Awakening Domination System: But I'm a Slave?-Chapter 292: Attack [1]

The awards ceremony passed in a blur of formality and celebration.

Aurelia stood at the center of the arena floor, her honey-blonde hair catching the afternoon sun as she congratulated with the perfect blend of authority and grace befitting her new position as Student Council President.

Her words were measured, political, designed to honor both victor and defeated without showing favoritism.

Alaric barely heard them.

He stood with his teammates, accepting the recognition with the appropriate nods and acknowledgments, but his attention kept drifting to the stands. To those figures that sat too still.

The ceremony concluded. The crowd began to disperse. Students filed out of the stands in chattering groups, their voices high with excitement, replaying favorite moments from the fights.

Alaric made his way through the hallways of the academy arena, his footsteps echoing off stone walls.

The corridors were wide and high-ceilinged, built to accommodate crowds. The afternoon light filtering through high windows cast long shadows that seemed darker than they should be.

Nyra walked beside him, her posture perfect as always, hands clasped in front of her. To anyone watching, she appeared the picture of a dutiful maid accompanying her charge.

But Alaric could feel the tension radiating from her, subtle, controlled, but present.

"The twelve in the stands," she murmured, her voice barely audible. "They've moved."

"I noticed," Alaric replied quietly. His mind was already working through the implications, calculating possibilities, analyzing threat vectors.

What's the objective? Assassination? Mass casualty event? Destabilization?

A group of second-years passed them in the hallway, laughing about something. Oblivious. Happy.

If this is what I think it is—

Then suddenly...

BOOOOM!

An explosion came from outside, massive, violent, and close enough that the entire building shook.

Stone dust rained from the ceiling. The windows rattled in their frames. Several students stumbled, crying out in surprise and sudden fear.

Alaric's hand went to his side instinctively. Beside him, Nyra's expression shifted, the perfect maid persona dropping away like a discarded mask, replaced by something sharp and predatory.

Another explosion. Then another.

BOOM! BOOM!

The sounds were coming from multiple directions, north, east, somewhere distant to the west. Not a single attack point.

"Go!" someone shouted from further down the corridor. "Everyone out! NOW!"

Students began running. The orderly dispersal disintegrated into chaos in seconds, bodies pushing, shoving, panic spreading like wildfire. Screams echoed off the stone walls, amplified and distorted.

Alaric and Nyra ran against the flow, heading toward the nearest exit that led outside. They had to see. Had to know.

They burst through the heavy doors into afternoon sunlight—

—And into hell.

The academy grounds were burning.

Everywhere.

Flames consumed the western library, a three-story structure that had stood for centuries, reducing it to a skeleton of stone and collapsing timber.

Black smoke billowed into the sky in thick, choking columns. The eastern dormitories were under assault from figures wreathed in darkness, their forms barely humanoid.

Students were scattering in all directions. Some ran for cover. Others were attempting to fight back.

A Silver Crown third-year engaged one of the attackers near the fountain plaza. His sword, reinforced with essence, struck the figure's arm—

CLANG!

And bounced off as if hitting solid steel. The figure didn't even flinch. It reached out with one shadow-wreathed hand and grabbed the student by the throat, lifting him off the ground with casual, terrifying strength.

"Help—" the student choked out.

The figure squeezed.

CRACK!

The body dropped. Lifeless.

"Fuck," Alaric breathed.

Across the grounds, more scenes of violence played out in brutal simultaneity:

Near the administrative building, a group of faculty members had formed a defensive line, combining their essence into barriers and counterattacks.

But there were too many.

At least twenty of the corrupted figures were visible from this position alone, and more were emerging from the smoke and chaos. They moved with purpose, targeting specific locations, the library, the dormitories, the administrative center, the arena itself.

They're hitting infrastructure and gathering points.

A massive explosion rocked the northern section of the grounds.

"Young master, we need to move," Nyra said urgently. Her hands were already shifting, shadows coalescing around her fingers. "This position is too exposed."

But Alaric was scanning the chaos, his mind asserting itself despite the horror.

Where's the main force? Where's the command element? Attacks like this don't run themselves—

CRASH!

One of the arena's outer walls exploded inward.

Stone fragments the size of a man's torso shot through the air, and from the breach emerged three more figures, but these were different. Larger. More defined. Their essence signatures were stronger, more focused, radiating power that made the air itself distort.

Elite units.

One of them, a figure with arms that ended in blade-like protrusions, spotted a group of fleeing first-years and launched itself forward with impossible speed.

Too fast, they won't make it.

"Nyra!" Alaric barked.

But she was already moving.

One moment she was beside him. The next, she was there, across thirty meters of open ground in the space between heartbeats, her form blurring, impossible to track.

Her hand caught the blade-armed figure's wrist just as it swung at the first-year students.

CLANG!

The impact released a shockwave that cracked the stone beneath their feet. The students stumbled but kept running, their lives saved by a margin measured in inches.

The corrupted figure twisted, trying to break Nyra's grip, but she held firm. Her other hand came up, wreathed in shadows that seemed to devour light, and struck the thing's chest.

CRUNCH!

The figure staggered backward, essence flickering erratically. For a moment, its form destabilized, revealing something underneath, something that might have once been human before corruption twisted it into this.

"What ARE you?" the figure rasped, its voice like gravel sliding over metal.

Nyra didn't answer. She simply attacked again.

Another explosion, closer this time. The ground beneath Alaric's feet trembled. He looked up and saw smoke rising from the tournament seating area where spectators had been only minutes before.

They're not distinguishing between combatants and civilians. This is indiscriminate slaughter.

A scream cut through the noise, high, terrified, young. Alaric's head snapped toward the sound.

Near the eastern dormitory entrance, a group of first-years was trapped. Five of them, pressed against a wall, facing down two of the corrupted figures. One of the students, a girl with auburn hair, was trying to conjure a fire barrier, but her essence was flickering, unstable from panic.

The corrupted figures advanced slowly, almost leisurely, savoring their fear.

"Jasmine!"

Alaric's essence flooded his channels in an instant.

And...

Whoosh!

He vanished.