The trio had sat there and watched for quite a while, until the sun dipped low enough that the arena's wards began to glow faintly against the darkening sky.
By then, the lesson had been made painfully clear.Ranks were no longer protection, they were targets for newer students to challenge.
Albedo leaned against the railing as another match concluded below, the defeated upperclassman sitting in stunned silence while a healer inspected him. The victor, a transfer with pale gold markings running along her arms, stood untouched, barely winded.
The crowd buzzed, excitement and anxiety intermingling like unstable reagents.
"This is the third confirmed displacement today," Elara murmured, quietly tallying results in her notebook. Her Battle Map continued to adjust, redrawing power hierarchies in real time. "And that's just the public matches."
Morgana exhaled softly. "Then the private challenges must be worse."
