Dust and smoke covered everything.

The mall was gone. In its place was a wide field of broken concrete, shattered glass, and twisted metal that spread across the road and into the surrounding area in every direction.

The air was thick and grey, visibility barely reaching ten meters in any direction.

For a long moment there was nothing. Only silence and settling of debris.

Then something moved.

A large chunk of concrete shifted and rolled aside. A hand appeared from beneath it, pressing flat against the ground. Then a shoulder. Then the rest of a body getting itself upward through the rubble with slow and heavy effort.

A tanker. His massive shield was cracked clean across the middle, the edges bent from the pressure of the collapse. His armor was destroyed in several places. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow and he moved with a visible limp as he pulled himself fully free of the debris and stood unsteadily.

He had wolf ears. He was beastman name Ryan.

He was one of the lucky ones.

Several of the other tankers had not made it out. Even with their shields and natural durability, the sheer weight of a seven story building coming down on top of them had been too much.

Their bodies had flickered and vanished somewhere beneath the rubble, ejected from the simulation before the dust had even settled.

A few other students began emerging slowly from the wreckage. Crawling out from under broken slabs.

Pulling themselves free of collapsed walls. Most of them were from the perimeter group, the ones who had been stationed outside the mall when the building came down.

Some had managed to run far enough. Others had thrown themselves behind the nearest standing structure and survived behind it by a narrow margin.

The ones who had been inside the mall when the generator exploded had fared much worse.

From a small mound of rubble near the edge of the destruction zone, something shifted.

A hand pushed a broken concrete slab aside.

Arisha pulled herself out.

Her clothes were torn and coated in dust. A cut ran along her left forearm and another across her cheek, both still bleeding slowly. Her bow was still in her right hand, somehow still intact, though the string was frayed at one end.

She had managed to conjure a mana barrier at the last second when the building began to fall. It hadn’t been strong enough to block everything. But it had been enough to keep the worst of the debris from crushing her outright.

She straightened up slowly and looked around.

The scale of the destruction hit her all at once.

The entire mall, it was gone. She pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Further into the debris field, something large shifted beneath a collapsed section of the upper floors.

It moved again. Then with a heavy grinding of concrete against concrete, a figure pushed upward through the broken material and climbed free.

He was Damien.

His light armor was destroyed, pieces of it missing entirely, the rest hanging in damaged fragments. His black hair was matted with dust and a thin line of blood ran from his hairline down the side of his face. His hazel eyes moved slowly across the destruction around him, taking in the scope of it.

He stood there for a moment, breathing heavily and remained there looking around.

"How," he muttered quietly. It wasn’t really a question. Just a word that came out on its own.

A sound came from nearby. More debris shifting.

Kaelan pulled himself free about fifteen meters away, rising from the rubble with slow, controlled movements. His condition was also bad.

His clothing was shredded and his body carried multiple visible injuries, a deep gash across his left shoulder, another across his ribs. He was pale. One more serious hit and the simulation would eject him entirely.

He said nothing when he stood. He just looked at Damien.

Damien looked back.

Then Damien’s eyes moved past him, scanning further across the debris field, counting.

A handful of A-1 students were emerging from the wreckage at various points. Some helping each other to their feet. Some already standing, looking around with the same stunned expression. He tried to count them quickly.

Not many. Far too few. Lyria was not among them nor Leonard. Maybe they were still below the parts, somewhere near.

He had already seen the notification flash across his smartwatch display, a small indicator that a class member had been eliminated. Her name had been one of the first.

He looked toward the far end of the road.

Through the thinning dust, shapes were becoming visible. Students standing upright, organized, largely uninjured.

Class B-1. The ones who had been positioned further away from the mall when it came down. Around forty of them had survived intact. Perhaps thirty of their number had been caught in the collapse, but the rest had been far enough back to avoid the worst of it.

They were already beginning to regroup, moving into loose formation, looking toward the wreckage.

Damien watched them.

Then he clicked his tongue.

"How many do we have?" he asked, his voice flat and controlled despite everything. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Kaelan had already been counting. "Twelve. Maybe fourteen if the two still buried come out."

Twelve against forty.

Damien exhaled slowly through his nose.

He looked down at his sword, still in his hand somehow, its golden glow reduced to a faint flicker. He tightened his grip on it.

The situation had changed completely.

Whatever plan they had walked into the mall with was gone now, buried under the same rubble as half their class.

He looked at Arisha, who had made her way over to them through the debris. She met his eyes without speaking.

Then he looked at Kaelan again.

"Defensive formation," Damien said quietly.

"We pull whoever is standing into a tight group. We don’t split up and we don’t charge." He glanced toward the B-1 students in the distance. "We hold ground and make them come to us through the rubble. If they want to finish this, they’re going to have to work for it."

Kaelan nodded once.

Arisha turned and began moving toward the scattered survivors without needing to be told, calling them in with short, clear directions.

Damien stood in place for a moment longer, looking out at the enemy across the wreckage.

Forty against twelve. He had been in worse situations. He told himself that and almost believed it.