chosen.

"You’re losing ground," said Davan. "Your corruption rises even if you don’t show it."

"Yours does too." Alex. "F5 is consuming you faster than you think because it uses your faith as fuel, and faith isn’t infinite."

Davan considered that.

"I have enough faith."

"That’s exactly what F5 would make you believe."

The necklace pulsed. Davan preparing the next directed suppression — this time toward the channel between F1 and F4, trying to cut the synchronization at the moment of maximum pressure.

Alex activated [Shadow Step].

Davan already anticipating Shadow Step — F5 learning the pattern, orienting the field toward the likely materialization point.

Alex didn’t materialize where F5 expected.

He materialized two meters further back than F5’s calculation — inside the field’s radius but at its edge, where suppression was minimal.

[Blood Weapon — sword and chain simultaneous via F1+F4 synchronization]

The sword from above left.

The chain wrapping directly around the necklace.

[Davan HP: 264,800 → 238,200]

The chain on the necklace — F5 responding with massive pressure toward the chain, trying to break it before Alex could use it as leverage.

Thirty‑four thousand damage in one exchange.

Davan with one knee on the ground for 0.4 seconds before F5 stabilized him.

---

The floor shook.

Not from the fight.

From something different — deeper, more massive.

A vibration coming from the Academy’s southern perimeter and propagating through the building’s stone as if the ground itself were processing something it didn’t know how to handle.

Alex and Davan stopped simultaneously.

The three Inquisitors facing Grim stopped.

Grim with his crimson flames oriented outward — Soul Sight active, processing.

**"Something is opening."**

A second vibration.

Stronger.

With a magical pressure on top that Alex felt in F1 and F4 at the same time — not suppression, not attack.

Presence.

[F1 — ancient entity alert]

[F4 — ancient entity alert]

[Corruption: 91% → 93%]

Davan felt the necklace vibrate against his neck.

F5 responding to the same pressure — not with fear, with the evaluation of something that recognized what was coming and knew it was different from everything else in that corridor.

"What is that?" said Davan.

Alex didn’t answer immediately.

Because he was feeling the pressure on the spiritual plane and processing what it meant.

Level 200.

It wasn’t an estimate. It was a figure that the Guild’s classification system theoretically had but that no living adventurer had confirmed in the field.

**"Three,"** said Grim. His crimson flames brighter than in the entire fight. **"There are three."**

The corridor ceiling creaked.

A third vibration — this one with enough force that stone dust fell from the cracks that Alex and Davan’s fight had left.

Davan looked at Alex.

Alex looked at Davan.

The necklace still glowed. F1 and F4 still pushed from inside. Corruption at 93% remained the most important number in the corridor.

But the two bearers in that moment shared the same information.

Agustín had released the creatures.