[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing Corridor — 12:08 PM]

Emily stood five meters from the Harvester.

Its completely crimson eyes stared at her.

Emily’s Purifying Light was off.

No active signature. An irrelevant variable.

The Harvester turned toward Grim’s constructed creature — still standing, still sustained by F1’s channel, still the most urgent target available now that the first creature had fallen.

Emily took a step toward him.

"In Ishi," she said.

The Harvester didn’t respond.

"The night after the fight against the thermal temple guards." Emily.

"You had taken too much damage. The corruption had risen during the fight, and I was calibrating Targeted Purification to bring it down."

The Harvester was still.

Not looking at her. Not ignoring her.

Still.

"You fell asleep in the middle of the session." Emily.

"Your head was resting on my left shoulder, and I couldn’t finish the calibration without moving you, but I didn’t want to move you." A pause.

"I spent forty minutes calibrating from the wrong angle so I wouldn’t wake you up."

Nothing.

The completely crimson eyes didn’t change.

Emily breathed.

"The next day you asked me why the session had taken so long. I told you it had been a complicated case." Her eyes on the irisless eyes. "I didn’t tell you the truth because I was embarrassed that I cared about not waking you up."

---

Seraph entered the south corridor.

She evaluated the situation in three seconds — Emily facing the Harvester, the constructed creature still active, F1 sustaining the F4 channel that kept it standing.

"Jessica." Seraph’s voice toward the north corridor where the F6 bearer still was. Direct. Tactical. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"I need you to come to the constructed creature’s left flank. F6 can degrade the coherence of the F4 channel sustaining it — if the channel gives way, the creature collapses without anyone having to eliminate it."

Jessica entered the south corridor with 18,600 HP and her student backpack still on her back.

She looked at the constructed creature.

Looked at Emily facing the Harvester.

Looked at Grim on top of the constructed creature with his double‑bladed scythe now oriented toward the Harvester.

"Understood," said Jessica.

She moved toward the left flank.

---

Davan from the arch connecting the two corridors.

[F5 — Dominion Field — concentrated mode — target: Alex’s body]

Not toward the Harvester as an entity.

Toward Alex’s physical body — Dominion found the bearer’s physical mass and applied submission pressure on the plane where the body existed.

The Harvester processed the pressure.

F1 and F4, operating without the bearer as an intermediary, encountered F5’s Dominion.

Not resisting.

Evaluating.

[F5 — suppression of physical body movement — partial effectiveness]

Alex’s body slowed — not paralyzed like the bearers the first creature had pinned, but reduced to forty percent of movement speed.

The Harvester fixed in relative position.

"I can hold for three minutes," said Davan from the arch. His voice carried the effort of someone with 2,200 HP sustaining a skill that normally required ten times that margin.

"After that, I have nothing."

"That’s enough," said Seraph.

---

Marcus from the north corridor evaluated the constructed creature.

Aurum on his shoulder — the golden dragon looking at Grim on top of the constructed creature.

"Aurum."

Aurum looked at Marcus.

Marcus looked at the constructed creature. At Grim on top of it. At the 420,000 HP of material from two level‑200 creatures reorganized by F1.

"I need you to contain it. Not eliminate it — contain it on the south side of the corridor while the others work."

Aurum processed the instruction.

The golden dragon climbed down from Marcus’s shoulder.

And grew.

The administrative wing corridor was not exactly open space.

Aurum filled the corridor from wall to wall — a four‑meter wingspan in a four‑meter‑wide corridor, its golden scales brushing the stone on both sides, its head almost touching the ceiling.

[Aurum — true form — level 80]

The constructed creature looked at Aurum.

F1 processed Aurum as a new obstacle.

Grim on top of the constructed creature looked at Aurum.

His crimson flames evaluated.

[Solar Supremacy — Aurum — charging]

This time without holding back.

Heat accumulated in Aurum’s breath glands with the intensity of something that had been compressing solar energy for long enough.

The constructed creature charged toward Aurum.

Aurum charged toward the constructed creature.

---

The impact between Aurum in true form and the three‑ton constructed creature produced the kind of collision the corridor was not designed to absorb.

The ceiling gave way at three points.

The walls pushed outward — the stone found the limits of what it could contain and gave way instead of resisting.

[Aurum — Solar Supremacy — released — point of contact with constructed creature]

The white light that emerged was not a beam.

It was expansion — Aurum’s Solar Supremacy in true form filled the space between him and the constructed creature with an intensity that made those in the north corridor instinctively look away.

[Constructed creature — Solar Supremacy damage — Aurum true form: 287,400]

[Constructed creature HP: 420,000 → 132,600]

The constructed creature was pushed south — the impact of Solar Supremacy plus Aurum’s mass displaced the three tons of irregular material toward the south end of the corridor.

Grim on top of the constructed creature absorbed the displacement — Form 2/7 existing partially on the spiritual plane, the heat of Solar Supremacy affecting that plane differently from the physical one.

[Grim — Form 2/7 — Solar Supremacy damage on spiritual plane: 48,200]

[Grim HP: 8,000 → 0]

The crimson flames in Grim’s eyes fluctuated.

Form 2/7 lost coherence at its edges.

And Aurum processed what he had done.

The damage to Grim reached Marcus through the bearer‑companion connection as heat in his chest.

Marcus looked at Aurum.

Aurum looked at Grim.

The dragon’s golden eyes on the fluctuating crimson flames.

Processing.

Solar Supremacy had contained the constructed creature.

And had pushed Grim to the limit of what F1 could sustain in manifested form.

Aurum processed that for 0.8 seconds.

And something in the dragon’s energy changed.

---

It wasn’t immediately visible.

It was the temperature — the north corridor felt two degrees warmer than ten seconds ago. Then four. Then eight.

Aurum’s golden scales responded to something internal.

The golden scales darkened.

The light gold became dark gold, almost amber.

It was heat that had become visible.

Aurum grew two meters more — not in wingspan, in presence.

Marcus looked at Aurum.

"Aurum?"

Aurum looked at Marcus.

His eyes — no longer the usual light gold. Deep amber with something white in the center that hadn’t been there before.

[Aurum — evolution — level 80 → level 87]

[Solar Supremacy — power increased]

[Solar Breath — range and damage increased]

[New skill: Solar Corona — passive heat field in 8m radius]

Marcus processed that.

Aurum didn’t change posture — looking at the constructed creature trying to get back up at the south end of the corridor with 132,600 HP.

Looking at Grim on top of it with his flames fluctuating.

Aurum oriented Solar Corona.

The passive heat field activated in an eight‑meter radius. To create an environment where the residual material of the two dead creatures that made up the constructed creature progressively lost coherence.

[Constructed creature — degradation by Solar Corona: 4,200 per second]

Slow. But constant.