The collapse of the grand underground hall tore the campus apart.
Thousands of tons of bedrock, dirt, and shattered glass from the botanical gardens plummeted into the subterranean cavern. The sheer kinetic impact sent a localized earthquake rippling across the Academy grounds.
When the dust finally settled, the underground bunker was gone. It was replaced by a massive, jagged crater completely exposed to the pitch-black dome covering the campus.
In the dead center of the crater stood the Demon Lord.
The twenty-meter-tall entity stood perfectly still as the rubble rained down upon its jagged, starlight-forged armor. Huge slabs of concrete shattered harmlessly against its shoulders. Its abyssal red eyes scanned the ruins of the Academy above.
The air warped around it. The gravitational pressure it emitted slammed the falling dust directly into the ground.
Buried near the edge of the crater, a pile of shattered stone shifted.
