The freight station was the first to go dark.
Three stone bulls stopped beneath the platform at once. One lay down in its harness, the second tore through the straps and headed for the river, and the third remained standing beside its handler. The lifting mechanism lost its balance. The platform of grain tilted over the square.
The workers shouted the familiar commands.
The bull that remained did not move.
Cole had managed to warn the station over the city link. The men stopped pulling the beast by its collar and began unloading the platform by hand. Sacks fell, grain spilled into the mud, and one worker broke his arm. Only when the weight had eased did the bull take a step of its own accord and steady the structure.
Kane immediately put the footage on the screens.
"Rex Wang promised freedom. Here it is."
In the square outside the academy, people watched a week's supply of grain disappear. Nobody cared that the bull had lain down from exhaustion for the first time in twelve years. They saw food they would now have to gather off the ground.
Next, bonds began snapping in slaughterhouses, quarries and guard yards. Beasts held in place by pain alone left at once. Some attacked their masters. Not because of a new command, but because the old one vanished before their accumulated fear did.
Cole divided the squads. Some cleared paths out of the city for the animals, while others kept people from pursuing them. At the southern slaughterhouse, a former master tried to bring back a fire hound with a red-hot chain. The beast sank its teeth into his shoulder. The soldiers could have killed the hound with one shot, but Cole ordered them to contain her with shields and leave a route open to the river.
The animal left.
The wounded man demanded compensation and called us accomplices of the beasts.
"He really was hurt," Lily said without stopping the recording.
"He tortured her," one of the students replied.
"That doesn't erase the wound."
Lily broadcast both statements: torture remained torture, and a wound remained a wound.
Near the academy, Lenny sat opposite two battle apes. The first clutched a wooden wheel to her chest and stayed close. The second would not let him come within five paces.
Lenny set a bowl of water on the ground and backed away. The second ape approached only after he had disappeared behind the door.
The Void Dragon chose Leon. The white line on their bond turned green, but the beast would not let him put the family collar back on. Leon held the golden ring in his hands, unable to bring himself to throw it away.
"He stayed," I said.
"For now."
Leon did not pretend that was enough. He understood: one choice today could not turn years of subjugation into trust.
Dots kept appearing on the screens. Green, red, grey. The city did not divide into two neat columns, and there was no single victory. Every bond gave its own answer, and every answer brought a separate problem.
A young woman in a white coat ran out of the infirmary wing.
"Mira, the child is losing her pulse, and the healing beast won't obey any more."
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