There was a lot of noise at school that day, all the seniors were running around, laughing, and just having a good time. There were still a few hours left until the ceremony so it was mostly the seniors who were there.

Alex walked through the crowd to his classroom and sat down. Throughout his entire time at school, he had yet to make a single friend. Due to his weakness, people avoided him like the plague. And even if he was strong now, the stigma of the weak Alex was still in everyone's minds.

Alex didn’t care to try and make new friends anyways, especially now where people might just try to suck up to him for connections. While he was waiting, Alex decided to train his mana core a little bit. After nearly 10 minutes of this a loud crash was heard. Everyone stopped their conversations and went to go figure out what the sound was.

Alex was slightly intrigued by the sound, but didn’t care to go look for it. It was probably a fight that had gotten out of hand anyways. Most of the kids had run outside and were looking for the sound, but no one was able to find the source.

Alex went back to his own thing, whatever that was didn’t concern him anyways. After a few minutes of searching, many of the kids gave up and went back to socializing. Only the really bored few continued walking around.

Eventually, nobody cared to search anymore and no one found anything. Something just fell over, probably. The next few hours went by normally, everyone doing their own thing. Mrs. Bates walked into the classroom and called everyone's attention to herself,

“Sorry for the wait everyone, we had a few things to take care of but were good now. Follow me to the auditorium.” She said as she walked out the classroom, everyone following behind. The senior class was doing the same, and eventually they both arrived at the auditorium.

The auditorium wasn’t too big, seating around 100 people. It had a fairly traditional look, with the red curtains and the big lights along the wall. Sitting in the back few rows were parents and guardians, and in the front would be the students. It could be considered a grandeur graduation, but with the potential of the two classes, it was understandable.

The principal walked up on the stage and made a speech. The speech was rather mundane, simply talking about how amazing this generation was and how proud he was to be around these kids. He continued talking for long enough that even the parents were visibly bored. When he finished he started calling the names of graduates, congratulating them and the typical graduation stuff. The school was small and with only two graduating classes, it went by rather quickly. Whenever a kid would be called up, their family would start taking countless pictures. The same couldn’t be said for Alex, however, seeing as he had no family.

It was still a good moment for him, finally being able to leave this school and start anew. Interestingly enough, nobody in this school was a noble. All the nobles were either homeschooled or went to super private schools, it would be insulting for them to go to a backwater school like this one.

Names continued to be called, photos were taken, and everyone was in high spirits.

Eventually Alex was called forth, he shook hands with the principal, had a picture taken by the school and sat back down. He wasn’t too interested in the rest of the event, but he also wasn’t able to practice anything relating to mana, meaning he was quite bored.

After most everyone had already been called, the principal had two individuals come up together in order to receive another special reward. These two were the only peak soldiers in this graduating class. This graduating class was pretty weak, with only two peak soldiers. Even in the lower grades, four others were known at this school alone.

The two peak soldiers, one of which being Brodin, received their own speech by their respective homeroom teacher. They mostly covered their achievements, so while exciting for everyone else, was really boring for Alex. Halfway through Mrs. Bates’ speech, a loud explosion echoed through the auditorium and everyone ran outside to see what was going on. What fell before their eyes was something not so much as one person dreamed of occurring, ever. In the sky, countless missiles were seen falling with massive ships kilometers in length being the origin. Everyone was frozen in fear, the only sounds to be heard were the ear piercing screeches from the incoming missiles. Explosions began going off everywhere as the missiles landed, screams left the mouths of many as they ran for their lives.

The screams began more and more muffled and quiet as more explosions went off and more people were killed. Some people just gave up, crying, while others ran for their lives. There were the occasional few who kept their cool and tried to bring others to safety, but they were quickly suppressed by the crowd's panic. Alex quickly snapped out of his daze after hearing the first explosion and immediately ran to the school basement. Not many missiles had touched their area so it was easy to navigate, but that wouldn’t be the case for very long.

Alex made it to the basement and tried to process what was happening. There were a few others in the basement with him, all of whom were terrified. Not long after, Brodin came running in and upon seeing Alex, went to him.

“Hey! Do you have any idea what's going on here?” He said in a panic, “Who are those people and how did they get here without anyone noticing?”

“Calm down. For now we need to worry about surviving, questions can come later.” Alex tried to calm Brodin down, “The storage room should be somewhere around here, let's see what supplies we can gather.”

The two quickly found the storage room and began grabbing items. There were a few cases of water and plenty of food to last for months, as well as some first aid kits. They quickly went back to where the other people were and helped whoever they could and tried to calm them down. They didn’t know how long they were going to be down here, so they had to be as prepared as possible. The explosions could still be heard and the ground would shake every time, and the few who were down there were all crying.

After a few hours, the explosions stopped. They dared not go out just yet though, just in case. They decided to wait until the next until they would go out. They started handing out food to everyone, but no one had an appetite. Everyone was still in shock and were worrying about their family.

After nearly an entire day passed, nobody had calmed down, but it was time for Brodin and Alex to go investigate the surroundings and hopefully get help. They packed some food, water, medical supplies, and a few makeshift weapons just in case, and they left the basement. Surprisingly enough, most of the school was still intact, minus the shattered windows and few collapsed walls. When they exited the school they were frozen in fear. What was once a town was now ruins, a wasteland. Bodies littered the streets and the ground was dyed red. The air reeked of gunpowder and iron, and the surrounding mana was going wild. Out of the countless buildings that they could see for miles, the school was the only one left standing.