At first, the crowd was terrified of the Dark Mages who were revealing themselves. It was as though the air itself had turned against them. People stared in disbelief at the allies they had sat beside, worked beside, even laughed beside, now suddenly cloaked in the aura of Dark Magic. They felt betrayed, as if their trust had been broken. They had been raised to detest these people, to fear the Dark Guild, and now they were learning they had been among them all along.
But as the chaos continued, something slowly shifted.
They noticed that not for a single moment did the Dark Mages attack anyone in the stands. They weren't striking back or lashing out. They weren't causing destruction or adding to the chaos. They were doing exactly what they had been ordered to do, focusing only on protecting the people around them.
