Chapter 720: Fendicasa

The moment the archaeologists confirm that these are indeed the ruins of Fendicasa, the entire expedition erupts in excitement.

Four months of frustration finally seem worth it. Victory is in sight.

Every team throws itself into the work. In only two days, they finish the suspension bridge and lay all its planks.

Supplies pour into the camp outside Fendicasa, and Henwell crosses the swaying bridge with the first supply convoy.

Halfway across, Henwell suddenly stops.

Miller, walking behind him, asks quietly, "What's wrong, Guildmaster? Did you notice something?"

Henwell does not answer directly. Instead, he points below. "Tell everyone to be careful while crossing. It looks very high, and the wind is strong. They should watch their footing."

Miller nods without asking further, but he becomes more alert.

Of course, that isn't the real reason Henwell stopped.

He senses something below, a faint life-force signature that nevertheless feels extremely dangerous.

At the platform outside Fendicasa, Henwell begins examining the city from its perimeter.

While no one is looking, he releases the Chains of Civilization he placed upon himself. Blood flames rise from his eyes as he surveys the surroundings.

Now on the verge of a breakthrough, Henwell possesses powerful darkvision and acute perception whenever he releases the Gene Lock.

Even so, he relies only on his eyes and does not sweep the area with his perception.

Through Henwell's enhanced vision, three other platforms appear around the ruined city, each with another set of castle ruins opposite it.

Henwell closes his eyes and constructs an image of the entire city in his mind.

In his mind, a vast and isolated city takes shape, built into a single mountain with foundations more than a hundred meters above the surrounding ground.

Defensive forts are positioned around the city and linked to it by stone bridges.

Defenses on this scale far exceed those of an ordinary fortress.

Given the present level of civilization and technology, the city would be impossible to capture as long as it had enough food and soldiers.

Henwell is certain now: this city's military purpose far outweighed any concern for civilian life.

However advanced the civilization of that era may have been, Fendicasa must have served as an exceptionally important strategic site.

Yet this massive fortress of natural barriers and artificial defenses is scarred by battle.

Henwell studies the scratches and impact marks beneath the moss-covered walls and tries to infer what kind of creatures could have attacked this way.

Most stood around two meters and thirty centimeters tall, with powerful bodies and heavy weapons...

Some were much shorter, only about one meter and thirty centimeters, but possessed equally formidable strength...

One mark near the top of the towering wall draws Henwell's attention above all else.

Three enormous claw marks have gouged half a foot into the solid stone, with scorch marks surrounding them.

Henwell frowns at the sheer wall, which stands more than thirty meters high and was built as a single continuous structure.

Whatever made those marks must have been absurdly large.

Then Henwell notices something even more interesting.

Taken together, the dense traces of battle suggest that his earlier conclusion may have been wrong.

The city wasn't merely defending itself. It seems to have been attacking outward.

Every mark points to the same situation: the city's defenders were trying to break out while the attacking force outside fought desperately to contain them.

A second look at the broken bridge confirms Henwell's theory.

The defenders within the city repeatedly charged outward, while the attacking force around it struggled to block them.

In the end, the attackers could not stop the city's assault. Only by destroying every bridge did they finally contain its defenders.

A desperate breakout?

Henwell sets the question aside for the moment and investigates other parts of the site.

Henwell searches for the remains of weapons or equipment, but too much time has passed. Moisture in the air has caused everything to decay.

Fendicasa's gate has rotted and collapsed.

Metal fragments on the ground and fungi growing from what remains of the timber show that the original gate was built from a combination of wood and metal.

The enormous gate passage, ten meters wide and nearly twenty meters high, is now blocked by rubble with only a few gaps remaining.

Air flowing through those gaps shows that the passage is not completely sealed.

It takes considerable effort to clear part of the rubble and expose what lies behind it.

The gate passage is a full fifty meters long, which also reveals the astonishing thickness of the city wall.

Clearing the passage is slow, though fortunately they do not need to remove every stone.

They only need to open a narrow route large enough for a human to pass through.

Even with numerous Knights doing the work, the task still takes two days.

The advance team disappears into the city, and a long time passes without any response.

Just when everyone begins to fear the worst, the advance team sends someone back.

They have discovered something unusual and want the others to see it, especially the leaders of the three groups and the archaeologists.

Henwell and the others soon pass through the twisting gate passage and enter the city.

One look at the interior leaves even Henwell stunned.

Bones!

Dense, sprawling heaps of skeletal remains!

Countless bones stretch to the very limit of the lamplight.

Some piles rise several meters high.

Henwell looks from side to side. How many people died here?

A hundred thousand?

A million?

What happened here?

How did all these people die?

No one can shake those questions.

Once they steady themselves, Henwell and the others move deeper into the city.

Just as Henwell suspected, the interior looks nothing like a normal city.

The roads are broad, but the buildings are not homes. Each one is a small fortress.

This is a fully militarized city with no apparent provision for civilian life.

Henwell and the others pick their way through the decaying bones as they explore deeper into the city.

As they move, Henwell notices another anomaly.

For one thing, the bones on the ground are not all human. Many belong to other creatures.

There are reptilian snakes and the bones of other fierce beasts. Their original forms are difficult to reconstruct, but they clearly came from large creatures of species Henwell has never seen.

Most of the remains are humanoid. Some are short and stocky, some tall and powerfully built, and others slender. A few possess clearly nonhuman features.

Horns rise from some skulls, while other skeletons have tails.

Even so, most of the remains are human.

Dwarves, orcs, elves... and even demons!

What happened in this place?

Was this a battle between the Empire's original expedition and the native inhabitants?

Or did the sapient races of the main plane unite against an invasion from Hell and the Abyss?

Henwell begins to suspect that this expedition may prove extremely important to him as well.

While he is still thinking, the Lady of Calamity says quietly, "I need to reach that church ahead."