At the checkpoint north of West Sail Port, a dark mass of people stood gathered.
On one side were Velander soldiers, on the other soldiers of the Kingdom of Boro. They stood on opposite sides of the border, with roughly two hundred Velander civilians caught in between.
Those civilians were the survivors of the West Sail Port massacre, as well as the parents of the children in the Silver Moon Church.
Now that the Heavenly King Army had scattered like monkeys from a fallen tree, the armbands tied around people's arms had finally disappeared. The Abusek authorities had also severed their ties with the upper ranks of the Southern Legion. Their lives and deaths no longer mattered to the bigger picture, and only then did these pitiful people dare to emerge from Count Sharma's estate.
The Kingdom of Boro's soldiers had escorted them all the way here.
And rather ironically, these gray-uniformed soldiers were the very same men who had worn armbands not long ago and hunted down Velanders and "Velander lackeys" everywhere.
Still, the past had been turned over.
Velanders had become Lord Velanders once again, and the expressions of these armband soldiers had grown much more docile, as though they had truly drawn a line between themselves and the past.
As for when they would bare their teeth at Velanders or anyone else in the Wasteland again, that depended on whatever their masters said next.
Abusek still harbored a sliver of hope for a ceasefire, especially since the fighting had not even begun yet.
Seeing those people who had seemingly returned from the dead, nearly every Velander soldier present widened his eyes in stunned disbelief.
Everyone had thought they were dead.
Yet they were actually alive!
The survivors' families were even more overwhelmed, tears spilling from their eyes.