[Circle Base — Main Entrance — 3:47 PM]

Max leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed and a smile that had been there since the first images from the plaza reached the guild channels.

Viktor beside him. No smile — but with the expression of someone who had seen something he hadn’t expected to see and was still processing it.

The team arrived via the east route.

Alex in front. The scythes dissolved. The Harvester’s attire still on because he’d had neither time nor reason to change it.

"Ladies and gentlemen —" Max pushed off the frame with his arms open, "— that was the best thing I’ve seen in the last five years of my life."

Viktor looked at Alex.

"Three Fragments simultaneously." A pause. "I didn’t know that was possible."

"Neither did I." Alex.

Max opened his mouth to say something else.

Alex fell.

His legs gave way without warning, his knees hitting the ground and his hands on the ground and blood coming out before anyone could move, falling onto the entrance cobblestone in a dark stream that F1, F4, and F5 together had done nothing to stop.

The girls reached him at the same time.

Emily with her hands already in Purifying Light position. Kira kneeling beside him. Maya with Akari climbing down from her shoulder. Raven two steps back, evaluating.

Alex raised his head.

He smiled.

"The power I used today —" he spat blood to the side, "— is incredible." A pause. "But it did a fair amount of damage to me."

[Alex HP: 26,300 → 19,800]

[F1 Corruption: 95% — stable]

[F4 Corruption: 64% — stable]

[F5 Corruption: 12% — new link]

---

"Obviously."

Seraph came out of the base.

Jessica behind her with her notebook already open.

Seraph looked at Alex on the ground. Looked at the blood. Looked at the numbers F2 returned about the state of the three Fragments in Alex’s body.

Alex looked at her.

"You used three techniques that are above your current level." Seraph.

"Stopping someone’s death requires the Core to operate on the plane between life and death in a sustained way. That’s not free." A pause.

"On top of that, you forced three Fragments to synchronize without any training for that synchronization. And you assembled a creature from museum skeletons using Raven’s F3 as a channel without being F3’s bearer yourself."

Alex didn’t answer.

"What did surprise me —" Seraph looked at Alex’s HP, "— was the Harvest. Harvesting complete human souls with F4 without F4 taking control. I’d never seen that before."

Jessica looked up from her notebook.

"How does it feel?" she asked Alex directly. "After having decided someone else’s death."

The question arrived without filter.

Alex thought for a second.

"It was good that only the most corrupt of the Temple were the ones taken." A pause.

"Even though it’s the second time I’ve done it. After the Heralds." He looked at the blood on the cobblestone.

"It feels weird. Harvesting dungeon creatures isn’t the same as harvesting human souls."

Jessica made a note.

"That’s rather hypocritical, no offense." Without looking up. "A soul is a soul."

Alex looked at her.

He laughed.

Once.

"You’re right." A pause. "Though that reminds me that I need to learn to control this power once and for all."

---

Seraph looked at the whole team.

At Emily. At Raven. At Kira and Maya. At Max and Viktor at the entrance. At Jessica. At Alex on the ground with three active Fragments.

"You five are enemies of the continent now." She said it with the same cadence she would use for any piece of data.

"The next time the Temple sends someone, it will be to kill you. Not to capture you, not to negotiate." A pause.

"You have to understand that with the lives you have now, you can’t afford to be kind."

No one answered.

"I’ll teach you to master the Grim Reaper’s power." Looking at Alex. "All three Fragments. Synchronization. Controlled Harvesting. What comes after today won’t be faced with what you have now."

Alex looked at her from the ground.

He nodded.

Jessica closed her notebook.

She opened it again.

"History moment." She said it quietly, more to herself than to the others. "I’ll be hearing this for the first time too."

Grim came out of the temple base in his 80‑centimeter form, speaking through Alex’s mind.

**"So you know something about that?"**

Alex looked at Grim.

"What is it, Grim? Something from your past?"

**"My memories about that are very fuzzy, so it would be better if Seraph explains."**

Alex looked at Seraph again.

"Grim wants to know about that. His memories are fuzzy."

"The Reset." Jessica. "Seraph knows about it. And she’s never told it."

Alex looked at Seraph.

Seraph looked at Alex.

Then she looked at the whole team — everyone present, all of them watching her.

She sat down on the entrance step.

"Alright," she said. "Listen."

---

"The Gods were not created."

Seraph’s voice without emphasis. As always.

"They simply appeared. With a purpose already fixed — to build a world where they controlled everything. Life. Death. The order of things." A pause. "The problem was that the world already had something before they arrived."

"The Grim Reaper," said Alex.

"The Grim Reaper." Seraph. "An entity created by no one. With no criteria of good or evil. That recognized no hierarchies or exceptions." A pause. "It harvested souls. That was all it was and all it did. Mortals, creatures, whatever. Without distinction."

Maya: "And the Gods?"

"Them too." Seraph looked at them. "The Grim Reaper had no concept of what a God was. For him, it was just another soul with a moment of arrival. If it felt like the right time, it harvested. No matter who it was."

The silence at the entrance.

"The Gods couldn’t control that. And they couldn’t build the world they wanted with something like that existing." Seraph. "So they decided to seal it."

"The Fragments," said Raven.

"The Fragments. They took the Grim Reaper’s essence and divided it into seven parts. Each sealed in a different object. The idea was that fragmented, the Grim Reaper couldn’t operate — without the complete essence, the entity doesn’t exist. Only the Fragments exist."

Emily: "And the Reset?"

Seraph didn’t answer immediately.

She looked at the ground for a second.

"The Reset is what comes after the plan works." Her voice unchanged.

"The Gods want to destroy the current world. Build a new one — one where they control life and death completely. Without exceptions. Without the Grim Reaper." A pause.

"To do that, they need the right moment to arrive. And that moment is near."

"How do you know?" asked Kira.

"Because there have never been this many active bearers at the same time before." Seraph.

"The Fragments have been sealed for eons. When a bearer activates one, the Gods notice. One or two isolated bearers — manageable. They kill them or wait for the Fragment to consume them." Pause.

"But now there are several active bearers who aren’t killing each other over the others’ power. That hasn’t happened before."

Alex said nothing.

"And that worries them." Seraph. "Because if the Fragments don’t eliminate each other, sooner or later they will push toward something. All seven together." She looked directly at Alex.

"When all seven Fragments unite in a single bearer, the Grim Reaper will emerge whole."

The entrance in silence.

"So?" said Alex.

"So for the first time in its existence, the Grim Reaper will have something it never had." Seraph.

"The Gods sealed it. Fragmented it. Used it as a tool for their plans for eons." A pause.

"The neutral entity that only did its job — that entity will awaken with the memory of what was done to it."

"Revenge," said Jessica. Without surprise. Just naming it.

"The corruption that the Fragments produce in their bearers —" Seraph, "— is not a side effect of the power. It’s the Grim Reaper’s hatred pushing outward from each of the seven pieces they left it in." She looked at Alex.

"What you feel when the Fragments push for control isn’t the Fragment wanting to destroy. It’s the Grim Reaper wanting to find those who sealed it."

Alex looked at his hands.

The three lights on his chest. Crimson. Violet. Gold.

"And the Gods know all of this?"

"They know that if all seven Fragments unite before the Reset, the Grim Reaper will emerge with full memory of what was done to it and the ability to harvest the Gods themselves." Seraph.

"That’s why the Reset has to happen first. If they destroy the current world first, the Fragments disappear with it."

"When?" asked Emily.

"I don’t know." Seraph.

"I know it’s soon. I know that if until now they’ve only sent indirect agents — the Temple, the Heralds, corrupted bearers — it’s because they wanted to handle the Fragments from afar." A pause.

"But with what happened today, with three Fragments in the same bearer visible to the whole continent —"

She didn’t finish the sentence.

She didn’t need to.

---

Max broke the silence.

"So basically —" his arms still crossed, "— we’re in the middle of a divine plan for world destruction. The Temple wants to execute us. And the guy on the ground has three Fragments and nineteen thousand HP."

No one answered.

"Good." Max. "I’ve seen worse situations."

Viktor looked at him.

"You haven’t seen any situation worse than this."

"No." Max. "But it sounds better when I say it like that."

---

Alex was still on the ground.

Grim beside him — the 80‑cm form, the crimson flames low, still recovering.

**"Master."**

Alex looked at him.

**"What Seraph said."** His flames. **"About the Grim Reaper. About revenge."**

Alex waited.

**"I remember it."** A pause. **"Not everything. But something."**

Alex didn’t answer immediately.

He looked at the three lights on his chest.

"What do you remember?"

**"That before the Fragments —"** Grim, **"— there was no loneliness. Only the work. And the work was enough."**

Long pause.

**"Until it wasn’t."**

The team listened.

Seraph from the entrance step watching Grim.

Jessica taking notes.

Alex looked at Grim for another second.

"Good." He got up slowly. Knees first. Hands on the ground. Standing. "Then we have work to do."

He looked at Seraph.

"Start whenever you’re ready."