The corridors bent wrong. Ayesha had spent enough time in Grimore to recognize when space was being deliberately hostile, and this version of the academy—filtered through Umbrathax's dimensional lens—treated geometry as an afterthought. Walls curved into floors that became ceilings that somehow looped back into the original wall, creating navigational paradoxes that made her inner ear protest with nausea.
She forced herself to focus on Ji-yoon's scanner instead, watching the device's jury-rigged display flicker with spiritual resonance patterns. Adrian moved ahead with the cautious efficiency of someone who'd learned that survival in this realm meant respecting its fundamental wrongness.
"Energy concentration holding steady three corridors northeast," Ji-yoon reported, his voice pitched low despite the oppressive silence suggesting nothing could hear them anyway. The scanner's components—salvaged from what appeared to be academy equipment mixed with crystallized shadow-matter—pulsed with amber light. "Signatures match Chen, Zhao, and Okonkwo. Still in stasis, still being drained, but the rate hasn't accelerated."
"Which means Umbrathax hasn't noticed us yet," Ayesha said, though part of her consciousness remained stretched thin, aware of the vast distance separating her from Niko. The spiritual connection they'd forged during the scrying—the one that had anchored his consciousness when he'd nearly dissolved into his own technique—hadn't severed despite the dimensional barriers. She could feel him, a distant warmth in this realm of consuming cold, and right now that warmth blazed with combat intensity that made her chest tighten with fear she couldn't afford to acknowledge.
Focus. Niko was drawing attention deliberately, creating operational space for exactly this mission. Wasting that opportunity by worrying would dishonor his tactical sacrifice.
"The entity's perception operates on spiritual density rather than physical presence," Adrian explained as they navigated a stairwell that descended in several different directions simultaneously. He selected one with the confidence of repeated trial and error. "As long as we suppress our signatures and avoid major energy expenditure, we register as background noise. But the moment we attempt active technique work—"
"We light up like flares," Ayesha finished. "Understood. Which is why I'll be doing any necessary manipulation. My control allows for more precise output than either of you can manage."
It wasn't arrogance, just tactical reality. Ayesha has been top of her practical applications class three years running specifically because she could thread spirit energy through impossibly tight tolerances. Where most awakened operated with the subtlety of sledgehammers, she wielded surgical scalpels.
They emerged into a vast chamber that made Ayesha's breath catch despite her preparation. The space resembled the academy's main hall but stretched to cathedral proportions, its vaulted ceiling lost in shadow that moved with predatory intention. And suspended throughout the chamber like grotesque ornaments hung the shadow-crystal formations Adrian had described—organic cages that held students in states between life and death, slowly converting their potential into fuel.
Marcus Chevalier hung nearest, his body wrapped in translucent darkness that pulsed with stolen heartbeats. Jennifer Zhao floated twenty meters to his left, her expression frozen in mid-scream. Daniel Okonkwo occupied the chamber's far side, his athletic frame locked in rigor that suggested he'd been fighting when the crystal claimed him.
Ayesha felt rage ignite in her chest—clean, cold, and absolutely controlled. These were students she'd passed in hallways, studied alongside in libraries, shared meals with in the dining commons. Seeing them reduced to batteries for an eldritch parasite transformed abstract horror into personal vendetta.
"Scan everything," she ordered Ji-yoon, her voice carrying command weight she'd never quite deployed before. "Energy flow patterns, structural composition, temporal distortion, everything your equipment can measure. I want to know exactly how these formations work."
Ji-yoon deployed his scanner, adjusting settings with practiced efficiency. Adrian positioned himself at the chamber's entrance, watching for patrol constructs. And Ayesha moved closer to Marcus's crystal, studying it with both normal vision and spiritual perception.
The formation was hideously elegant. Crystallized shadow formed a cage that existed partially in multiple dimensions, creating a space where time moved differently—fast enough to drain energy over hours rather than years, slow enough to preserve the victim's body from mortality. Spirit energy flowed from Marcus's core through the crystal's structure in visible streams, then disappeared into channels that fed deeper into the realm's architecture.
"The formations are connected," Ji-yoon reported, his scanner painting the invisible energy pathways with augmented-reality overlays. "There's a network running beneath the chamber floor, all three feeding into a central collection point approximately forty meters down. But there's something else—the drainage rate isn't constant. It fluctuates based on... I think based on the victim's emotional state. Fear and desperation produce richer energy yield."
Ayesha closed her eyes, forcing down the fury that information triggered. Umbrathax wasn't just feeding. It was farming, cultivating maximum harvest through sustained psychological torture.
"Can they be freed without killing them?" she asked.
Ji-yoon studied his scanner, cross-referencing multiple data streams. "Maybe. The crystal structure is maintaining their vital functions artificially. Breaking it would be like pulling someone off life support—fatal if done incorrectly, but potentially survivable if we can substitute an alternative energy source during the transition."
"Define 'alternative energy source.'"
"Someone would need to channel spirit energy directly into the victim while simultaneously dissolving the crystal's matrix. It would require incredible precision to match the exact frequency and flow rate, and any mistake would either leave fragments embedded in their spiritual system or cause catastrophic energy shock."
Ayesha opened her eyes, studying the crystal formation with new assessment. The technique Ji-yoon described sat at the absolute edge of her capabilities, threading power through tolerances measured in fractions of a harmonic frequency while simultaneously performing the equivalent of spiritual surgery. Attempting it with one victim would be dangerous. Attempting it with three would be nearly suicidal, especially in hostile territory where any significant energy expenditure would attract attention.
"How long would the substitution need to last?" she asked.
"Thirty seconds minimum per victim. The crystal's hold has to be completely dissolved before you can safely withdraw, and dissolution has to happen gradually to avoid spiritual laceration."
Ninety seconds total, during which she'd be completely exposed, channeling enough energy to light up every sensory mechanism Umbrathax possessed. Even with Niko drawing the entity's primary attention, that felt like tempting catastrophe.
But the alternative was leaving them here.
Ayesha moved to the chamber's center, studying the spatial relationships between all three crystals. They formed a triangle with approximately equal distances—probably not coincidental, likely part of the energy collection network's efficiency. If she positioned herself correctly, she could potentially reach all three with channeled energy, though the geometric calculations required would be brutal.
"Contact in thirty seconds," Adrian's voice cut through her planning with urgent calm. "Shadow patrol, three constructs, standard search pattern."
Ayesha gestured sharply. Ji-yoon killed his scanner's external emissions immediately. Adrian wove a minor obfuscation technique—barely more than suggesting the shadows look elsewhere—that wouldn't register as active resistance. And Ayesha dropped into the meditative state that allowed maximum spiritual suppression, reducing her signature to barely more than residual warmth.
The constructs entered through walls rather than doorways, their semi-corporeal forms rippling through solid matter with disturbing ease. They resembled something vaguely humanoid, composed of shadows that moved with predatory intelligence, sensory apparatus oriented toward spiritual density rather than physical presence.
They drifted through the chamber methodically, appendages extending to brush against the trapped students' crystals, checking their containment integrity. Ayesha watched from suppressed consciousness, barely breathing, aware that these things were simultaneously guards and maintenance systems. If they detected intruders, they'd attack. But their primary function was ensuring the harvest continued uninterrupted.
One construct paused near Ayesha's position. Its approximation of a head turned, sensory focus contracting to a point that swept across her hiding position with terrible precision. She felt its attention like pressure against her spiritual defenses, probing for anomalies, searching for anything that registered as more than environmental background.
Ayesha held absolute stillness, not even allowing surface thoughts to ripple her suppressed consciousness. She'd trained for scenarios like this—Academy curricula included stealth techniques precisely because supernatural response sometimes required invisibility rather than confrontation. But training scenarios didn't include the visceral terror of an eldritch predator's attention measuring whether she qualified as food.
The construct's focus slid past. It rejoined its companions, and all three drifted toward the chamber's far exit, disappearing through walls that accepted them like water accepting rain.
Ayesha allowed herself exactly three seconds of relief before returning to mission parameters.
"Patrol interval?" she asked Adrian.
"Roughly twelve minutes based on previous observations. We have time, but not much."
Twelve minutes to plan extraction of three victims from crystalline formations that required ninety seconds of maximum exposure to free. The mathematics suggested one attempt, no room for error, and timing that would need to be absolutely perfect.
"Ji-yoon, can you program your scanner to trigger an alert at the eleven-minute mark?"
"Already done."
Ayesha allowed herself a brief smile. Working with competent people made tactical planning significantly less exhausting.
She moved through the chamber, studying each crystal formation from multiple angles, memorizing the precise harmonic signatures Marcus's scanner revealed. The three structures weren't identical—each had adapted to its specific victim's spiritual pattern—but they shared underlying architecture that suggested a master template. If she could identify that template's frequency, she might be able to dissolve all three simultaneously rather than sequentially.
The technique would be exponentially more complex, requiring her to split her attention and energy flow across three separate targets while maintaining individual precision for each. But it would reduce exposure time from ninety seconds to thirty, cutting risk by two-thirds.
"I'm going to attempt parallel extraction," Ayesha announced. "Ji-yoon, I need you to feed me real-time data on crystal dissolution rates for all three targets. Adrian, once I begin, we'll have maybe twenty seconds before something responds. Be ready to establish the fastest route back to sanctuary."
"Ayesha," Adrian said carefully, "parallel extraction isn't just dangerous. It's theoretically impossible. No awakened can maintain that level of divided precision."
"Then I'll be the first," Ayesha replied with a confidence she only partially felt. "Because we're not leaving them here."
She positioned herself at the triangle's center, directly between all three crystals, and began the meditative breathing that preceded major technique work. Her spirit pool wasn't as vast as Niko's—nobody's was—but her control remained unmatched. Where he wielded overwhelming power, she wielded perfect precision. Different tools for different problems.
The scanner chimed softly. Eleven minutes since patrol passage.
Ayesha opened her eyes, extended both hands, and began channeling spirit energy in three separate streams simultaneously. The mental strain required was dizzying—each stream needed independent frequency control, individual flow rate management, separate dissolution targeting. It felt like trying to have three different conversations simultaneously while solving complex mathematics, all while maintaining the spiritual equivalent of microsurgery.
The crystals began responding immediately. Their shadow-matter composition started breaking down under precisely calibrated energy input, structure dissolving from the outside in. Ayesha felt Marcus Chevalier's spiritual signature strengthen as the formation's suppression field weakened, felt Jennifer Zhao's consciousness beginning to surface from forced stasis, felt Daniel Okonkwo's body starting to remember how to generate its own vital functions.
Twenty seconds. The crystals were forty percent dissolved. Ji-yoon's scanner provided continuous feedback that let her adjust frequencies in real-time, compensating for variations in structural density.
Twenty-five seconds. Sixty percent dissolution. Jennifer Zhao gasped, the first sound she'd made in four days, and Ayesha had to split a fraction of her attention to stabilize the girl's spirit system as awareness returned. The additional complexity made her head throb with cognitive strain.
Twenty-eight seconds. Eighty percent dissolution. And distantly, Ayesha felt Niko's presence flare with intensity that suggested he'd just done something catastrophically attention-grabbing. The sensation blazed through their connection like wildfire, and for a moment she felt his desperate calculation, his tactical sacrifice, his absolute determination to give her team every possible advantage.
It hurt. It hurt knowing he was in danger she couldn't help with, couldn't even acknowledge without breaking concentration.
Thirty seconds. The crystals shattered.
Three students dropped toward the floor. Ayesha caught them with spirit energy cushioning, lowering all three gently while maintaining the energy substitution that kept their systems stable. Ji-yoon and Adrian rushed to support the unconscious victims physically while Ayesha maintained the spiritual scaffolding preventing their collapse.
"Go," she said through gritted teeth. "Sanctuary. Now."
They moved. Adrian led while Marcus helped support two victims, using enhancement techniques to boost his strength beyond normal human limits. Ayesha brought up the rear, one hand still extended to maintain energy flow to all three rescued students, her spirit pool depleting rapidly but controllably.
Behind them, shadow constructs began manifesting—not the three-member patrol but dozens of them, summoned by the catastrophic disruption to the harvest network. And beneath that immediate threat, Ayesha felt Umbrathax's vast consciousness shift, a portion of its attention peeling away from whatever was occupying it to investigate this new problem.
They ran through corridors that fought their passage, navigating by Adrian's memorized routes and Marcus's scanner guidance. The rescued students began regaining consciousness in stages—confused, terrified, but alive and capable of limited movement.
"Can you walk?" Ayesha asked Marcus, who'd served as bait for weeks.
He nodded shakily, and she withdrew the energy scaffolding carefully, monitoring for signs of spiritual collapse. His system held. Not strong, but stable enough to survive until sanctuary.
She repeated the process with Jennifer and Daniel, feeling her spirit pool dip below fifty percent as the sustained output took its toll. The constructs behind them were gaining ground, and ahead the corridors began shifting more violently, Umbrathax's intelligence actively reshaping the environment to trap them.
But Ayesha had learned from Niko's tactical philosophy: sometimes the best offense was better defense.
She stopped running, turned, and channeled her remaining energy into a barrier technique that sealed the corridor behind them. Not a wall—walls could be broken—but a frequency mismatch that made the space beyond simply refuse to connect with the space ahead. The constructs crashed against it, their forms disrupting as they failed to reconcile the dimensional contradiction.
The technique wouldn't hold long. Maybe two minutes before Umbrathax's intelligence adapted.
But two minutes was enough. They reached sanctuary's hidden entrance, Adrian speaking the harmonic password that opened the concealed threshold, and all six of them tumbled through into relative safety.
Yuki was waiting, her spirit sight active and concerned. "Niko and I separated. He's holding the entity's attention at the anchor point, but the energy expenditure—"
"I felt it," Ayesha said, collapsing against the sanctuary wall, chest heaving from exertion and terror and relief. Three students saved. Niko still fighting. And something fundamental about Umbrathax's structure had just been damaged, though she couldn't perceive the details from here.
They'd succeeded. But the cost was still being calculated, and she knew with terrible certainty that the truly dangerous part hadn't even begun.