"On my signal, we split!" Leo's tactical mind had calculated the optimal response. "It can't target both simultaneously at full power!"

"Understood!"

The wave of corrupted essence surged forward, and the two Master-ranked fighters separated in opposite directions. The creature's attack had to choose a target, and it selected Leo the one who'd demonstrated the more precise killing technique, who'd shown himself to be the greater threat to its network.

The corrupted wave struck Leo's Master-ranked barrier, and the two forces clashed with reality-warping intensity. Leo's pure essence construct held, but he could feel it eroding under sustained pressure, his reserves draining to maintain the defense. The attack was weakened, but still formidable enough to require significant power to counter.

Hestian struck from the creature's blind side while it was focused on overwhelming Leo's defense. His weapon drove into the dense concentration of brands on the creature's back, his essence pouring into the wound to disrupt the corruption at its source.

The creature screamed all its merged voices crying out simultaneously and its attack on Leo faltered. Black ichor mixed with geometric light exploded from the wound in its back, and the wave of corrupted essence dissipated as the technique's focus shattered.

A branded student broke through their defensive coordination during the chaos, its corrupted blade opening a gash across Leo's shoulder. Not deep, but enough. Blood welled from the wound, and the creature's eyes blazed with savage triumph even through its pain.

"First blood... drawn," it rasped. "Now... you join... the collection."

The wound on Leo's shoulder began to burn with cold fire. He could feel something trying to establish itself in his flesh, trying to use his own blood as a vector for corruption. Not brands yet but the beginning of the conversion process, the first stage of claiming a new addition to the network.

"Leo!" Hestian moved to cover him, but three branded students intercepted with coordinated precision.

Leo channeled essence through the wound, not to heal but to burn using his essence to scour away the forming corrupted essense before it could take root. The technique worked, but the cost was significant. Essence reserves he desperately needed for the extended battle, spent just to prevent his own corruption.

"Still here! Keep moving!" He rejoined the fight, but more cautiously now. One wound had nearly compromised him. A second contact with broken skin would accelerate the conversion process exponentially. A third might be irreversible.

They pressed their assault with renewed urgency, killing more branded students to further weaken the creature. The entity's essence signature began fluctuating as its external power network was systematically dismantled. Each fallen student was one less battery it could draw from, one less connection sustaining its Master-ranked output.

More fell. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty-five.

The creature's movements were becoming sluggish, its attacks less coordinated. It was fighting on its own reserves now, and even an entity this powerful couldn't sustain above Master-ranked techniques indefinitely without external support.

"It's failing!" Hestian's weapon found another critical strike, carving through corrupted flesh. "One more coordinated assault should "

The creature's eyes met Leo's across the battlefield, and something changed in its expression. Not defeat calculation. It had been backed into a corner, was facing opponents who'd systematically exploited its fundamental weakness, and it was making the same choice cornered predators always made.

If it was going to die, it would take its killers with it.

The creature's body began to change. The brands covering its flesh didn't just pulse they blazed. Light erupted from every geometric pattern with blinding intensity, and Leo's Master-ranked perception detected what was about to happen with horrifying clarity.

The creature wasn't pulling essence from its remaining students anymore. It was ripping it out.

Every branded student still standing suddenly screamed in genuine agony as the gentle, sustainable drain became violent extraction. The glowing tendrils connecting them to the central entity transformed from thin streams into torrents of stolen power, essence being torn from their cores with catastrophic force.

Their skin went from pale gray to ashen white in seconds. Their bodies began to wither, flesh seeming to collapse inward as their life force was devoured. Some tried to run, some tried to fight the connection, but the brands locked them in place with absolute control. They could only scream as they were drained to death.

The creature's body swelled with accumulated power, its form distorting as it absorbed more essence than its physical structure was designed to contain. The brands on its flesh spread and multiplied, covering every inch of available space, then beginning to layer over themselves in three-dimensional patterns that hurt to look at directly.

"Evacuate! Evacuate!" Hestian roared toward his soldiers. "It's going critical move, move, move!"

The Lieutenant and his team began emergency evacuation, medical personnel abandoning equipment to drag wounded students through the shimmering threshold. Behind them, the branded students were collapsing one by one as their essence was completely extracted. Their bodies hit the ground as desiccated husks, life drained so thoroughly that even their corruption died with them.

Twenty students fed the creature their essence and died. Twenty-five. Thirty.

The entity's body was glowing so brightly it was becoming difficult to look at directly. Reality itself was beginning to warp around it as corrupted essence reached concentrations that shouldn't be possible outside dimensional anchors. Cracks were forming in its flesh, geometric light bleeding through gaps in skin that could no longer contain the power within.

"Leo..." Hestian's voice was tight with recognition of what came next. "That thing is going to detonate. All that accumulated essence, released in one burst "

"It'll collapse the portal, kill everything in a hundred-meter radius, and contaminate the entire area with residual corruption." Leo's tactical assessment was brutal in its clarity. "We can't kill it fast enough, and we can't outrun the blast radius."

"Then what "

"We contain it." Leo's Master-ranked aura flared to maximum output, essence blazing around him with visible intensity. "Channel the explosion away from the portal. It's the only way."

"That means taking the full force ourselves." Hestian's own aura matched Leo's, military discipline evident even in extremis. "We'll burn out."

"Maybe." Leo positioned himself between the creature and the portal, his blade blazing with everything he had left. "But they make it through. That's what matters."

Hestian took position beside him, two Master-ranked fighters preparing to give everything to ensure the next generation survived. For a moment, neither spoke. Then: "Your wife's going to kill me for this."

Despite everything, Leo almost laughed. "Get in line."

The creature's body reached critical mass. The brands were no longer distinguishable from its flesh everything had become one continuous pattern of geometric light. The last branded student collapsed, drained completely.

The entity's form shuddered once.

Then it detonated.

The explosion was instantaneous not fire or force, but pure essence converted to destructive energy. A sphere of corrupted power erupted outward at speeds that made thought seem slow, consuming everything in its path.

Leo and Hestian's Master-ranked barriers manifested in perfect synchronization pure essence constructs designed not to block, but to redirect. They created a funnel, a channel, forcing the explosion's expansion to follow paths that led away from the portal where wounded students were frantically evacuating.

The technique worked.

Barely.

The corrupted essence wave struck their combined barriers like reality itself breaking, and Leo felt his reserves draining at catastrophic rates. Every fraction of a second cost essence he didn't have, demanded control beyond what his damaged body could sustain. Blood erupted from his nose, his ears, his eyes as the strain exceeded biological limits.

Beside him, Hestian was in similar condition his military discipline the only thing keeping him conscious as his essence reserves scraped toward zero. His hands were shaking, his legs trembling, but his barrier held.

The explosion lasted three seconds. Three subjective eternities where both Master-ranked fighters existed at the absolute edge of death, where one moment of failed concentration would mean annihilation for everyone behind them.

Three seconds where they proved why Master-rank meant more than just power it meant the will to use that power even when it cost everything.

Then it was over.

The corrupted light faded, leaving behind a crater where the creature had stood. The branded students who'd fed it essence were scattered across the corpse-field as desiccated husks, their corruption finally dead. The air smelled of ozone and something worse the residue of corrupted essence that would likely poison this area for years.

Leo and Hestian remained standing through sheer stubborn will alone. Their essence reserves were completely exhausted, their bodies held upright only by muscle memory and three decades of combat training each.

"Everyone... through?" Leo managed, his voice barely a whisper.

Hestian's response was equally weak. "Last group... crossing now."

Through the portal, the Lieutenant gave a final signal. All survivors accounted for. Portal collapse in thirty seconds.

Leo took one step toward the shimmering breach and his legs gave out. He would have collapsed face-first into corrupted ground if Hestian hadn't caught him, the Colonel's own legs trembling with the effort of supporting both their weights.

"Come on." Hestian's arm locked around Leo's shoulders, taking weight neither of them could spare. "Not dying in this shithole. Not today."

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