For several heart-stopping seconds, the order hung suspended in the air like a guillotine blade frozen at its apex. No one moved.
The soldiers' minds seemed to lag behind their bodies, trapped in a cognitive dissonance where their hands still gripped their hilts with white-knuckled instinct even as their spirits had already collapsed.
They were waiting for the trap. They were waiting for the laughter, for the sudden burst of violet magic that would incinerate them all for their perceived weakness.
Then, the first surrender broke.
CLANG.
A spear struck the stone somewhere near the front of the line, the sound unnaturally sharp, cutting through the heavy atmosphere like a gunshot.
Then came another.
THUD. CLATTER. SHRING.
The sound spread down the ranks in an uneven, stuttering rhythm, a broken percussion of defeat. Metal meeting stone became the only language spoken in the corridor, a series of small, hollow echoes that announced the death of Aethelgard's defiance.
