Chapter 49: I chose silence. It was easy.
In the deep, dark night, under the suffocating stillness of the sky, the charred ruins of Merlin School stood like a ghost of what once was—a shattered skeleton of metal and brick, still radiating heat from the inferno that had consumed it.
The air was thick with smoke and dust, the lingering stench of burnt wood.
Standing at the edge of the ruins was a black-haired, middle-aged man, his face frozen in a mixture of disbelief and horror. He stared at the remains of the building, unable to look away, as if doing so would make the destruction any less real.
"I... I didn’t expect this, A mage... a damn mage destroyed the entire school in broad daylight. Have they lost their minds completely or what? Who does something like this...? trying to blow up a whole building—while children were still inside..."
His voice trailed off into a bitter, hollow laugh. He stepped closer, eyes falling on the yellow police tags barely clinging to the bent metal poles. The tape had been haphazardly wrapped, fluttering in the faint breeze, marked with crude words in ink: not allowed here...
He sighed and turned his gaze beside him—to a slouched figure wrapped in an oversized, tattered hoodie.
"Hey... Sloth, who the hell would do something this idiotic?"
The man muttered with a strained breath, rubbing the back of his neck.
The hooded figure blinked slowly, head tilting slightly.
"Well... if I had to guess. Wrath."
The figure replied in a sluggish tone, voice thick with apathy.