The military hospital of the capital was silent.
Not the peaceful kind of silence that brought comfort, but a heavy, organized silence, almost mechanical in nature.
Vast corridors stretched beneath cold white lights, interrupted only by the low hum of life-support machines and the hurried footsteps of medical personnel.
The scent of antiseptic dominated everything.
Here, war did not scream.
It breathed slowly.
Inside the rehabilitation ward on the third floor, a row of reinforced hospital beds stood against a wall of raw concrete.
Privacy curtains had been drawn between sections, though not entirely.
For security reasons and crisis management protocols, the Academy had gathered its most valuable survivors in the same room.
Isolation reduced logistical complications, but it also concentrated every unresolved emotion into a single enclosed space.
On one side of the room, the trio of apprentices was slowly recovering.
Issa lay flat on his back, his chest wrapped in compression bandages while neurological sensors monitored activity around his temples.
Kaïs sat partially upright with his right arm immobilized inside a reinforced brace, dark streaks of internal burn damage visible across his neck.
A few beds away, Tariq remained completely motionless, staring at the ceiling with clenched jaws and an expression carved from stone.
They were not alone.
Three beds farther, Goman Arashi sat upright with his bare torso wrapped in tightly secured bandages.
His silver hair was disheveled, and an icy rage radiated from him with almost physical intensity.
Beside him, two third-year students from his division sat with their heads lowered, both suffering severe leg injuries sustained during the attack.
At the end of the ward, Professor Elara occupied a bed of her own.
Her left arm rested in an orthopedic sling, and fatigue had left visible marks across her face.
High-intensity Spirit combat did not merely damage muscles and bones.
Spirit overload caused neurological trauma, microscopic vascular ruptures, and severe cognitive exhaustion.
Grouping survivors together reduced the risk of isolated energetic relapses, but it also created a volatile psychological environment where frustration and humiliation could spread like a disease.
The door slid open quietly.
Leila entered first, followed by Raad and Soura.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
The steady rhythm of heart monitors filled the void while a suffocating tension settled over the room.
Humiliation lingered in the air, tangible and heavy.
Kaïs was the first to break the silence.
His voice was rough and strained from both pain and frustration.
“You took your time.” “We had to wait for military security clearance,” Leila replied calmly as she approached to check his vital signs.
Her expression remained composed despite the atmosphere.
“You’re not in any condition to get worked up, Kaïs.” “Worked up?” Kaïs spat out a bitter laugh.
“That bastard…
Kazuki.
He shut me down like I was some elementary school kid.
He broke through my defenses without even using an elemental Spirit.
Is this what the Academy’s elite looks like?
Getting trampled inside our own home?” “Be quiet, commoner.” The cold, drawn-out voice came from the neighboring bed.
Goman stared at Kaïs with open contempt, though his own fingers tightened around his sheets.
“Your whining is giving me a headache.
You’re talking about humiliation?
You and your little group are insignificant.
But I…
an Arashi…” His jaw tightened.
Veins stood out across his temples.
For a member of one of the Five Great Families, families that effectively ruled the world, being forced to deploy his maximum barometric field merely to survive an invisible shockwave was an unbearable stain on his pride.
The fact that Morgen had ignored his status entirely and crushed him beneath the residual force of his own failed attack made him physically sick with rage.
“An Arashi who ended up on his knees just like everyone else.” The words came from Tariq without him even taking his eyes off the ceiling.
Goman immediately turned toward him, and the air around his bed thickened slightly as an involuntary pressure fluctuation escaped his control.
“What did you say, gutter rat?” “I said we all got destroyed,” Tariq repeated as he slowly sat up despite the pain tearing through his ribs.
His eyes finally met Goman’s.
Unlike the noble heir, Tariq’s humiliation ran deeper.
His shadow blade, his pride, everything he had trusted had been reduced to nothing by ordinary sand.
“Your bloodline was useless.
My Spirit was useless.
Kaïs’ explosions were useless.
They wiped us out.” One of the injured third-years finally spoke, his voice unsteady.
“They weren’t just three random attackers.
Morgen was a former high-ranking Commission officer.
The real question is how they got inside.
The Academy’s energy-detection barriers are supposed to be the most advanced in the world.” “That is correct,” Professor Elara intervened from her bed, her strict tone returning despite her injuries.
“To bypass our security protocols, one would require either Spirit-erasure technology that even the Commission cannot legally acquire without authorization…
or assistance from someone on the inside at the highest level.” The word hung heavily in the room.
An accomplice.
Issa, who had remained silent until now, closed his eyes as he processed the implications.
His mind moved through the information piece by piece.
“That’s not the only problem.
Think about the timing.
The city sirens sounded because of an Orange-Level Spiritual Suppuration in the business district just before the attack began.
That’s what pulled Captain Thiago away from the Academy.
Orange-Level Suppurations don’t just appear randomly inside secured zones.
Does Morgen have a way to create them, or perhaps direct them remotely?” Leaning against one of the room’s support pillars, Raad folded his arms.
“And then there’s the artifact.
The first thing Thiago asked about was whether it had been secured.
What exactly was hidden beneath the Academy that justified an operation on this scale just to extract it?” Soura, who had remained near the doorway, finally spoke in his usual monotone voice.
“They weren’t trying to kill us.
If they had wanted to clear the courtyard, we’d all be ashes right now.
They took the artifact and left.
We survived because we weren’t worth the energy required for a finishing blow.” The statement landed like an anvil.
Being spared not because of mercy, but because of complete tactical indifference, was perhaps the greatest insult imaginable.
For Kaïs.
For Tariq.
And above all, for Goman.
To prodigies raised on superiority, insignificance was more painful than death itself.
The worst wound a genius can suffer is not physical pain, nor even the prospect of dying.
It is the realization that they are irrelevant.
Understanding that one exists merely as collateral damage within the plans of a superior adversary shatters the very foundation upon which pride is built.
Goman leaned back against his pillows, a bitter smile twisting his features.
“An extraction operation…
all of this for a damned object.
My clan will hear about this.
The Commission is going to answer for what happened.” “Your clan won’t do anything, Arashi.” Tariq’s voice was low.
His remaining hand clenched into a fist, and a dark, obsessive light burned inside his eyes.
“The Great Families, the Commission, the professors…
all of you are looking for explanations and political scapegoats.” He turned toward Kaïs, then Issa, Raad, and finally Soura.
“Morgen has the artifact.
He has the condensed Spirit.
He’ll come back eventually, or we’ll find him ourselves.
But next time…” His voice roughened as rage surfaced once more.
“I won’t hesitate.
I’ll kill him.” “Count on me to clear the path,” Kaïs growled immediately, frustration leaking from every word.
Goman slowly turned his head toward them.
For the first time since they had met, the heir of the Arashi Family no longer looked at them as insects beneath his station.
Instead, he regarded them as dangerous variables.
Unpredictable factors capable of altering future outcomes.
Inside that military hospital room, surrounded by the steady beeping of machines, wounded professors, and fallen prodigies, countless questions remained unanswered.
Yet one certainty had already been born.
The protective bubble surrounding the Academy had shattered forever.