A wave of raw, primal despair rolled through the plaza like a physical tide. Some citizens collapsed to their knees, weeping silently into their hands; others clung to one another with a desperate, white-knuckled grip, as if physical contact could anchor them to a world that had just been torn apart.
In one corner of the square, the remnants of Aethelgard's leadership—Valentina, Morwenna, Elliot, and Evelyn—stood like statues carved from grief. They watched the announcement not with outrage, but with a hollow, bone-deep resignation.
Their spirits had been broken long before their armies; they were simply witnessing the funeral of their identity.
Xerollion observed the terror, but he did not relish it with cruelty. Instead, he wielded it with the terrifying precision of a surgeon.
"I have not come to destroy what you have built," he continued.
