The Stag moved.
Not toward Toren.
Not toward the fractured dampener anchors.
Toward Caelum.
Its porcelain hooves struck stone in accelerating intervals, each impact ringing like a cracked bell. The courtyard seemed to narrow around its advance, reflections multiplying across its lacquered hide. In its glaze, Caelum saw not humiliation, but coherence—the kitchen, the shard, the wings that had nearly unfolded.
It had recognized structure.
"Move!" one of the patrol officers barked.
Caelum did not sprint blindly. He angled left, counting under his breath.
One hundred and sixteen seconds.
If dispatch had not exaggerated.
The Stag fractured distance, appearing five strides closer in a blink. Caelum dropped low as antlers split the air above him, the ceramic tips shaving dust from the wall behind. Stone burst outward in brittle shards.
A patrol officer intercepted from the flank, containment rod slamming into the Stag's shoulder seam. Another deployed a triangular Red dampener mid-throw, embedding it ahead of the creature's projected path. Two more followed, forming a skewed perimeter in motion.
Red lines flared into existence.
Gravity intensified inside the triangular field.
The Stag staggered mid-charge, hooves sinking into compressed stone.
"Forty-five percent!" the lead officer called.
Caelum rolled beyond the red boundary just as the field locked. The weight inside the perimeter deepened instantly; the air itself felt denser, heavier.
The Stag lowered its head.
In its glaze, the officers saw not past failures—but this moment. The uncertainty in their stances. The awareness that compression alone was insufficient.
The creature twisted violently.
One dampener anchor cracked loose under a direct hoof strike.
The red perimeter ruptured.
Normal gravity snapped back.
The Stag surged forward with doubled speed.
Eighty-three seconds.
Caelum darted behind a collapsed lattice stack. A patrol officer shoved him further, positioning himself between Caelum and the creature.
"Stay moving," the officer muttered. "Never hold still."
The Stag pivoted with unnatural articulation, joints bending too smoothly. Its hooves struck twice in rapid succession, each impact distorting distance. The courtyard warped in brief flashes—stone replaced by scaffold planks, shadows elongating like remembered judgment.
It lunged again.
This time it did not miss.
The officer who had shielded Caelum raised his containment rod too late. The antlers caught him through the torso with a sickening squelch. For a suspended heartbeat, his body hung there, reflected infinitely across the Stag's glaze.
Then the creature flung him aside.
He struck the stone wall and slid down without movement. Blood painting the wall red.
The courtyard went quieter.
Not silent.
Heavier.
Sixty-one seconds.
The remaining officers adjusted formation without shouting. One dragged the fallen body clear while the others deployed two more triangular dampeners in quick succession, forming a compressed corridor to funnel the Stag's advance.
"Hold it inside the wedge!" someone shouted.
Red lines flared again, this time angled to narrow space rather than encircle it.
The Stag entered the corridor and immediately slammed against the densest compression node. Its cracks flared white-hot under strain. Ceramic plates splintered, but beneath them something darker pulsed—a lattice of coherent memory binding it together.
It roared then.
Not an animal sound.
A resonance.
The courtyard vibrated as if struck by a tuning fork.
The red corridor destabilized.
One dampener overheated, its core glowing brighter before failing.
The Stag burst through.
Forty-two seconds.
Caelum's breath remained measured.
Four in.
Six out.
The creature's gaze locked onto him again.
He saw himself reflected—not in shame, but in containment. Kneeling beside his father. Flattening memory before it could bloom.
The Stag tilted its head.
It wanted reenactment.
It charged.
Twenty-nine seconds.
A sharp crack split the air from above.
Not ceramic.
Not containment rod.
Impact.
The Stag's forward motion halted mid-stride as something invisible slammed into the ground before it, compressing stone downward in a circular depression.
A new weight entered the courtyard.
Measured.
Deliberate.
The patrol officers stepped back instinctively.
At the far edge of the square stood a figure in darker reinforcement plating, coat longer, seams etched with faint phase inscriptions. His Mind-Blanker array was integrated, not worn—three narrow bands encircling his temples like a coronet of matte alloy.
In his hand rested a long, twin-pronged weapon—its central shaft segmented, its dual tips humming with restrained force.
The Dualis Lance.
The Phase Adjudicator had arrived.
He did not rush.
He walked forward one measured step and struck the base of the lance against the ground.
A low, rolling tremor spread outward from the impact point.
Gravemarch configuration.
The ground within a widening radius deepened in controlled increments, not chaotic like Red dampeners, but layered—each step forward compressing space in rhythmic pulses.
Step.
Compression.
Step.
Compression.
The Stag staggered as if forced to march through invisible gravity waves. Its hooves sank deeper with each pulse, cracks flaring along its porcelain hide.
The Adjudicator stopped ten meters from the creature.
The lance's twin tips rotated slightly, aligning vertically.
The pulses ceased.
Silence reclaimed the courtyard, broken only by the faint hum of remaining dampeners and the brittle settling of shattered stone.
The Stag lifted its head.
Its glaze reflected the Adjudicator now—not humiliation, not memory replay, but something else.
Resistance.
The Adjudicator's voice was calm.
"Tier II Echo," he said evenly. "Stabilization through confrontation."
The Stag lowered its antlers.
Ceramic cracks brightened to blinding white.
The Adjudicator adjusted his grip on the Dualis Lance.
Neither moved.
The air between them felt denser than the Red field had ever been.
And for the first time since it had manifested, the Porcelain Stag did not appear in control of the space.
The standoff held.
And Violet watched.