The world went silent.
Every pair of eyes stared wide in utter disbelief. The bluish-purple slash continued carving through the horizon, leaving behind a trail of devastation so profound it seemed like the world itself was being split apart.
For a brief moment, no one dared to breathe, the silence thick and suffocating. The killing intent emanating from the grandmasters, that had blanketed the area, dissolved like sugar in water.
But what replaced it was far worse.
It was akin to the shockwave of a nuclear explosion. A killing intent so potent it caused every grandmaster in the area to shudder erupted from Atticus, saturating the air with suffocating intensity.
Everyone froze, their minds short-circuiting as they forgot how to think. They each knew what they were, a bloodthirsty group who had unleashed massacres and killed thousands. Fear wasn't foreign to them. But they had always been the one inflicting it. Yet now, it was the only thing they could feel.
