A while earlier, Lena had finally made it past the cumbersome commencement ceremony, and was preparing to make her way back home.
She hurried past the other students taking photos with their families in their graduation gowns and caps, not sparing anyone a glance.
She just wanted to go home.
"Lena! Wait..." A girl called from behind her.
Lena stopped and turned towards the source of the voice, seeing one of her only friends.
She smiled.
"Ria, you're not with your family?" Lena asked as she walked towards her friend.
"Umm... they came, but I wanted to take a picture with you too... if that's okay?" Ria fidgeted with her phone as she spoke.
"Of course. You could just text or call next time if you can't find me" Lena gestured to Ria's phone as she brought her face closer to hers, smiling at the camera.
Ria sighed in relief and inwardly rejoiced. Lena normally hated things like this, but the fact she was willing to put up with her request meant that Lena valued her more than that.
"Okay, take it whenever you're ready" Lena said as she faced the screen.
As she did however, she saw many strange lights flickering within the screen reflecting the selfie image. The phone was showing that, behind her, there were many oddly shaped projections that she couldn't quite make out.
"Ria... is your phone broken?" Lena turned to her friend and asked.
"Uhh... no. That's strange, why is it..." Ria had also seen what Lena had, and also questioned why her phone was behaving that way.
Lena glanced away from the phone and looked around her. What she saw made her eyes widen.
Those projections were a phenomenon happening in reality. Lena, as a physics and mathematics graduate, attempted to reason her way through what was happening, but all that failed when she noticed the people around her experiencing the same thing that she was.
Before she could think any further...
BOOOOOM!
The land quaked, and loud crashing sounds shook the air, deafening the world.
---------------------------
Klein was floating upside-down as the world, from his perspective, turned right-way-up.
Klein's ears began to bleed as he hurriedly attempted to cast silence on himself, completely forgetting that Mr Weathers had nullified his magic for the hour.
'Well, Mr Weathers, I knew there was a reason I had to get under your skin all the time. Future me was just taking revenge for this moment, I suppose'. Amidst Klein's asinine thoughts, perhaps the one thing he was grateful for was his current floating condition.
The ground had already caved in on itself where he was floating, and currently morphing and shifting into something entirely strange and unfamiliar. Had he been standing there, magicless as he was, he probably would have died.
That thought made Klein chuckle despite himself.
The shielding enchantment on The Academy building was being attacked by tall, rectangular, grey concrete structures that attempted to materialize in reality, and eventually did so half-successfully. The landscape changed. The once beautiful greenery that surrounded the Academy turned into grey roads and metal vehicles.
People started appearing too, well, at the very least, some people. It was inevitable that in the midst of such a cataclysmic event, the rest of the people would be separated into chunks of meat. The slight hint of red flowing between the cracks under the concrete not far from Klein could attest to that.
People screamed. Some people ran. Klein was unable to make out if Victor or Jane were okay, but currently he was facing his own problems of being magicless and severely disorientated; hanging upside-down in the air as his ears bled from the noise.
Thunder roared and the sky cracked, revealing a myriad of colors shifting beyond the void.
It took a long time, too long a time for Klein, for things to gradually settle, and for the roaring to subside. But when it did, the world had changed.
The grassland upon which the Academy stood was not as it once was. Interspersed with the greenery, grey roads, metal poles, cars and buildings stood, all half-broken. Within the Academy, a large concrete building jammed itself against one of its walls. The Academy shield had mostly held on, preserving most of its structural integrity, but was now conjoined with one of the otherworldly structures at an odd angle.
And then there were the screams and moans of pain. Lost limbs and broken bones seemed commonplace among the people that had seemingly appeared out of thin air. Of course, some had gotten by with mere scratches and bruises, however most were injured in varying degrees.
Or dead.
Thankfully, it seemed like the Academy was shielded so the students inside should be fine, especially since, unlike Klein, they had access to their entire repertoire of spells.
At that moment, Klein lost his air-footing and barely managed to escape the fate of falling face-first on concrete.
'Ah finally, Weathers' spell has -' Klein cut his thoughts off.
That spell should have probably lasted a while longer...
'Illuminate' Klein cast a simple light spell, and found his forefinger emitting a glow.
'Null magic has deactivated?' Klein suddenly had a bad feeling.
He got up, and without thinking of anything else, ran towards the principal's office he had just been in not too long ago.
"Hey old man! You cut my punishment off too early! Are you so low on stamina these days that you can't keep two spells up for more than five minutes?" Klein burst through the door to see Weathers sat on his chair as usual.
Klein sighed inwardly in relief.
"Phew, well seems you haven't kicked the bucket yet, hahaha" Klein laughed as he walked towards the principal.
"Damn boy, why are you still so boisterous" Mr. Weathers groggily shook off the dizziness he felt. Despite having activated the Academy's enchantments the moment he had felt something amiss, and despite shielding himself, he had still suffered a concussion.
But Weathers Salvador was a Grand Magus after all.
"Grand Heal" It took half a minute for Weathers to set up the cast, but when the spell activated, a majestic soft light enveloped all the students of the Academy who had fainted, suffered internal bleeding, or who were on the verge of death, and had their health revitalized.
Not only that, but even beyond the Academy, as far as the grey concrete roads and deformed metal vehicles, where the grasslands once were, the spell reached outward and people began to have their lost limbs regenerate, and their lives saved.
Those who were already dead, however, remained dead.
"What a show-off" Klein pouted.
Mr. Weathers was exasperated by the boy. Couldn't he tell that the current situation was only just shy of the end of the world? Why did he still seem so unaffected?
Mr. Weathers' expression turned dark.
He actually knew why, or at the very least had an inkling. After that incident, Klein probably could not care about anything else in the world aside from himself.
"This isn't the time Klein. I need to assess what's going on, so just stay put while I-" Mr. Weathers started before Klein interrupted him.
"No. Trust me old man, whatever happened didn't just happen here, but throughout the entire continent. How could I possibly wait here when there's something terribly exciting happening?" Klein smiled.
This moment in the history of both The Continent and Earth would be marked by the denotation 'The Crash', and the calendar of both worlds would change to mark this event as the first year in a new era.
The year was 1 AC (After Crash).