The day after the incident with the Silent Whisper Fold, the Grand Academy was a living portrait of psychological warfare. The fear wasn't just physical; it was administrative.
I. The Platinum Tier Meeting
Fenrir Alistair Blivixis called a mandatory, emergency meeting of all Department Heads and Platinum Tier instructors. He held it in the Principal's now-pristine office, serving his ozone-scented tea in the antique cup. The air pressure in the room was unnaturally heavy, the subtle residue of his Chaos Domain.
I was not present, but I listened from a nearby decommissioned hallway, using Echo Mapping to hear the exact frequency of every terrified heartbeat and every suppressed curse.
The Head of the Combat Division—a Doom-Reaver Titan named Zylos—spoke first, his voice a tense, low rumble.
"Alistair Blivixis," Zylos stated, deliberately avoiding the 'Fenrir' title. "The Celestial Demon Assembly has deemed your presence an existential threat. Your Demon Breach was an act of war, and your 'student' is an unclassified entity that spawns forbidden Fold variants."
Fenrir chuckled, a soft, pleasant sound that seemed to invert the speaker's authority.
"Existential threat? Quite flattering, Zylos," Fenrir responded. "However, the Principal demonstrated the folly of conventional opposition. Since you cannot remove me, you must incorporate me. I propose the immediate creation of the Inverted Phenomena Observation Wing."
The murmurs intensified. Fenrir was forcing them to legitimize the very anomaly that terrified them.
"This wing will monitor Dawn's Null status and document the effects of Inversion Energy on your brittle world," Fenrir continued, his tone turning subtly to Terror Infestation. "It will also report directly to me. Anyone found attempting unauthorized interference with the Catalyst will experience a private demonstration of Existence Threading."
The threat was specific: erasure from reality. The instructors, bound by the rigid laws of Astra'vhel, were paralyzed.
I heard the Head of the Mystic Arts Division, usually a loud and arrogant Abyss Seraph, whisper compliance. The department heads had been cornered. They officially ratified the "Observation Wing," effectively signing over the monitoring of the future of their world to the agent of its collapse.
The meeting adjourned, leaving behind a profound sound of defeat and simmering resentment.
II. The Social Collapse
On the main campus, the student body's fear transformed into calculated resentment. I heard their whispers—no longer just mocking the "blind beggar," but focusing on his weakness.
"He can hear everything," whispered a student from the Mirage Furies lineage. "But the Inverted Mark can't stop aging. It can't stop fatigue. It can't stop loneliness."
"We need to hit the human part," another added. "Find a weakness that exists outside of magic. He's still just a vessel."
They organized. The elite students formed a secret collective—the Order of the Obsidian Eye—dedicated to finding a non-magical, psychological flaw in Dawn's armor. They couldn't fight him, so they would try to break the will that fueled his pact.
III. The Quiet Calculation
Dawn returned to the Principal's office, now Fenrir's luxurious new command center. Fenrir was studying an old, detailed star map of the Demidemon Realm, tracing patterns with the tip of his cane.
"You heard the delightful exchange, I presume," Fenrir remarked without looking up.
"The Academy has accepted the contract," Dawn stated, his voice flat.
"They have accepted the necessity of their own obsolescence," Fenrir corrected. "But they are already planning the next move, Inverter. They will try to hit the part of you that still grieves the human world."
Fenrir turned, his red eyes sharp.
"This is your true curriculum, Dawn. They will target your trauma, your empathy, your residual guilt over that small, heartbreaking betrayal. Order seeks to collapse you back into the fragile human you were."
He smiled, charming and sinister.
"You must learn to use your suffering, not suppress it. Inversion means flipping the script on pain. Embrace the chaos they fear. Because if you break, Dawn, the Primordial Reset begins ahead of schedule. And that would be quite inconvenient."
Dawn stood motionless, listening to the intricate ticking of the temporal device Fenrir was now examining. He was a piece on a board far grander than the Academy, and the game had just entered its deadliest phase.