The dragon's retreat lasted only an instant, but it was an eternal second etched into the retinas of every student present. That entity, which had seemed like an immovable law of nature or a fatal error in the code of reality, had stopped advancing. For the first time since crossing the threshold of the side corridor, the initiative was no longer its own.
The atmosphere in the hallway underwent a physical transmutation. Paralyzing dread—that cold that coils around the spine—was replaced by an electric determination. They were no longer simply surviving a shipwreck; they had found the breach in the enemy's hull. They had found a crack in the monster's omnipotence.
