(Sky-God Arena, A Few Minutes After the Collapse)
As Muiyan Faye and Major Hen escorted Leo to the medical bay, they briefly glanced at the Sky-God Arena stands, which looked almost as chaotic as the pit they just exited.
The echoes of chaos that had started alongside the explosions had not yet fully faded, however the violence that had erupted along with it was beginning to finally settle down.
This was the kind of quiet that followed only after enough blood had been spilled to silence even the loudest of voices, as everyone involved was too traumatized to make idle chatter.
The scent of blood and charred flesh lingered in the air, layered over by the pungent smell of spilled innards, as the blood of the dead soaked into the cracks of the once-pristine Sky-God arena tiles, with at least a few thousand seemingly having lost their life to the chaos.
Of the guards assigned to the event, most were dead, and those who weren't had either fled the arena perimeter in panic or were currently being held at blade-point by frightened survivors who could no longer distinguish between protector and traitor.
The guard's uniform that once meant safety, now meant suspicion, as most innocent guards seemed disgusted by the colors they wore.
And with law and order in the arena having completely crumbled beneath the weight of panic, fear, and betrayal, it was eventually the universal army soldiers who restored control.
Scattered throughout the stands, lobbies, and upper boxes— men and women of the army who had come to the venue as nothing more than spectators, cadets, and off-duty officers— recognised the failure of local law and order and voluntarily stepped up to fill the gap.
They stepped forward not as envoys of any singular faction, but as soldiers bound by the unspoken code that when law crumbles and chaos reigns, it falls upon those forged in discipline to rise and restore order.
A lieutenant from the Second Interstellar Fleet took charge of the south gate, rallying survivors and redirecting foot traffic.
A pair of seasoned border scouts coordinated medical retrieval units, organizing triage zones and flagging priority evacuees.
A Transport Ship Logistics Captain seized a downed communication node and reactivated the long-range broadcast grid, issuing a universal distress alert and lockdown directive, as he ensured that all transport services in and out of the Sky-God Arena were suspended within minutes.
Air traffic lanes were sealed. Portal rings locked and suspensor trams along the asteroid's inner tunnels were put on lockdown.
"This facility is now under military lockdown. All civilians are to return to their designated lodgings immediately. Anyone in need of medical attention is to report to the central triage zones.
For now, remain calm, remain still and cooperate with the army, and I assure you that you will be assisted in a timely manner."
The announcement echoed from commentary booth loudspeakers as the voice speaking through it sounded crisp, commanding, and left no room for argument.
And remarkably, people listened.
Because for the first time since the explosions had begun, someone was speaking with an authority that could not be faked— an authority born not from titles or uniform, but from steel nerves, clean orders, and battlefield experience.
The arena grounds, once trembling with fear and violence, began to move like a machine rebuilding itself. Order, however fragile, began to take root.
Telepathic mages helped calm those in hysterics, while non-lethal stun drones patrolled the upper stands, ensuring no further outbreaks of violence occurred.
Within the hour, every civilian not marked as medically urgent was quietly escorted back to their lodgings under firm but measured military supervision, with all exits sealed and movement restricted as the entire complex shifted into lockdown.
Interrogation units began working in silence, collecting witness testimonies without drawing attention, while senior warriors traced the arcs of magic still lingering in the air, scanning for residual mana signatures and reconstructing the sequences of battle that had unfolded within the arena's stands, to recognise the exact culprits.
And through it all, Leo and the other injured members of the circuits team, remained guarded behind Major Hen, Professor David, Principal Alric and Muiyan Faye, as the Rodova teachers ensured that their students got the best medical treatment possible, while also shielding them from pointless inquiry interviews.
No low level officials could pass into the Rodova recovery room to ask the children questions, as Alric chased them away with the sternest of rebukes.
For now at least, it seemed like Leo could recover in peace, as the Rodova medical staff tried their best to restore his battered body to peak condition.
—----------
(Meanwhile Commander Jackson)
Commander Jackson was one of the highest ranking Universal Government Official present in the arena when the explosions happened, and he was one of the few who had followed Muiyan Faye into the pit, during the early stages of the explosion's aftermath.
Since he was sitting right above the Rodova Teachers balcony during the Circuit's, he kept a close eye on Faye throughout tournament, and was quick to follow her into the pit, when she leapt in—
And what he found out next, was not something unexpected.
Faye seemed to bang on the golden barrier separating her from Leo like her life depended on it, as in that moment he saw the desperation of a mother trying to save her own child in Faye's eyes.
'They are definitely related by blood…. No simple guard would become this desperate to save an asset—' Jackson assessed at that moment, as he theorized that Faye and Leo were definitely related by blood, making him one of the Mu Clan descendants.
And his delusions only grew stronger when he saw Leo being targeted by the Evil Cult, and when the Mu Clan Patriarch walked towards him when everything was said and done, as adding those two incidents with the information he already had on Leo and Muiyan Faye, Jackson no longer had any doubts about the background of Leo Skyshard.
'The cult wouldn't try to kill one of their own, if Leo was even remotely related to them, they wouldn't have tried to execute him live on air—'
'And the usually reserved Mu Clan Patriarch talking to a boy his age is definitely a sign that he recognises him to be a spawn of the clan—'
Jackson theorized, as after exiting the pit, he joined the rest of the universal army soldiers in restoring law and order, as he made his contribution by taking command of the investigation unit.
He immediately began working on how to get to the bottom of what happened here today and find out who all were responsible, as he made an extensive list of suspects who needed to be interrogated, including some very important names like Principal Alric and the Geneva Academy Principal, however, he conveniently left Muiyan Faye and Leo Skyshard from the investigation list, as he thought he knew better than wasting time on squeaky clean assets.
And so, through a remarkable stroke of timing, an avalanche of chaos that drew attention elsewhere, and the calculated discretion of one man in the right position, Leo not only survived the Evil Cult's ambush but somehow emerged from the wreckage even more spotless than he'd entered it, as the disaster that could have exposed him, ended up doing the exact opposite— and solidified his image as an unfortunate victim of the cult that reinforced his cover as a memory loss warrior from the Mu Clan in the most ironclad way possible.