The metallic screech of heavy armor being dragged across cobblestone echoed endlessly through the ruined courtyard.
It took the commoners less than ten minutes to realize Lucian wasn't bluffing. The moment he walked back into the central spire, the sheer, paralyzing terror broke, instantly replaced by a frantic, desperate need to prove their usefulness.
Nobody complained about the cold. Nobody complained about their injuries.
Three hundred students organized themselves into crude labor lines. They stripped the dead military soldiers of their silver breastplates, weapons, and mana crystals, piling the stolen gear into massive mounds near the barricaded Great Hall. The stripped corpses were dragged unceremoniously out the shattered iron gates and dumped into the trench running along the academy's outer perimeter.
Sera stood on the stone steps of the Great Hall, her fiery crimson eyes tracking every movement.
