Chapter 35: March of Ashes
—“The road to salvation is paved in fire and sacrifice.”
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The ashes of the night still clung to the air when the war horn sounded.
The fires of the Natn camp flickered low, the scent of smoke and steel heavy as the sun crept over the horizon. It wasn’t warmth the people of Natn felt this morning—
It was the weight of what was coming.
In the command tent, Mavuika stood before a table of shifting fmes and burning stone tiles—a map powered by elemental pyromancy, showing every flicker of resistance across the nation.
Noah and the others stood among her war council, surrounded by Natn’s finest commanders—scarred, tired, but unyielding.
“The Bastion sits at the north,” Mavuika said, pointing to the rgest column of red fme. “It is not a fortress. It is a wound. A bleeding scar on the nd.”
She turned to the four.
“You felt its call, didn’t you?”
Noah nodded slowly.
“It’s alive.”
“And it’s learning.”
Three strategic points burned on the map:
Westfront: Recim supply lines.
Southern Wall: Evacuate endangered vilges.
Bck Fme Bastion: Scout, disrupt, and—if possible—strike.
Noah pced his hand over the Bastion.
“We’ll take the north.”
Mavuika stared at him for a long moment. Then nodded.
“Take our elite with you. But be warned, Captain… whatever commands the Bastion, it is not of this world.”
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Through the Scorched Path
The journey north began at dawn.
Noah, Kiana, Lumine, and Elysia moved at the head of a dozen of Natn’s best. Warriors wrapped in fire-woven cloth, eyes hardened by the loss of comrades and the memories of burning homes.
The road was lined with wreckage.
Burned-out wagons. Craters in the earth. Trees scorched bck. And everywhere—Abyssal corruption, like vines of obsidian creeping into the bones of the nd.
They passed a ruined vilge.
Shattered homes. Silence.
Then—a sound.
Crying.
They found survivors, huddled in a broken granary. Children. Wounded. A few elders.
Noah gave the order instantly.
“We escort them back two klicks. Set a fre. Leave a team to guide the evac.”
As the Natn warriors scrambled, Noah turned to say something to the girls—
But he stopped.
He didn’t need to.
Kiana was already helping a boy onto her back, giving him a grin and tousling his hair.
Elysia stood with her hands on a crying girl’s cheeks, humming softly until the tears turned to hiccuping ughter.
Lumine had summoned a Geo dome, shielding the group while gently cleaning wounds with Anemo breeze.
Noah watched quietly.
They don’t need orders. They just… know.
He smiled, just faintly.
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The wind changed.
Noah stopped walking. His hand hovered over his saber hilt.
The corruption ahead stirred.
Then—they struck.
From the cliffs and trees, a dozen Bckfme Sentinels emerged—humanoid Abyss soldiers, cd in burning-bck armor, wielding corrupted elemental weapons. Their movements were coordinated. Precise. Intentional.
“AMBUSH!”
The Natn soldiers began to scatter, startled by the sudden precision of the attack.
Noah’s saber ignited.
His voice rang across the battlefield—clear, commanding.
“Shields left! Spears center! Mages rotate fire—stagger intervals by three!”
“Do not clump—fnk formations only! Stay in motion!”
The soldiers obeyed, rallying around his voice like it was gravity.
But to the girls—
He said nothing.
Because the moment the attack began—
They were already moving.
Lumine turned first, bde fshing with Electro and Geo as she met the front charge head-on.
Kiana vanished, reappearing behind two Sentinels, void bdes cleaving through their exposed joints.
Elysia released a volley of frost-tipped arrows, dancing along the ridgeline, creating traps of crystal and light.
No commands. No signals.
They moved as if one heartbeat controlled them all.
When a Sentinel broke through the line, Kiana blinked in and caught its bde with a void rift.
“Lumi, now!”
Lumine spun, slicing through its core midair, nding beside Kiana without missing a beat.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Another Sentinel lunged toward a mage—
Elysia’s arrow froze it in midair, seconds before Noah Force-pulled it down and drove his saber through its chest.
The battlefield pulsed with fire and light—but the team never faltered.
They were a single fme with four sparks.
And they burned.
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The Bckfme Sentinels fell.
But the silence afterward was… wrong.
The trees were warped. The earth pulsed beneath their feet. The very sky above them was cracking with void storms.
And then—they saw it.
They stood atop the cliff overlooking a vast basin…
There, like a city-sized scar in the earth, stood the Bck Fme Bastion.
Twisted spires cwed at the sky. Abyssal fire raged from its towers. Cracks in the ground spewed corrupted ley line energy.
It was alive.
It breathed.
It watched.
The Natn soldiers behind them stopped in their tracks.
“Is that… even a fortress?”
Noah stared at it, eyes narrowed.
“No. It’s something worse.”
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Suddenly, the sky shuddered.
A wave of heat and pressure rolled out from the Bastion like a pulse of hate.
And then—
A voice.
Deep. Ancient. Drenched in burning mockery.
“You came all this way… only to burn.”
“The stars will not save you.
You are sparks, flickering in a storm you cannot comprehend.”
Everyone froze.
Noah gritted his teeth.
The others stepped closer to him, weapons raised.
“So…” Kiana muttered, voice tight. “That’s who’s been calling the shots?”
“Feels like a boss fight coming,” Elysia whispered, half-nervous, half-thrilled.
Noah’s fingers wrapped around his saber.
“Then let’s not keep them waiting.”
Above them, the void fred.
And the eye of the Bastion opened.
