The mutants started dying on their own.
It wasn't a gradual process in the sense of something weakening over time. It was closer to a system losing its power supply, functioning, functioning, and then simply not.
The ones ringing the artifact fell first, then the ones farther out along the perimeter, and finally the ones still moving toward the center as though the ritual that had called them was still active, still pulling, even though the core sustaining it had already collapsed from the inside.
Julius watched it from his position near the center of the arena and did not feel immediate relief. He felt the specific caution of someone who has seen enough situations improve in inexplicable ways to know that inexplicable improvements have causes, and that the cause matters as much as the result. Sometimes more.
He looked at the girls.
