The roof held because the shell struck a barrier plate above the trusses rather than the gym floor. Metal screamed overhead, dust fell through the broken lights, and the civilians beneath the bleachers pressed close enough that Emilia had to force space between them.
Nox reached the center aisle while the shock moved through his knees. The suppression field had thinned the outer barrier, but the Citadel core still carried the impact through every claimed wall instead of letting it land on one room.
"We have no second shelter, and if they keep walking the shots inward, we run out of rooms before we run out of people," Emilia said, pulling a child away from a fallen bench.
"The shells use a mana vector after launch, correcting toward the strongest sealed volume, which is this building," Vasa said as she climbed over a collapsed equipment rack with a scanner strapped to her wrist.
