In the Elarion school's assembly hall, the floor was blasted away in the middle, stones spread around with blood and lifeless bodies painting the ground red.
Right beside the hole, Zara was hugging Victor on the ground. She sobbed in Victor's chest, and his eyes shook with clear fear.
'Is that what they used to say? The fear of the Chaos Alien! It felt like I was going to die right at the moment it appeared. I wasn't able to shake that feeling.' Victor reflected.
He looked at his trembling hands, wrapped around the back of Zara. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.
Zara was crying nonstop in Victor's chest; the only place she felt the warmth and comfort.
The fear gripped her heart like a leech.
She wasn't able to shake it away; her whole body had become cold and numb. The only action that provided her some sort of comfort was hugging Victor. She felt her heart calming down and finding peace.
Far away from the couple, near the hall's walls, students sat sticking to the wall, some crying, some frozen looking into space, and many had fallen unconscious.
Lyla sat crouching against the wall, her hands and knees trembling, her eyes filled with tears, as she stared in the middle of the hall at Zara hugging Victor.
With fear, she felt slight pain in her heart as she saw Zara and Victor so close to each other.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The two Soldiers were going around, firing the neo bullets from point-blank range at the dead bodies of students. Leaving behind the decayed body and ashes on the ground.
Mona's light brown eyes scanned the students again, and she sighed, muttering, "They won't be able to recover easily. Exposure to Chaos Alien so early and one that was so much stronger will leave a shadow in their hearts. It will become a problem for them to level up now."
She moved toward Victor and Zara, her eyes first scanned Victor, and then they moved toward Zara.
"Little girl, I know this is hard for you, but can you please answer me some questions?" Mona heavily sighed, asking Zara.
She was trying to be gentle, but it seemed she didn't have much practice, and her words felt stiff and authoritative.
Victor raised his head and looked at her; the shadow of fear in his heart had decreased a little.
Ding!
[Blood thirst has reached 55%]
[Warning! The host should drink blood before 95%.]
Ding!
[Immunity against Chaos Alien aura 5%]
Victor's eyes widened at the sudden notification.
But he calmed down in a second, not trying to give Mona an unusual reaction to make her suspicious.
"She…won't be able to speak." Victor's broken words escaped from his trembling lips.
Mona sighed and nodded toward Victor.
"It's okay, I'll ask her later." She replied, turning away from them.
The two soldiers had already returned, their faces looking more exhausted than before.
They had already moved on from the feeling of fear long before. As they stood near the Mona, reporting "We got rid of the 20 cadets who died, and their bodies were getting corrupted. And 30 students are unconscious, with corruption slowly spreading in their bodies. Their beginner's level Origin magic is resisting, but we have to take them to the Holy Goddess Gaia's temple branch."
Mona nodded; she willed a blue screen to pop before her.
[Inventory], she clicked.
And took out a small hand hand-sized, black circular mirror.
She clicked on the mirror with her finger, and a blue screen popped up from it.
Several names appeared on the blue screen, and she clicked on the one tab.
A ringing sound came out.
Click.
"Hello, Lieutenant Mona, what can I do for you?" A clear sound of a man came out from the mirror.
"I need backup right now. I have 30 students injured, with corruption slowly spreading in their bodies. Send reinforcement to the Elarion School assembly hall." Mona ordered without giving the man on the other side any chance.
"…"
"…"
"Hurry up, we don't have much time!" She urged
"Yes! Lieutenant, my soldiers are already moving toward the Elarion School. They will arrive in two minutes." Man replied from the other side.
Mona nodded, relieved, "Thank you."
She clicked on the mirror, the blue screen closed, and she willed the mirror to vanish with blue light back into inventory.
The door to the hall opened, and several soldiers rushed in. They looked around with wide eyes at the destruction.
As they spotted Mona, they moved toward her, saluted with their chest out, and made a salute with their hand.
"Lieutenant, we are here to take the injured students to the temple branch." One soldier screamed at the top of his lungs.
Mona nodded and looked towards the two soldiers she had with her, "Help them."
The two soldiers saluted and guided the newly arrived soldiers with them.
They took the injured students; one soldier took the one student, floating behind them with a blue aura of Origin magic.
As the injured students were escorted out of the assembly hall, only Mona and the scared students remained.
She took a heavy sigh and went back to where her chair lay broken.
She took out the book from the rubble, cleaned the dust, and sat down at the edge of the stage.
She looked around at the scared students.
"In this War," She muttered, looking back into the book, "it's better to lose your innocence early on."