Shortly after Garos' exit.
"Aaaaaargh. You cowa…"
The last of the infiltrators was killed by one of the graduation event's participants. With this kill, the curtain had fallen on the very first chapter of war. Of course, this was only the beginning.
The war had officially started. The forces of Layos and Edinburgh were about to clash time and again. There would be fewer sneak attacks and more frontal conflicts. Of course, the death toll of rankers was about to rise from both sides as the war progressed.
However, the war was a strange period for those not on the front lines. It wasn't like a faulty tap that never stopped running. Rather, there were short episodes of bloody conflicts and grim peace. The mass anxiety between such episodes defined the state of war as a whole.
The Eddinca Arena finally experienced peace. A form of peace that it hadn't felt after the graduation ceremony began.
The participants in the graduation ceremony stared at each other with blank faces. With no enemies in sight, they did not know what to do.
Most of the participants who had spent much time fighting inside the Sansara World looked especially lost. They had been fighting an uphill battle for survival for such a long time that peace felt unnatural. Just as what Hansen had told them in the beginning, the time spent in Sansara World had changed some part of them.
Collective quiet was observed.
Even the Sages who observed the fights from a distance did nothing. They did not give encouraging speeches to the younger generation. They did not criticize the participants either. They just stood still and let the participants find their own form of gravity– something to keep them grounded in their current reality.
And then... someone clapped.
The sound of this clap served as an expression to celebrate their survival in such a turbulent time. That they had witnessed such mayhem and destruction with their own eyes and lived to tell the tale for future generations.
The maddening silence was shattered into many pieces by this clap. The silence was shattered like broken glass after it clashed with the hurled stone. The pieces of such silence were dissolved into nothingness and the world came alive.
The sound of a single clap was picked up by the rest of the survivors, turning into applause. This was the applause of the survivors, by the survivors, for the survivors.
The rankers hugged each other. The survivors met and talked with the rest of their respective teams. Some moistened their eyes for their lost comrades. Some were glad for their survival and that of their alive-and-kicking teammates.
Enemies and allies' dead bodies disappeared into thin air. The dead Edinburgh rankers who had not defected to Layos would be provided with proper last rites in the coming days. And as for those who exposed themselves as traitors, it was safe to assume their families would be prosecuted.
The disappearance of blood, gore, and dead bodies made it easy for survivors to meet and greet each other on a relatively lighter note. The rankers were not immune to loss, pain, fear, and other forms of suffering. But they were rankers in the end. And most of them accepted that death was an integral part of their lives.
Soon, the battlefield became as cheerful as the markets of The City of New Beginnings. The sounds of laughter and more laughter could be heard coming from every direction.
The kingdom-wide broadcast was turned on again. And the citizens of the entire kingdom could see the current state of affairs on the battlefield.
The unaware viewers across the kingdom were shocked by the Edinnica Arena's ruined condition. They did not know what happened to the place. So mass confusion and curiosity were created in the hearts of viewers.
The kingdom of Edinburgh decided to come clean with its current state of affairs instead of hiding it from the masses. If it didn't, Layos could use it as an antitrust campaign against the kingdom.
The spectral screens spread across the kingdom suddenly saw a huge spike in viewership.
Even some of the rankers currently busy with their on-field missions decided to stop their current activities and tune into the latest news. After all, they needed to know what happened inside their capital city. Their future was dependent on this news.
Various reporters and reports started providing more information about what had happened. Mortals and rankers criticized the kingdom's policies. Its security protocols were questioned.
However, the survivors of the disaster served as the symbol of victory over the infiltrators in the end. Along with the news of the current happenings inside the capital city, it was also announced that a commencement ceremony will be held in the Edinnica Arena in a few days.
Sage Gregory's hostage status was also shared with Edinburgh. It acted as a motivating factor for the populace.
Of course, there was no coverage about the mysterious third force that came out of nowhere and disappeared into thin air. Even the participants were told not to talk to reporters about the third force based on the kingdom's internal security matters.
It could be said that the kingdom wanted to have this kind of effect on its populace from the beginning of the graduation event. It wanted to create heroes out of these rankers. All so that war would not become as tense for the general populace as it could be without such heroes added to the equation.
The commencement ceremony will pay homage to the rankers who lost their lives and celebrate their achievements. And it will reward the survivors.
Graduate rankers will receive a medallion. Of course, medallions will have different ranks. The qualified rankers will also receive other rewards from the kingdom for their heroic performance inside and outside Sansara World.
The criticism and panic of Edinburgh's general populace died down when it saw that a new generation of rankers had risen to fame because of this destruction. It saw hope in these survivors.
