The mont Don spotted the missile—
He didn’t hesitate.
His body shifted instantly as **Beastshift** activated.
The change was subtle.
Too subtle for most human eyes to detect. Muscles tightened beneath his clothes. His posture adjusted by the smallest degree. His senses expanded outward like a sudden flood.
But a few people on the viewing deck noticed.
Among them—
Mr. Xiao.
He had been standing near one of the side tables speaking calmly with two investors, discussing possible partnerships with the school. His glass remained loosely in his hand as he noticed the disturbance forming near the viewing glass.
His gaze lingered on Don.
The movent.
The posture.
Sothing changed.
"Please excuse —"
He began to say.
But he never finished the sentence.
Because sothing else happened.
Not far from him—
Sumr and Sylvia stood together near the refreshnts table.
They had been speaking casually only monts earlier, their attention half on the arena below and half on the conversation they were sharing.
Then they noticed the small commotion forming near the glass.
Charles had moved.
Don had moved.
People were shifting.
Sylvia tilted her head slightly.
"What’s go—"
Her words stopped.
Both she and Sumr suddenly felt it.
An invisible grip.
It wrapped around their bodies without warning.
Sylvia’s eyes widened imdiately.
The sensation felt wrong.
Not painful—
But strange.
Like unseen hands lifting her weight.
Sumr, however, reacted differently.
Her eyes widened in surprise.
She knew this feeling.
*Don.*
The invisible force lifted both of them off the ground at the sa ti.
Several nearby guests gasped as their feet left the floor.
Then—
They were pulled.
Fast.
Their bodies slid through the air toward the far side of the viewing deck.
A few people stumbled aside as the two girls passed through.
One woman nearly dropped her drink.
A chair tipped over.
Clatter—!
Elsewhere on the deck, several superhumans noticed the disturbance instantly.
A few straightened.
Others narrowed their eyes.
Guards rose.
At the sa ti—
Amanda reached toward a drink being offered to her by a waiter.
The cocktail glass sparkled under the deck lights.
She had barely extended her hand—
When the sa invisible force grabbed her.
"Wha—?!"
Her body jerked sideways violently.
Her hand, still reaching for the glass, swung wildly as she was pulled away.
Smack—!
Her palm accidentally struck a nearby man across the face.
The man blinked in shock as Amanda vanished past him, dragged across the room.
"Hey—!"
Charles had already reached Don’s side.
"What is it?" he asked quickly.
But in his heart—
He already feared the answer.
Across the viewing deck—
Sumr.
Sylvia.
Amanda.
All three were dragged through the air toward the seating cluster where Samantha and Claire sat.
The pull ended abruptly.
THUMP—!
The three girls collided into the seated group with enough force to nearly knock everyone over.
Chairs scraped violently across the floor.
Samantha gasped.
Claire’s chair shifted sideways.
Bodies tangled briefly as they tried to steady themselves.
Small groans escaped several of them.
"Ow—!"
"My goodness—!"
"What was that?!"
Clothes shifted out of place.
Hair fell across faces.
None of them understood what had just happened.
Don didn’t answer.
He moved.
One single stride.
BOOM—!
The force of it cracked the floor beneath his foot.
A violent burst of air blasted outward from the motion.
Tables flipped.
Chairs toppled.
Several glasses shattered.
CRASH—!
By the ti anyone could react—
He had already crossed the entire distance to Samantha and the others.
His arrival alone sent their hair whipping wildly around their faces.
They barely had ti to register his presence.
"What—?"
"Don—?"
Before any question could finish—
He pulled them together.
Both arms wrapped around the group.
Tight.
Protective.
He tried to cover them.
But there were too many.
Samantha pressed against his chest.
Sumr and Sylvia were caught partially at his sides.
Claire and Amanda were pulled inward as well.
Their bodies overlapped in the cramped space.
Even with his size—
He couldn’t fully shield them.
Especially not with Samantha and Sumr’s curves making the arrangent even more crowded.
At the sa mont—
Charles reacted.
Without warning—
Two tallic wings erupted from his back.
SHRRAANG—!
The alloy structures unfolded outward.
The wings spread wide.
But they were not symtrical.
One looked slightly thinner.
Several feathers were missing.
Damage left over from the HavenRidge incident.
Charles ignored it.
He extended both wings fully.
Anyone standing within their span suddenly found themselves shielded behind a wall of silver looking tal.
More commotion spread through the viewing deck.
People began shouting.
"What’s happening?!"
"Is that—"
"Look outside—!"
Across the stadium stands, the crowd had started noticing sothing descending from the sky.
The missile had nearly reached the arena.
From the viewing deck—
It looked enormous.
A streak of tal dropping straight toward the stadium roof.
Closer.
Closer.
Then—
A blinding flash of white light filled the sky beyond the glass.
BOOM—!
For a fraction of a second—
Everything beca white.
Then the glass wall shattered.
KRAAASH—!
Thousands of razor shards exploded inward.
Several guests scread as the fragnts tore through the air.
Glass pierced shoulders.
Faces.
Arms.
Blood sprayed across the marble floor.
Before anyone could react—
The shockwave arrived.
A violent wall of force slamd into the viewing deck.
WHOOOOOOM—!
Heat surged through the opening.
Furniture lifted.
People scread.
And the blast wave crashed into the room.
---
White.
A harsh ringing filled the world.
EEEEEEEE—~
For several long seconds there was nothing else.
No direction.
No voices.
No sense of space.
Only that high-pitched tone and a field of blinding white pressing against the eyes.
Then—
Shapes began to return.
Blurry at first.
Distorted.
Don’s eyes snapped open.
His vision struggled to focus, the world shifting between washed-out brightness and broken outlines. The ringing still stabbed at his ears, though other sounds were starting to creep through.
Cries.
Shouting.
Sothing tal collapsing sowhere deeper in the structure—clang~ crash~
His first instinct was imdiate.
He looked down.
Samantha.
His gaze landed on her first.
She was still pressed tightly against his chest, one arm partially pinned beneath the cluster of bodies around him. Her hair had fallen loose from its neat arrangent and strands clung across her face.
Dust coated the shoulders of her turtleneck.
But she was alive.
His eyes shifted.
Sumr.
She coughed harshly against his shoulder, one hand gripping the front of his shirt while trying to catch her breath. Her hair was disheveled, partially covering her eyes.
Sylvia stood half-pressed against Claire’s side, her expression still stunned.
Claire herself looked shaken, though her posture had already regained so control.
Amanda blinked rapidly, brushing dust from her sleeve.
Their clothes were no longer neat.
Hair out of place.
Fabric wrinkled.
But compared to everything around them—
They may as well have been untouched.
Beyond the small space Don had managed to shield...
Horror.
The viewing deck had beco wreckage.
Furniture lay scattered across the floor.
Tables overturned.
Chairs snapped in half.
The elegant glass wall that once overlooked the arena had completely vanished. Jagged fragnts still clung to sections of the fra, while the rest littered the floor like a deadly carpet.
The explosion had ripped through the room with violent force.
Near the destroyed window-wall—
Bodies lay scattered.
Several guests had been thrown clear across the deck, slumped against broken furniture or crumpled along the marble floor.
Others had not been thrown.
They had been shredded.
Glass shards had punched through flesh like thrown knives. So were still embedded in shoulders, necks, and faces. Blood pooled beneath them in spreading stains.
One man lay on his side near the remains of a serving cart, a jagged shard buried deep into his throat. Blood bubbled weakly as he tried to breathe.
Nearby a woman clutched her arm, screaming as crimson poured between her fingers where a long piece of glass had pierced straight through her forearm.
"Help —! Please—!"
Her voice broke into sobs.
Closer to the shattered opening—
The injuries grew worse.
Several bodies had been caught directly by the blast wave and the intense heat that followed.
Clothes burned away in places.
Skin blistered.
One man stumbled blindly across the floor, his jacket half-charred as he cried out in shock.
"Water—! Soone—!"
Others weren’t moving at all.
The sll of smoke and burned fabric filled the deck.
Amid the chaos—
So superhumans were already moving.
A tall man lifted a collapsed beam off a trapped guest, tossing the tal aside with brute strength before dragging the injured person free.
Another woman crouched beside soone bleeding heavily from the leg, tearing fabric from a tablecloth to bind the wound.
Several people staggered to their feet, expressions confused as they tried to understand what had just happened.
Mr. Xiao was among the first moving.
He knelt beside a wounded couple near the center of the deck, pulling a fallen chair aside and helping the man sit upright.
"Hold pressure here," he instructed calmly, guiding the woman’s hand over her partner’s bleeding shoulder.
But his face—
Was far from calm.
His expression had turned sour.
Cold.
Around the deck, so superhumans who had survived the blast but not without injury struggled to regain their footing.
One man wiped blood from his brow where glass had cut across his forehead.
"What the hell was that?!"
Another woman limped across the floor clutching her ribs, looking toward the shattered opening.
"Was that... a missile?"
The ringing in their ears hadn’t even faded yet.
And already—
Screams began spreading.
People were finally seeing the bodies.
"My husband—!"
"Soone help him!"
"Oh God—!"
Panic surged through the deck as guests searched desperately for friends and family.
Amid the devastation—
Don slowly opened his arms wider.
The girls he had been shielding shifted slightly as the pressure around them eased.
Their reactions ca in different forms.
Claire imdiately turned toward Sylvia.
Her eyes scanned the girl quickly.
"Are you hurt?"
Sylvia blinked, still trying to regain her bearings.
"I... I don’t think so..."
Claire nodded once before her gaze lifted.
For a brief mont—
She looked up at Don.
Sothing crossed her eyes then.
But Don didn’t notice.
His attention had already moved back toward the destroyed window-wall.
Scanning the sky beyond.
Looking for another streak.
Another incoming threat.
Samantha looked completely shaken.
Her hands trembled as she reached toward Sumr, gently brushing loose strands of hair away from the girl’s face.
"Sumr... are you alright?"
Sumr coughed again before nodding weakly.
"I... think so..."
Amanda looked around in disbelief.
Her brows knitted together as she stared at the devastation around them.
Then she spoke aloud.
"What the hell just happened?"
Before Don could answer—
Charles rushed toward them.
He had already folded his wings back partially, the tallic feathers retracting behind him as he moved quickly through the wreckage.
His face was tense.
Urgent.
"Don!"
He reached them and lowered his voice slightly, though urgency still drove every word.
"We need to evacuate. Now."
Don turned toward him imdiately.
His voice ca out tight.
"Is there more?!"
Charles glanced toward the ruined opening and then briefly across the deck.
Panic.
Smoke.
Screaming.
"I don’t know," he admitted quickly.
His eyes swept across the destruction once more.
"But we can’t risk it."
Another distant scream echoed across the deck.
A section of ceiling creaked above them.
Don nodded once.
"Let’s go."
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