The cathedral was no longer trembling.
Dust drifted slowly through fractured light.
The jagged dark spikes of compressed energy dissolved into fading embers and the Seraphim lay embedded in the marble floor, its once-blinding wings shattered and slack.
The grotesque clawed appendages had collapsed back into limp, half-formed feathers.
Above it all, Blyke hovered for a second longer.
Then the scarlet lines faded.
The golden gauntlets dissolved into particles of dull light. His hair fell back into its normal shape, the fierce upward spikes softening as exhaustion replaced fury. His body swayed once in mid-air.
He dropped.
Cagaro moved instinctively, but Arcee was closer. She caught Blyke's shoulders just enough to slow the impact as they both landed roughly on cracked marble.
Blyke groaned.
A thin line of blood ran from the scratch across his scalp, tracing down past his temple and cheek. Without a word, Arcee tore a strip from the inner lining of her jacket and pressed it firmly against the wound.
"Hold still." she ordered.
"I'm fine." Blyke muttered, wincing as she tightened the makeshift bandage around his head.
"You were throwing thunderclaps five seconds ago and fell out of the sky like broken luggage." Arcee replied dryly. "You are not fine."
He tried to smirk. "Still won it."
"Yes," she said flatly. "Congratulations. Try not to die next time."
Cagaro stepped closer, staring at the massive crater where the Seraphim lay. His voice carried genuine disbelief.
"It is flattened on the ground. That last attack… it forced the distortions down like gravity itself."
Blyke exhaled slowly, staring up at the fractured ceiling. "Didn't feel that cool from inside."
"It was..." Cagaro said firmly. "It was insane!"
A few meters away, Henry stood near the fallen Seraphim.
He did not celebrate with them.
He crouched beside the unmoving form, observing the faint residual patterns flickering beneath its white skin. The glow was different now.
He brushed aside a fragment of broken feather and studied the exposed lattice beneath.
"This is constructed," he said quietly.
Arcee glanced over. "Constructed how?"
"Layered spatial grafting... artificial reinforcement nodes." Henry's eyes narrowed slightly. "This was an experiment."
Cagaro stiffened. "Was it contained here?"
Henry nodded once, looking around at the floating cathedral. "Most likely. It is probably a higher-dimensional entity engineered into infant form for study or weaponization."
He looked back at the small, motionless body.
"It was a baby," he continued calmly. "Its perception field was incomplete. Its distortion feedback loops were unstable. It could not even use its full power properly."
The silence deepened.
"And it was still this dangerous...?" Arcee finished softly.
Henry stood. "Yes."
The floating cathedral had gone eerily still.
Fragments of broken marble hovered in quiet suspension.
The shattered remains of the Seraphim no longer emitted light, only faint residual sparks that flickered and died against the cracked floor.
"We need an exit." Arcee said, scanning the perimeter. "This place was a containment chamber. Containment facilities always have fail-safes."
Cagaro's gaze lingered on the fallen anomaly where the Seraphim had first appeared. The distortion there had not fully vanished.
"If this was a containment zone" he said slowly, "then the anomaly wasn't random. Something placed it or something failed."
Blyke pushed himself upright.
He wobbled slightly but masked it by rolling his shoulders as if stretching after a nap.
The bandage around his head was already stained faint pink, though he ignored it.
"I'm good." he announced before anyone asked. "I can stand on my own."
Arcee gave him a sideways look. "Gravity is doing most of the work."
He smirked weakly. "Hater."
Henry stepped away from the Seraphim's remains and pressed his fingers briefly against his temple.
A sharp pulse throbbed behind his eyes.
Cagaro noticed immediately. "Are you okay?"
Henry lowered his hand at once. "Yes."
The answer was too quick.
For a fraction of a second, the air near the anomaly shimmered differently in his vision, as if something beyond it was observing back.
Henry blinked once.
"I'm fine." he repeated, calmer now.
Arcee studied him for a moment but did not express.
The four of them turned toward the far end of the cathedral, where the massive altar stood suspended above a circular abyss of fractured space.
The structure seemed older than the rest of the architecture, its surface was carved with geometric patterns that matched the containment lattice Henry had examined.
"If there's a control system," Henry said quietly, "it will be there."
They began walking together across the cracked marble, toward the altar.
The altar loomed over them like the heart of the cathedral.
Up close, its surface was not decorative but engineered. Thin geometric engravings ran across the marble in concentric formations, glowing where residual energy still flowed.
Henry traced the lines with his fingers, following the symmetry. It was not religious.
It was operational.
Blyke leaned on a cracked pillar, trying not to look as exhausted as he felt.
"There's something here." Henry murmured.
A narrow seam responded to pressure beneath his palm. A concealed panel slid open with a low mechanical hum, revealing a compact compartment inside the altar's core.
Arcee stepped closer. "Manual storage?"
Henry pulled out a thin metallic tablet along with several preserved documents sealed in translucent film. The material felt old but carefully maintained.
He activated the tablet.
Lines of structured text appeared in a precise, clinical format... Terminology... Containment protocols... Dimensional calibration notes...
Then a section header froze him.
CIVILIAN TRANSFER LOG.
Cagaro leaned in. "Transfer?"
Henry scrolled and saw...
Names... Identification numbers... Population counts...
Status: Relocated to Pocket Dimension Sector-3.
Blyke straightened fully. "Pocket dimension?"
Arcee's expression hardened. "You mean… they are wha—"
"They were kept away before we reached here." Henry's tone carried no comfort.
"Stored?" Cagaro scratches his head.
Henry said, "It is contained outside baseline reality. A warped subspace."
Henry scrolled further but the entries became fragmented. Coordinates were partially erased. Access keys were missing. Cross-references led to systems that no longer responded.
He closed the tablet slowly.
"There are too many missing links." he said at last. "We know civilians were transferred into a pocket dimension. We know this place was used for containment and experimentation purposes."
He looked at the faintly pulsing anomaly in the distance.
"But we do not know who built it. Who activated it or who is behind all of this."
Cagaro exhaled slowly. "So we have victims… and no map."
Henry stared at the altar's glowing lines.
"Not yet.
A cold weight pressed against Henry's senses, subtle but undeniable. The migraine spiked violently as the altar's engravings flickered.
He looked up slowly.
A vast shadow stretched across the fractured ceiling.
Something was watching them from above and it was not alone.