The ruins were still smoking when Albrecht's roar shattered the silence.
He drove his fist into the ground, molten sparks scattering outward. The shockwave rippled through the broken stone, and everyone — Noel, Noir, the girls — froze in place. The golden flame around him flared violently, coiling like a living storm.
"Thirty years!" he bellowed, voice hoarse but deafening. "Thirty damn years holding this land, month after month — fighting those beasts, burying my men, rebuilding these walls — for this!"
He ripped his sword free from the ground, the blade glowing white-hot as veins of light crawled up his arm. "For one thief to walk in and take it as if it were nothing!"
The air trembled with the force of his mana. Even the broken pillars nearby began to crack further under the pressure.
No one spoke. The only sounds were the low hum of fire and the faint crumble of debris under his boots.
