Chapter 295 - Battlefields
Scarlett took in her surroundings, careful not to inhale too much of the smoke swirling under the dark orange glow of the setting sun. The ruined settlement ahead might have once been a simple fortification of some kind, with partially broken stone walls scattered throughout and the charred remains of what appeared to be watchtowers sagging precariously in various places. The plains circling the area were sodden and thick with mud, as though it had rained only hours ago, turning much of the scene into a bleak, waterlogged battlefield.
Judging by the bodies littering the ground—imperial soldiers, mages, and figures clad in black robes with various markings on their skin—it seemed this had been a stronghold belonging to the Tribe of Sin. Was she still within the empire’s borders, or was this perhaps outside?
Her gaze fell on a dome of chilling grey energy at the settlement’s center, stirring an instinctive unease at the back of her mind. It wasn’t as large as the one that had surrounded Crowcairn, but it was unmistakably one of the Tribe’s Phantom Sanctums.
The distant clash of battle reverberated through the burning stronghold, flashes of magic lighting the darkening sky. Scarlett’s eyes drifted to the corpses strewn in the mud, then to the spot where her younger self had stood not long ago.
…She couldn’t exactly fault the girl for not wanting to stick around in a place like this.
With no better option, Scarlett began trudging towards the smoldering buildings. The mud clung to her boots, her feet sinking deeper than she would have liked at times. Reaching the settlement’s edge, she paused, narrowing her eyes at the Phantom Sanctum ahead. Was that…?
Suddenly, a barrage of fiery arcs exploded from the air near the Sanctum, their radiance tearing through the gloom like the limbs of some ancient god. They struck the grey dome with overwhelming force, the impact reverberating so strongly that Scarlett felt it in her chest. Her eyes widened slightly as cracks appeared in the Sanctum’s reality-defying barrier, rips exposing a glimpse of the space inside. Another fiery wave followed, and the dome shattered entirely, its fragments dissolving into nothing.
Scarlett would recognise that magic anywhere. It was Arlene. She’d never seen the woman cast a spell on this scale before, but it was unmistakably her.
Moving through the wreckage at the outskirts, she passed more bodies — both imperial and Tribe. The settlement was roughly the size of a small town, but she wasn’t certain what its purpose might have been. Most of the structures didn’t quite look like homes, but rather, temporary quarters and storage facilities.
As she reached the heart of the stronghold, the scene shifted. Where the Phantom Sanctum had been mere minutes ago, she spotted imperial mages and soldiers in the middle of dispatching the last of the Tribe’s defenders, their black-robed bodies spread across the muddy ground, broken and burnt. At the center stood a platform bearing a rectangular pedestal of gleaming black stone.
The Sanctumbrum.
As Scarlett had suspected, she found Arlene among the imperials, wearing a dark mantle draped over her shoulders, moving with purpose as she stepped past the bodies of two Tribe members she’d just felled. Nearby was Delmont, dressed similarly.