Chapter 198 - Ruins Under the Moon
The moon hung high in the sky, glowing with a pale radiance that drove back the dense darkness swallowing the horizon.
Where once stood a symbol of faith and power of the Sacred Nation of Milis, now only an incandescent graveyard of ruins remained.
The Marble Fortress, once majestic in its white, ornate architecture, was now reduced to charred debris.
The walls that once reflected sunlight as if forged from divine stone, studded with sacred runes and gold-and-blue banners, had been pulverized, leaving behind only twisted, smoking fragments.
The towers had collapsed, creating craters where the ground seemed to have been torn apart by titan claws. Deep gouges scarred the soil as if ancient monsters had danced war there—abrupt trenches, burning fissures, columns felled like trees before a hurricane.
Corpses of soldiers lay scattered like broken dolls. Some were charred beyond recognition; others torn apart, as though their limbs had been ripped from them.
Armor remnants fused to flesh, shattered helms, and ballistae reduced to ashes lay everywhere. The scent of blood, burnt flesh, and residual magic hung thick in the air, suffocating.
The only sounds filling that void were the crackling of burning wood and the intermittent sigh of the night wind.
In the midst of this hell, a figure crawled through the rubble. He was a young soldier—no more than fifteen years old. His eyes were half-closed in pain, and dried blood glued his face to the filthy ground.
His legs simply were gone—amputated, vanished, replaced by stumps wrapped in makeshift, burned bandages.
His breastplate was cracked and nearly non-existent, revealing skin marked by bruises and cuts. Even so, he moved, meter by meter, with silent determination and mute desperation.