The creature finished reorienting.

854,800 HP oriented toward both of them.

Learning. More complete. Stronger than at the start because it had all the energy from all three.

And the two of them with HP dropping and corruption at its limit and a creature that regenerated faster than they could deal damage.

"Why didn’t you use it before?" said Alex.

Seraph looked at the creature.

"Because if it fails, I have nothing left for the next exchange." Her eyes on the left rear point they had attacked twice. "I needed to know the point was real before betting everything on it."

"And now you know?"

"We attacked it twice. It responds." Seraph. "It’s real."

Alex looked at the creature.

Looked at the corruption that F1 returned as a number — 95%, stable for now, but with the margin closing with each exchange where he took damage.

Looked at Seraph.

"What do you need from me?"

"To fix it in position when F2 launches the maximum cut." Seraph. "Not with the chain. The cooldown isn’t over." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"Then?"

Seraph looked at the corridor.

The debris. The cracks. The damage from twenty‑two minutes of fighting accumulated on the walls and the floor and the ceiling.

"F4 opens the plane between life and death." Her eyes on Alex. "Can you open it partially around the creature — not outward but inward from its position?"

"Trapping part of the creature between the two planes?"

"Yes. If part of its mass exists on the plane between life and death instead of completely on the physical one, it can’t move without collapsing its own coherence."

Alex evaluated whether F4 could do that.

The Harvester’s memories that F4 carried — the plane between life and death as a space of transit, not permanent habitation. Pre‑sealing level‑200 creatures already existed partially on that plane — it was part of their anatomy.

Which meant F4 could find that part.

And anchor it.

"I can try," said Alex. "But if F4 opens the plane during the exchange, the corruption will respond."

"How much?"

"I don’t know exactly. Two or three points minimum."

"Will you hit one hundred?"

"It depends on how long F4 holds the opening."

"I need four seconds." Seraph. "For F2’s maximum cut."

Four seconds with F4 partially opening the plane around a level‑200 creature with 854,800 HP.

With corruption at 95%.

"If I hit one hundred during the four seconds—" Alex.

"Then you push back like you’ve done before."

"It’s not as simple as it sounds."

"I know." Seraph looked directly at him. "But it’s what we have."

The creature charged.

"Now or after the next exchange," said Seraph.

Alex looked at the creature.

Looked at the crimson eyes that F1 showed him when he saw his own reflection in the corridor’s reflective surfaces — 95% corruption, both Fragments ready to offer at the first sign of weakness.

Reasons.

Raven in the side corridor, already finished. Emily and Maya and Kira in the courtyard, already under control. Davan and F6’s bearer in the north section, which F1 no longer perceived as active combat.

The whole team.

All the people who had made it this far.

"Now," said Alex.

---

[F4 — partial opening of the plane between life and death — around the first creature]

The plane opened not outward — inward, F4 finding the parts of the creature’s anatomy that already existed on that plane and anchoring them.

The creature felt the anchor.

It tried to move.

The movement produced the kind of incoherence that F4 had anticipated — the part of its mass on the physical plane trying to advance while the part anchored on the plane between life and death resisted.

The creature stopped its advance.

Not because it couldn’t move — because moving with the anchor active cost more than the system could manage without compromising coherence.

[Corruption: 95% → 97%]

F1 offered.

F4 offered — even though it was F4 that was holding the anchor, it also offered. The paradox of a Fragment offering control while simultaneously executing the bearer’s instruction.

Alex pushed both back.

[Corruption: 97% → 96%]

Holding.

"Three seconds," said Seraph from the creature’s rear flank with F2’s scythe oriented toward the left rear joint — the point they had attacked twice, the point that responded, the point where F2 at maximum was going to do what it hadn’t done yet.

[F2 — The Scythe — maximum cut — spiritual plane — left rear joint — permanent separation]

The scythe’s light changed.

Not blue‑white.

Not pure white like in the previous exchanges.

Absolute white — the kind of white that exists when something that cuts on the spiritual plane at maximum capacity finds the exact point it’s looking for.

[Corruption: 96% → 98%]

F1 and F4 simultaneously — maximum urgency, the corruption at the number it had never reached in previous exchanges without losing control.

*Now. The bearer can’t sustain this. Let us.*

Alex pushed.

It cost everything he had.

[Corruption: 98% → 96%]

The scythe connected.

[F2 — maximum cut — left rear joint — permanent separation of spiritual limb]

The creature’s left rear spiritual limb — separated from the physical body at that point permanently.

The energy that had sustained that limb redistributed internally.

The interior became softer in F1’s perception — the pressure the spiritual limb had exerted on the internal system disappeared, the interior responding to that absence with the equivalent of a defense system losing a layer.

[First creature — permanent loss of left rear spiritual limb]

[First creature — interior vulnerability: significantly increased]

The creature roared.

The strongest spiritual vibration of the fight — the entire corridor shook, the ceiling releasing a full two‑meter section that Alex dodged instinctively, the walls with new cracks running from floor to ceiling.

[Corruption: 96% → 98%]

F4’s anchor released — the vibration had broken the anchor’s coherence, the part of the creature on the plane between life and death freed from the anchor by the force of the vibration.

Alex without F4 active.

With corruption at 98%.

With both Fragments offering with the urgency of something that had spent twenty‑two minutes waiting for this exact moment.

And the creature with its left rear spiritual limb permanently separated and its interior significantly more vulnerable.

And still 854,800 HP.

"The interior," said Seraph from the rear flank. "Now. Before it stabilizes."

Alex looked at the creature.

Looked at the eyes the corridor reflected back at him — 98% corruption, two Fragments on the threshold of taking control.

He pushed.

[Corruption: 98% → 96%]

There was still margin.

Little. But still margin.

[Blood Weapon — crimson sword — channeled via F1+F4 — concentrated Necrotic Burst]

Toward the interior exposed by the spiritual limb’s separation — the point where the exoskeleton no longer had the spiritual coverage that had sustained it.

The sword found less resistance than in any previous exchange.

The Burst collapsed inward.

[First creature — damage to exposed interior — post‑separation: 184,600]

[First creature HP: 854,800 → 670,200]

Seraph simultaneously.

[F2 — direct cut — exposed interior — same point]

[First creature — direct F2 damage — exposed interior: 134,200]

[First creature HP: 670,200 → 536,000]

Three hundred eighteen thousand eight hundred in one exchange.

The creature was pushed back by the massive interior damage — its physical limbs losing coordination for 4.1 seconds while its system processed the largest single instance of damage it had taken in the fight.

Both repositioned.

---

"Five hundred thirty‑six thousand," said Alex.

"Yes." Seraph evaluated the creature during its 4.1 seconds of processing. "Three hundred eighteen thousand damage. The interior without spiritual coverage is what we’ve been looking for."

"Can you repeat the maximum cut?"

"F2 needs forty seconds to recharge the separation cut." Seraph. "But the interior is already exposed — I don’t need to separate another limb to attack it directly."

"How much damage does direct F2 do to the exposed interior without the separation?"

"Less than with the separation. But more than the previous exchanges."

"Estimate?"

"Ninety thousand. One hundred thousand."

Alex processed.

536,000 HP remaining.

Seraph with direct F2 to the interior causing 90,000‑100,000 per exchange.

Plus Alex’s damage in each combo.

Five exchanges. Maybe four if Alex’s damage scaled with the interior becoming more compromised each time.

[Corruption: 96%]

[Alex HP: 238,800]

Four or five exchanges with damage taken in each.

The margin was exactly the margin that remained.

"Can you finish it?" said Seraph.

Alex looked at the creature.

Looked at the corruption.

Looked at the corridor, with the whole team already finished with their fights and who at some point would arrive here.

"Yes," he said.

"Sure?"

"No." Alex holding the crimson sword. "But it’s what we have."

The creature finished its 4.1 seconds of processing.

Reorienting.

With its left rear spiritual limb absent — its movement slightly asymmetric, its system compensating for the absence by redistributing the other limbs.

Still learning.

With 536,000 HP.

And its interior exposed.

And two Fragment bearers who had spent twenty‑two minutes learning exactly how to reach that interior.

The creature charged.

Both from calculated angles.