[Celestial Academy — Side Corridor — same moment]

Raven felt the second creature through F3.

Not with Soul Sight. With Necromantic Mastery — the two‑hundred‑meter radius of F3 detected something that was not undead but existed on the boundary of what death meant. Like a signature that F3 recognized from the Harvester’s memories that Grim had shared.

Ancient. Pre‑sealing. The kind of entity the original Harvester processed differently from the rest.

The second creature entered the side corridor through the ceiling.

Not through the walls. Through the ceiling — its four physical limbs opening a hole in the stone with the same ease with which a person opens a door, its two spiritual‑plane limbs descending first like anchors.

Four meters tall in a low stance. More elongated than the first. Moving with a fluidity that didn’t match its mass.

Orienting toward Raven.

F3’s spectral crow collided with the creature’s energy signature and dissolved completely — not temporarily. It dissolved because the creature existed on the same spiritual plane as F3 and its presence was massive enough to displace Fragment energy.

Raven looked at where the crow had been.

She looked at the creature.

"That I did not expect."

---

[Celestial Academy — Central Courtyard — same moment]

The third creature emerged from the ground.

Without warning. Without prior vibration. The central courtyard floor simply opened, and the creature came out as if the ground were a water surface and it had been underneath waiting.

Shorter than the other two. Wider. An anatomy that the students still in the courtyard looked at and then looked away from because their brains generated an error trying to process it.

Kira saw it fully with [Predator’s Sense].

What [Predator’s Sense] returned was enough for her ears to flatten back instinctively.

The creature had a ventral cavity that pulsed with a rhythm independent of the rest of its body. And as the students watched and the Inquisitors evaluated and Maya calculated the first contingency —

The cavity opened.

From it came lesser creatures.

Not small — lesser in relation to the mother. Two meters each. Same energy signature, same impossible‑to‑process anatomy, same absence of eyes with the same ability to orient toward magical presences. Emerging in groups of six. Then twelve. Then eighteen.

Every three seconds, six more.

Emily looking at that with the expression of someone who needed ten seconds to process and didn’t have ten seconds.

"Is it giving birth?" said Emily.

"Not exactly," said Maya. Calculating. "It’s generating. It’s not reproduction — it’s fission. It divides to multiply." A pause as she counted. "At this rate, in two minutes there will be enough to cover the entire courtyard."

Kira already with [Predator’s Sense] at maximum, reading the eighteen lesser creatures dispersing toward the students running toward the exits.

Four students with no clear escape route.

Two Inquisitors between the lesser creatures and the students — the same ones who had been attacking the team two minutes earlier.

The level‑72 Inquisitor from the south looked at the lesser creatures. Looked at the students. Looked at Kira, Maya, and Emily.

Without saying anything, he positioned himself between the lesser creatures and the students.

The level‑70 one did the same.

The other eight as well.

In ten seconds, the ten Inquisitors who had been trying to capture the team were forming a barrier between the lesser creatures and the four hundred students who still hadn’t evacuated.

---

[Celestial Academy — Main Corridor — same moment]

Grim in Form 2/7 felt all three simultaneously.

Not with Soul Sight. With the Harvester’s memories.

*No souls to harvest. Presences to avoid.*

The original Harvester avoided these entities.

That was enough information.

**"Master."** Through the synchronization. **"The creatures sense the Fragments as territory. They will prioritize attacking us over anything else in the Academy."**

*I know.* Alex through the synchronization, from the administrative wing corridor with the first creature regrouping after the impact into the wall. *Can you contain the one in the courtyard?*

**"The one in the courtyard generates lesser creatures. I need help."**

*Who is available?*

Grim processed the corridor map. The six Inquisitors under Soul Prison or retreating. Raven in the side corridor with the second creature. The team in the courtyard with the third.

And Cael.

Cael in the administrative wing corridor looking at Davan and the first creature and calculating exactly the same problem Grim was calculating.

---

[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing Corridor]

Cael looked at the first creature regrouping.

Looked at Davan on the ground getting up.

Looked at Alex getting up.

Three simultaneous problems — Davan with active F5 and advancing corruption, Alex with corruption at 93% and two Fragments pushing, and a level‑200 entity in the corridor with them that had hit both of them at the same time without even trying.

Cael had spent twenty years being the Temple’s executor.

He knew exactly what level 200 meant in an urban zone.

He activated his communicator.

"All available Inquisitors — student evacuation. Absolute priority. Father Agustín is no longer in command of this operation." A pause. "I am."

---

[Celestial Academy — Side Corridor]

The second creature oriented toward Raven.

Raven looking at the second creature.

Army of Bones at maximum — five hundred skeletons in the corridor. The creature passed through the first twenty as if they didn’t exist, its spiritual‑plane limbs dissolving F3’s energy at every contact.

*F3 doesn’t work directly against this.*

Raven evaluated.

[Hemomancy — activated]

Not on the creature. On the ground around it — the blood marks that the previous fight had left on the stone, the traces that no Academy corridor should have but that this one did after the last twenty minutes.

The blood on the ground responded to F3.

Not as a weapon. As a sensor — tracing the position of the creature’s spiritual limbs that were invisible but displaced the blood on the physical plane when they passed close.

Raven could see where what she couldn’t see was.

"Alright." Adjusting her grip on the silver knife. "This is something else now."

From the far end of the corridor — Cael appeared with his squad.

Looking at Raven.

Looking at the creature.

Without saying anything, he took position on the opposite flank.

And from the southern entrance of the corridor — Marcus Steele with Aurum at full form, the golden dragon with [Solar Supremacy] charging, the dragon’s eyes fixed on the creature.

Marcus looking at Raven.

"Do you know how to kill it?"

"Not yet." Raven. "Do you?"

"Neither."

"Then let’s find out together."

The second creature lunged.

The three from different angles