Awakening Domination System: But I'm a Slave?-Chapter 304: Aftermath

Duke Garran Glimor stood at the shattered gates of Phoenix Academy and felt something crack in his chest.

Smoke rose from a dozen different buildings, black columns spiraling into the darkening sky. The buildings were collapsed.

The library was an inferno that sent sparks dancing through the air like dying stars.

And the bodies.

They were everywhere. Students. Faculty. Guards. Some still recognizable, others... not. Scattered across bloodstained stone like discarded dolls, their stories ended in moments of violence that no one would remember.

"Fuck," he breathed, his eyes sweeping across the devastation with growing horror.

Behind him, three companies of guards, nearly two hundred soldiers, stood in formation, waiting for orders.

Combat specialists, healers, search and rescue personnel. The fastest response force the capital could muster.

It wasn’t enough.

It would never be enough.

"Sir!" Captain Meridin, his second-in-command, a scarred veteran with steel-grey hair, approached at a run. "Perimeter sweep shows multiple hostile signatures still active. Dozens of corrupted creatures in the western sections."

"Engagement orders?" another guard called out.

Garran’s jaw tightened. He forced himself to think tactically, to compartmentalize the horror into something actionable.

"First and second companies, sweep and clear all hostile signatures. Third company splits into three squads: rescue, medical, and investigation." His voice carried essence-enhancement, reaching everyone simultaneously.

"Healers prioritize critical cases. Anyone who can be saved, save them. Search teams focus on collapsed structures, there could be students trapped. Move!"

The guards scattered with military precision, breaking into their assigned units.

Garran walked forward into the courtyard, his essence senses extending outward, cataloguing threats and survivors with practiced efficiency.

ROAR!

To his left, three corrupted creatures emerged from the smoke, standard units, shambling forward with mindless aggression.

Garran’s hand moved to his sword, and...

SLASH! SLASH! SLAHS!

Dust scattered on the wind.

Garran continued his sweep, his guards spreading out across the grounds in coordinated patterns. The sounds of combat echoed from multiple directions.

BOOM-CRACK!

Near the arena complex, something massive was fighting against royal guards. Garran couldn’t see it clearly through the smoke, but he could feel its essence signature, powerful, corrupted, radiating malice.

"Captain Meridin!" he called out.

"Sir!"

"Take twenty guards and reinforce the arena assault. Whatever that thing is, I want it dead in five minutes."

"Yes, sir!" Meridin gathered his team and charged toward the combat.

Garran kept moving, his eyes tracking every detail, his mind working through terrible calculations.

How many dead? A hundred? Two hundred? More?

He passed a Silver Crown third-year whose head had been separated from her body.

Other who’d been torn literally in half. Passed a faculty member who’d been burned beyond recognition.

Children. They’re just children.

His hands clenched into fists.

Who did this? Who would—

"YOUR GRACE!"

A guard was running toward him, pale and shaking. "Sir, you need to see this. The central hall... it’s—" The man’s voice broke. "It’s bad, sir."

----

The central hall had been transformed into an abattoir.

Bodies were piled near the entrance where the demons had first broken through. Students who’d tried to flee, faculty who’d tried to hold the line, all cut down in those first terrible moments.

Blood covered the floor in pools that reflected the flickering light from fires burning in adjacent rooms. The walls were scorched, cracked, decorated with impact patterns that told stories of desperate last stands.

Garran stood in the doorway and forced himself to look.

Healers were already inside, moving between bodies, checking for any signs of life.

A young healer—barely twenty himself—was vomiting in the corner, overwhelmed by the carnage.

"Get him out of here," Garran said quietly to a nearby guard. "And get me a casualty count as soon as possible. Names if available."

"Yes, sir."

He walked deeper into the hall, his boots splashing through blood, and found something that made him stop.

Professor Thaddeus Grimwald.

The elderly combat instructor lay on his back, a massive wound through his stomach, his grey beard matted with dried blood. His eyes were open, staring at nothing, his expression frozen in determination rather than fear.

Garran crouched beside the body, closed those staring eyes with gentle fingers.

"Rest, old friend," he murmured. "You did your duty."

He stood, forcing himself to move on, to keep cataloguing.

Then—

A sound cut through the ambient noise of rescue operations.

Sobbing.

Broken, desperate, the sound of a soul being torn apart.

Garran followed it, weaving through debris and bodies until he found the source.

A girl.

With black hair and grey eyes. She knelt beside a body, a young man with golden-brown hair, his face peaceful despite the horrific injuries covering his form.

The girl held his hand, her tears falling onto his still chest, her voice repeating the same words over and over:

"I’m sorry... I’m so sorry... please wake up... please..."

He approached slowly, carefully, like approaching a wounded animal.

"Miss Duskwood?"

She didn’t respond. Didn’t even seem to hear him. Just kept crying, kept holding her brother’s hand.

A healer tried to approach, to pull her away so they could process the body—

"Don’t," Garran said sharply. "Leave her. She needs time."

"But sir, we need to—"

"I said leave her." His voice carried absolute authority.

The healer withdrew.

Garran stood there for a moment, watching this broken girl mourn.

Then turned away.

----

The eastern gardens had become a makeshift rallying point for survivors.

Students and faculty who’d fought their way through the chaos were gathering here, drawn by the presence of organized defenders and the relative cover provided by stone walls and dense foliage.

Garran’s guards had established a perimeter, healers were treating the wounded, and slowly order was being restored from chaos.

Through the smoke, figures emerged.

Verelia Rithvale walked at the head of a group of survivors, a mix of Silver Crown students and faculty she’d managed to shield during her fighting withdrawal.

Her ice-blue eyes were sharp despite obvious exhaustion, frost still clinging to her fingertips from constant technique use.

Behind her, Kieran Ashford supported a wounded second-year, his wind essence depleted but his movements still controlled.

And emerging from a different path, Lyria and Seraphine Luminous, both covered in blood and ichor, weapon still drawn, essence flickering weakly.

They converged near the garden’s central fountain, and for a moment, there was relief. Recognition. The knowledge that these ones survived.

Then reality set in.

"How many?" Verelia asked quietly, addressing no one in particular.

"Don’t know yet," Kieran replied, his voice rough. "Too many. Way too many."

"The central hall was, " Seraphine cut herself off, unable to finish. Her golden eyes usually so bright were dull. "We tried to save them, but the demons were too fast, and we couldn’t—"

Lyria didn’t said anything, just gripped her friend’s hand.

Eventually, more survivors trickled in, individuals and small groups, all showing signs of desperate combat, all carrying the hollow-eyed look of people who’d seen too much death too quickly.

The healers worked frantically, triaging, stabilizing, trying to save everyone they could.

But there were too many wounded. Too few healers. Too much damage.

Garran watched from his position coordinating guard movements, and the numbers kept getting worse.

"Duke Glimor!" A guard approached, saluting. "Final sweep of hostile forces complete. All corrupted creatures eliminated. No demonic signatures detected, they appear to have withdrawn completely."

"Confirm that," Garran ordered. "Triple-check the perimeter. If even one of those things is still hiding—"

"Already being done, sir."

Garran nodded, then turned his attention back to the survivors.

Elina Glimor was being carried in on a stretcher, healers working on her while she remained semi-conscious. Her body broken in multiple places, but she was alive.

Verelia saw her but didn’t spoke.

Elina’s eyes opened. She saw Verelia and something cracked in her expression.

"He’s gone," she whispered, tears beginning to stream down her face. "She took him. I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t, she was too strong, and I—"

"Who took who?" Verelia’s tone had gone deadly quiet.

"She... she took Alaric. And Nyra. Just... took them, and I couldn’t—" Her voice dissolved into sobs. "I couldn’t stop her!"

Verelia’s ice-blue eyes went wide.

"Alaric is... she took him?"

"I’m sorry," Elina sobbed. "I tried, I swear I tried, but she."

Verelia’s jaw tightened, but she nodded once and turned away.

---

Nearby, Lyria had gone very still.

Her purple eyes stared at nothing, her sword hanging loosely in her grip.

Alaric?

She didn’t know why hearing about that boy made her chest clench. Didn’t understand the sudden, overwhelming sense of loss that washed over her like ice water.

Why do I feel this?

She’d seen him around the Academy, of course. Everyone knew Alaric Glimor. But they’d never spoken, well, just once briefly.

So why did hearing he’d been taken feel like losing something vital?

"Lyria?" Seraphine’s voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. "Are you alright?"

"I don’t know," Lyria whispered. Her hand pressed against her chest, where that inexplicable ache had settled. "I don’t know."

Around them, the rescue operations continued. Bodies were being collected. Wounded were being stabilized. The living were being counted.

And slowly, painfully, the true scope of the disaster became clear.

Phoenix Academy, the jewel of the kingdom’s educational system, the safe haven for noble children and future leaders, had been broken.

Six hundred and forty-three confirmed dead. Nine hundred and seventeen wounded. Dozens still missing, trapped in collapsed structures or scattered across the grounds.

The attack had lasted less than an hour.

One hour. That’s all it took to tear apart everything they’d built.

Garran stood at the garden’s edge, watching the sun finally set beyond the smoke-filled horizon, and allowed himself one moment.

Then he pushed it down, locked it away, and returned to work.