A deafening roar of fracturing granite tore through the morning sky as the western wing of the royal palace sheared away from the main citadel.
The Crowned Avatar severed the foundation keystones from above, dropping twenty thousand tons of masonry toward the municipal archive shelter.
Six hundred civilians, including the wounded soldiers and the unnamed horned girl, sat directly beneath the descending mountain of stone.
Eirwen sprinted into the courtyard, her green command pennant snapping in the gale generated by the falling structure.
"Evacuation requires nine minutes!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the rising thunder of collapsing ramparts.
"That falling section reaches the shelter in less than sixty seconds—run!" she cried out, pointing toward the descending mass.
A golden silhouette bounded across the rubble as Loccy sprang onto the central support column beneath the shearing fault line.
