The hole in the wall grew within seconds.

  The stone simply collapsed inward, as if something had eaten it from the inside. Dust, chunks of masonry, screams from nearby students—and then he stepped through the breach.

  The first demon.

  Nearly three meters tall, broad-shouldered, wings folded behind his back like those of a giant bat. His skin was dark gray, like scorched stone; on his arms were bony growths instead of bracers. His eyes glowed a dull red, pupil-less.

  A lesser one. Ordinary.

  But for students—death.

  He roared so loudly that many ears rang, then lunged straight at us—at the dense circle where we, the students, stood.

  “HOLD THE FORMATION!” our earth teacher bellowed.

  The water teacher didn’t shout.

  He simply raised his hand.

  A surge of mana rolled through the air—I felt moisture gather from deep within the hall. In the same instant, dozens of water spears formed, etched with fine runes, compressed into razor-sharp points.

  They struck the demon almost simultaneously.

  Shoulders. Neck. Wing joints. Eyes.

  The body jerked, corroded by the impacts—and at that moment the earth teacher, without even fully turning, clenched his fist.

  The floor beneath the demon surged upward like the tooth of a giant, and a stone slab crashed down from above. A short, dull crunch—and the monster vanished between layers of stone.

  The silence after its roar felt unreal.

  But that was only the silence inside the hall.

  Outside, others were roaring.

  Someone was already crying openly.

  In the center of the circle, the students stood in chaos:

  someone gulped air,

  someone tried to break out of formation,

  someone just kept repeating, “I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to…”

  Only our class held together more tightly than the rest.

  We weren’t calm—no.

  But we stayed together.

  “Listen up!” the earth teacher’s voice cut through the noise. “We won’t hold here long. Our task is to break outside and leave the Academy. Do not scatter on the move. Anyone who breaks formation buries themselves.”

  The water teacher added curtly:

  “The hall’s defenses won’t last. Forward.”

  The teachers formed a straight front before us—

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  a semicircle, a protective line.

  And they advanced.

  They didn’t run.

  They walked—step by step, and every strike of their magic hit like a siege engine.

  We moved after them, compressed like a single living block.

  The corridors were worse.

  The roar, screams, the smell of smoke, spilled mana echoing in the bones. Debris rolled across the floor—books, bags, abandoned wands.

  In one place, a group of younger students sat pressed against a wall while their teacher alone held a passage with a shield. The shield was cracking; demons hammered it from the outside like hammers.

  Our teachers couldn’t stop—only threw a couple of fast support spells to reinforce the shield and moved on.

  A demon burst through a side wall—from the other side, straight into the corridor. It slashed the air with its claws, tearing it apart.

  An air teacher from another group twisted a vortex around it and simply compressed the air, crushing the demon as if it had been fed into an invisible grinder.

  I watched it all and thought:

  These aren’t “Academy teachers.”

  These are combat mages who were simply given chalk and a board.

  Even so… there were too many demons.

  Far too many.

  They poured out of walls and floors, shattered windows, flooded inside like black water.

  At last we spilled out of the training hall into the courtyard.

  And there—

  There was hell.

  The stone slabs of the yard were cracked and slick with blood. Parts of buildings burned—either demons using fire, or mages trying to contain them. The air reeked of ozone, smoke, and something… sweet-metallic.

  I saw bodies—in Academy uniforms.

  Students.

  Teachers.

  Some lay motionless,

  some still twitched,

  some crawled.

  The demons didn’t rush us as the nearest target.

  They finished off those who were alone first.

  Those who hadn’t grouped up.

  Those scattered across the yard.

  They moved like a cleanup unit:

  first the stragglers,

  then groups without protection,

  and only after that—the large, defended clusters.

  They’re not mindless beasts, I realized.

  They… think.

  The teachers exchanged quick glances.

  “To the forest!” our teacher shouted. “To the lake! There’ll be fewer of them, and it’ll be easier to hold a defense.”

  For the students, the words forest and lake sounded like salvation.

  For me—they sounded like another knot tightening: the Forest was close, and the demons were already here.

  They led us along the path toward the forest belt behind the Academy.

  Teachers walked in front and behind, covering us like shields.

  Mages on the sides too—so no one would break away or fall behind.

  We moved fast, almost running.

  I looked at my classmates.

  Many had empty eyes.

  Not empty because they felt nothing—quite the opposite.

  Too much.

  They had seen children their own age die.

  Seen blood splatter onto study robes.

  Seen teachers they cursed yesterday over homework

  today shield them from demons and fall.

  The world cracked.

  Not in a newspaper headline.

  Not in a history theory.

  Right in front of them.

  Finn was walking beside me, but at some point he seemed to shut down.

  His steps faltered, he began looking around, then stumbled over a root and fell to his knees. His fingers clawed into the dirt.

  And he… cried.

  Not quietly. Not “like an adult.”

  Loudly.

  With sobbing force.

  Like someone who had lost something forever.

  “Get up,” I said softly, grabbing his shoulder. “Finn. We have to go.”

  He shook his head, tears choking his words:

  “They… they were… kids… Zen… just yesterday we were…” He broke off.

  I pulled harder.

  The earth teacher stepped in, grabbed Finn by the collar, and lifted him almost like a sack.

  “We’ll cry later,” he said—not cruelly, but firmly. “Now—we move.”

  I glanced back at Elinia.

  She was walking near the adults, closer to the center, as a princess should.

  Her face was… completely calm.

  Too calm.

  Not alive.

  Like a mask.

  No fear. No anger. No tears.

  Just a gaze that looked through people, somewhere far away.

  She’d shut everything inside, I realized.

  And somehow, that was even scarier.

  Step by step, we went deeper into the forest.

  The sounds of the Academy—screams, impacts, demon roars—slowly drowned behind us, mixing with the wind in the treetops.

  I knew there was a small natural “bowl” near the lake:

  trees, slopes, water—perfect for setting up a circular defense.

  The teachers knew it too.

  That’s where we were going.

  Every step along the forest path felt strange:

  soft earth underfoot,

  stars overhead,

  fresh, slightly cold air.

  And none of it matched what was happening behind us.

  I suddenly understood:

  This is the end of the “school arc.”

  From here on, everything will be different.

  And if we survive until morning—

  the world will never be the same again.

  (End of Part One)

  Part two: