The West Yard was still smoldering when the high-altitude wards of the Citadel began to scream. It wasn't a physical sound, but a psychic wail that vibrated through the marrow of every living soul within the walls. In the Dean's private sanctum, the air didn't just feel cold—it felt hollow, as if the oxygen itself had been sucked out by a celestial vacuum.
Dean Alexander sat motionless, his face a mask of grey stone. Beside him, Captain Allen was pacing, his boots clicking erratically against the obsidian floor. The Captain's hand never left the hilt of his sword, his knuckles white with a tension that bordered on panic.
"The report is a disaster, Alexander," Allen hissed, stopping to slam a folder onto the desk. "The West Yard is a total loss. The ley-line junction we spent forty years stabilizing has been... eaten. Not broken. Not disrupted. Consumed. My men can't even get within fifty paces of the crater without their mana-circuits seizing up."
The Dean didn't look at the folder. He was staring at the silver bowl on his desk, which was no longer filled with still water, but with a swirling, violent vortex of black ichor.
"Alistair failed," the Dean said, his voice a hollow whisper. "He didn't just fail to kill the boy. He fed him. He took the most concentrated essence of the Tenth Choir and handed it to a Null on a silver platter."
"Alistair is lucky to be alive," Allen spat. "He's currently in the High Infirmary, and the healers say his soul looks like it's been through a thresher. He keeps rambling about 'the Golden Ring.' What in the Hells is the Golden Ring, Alexander?"
Before the Dean could answer, the vortex in the bowl stopped spinning. The black ichor smoothed out into a mirror-like surface, and a face began to form—not a human face, but a shifting arrangement of geometric light and ancient eyes.
The room went silent. Captain Allen dropped to one knee, his head bowed so low his forehead touched the floor. The Dean stood, his legs trembling.
"The Gardener was clumsy," the voice vibrated through the walls. It was the Unknown God, the Architect of the Lower Spheres. The tone wasn't angry; it was worse. It was curious. "He used a scalpel where a scythe was required. Now, the weed has tasted the blood of the gardener."
"Great One," the Dean stammered, "we can still contain him. The F-Class is isolated. We have the Inquisitor-General on standby. We will—"
"You will do nothing," the God interrupted, the geometric eyes in the bowl flashing with a terrifying brilliance. "The boy has moved beyond your jurisdiction. He has integrated a fragment of the Divine. He is no longer a Null. He is a 'Hollow Saint'—a vessel that can hold our power but refuses our will. Do you have any idea what that does to the Balance?"
"It... it creates a vacuum," the Dean whispered.
"It creates a doorway," the God corrected. "Every time he uses that power, the veil between our world and the Void thins. If he continues to grow, he won't just destroy the Academy. He will invite the Outer Terrors into the Garden. The damage Alistair caused isn't measured in stone and mortar, Alexander. It is measured in the stability of the Firmament."
Captain Allen looked up, his face pale. "Then give us the order. We'll level the West Wing. We'll burn the F-Class to ash while they sleep."
"And risk the boy detonating?" the God countered. "If his core collapses now, the resulting explosion will erase Oakhaven from the map. No. He must be drained. Gently. Systematically. He must be brought to the Sanctum of Echoes, where we can harvest what he has stolen."
"But he won't come willingly," the Dean said. "Not after today."
"Then you will use the only leverage you have left," the voice hummed, the light in the bowl beginning to fade. "His 'friends' are his anchors. Break the anchors, and the ship will drift where you lead it. If you fail me again, Alexander, I will not send another Gardener. I will simply burn the garden and start anew. Do you understand?"
The light vanished. The bowl shattered into a thousand pieces of porcelain, leaving the Dean and the Captain in a suffocating darkness.
"You heard Him," Allen said, standing up and wiping sweat from his brow. "We grab the girl and the tinkerer. We use them as bait. I'll mobilize the Elite Guard immediately. We'll tell the rest of the school it's a 'protective quarantine' due to the lab breach."
"Wait," the Dean said, his eyes narrowing. He looked toward the heavy oak doors of his sanctum. "Did you hear that?"
Allen frowned, his hand moving back to his sword. "Hear what?"
"A hum. Like a frequency out of place."
The Dean walked toward the door, his hand glowing with a detection spell. Before he could reach the handle, the heavy wood didn't just open—it unravelled. The molecules of the wood seemed to vibrate until the door simply turned into a fine, brown mist.
Standing in the hallway was Andre.
He wasn't wearing his usual grease-stained jumpsuit. He was wearing a long, hooded cloak, and his eyes were covered by a new pair of goggles that flickered with a rapid, green data-stream. In his hands, he held a device that looked like a cross between a compass and a bomb.
"The 'protective quarantine' sounds like a great idea, Captain," Andre said, his voice surprisingly steady despite the fact that he was facing the two most powerful men in the Citadel. "But I think we're going to have to decline the invitation."
The Dean's eyes widened. "Andre? How did you get past the wards? No student can penetrate this level without—"
"Without a key?" Andre interrupted, tapping the side of his goggles. "You're right. But you see, Matthew didn't just eat that 'Divine' energy. He leaked a bit of it. And I caught it in a jar. It turns out, your 'invincible' wards are built on the same frequency as the stuff Matthew just digested. To these doors, I'm not a student. I'm a God."
Captain Allen drew his sword, the steel singing as it cleared the scabbard. "You're a dead man, boy. Where is the Null?"
Andre smiled, a sharp, dangerous look that belonged on a much older man. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a small, glowing crystal—a remote trigger.
"Matthew? Oh, he's busy packin' his bags," Andre said. "But he told me to tell you one thing before we left."
Andre's thumb hovered over the button.
"He says the Garden is officially closed for the season."