The silence that filled the northern corridor afterward was not empty; it had a physical texture, thick and suffocating like smoke. It pressed against the eardrums of every soul present, a heavy, velvet weight that made the air itself feel difficult to inhale.
Thousands of Aethelgard soldiers stood frozen, pressed against the perimeter of the battle circle. Their eyes were wide, fixed with horrified fascination on their greatest living hero, the sun incarnate, the Apostle of Life, now reduced to a broken, bloodied figure kneeling in the dirt before a man who hadn't even broken his stride.
The thunderous chanting that had shaken dust from the vaulted ceilings three minutes earlier had vanished, replaced by a low, poisonous murmur. It was the sound of collapsing hope: thousands of voices whispering questions they didn't want the answers to.
'What happens now?'
'How do we survive this? Who protects us when the light fails?'
