The creatures kept coming.
Always more of them, emerging from fog in endless waves, climbing over the corpses of their own dead without hesitation or concern.
The defensive circle was failing.
Students were dying.
The Imperial heirs had nothing left to give.
And in the sky above, thunder continued booming like funeral drums marking the end of humanity's next generation.
As all seemed to be the end, as the final collapse appeared inevitable, as the last threads of hope frayed and prepared to snap completely–
Damian's Aura shifted.
Not dramatically, not with any visible announcement, just a subtle change in the dark crimson Aura surrounding his body as telekinesis activated with precision he'd been practicing for months.
His feet left the mud.
Rising slowly, steadily, his ascent barely noticeable at first among all the chaos and screaming and death.
He went higher.
And higher.
