Leo didn't give his students time to argue. He grabbed Thomas still on his knees and hyperventilating and physically hauled him toward the chamber's exit. "Move or die! Those are your options!"

They ran.****

The corridors leading out of the facility were nightmare fuel made manifest stone passages lined with cells that still held corpses, walls carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly, the lingering essence of countless deaths soaked into stone over what must have been centuries. But Leo drove his students forward with relentless urgency, his Master-ranked presence the only thing keeping their trauma-fractured discipline intact.

They burst from the facility's entrance into the open battlefield, and the scope of the dimensional disturbance became horrifyingly clear.

The entire realm was trembling. The ground rippled beneath their feet as dimensional pressure warped the very fabric of reality. Cracks opened in the corpse-strewn terrain, revealing darkness that suggested these fissures went deeper than mere earth. The crimson sky strobed with light that shouldn't exist, and in the distance three kilometers northeast, exactly where Leo's instincts had indicated reality itself was tearing apart.

A column of light erupted from the ground to pierce the sky, geometric patterns rotating around it with mathematical precision that spoke of controlled dimensional manipulation. Through the distortion, Leo caught glimpses of something that made his heart hammer with desperate hope.

"There!" he shouted, pointing toward the light. "That's where we're going! Run!"

The corpse-field was treacherous terrain even without dimensional instability. Bodies stacked in configurations that created hills and valleys, the ground slick with fluids that had leaked from decomposing flesh over weeks of exposure. Now, with cracks opening unpredictably and the terrain shifting beneath their feet, every step was a calculated risk.

Harold struggled under Sarah's unconscious weight, his healing abilities maintaining her stability but leaving him defensively vulnerable. Damien, Lyanna, and Thomas formed a protective triangle around him, their combined essence manipulation creating a mobile barrier that pushed through the hostile environment.

A kilometer in, they encountered the first beast.

It erupted from behind a pile of corpses a Razorback Prowler, its chitinous armor gleaming dully in the crimson light. The creature had been feeding on the dead, and their sudden appearance triggered its predatory instincts. Its mandibles clicked with hunger as it sized them up, multiple eyes tracking their movements with disturbing intelligence.

Leo's blade met the creature's initial charge, deflecting claws that could have disemboweled Damien. "Keep moving! Don't engage unless necessary!"

But the Prowler wasn't alone. The dimensional disturbance had drawn predators from across the realm, creatures that normally avoided each other now converging on the same location. Two more Prowlers emerged from different angles, coordinating their assault with pack hunter precision.

Lyanna's ice manipulation created barriers that forced the beasts to adjust their approach, buying seconds. Thomas's earth spikes erupted beneath one Prowler's feet, sending it sprawling. Damien's compressed air strikes weren't strong enough to kill but bought time for the group to put distance between themselves and their attackers.

Leo held the rear, his Master-ranked combat experience the only thing keeping the predators from overwhelming their formation. Each beast he wounded or killed bought meters of progress, but more kept appearing drawn by the scent of blood, drawn by the dimensional energy, drawn by prey that was fleeing rather than fighting.

Two kilometers in, a Void Stalker phased through solid ground directly in their path.

The creature was larger than the one Alex had fought, its shadow-wreathed form radiating malevolent hunger. Multiple eyes tracked the group with cold intelligence, and when it moved, darkness moved with it like living extensions of its body.

"Contact front!" Leo roared, engaging the Stalker before it could reach his students. His blade carved through shadow-substance, the creature's essence-draining touch making his arms go numb wherever contact occurred. But he'd fought worse, survived worse, and his decades of experience showed in how he positioned himself forcing the Stalker to choose between pursuing fleeing students or engaging the superior combatant.

The Stalker chose combat, its predatory instincts recognizing threat over easier prey. That choice cost it. Leo's blade found vital points with surgical precision, and the creature dissolved into shadow-mist with a scream that existed partially outside audible frequencies.

But the delay had cost them. Branded students were closing in from behind, their mechanical coordination making them far more dangerous than the beasts. And ahead, more predators were converging on the dimensional disturbance Chitinous Behemoths, Storm Wyrms, creatures Leo had no names for but whose essence signatures screamed danger to his Master-ranked perception.

Then, from a different angle, Leo spotted movement that wasn't bestial or branded.

Petra and Gareth burst from behind a collapsed pile of corpses, supporting three wounded students between them. All were covered in blood and worse substances. Petra's katana work was creating a defensive perimeter while Gareth's earth manipulation formed barriers behind them. They were being pursued by a pack of Razorback Prowlers six of them, coordinating with pack hunter intelligence.

"Petra! Northeast! Two hundred meters!" Leo shouted across the corpse-field.

Petra's enhanced perception locked onto him immediately. She changed direction without hesitation, Gareth following her lead as they angled toward Leo's group. The two formations converged with practiced efficiency, and suddenly Leo had eleven students under his protection instead of five.

"Professor!" Petra gasped, exhaustion evident in every line of her body. "The dimensional disturbance "

"It's our way out! Keep moving!"

The combined group pressed forward, but the final kilometer was a gauntlet. Beasts converged from all directions, drawn by the concentration of essence signatures and the dimensional energy bleeding from the portal. A Storm Wyrm descended from the crimson sky, electricity crackling across its scaled hide. Three Chitinous Behemoths emerged from different approaches, their armored forms creating a living barricade between the students and salvation.

Leo made rapid tactical calculations. "Petra, Gareth with me! Everyone else, stay behind us and don't stop moving no matter what happens!"

The three combatants engaged the Behemoths with coordinated precision. Leo's blade work targeted joints and weak points, Petra's katana found gaps in chitinous armor, and Gareth's earth manipulation created obstacles that forced the creatures to divide their attention. It wasn't elegant, wasn't clean, but it created a corridor of space that allowed the wounded students to scramble through.

The Storm Wyrm's electrical discharge lit up the battlefield, forcing everyone to scatter. Damien countered with air manipulation, creating wind currents that disrupted the creature's flight patterns. Lyanna's ice constructs froze moisture in the air, creating barriers that grounded some of the electrical energy.

One hundred meters from the portal. Leo could see it clearly now a tear in reality maintained by forces he couldn't comprehend. Colonel Hestian stood at the threshold with four soldiers, their weapons trained outward, defensive positions suggesting they were prepared for exactly this kind of chaotic extraction.

And through the breach, Leo glimpsed Academy medical personnel, familiar corridors, *home*.

Fifty meters. A Void Stalker phased directly into their formation, its claws finding Thomas's shoulder before Leo could intercept. The earth manipulator's scream cut through the chaos as shadow-corruption began spreading from the wound.

Petra's katana took the Stalker's head before it could feed further, and Gareth hauled Thomas upright despite his wounds. "Move! We're almost there!"

Twenty meters. The portal's energy signature was overwhelming this close, making the air taste like lightning and smoke. Branded students were closing in from behind, their mechanical coordination finally overcoming their initial confusion about the dimensional disturbance.

Colonel Hestian's voice cut through the chaos: "All survivors through immediately! We're holding for additional groups but the window is limited!"

Leo's group stumbled through the final meters, beasts and branded students snapping at their heels. Harold crossed the threshold first with Sarah, then Petra and Gareth with their wounded, then Damien supporting Thomas, then

A massive roar shook the battlefield, deeper than any beast they'd encountered. Leo turned to see something that made his Master-ranked perception recoil in instinctive recognition of superior threat.

Through the corpse-field's haze, a creature emerged that dwarfed everything else on the battlefield. Twelve feet tall, its body a grotesque fusion of human and something else entirely. Brands covered every inch of exposed flesh, layered so densely they formed geometric patterns that hurt to look at directly. Its eyes too many of them, positioned at angles that violated human biology burned with malevolent intelligence.

"What is that thing?" one of Hestian's soldiers breathed, professional composure cracking completely.

Leo had no answer. But his tactical instincts screamed one certainty: if that thing reached the portal, if it got through to the Academy...

"Everyone through!" Leo commanded, shoving the last of his students toward the breach. "Hestian, that thing cannot cross this threshold!"

Colonel Hestian stepped through the portal into the dimensional rift, his soldiers following. "Agreed. We hold this line together, Professor."

The two Master-ranked fighters stood side by side at the threshold between realms, their weapons raised against a horror that defied classification, while behind them Academy medical teams worked frantically to stabilize the wounded.

The battle that would determine whether anyone truly made it home and whether something followed them was about to begin in earnest.

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