The coliseum smoldered like the carcass of a slaughtered beast.
Where once banners flew and cheers rose, excitement rippling through the atmosphere, now blood pooled in trenches, smoke burned the lungs, and the air rang with the cries of the wounded.
Healers swarmed the wreckage.
Not just those that came with the reinforcements, healers from Nexus Academy also finally charged into what was left of the coliseum as they whispered incantations of their abilities that stitched torn flesh, calming minds, and pulling the barely-breathing back from the dark embrace of death.
Every ability that failed to revitalize left another body covered with a cloak, another name to be whispered among the dead.
Soldiers hauled rubble aside, dragging survivors into the open.
Piles of corpses lined the arena's edges in the thousands, their once-proud forms reduced to silent husks, waiting to be counted. The smell of burned flesh and iron choked every breath.
