Cael processed.

His eyes on Alex. On Grim. On the corridor around them.

Then he looked at Davan against the wall.

"Do you know what’s going to happen when they get here?" he said to Davan.

"Yes." Davan’s expression didn’t change. "I know."

Cael looked at him for a moment.

Cael didn’t say anything more about that.

He turned to Alex.

"Two hundred meters." His voice. "Move."

---

Alex turned to the team.

Kira already had the route mapped — her amber eyes with Predator’s Sense active, reading the side corridors that Agustín wouldn’t have had time to fully close.

"East side corridor," said Kira. "Then the maintenance passage we used to get in. It gives us a hundred‑meter head start if we leave now."

"Let’s go," said Alex.

Emily beside him.

Maya with Akari.

Raven with her spectral crow oriented toward the side corridor.

Marcus evaluated.

"Aurum and I will leave through the north." A pause. "I have a route that doesn’t cross Agustín’s."

Alex looked at him.

"Will we have a rematch later?"

Marcus considered the question honestly.

"Probably." Nothing more.

Aurum looked at Grim one last time.

The crimson flames in the dragon’s golden eyes.

Aurum turned away.

Marcus followed him toward the north corridor.

---

Alex stopped for a moment at the connection arch.

He looked at Davan.

Davan looked back.

He now had 2,200 HP and the certainty that staying was what he had to do.

A different certainty. The same Davan.

Alex nodded.

Davan nodded.

---

[East Side Corridor — 12:18 PM]

The team moved.

Kira ten meters ahead, Predator’s Sense mapping the corridor in real time. Alex and Grim behind her. Emily, Raven, Maya in advance formation.

[Alex HP: 31,400]

[F1 Corruption: 95% — stable]

[F4 Corruption: 72% — stable]

[Grim HP: 800 — recovering with residual Solar Corona]

The numbers Alex read as he ran.

Ninety‑five percent.

Three weeks of hard work had taken corruption from 68% to 95% in forty minutes of fighting.

It wasn’t sustainable.

Agustín’s message had already been sent — the Harvester active in the Celestial Academy, the creatures eliminated, the damage visible from any angle the reports would take. The world was going to know in hours what had happened here.

What Alex Carter and his team were capable of, and what the Fragments were capable of when a bearer lost control.

Agustín had wanted to prove that the Fragments were dangerous on a national scale.

Today he had gotten exactly that demonstration.

The difference was that Alex was still free to process it.

*I need time.*

Not to hide.

To understand exactly what had happened today — the moment when F1 and F4 had taken full control, the moment when Emily and Raven and Kira and Maya had pushed from outside and he had pushed from inside, and the moment when the Fragments had yielded.

That hadn’t happened before.

That was new.

---

[East Side Corridor — intersection — 12:19 PM]

Kira raised her hand.

The team stopped.

"Two Inquisitors." Low voice. "Seventy meters. South side corridor. Level 73 and 71. Patrol, not attack formation."

Alex processed.

Raven already had her spectral crow oriented — the shadow bird moving on the corridor’s spiritual plane, invisible to Inquisitors who didn’t have perception of that specific plane.

"I’ll divert them," said Raven.

She didn’t wait for confirmation.

[Soul Manipulation — activated — passive control on corridor’s spiritual plane]

The spectral crow oriented toward the two Inquisitors.

Ten seconds.

The two Inquisitors turned toward the south side corridor.

"Now," said Kira.

They crossed the intersection.

---

[Maintenance Passage — 12:20 PM]

The same passage they had used to enter.

Now, the passage door to the outside.

Kira evaluated it.

"No guard. The perimeter isn’t complete yet." A pause. "Agustín arrived with fourteen. That’s not enough to close all exit points simultaneously."

"How much time do we have?" asked Emily.

"Enough." Kira opened the door.

---

[Outside the Celestial Academy — 12:21 PM]

The air of Imperial City.

Noon. The direct sun on the stone buildings of the administrative district, the streets with the usual traffic of a city that still didn’t know what had just happened.

It wouldn’t take long.

The magical waves from the fight would have reached the city’s measurement systems twenty minutes ago. The reports would arrive before the team got to wherever they were going.

Alex looked outside.

Grim in his arms, the crimson flames progressively stabilizing — rest and Aurum’s residual Solar Corona doing what the fighting and the damage had undone.

"Where are we going?" asked Maya.

"Away from Imperial City first," said Alex. "Then we decide."

Raven was already evaluating routes with the spectral crow — the shadow bird on the street’s spiritual plane, mapping active magical presences within a hundred‑meter radius.

Emily beside her.

Kira ahead.

Maya with Akari in reduced form.

The team moved.

---

[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing Corridor — simultaneous]

The first Inquisitors of Agustín’s faction rounded the north corridor corner.

Fourteen. Levels 71 to 88. Capture formation — not evaluation.

They stopped when they saw the corridor.

The damage. The remains. The systems that the reports of the last four hours had been describing and that in reality were considerably worse than any description.

The level‑88 Inquisitor at the front evaluated.

He evaluated the corridor.

He evaluated Cael standing at the connection arch between the two corridors.

He evaluated Davan against the north corridor wall with 2,200 HP and F5’s necklace visible on his neck.

"Inquisitor Cael." The level 88. "Father Agustín requires your immediate presence."

Cael looked at them.

Without moving.

His eyes on the fourteen Inquisitors of Agustín’s faction. On the level 88 at the front. On the formation that was not the capture of Carter’s team — it was the capture of whatever remained in the corridor.

Davan.

The fourteen Inquisitors began to distribute themselves in the corridor — not toward Cael, toward Davan. The formation closing the arch between the two ends of the north corridor with the specific efficiency of people who had done this before and knew exactly what the necklace on Davan’s neck meant to Father Agustín.

Davan didn’t move.

He didn’t activate F5.

He didn’t try to leave.

He stayed where he was — against the wall, 2,200 HP, the necklace glowing with a light that the fourteen Inquisitors could see perfectly — and looked at Cael.

Cael looked back.

One second.

Then Cael moved toward the level‑88 Inquisitor.

"Father Agustín can wait thirty seconds." Cael’s voice with the same control as always. "I need to give instructions to my team."

The level 88 evaluated him.

"The orders are—"

"I know what the orders are." Cael. "Thirty seconds."

---

Cael approached Davan.

The fourteen Inquisitors in the corridor.

Davan looking at Cael.

Cael in a low voice — low enough that the fourteen couldn’t hear:

"When they ask you about Carter’s team, you don’t know anything that isn’t in the combat report."

Davan looked at him.

"And if they ask about you?"

"Tell them the truth." Cael. "That I was the first to respond to the fight in the administrative wing and that I arrived too late to contain it."

A pause.

"Is that the truth?"

"It’s a version of it."

Davan processed that.

"Cael."

"What."

"Carter said the message has already been sent. That the world already knows what happened." Davan. "Is that true?"

Cael looked at the corridor.

The remains. The damage. The kind of evidence that Agustín would use on every platform he had access to — and Father Agustín had access to all the platforms that mattered.

"Yes." He said it without ambiguity. "It’s true."

Davan nodded.

The fourteen Inquisitors closed the arch.

The capture formation complete.

Davan against the wall with the necklace glowing and the decision made and the destiny he had chosen when Carter asked him what he was going to do and he had answered without hesitation.

Cael turned to the level 88.

"Proceed."

---

[Outskirts of Imperial City — East Route — 12:34 PM]

The team was out of the city.

The east route — not the fastest, the most covered. Kira had chosen it in the first hundred meters after leaving the Academy, and no one had questioned the choice because Kira didn’t choose routes without reason.

Alex with Grim.

[Grim HP: 2,400 — recovering]

The crimson flames more stable. The 80 cm form responding better to movement — not the rattling of something that was falling apart, but the weight of something that was returning.

"How do you feel?" Alex asked him.

Grim looked at him from his arms.

**"Like. Aurum. Burned me."** A pause. **"Which. Is exactly. What happened."**

"He did it to contain you."

**"I know."** His flames. **"I’m. Not. Angry."** Another pause. **"Much."**

Alex almost smiled.

"We’ll talk to Marcus about it when we see him."

**"I’ll. Wait."**

---

Emily beside him.

The two walked without speaking for a moment.

It was Emily who spoke first.

"Purifying Light activated on its own."

Alex looked at her.

"I know. I felt it."

"Ishi said it would work like that when I learned to stop calculating." Emily looking at the road ahead. "I guess I learned it at the worst possible moment."

"Or at the right moment."

Emily didn’t answer immediately.

"Corruption is at ninety‑five," she said finally. "Five percent margin before one hundred."

"I know."

"Alex."

"I know, Emily."

Silence.

"The time you need," said Emily. "To learn to control them. How long do you think it is?"

Alex looked at Grim.

Looked at Raven ahead.

At Kira mapping the route with Predator’s Sense, her amber eyes on the horizon.

At Maya with Akari.

"I don’t know," Alex said honestly. "But I need it before Agustín uses what happened today to convince the world that Fragments don’t have bearers — only threats."

Emily nodded.

She didn’t say anything else.

There was no need.

---

[Imperial City — Temple Control Room — 12:36 PM]

Agustín entered the administrative wing corridor.

He stopped at the connection arch where Cael was standing.

He looked at the north corridor.

He looked at the south corridor.

He evaluated the damage with the precision of someone who had spent thirty years evaluating exactly this kind of damage.

He didn’t say anything for fifteen seconds.

Then he looked at Cael.

"They left."

"Yes."

"When."

"Before the full perimeter arrived."

Agustín processed that.

His eyes on the corridor. On the remains of the creatures. On the four points where the ceiling had given way.

Then on Davan — surrounded by the fourteen Inquisitors, against the wall, F5’s necklace glowing on his neck with a light that the control room had been documenting for an hour.

"How long has he had the Fragment active?" Agustín asked Cael.

"Less than a day."

"And he already operates like this."

It wasn’t a question.

Agustín looked at the corridor.

"This," he said quietly, "is exactly what I needed."

Cael looked at him.

"For what."

Agustín turned toward him.

The expression of the oldest man in the Temple — not satisfaction, not cruelty.

"So the world stops wondering if I’m right."

---

[East Route — moving away from Imperial City — 12:38 PM]

The team moved.

The city behind them.

Ahead — time. Distance. The work that needed to be done before the next time came and there were no second chances to learn it.

Grim in Alex’s arms.

The crimson flames stable.

**"Master."**

"What."

**"Next time."** His flames on Alex. **"Not. So close. To one hundred."**

"Agreed."

**"Good."** A pause. **"Aurum. And I. Will talk. Later."**

"I know."

**"Good."**

The administrative wing corridor of the Celestial Academy was left behind.

What had happened there was not left behind.

It wasn’t going to be left behind.

But what came next — the time, the work, what needed to be learned — started now.

It started with the team moving and Grim recovering in Alex’s arms and corruption at ninety‑five percent and five points of margin that weren’t enough but were what they had.

It was enough to start.