"Isn't the racket she's making a little too over the top?" Talulah muttered under her breath, leaning lazily against the side of a massive Wyrm-Dragon as she watched the jet-black flames rage through the underground complex.
There was no longer any need for her to fight. The surrounding Sarkaz soldiers were scrambling just to escape with their lives, let alone crossing a sea of hellfire to cause trouble for her.
Oddly enough, the terrifying black flames didn't burn a single living soul. As if possessing a mind of their own, the embers reacted strictly to the surrounding stone structures, leaving the fleeing Sarkaz to breathe a collective sigh of relief.
They would likely never comprehend what those flames were truly made of—nor why the terrifying inferno had spared their flesh.
At that moment, every remaining Sarkaz soldier received an emergency order to fall back. None of them could wrap their heads around why their supreme leader, the Regent himself, would suddenly order a full tactical retreat.
"Hah... hah... hah..." Theresis stood trembling, his fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of his broadsword. Even for a warrior of his legendary stature, an exchange of that intensity had left him thoroughly drained.
He glared at the dark Jeanne standing opposite him, who wasn't even breathing hard. What kind of monster was she? Her strength and endurance were beyond abnormal—they defied reality altogether!
"Looks like your plan fell flat," Jeanne noted casually, chatting with him as if they were taking a stroll. In a fight like this, she could easily keep going all day long.
"Is that so? Have it your way," Theresis replied, his expression stone-cold. He stared at his formidable opponent, his mind racing to weigh his remaining options.
Under the current circumstances, slaying her here was completely out of the question. His priority had shifted to escaping this place alive before she could capture him.
He knew Jeanne wasn't joking earlier; she fully intended to drag him back to Kazdel, and falling into her hands right now was a scenario he could not permit.
Just as he was desperately calculating a path out, the heavy steel gates at the far end of the mausoleum groaned and creaked open once more. Someone on the outside had unlocked an escape route for him.
Setting aside his pride, Theresis turned and retreated toward the exit without a second thought. While a retreat like this was humiliating, it was a price he was more than willing to pay to survive.
Just as Jeanne stepped forward to give chase, a squad of Sarkaz soldiers broke through the black fire and formed a wall between her and the exit, buying precious time for Theresis's escape.
"Are you all tired of living?" Jeanne asked, her patience with these Sarkaz soldiers wearing thin.
"You are undeniably strong, and we know we're no match for you..." spoke a soldier wearing traditional Sarkaz battle armor, steeling his nerve to face her directly. "But since we chose this path, this is a duty we must fulfill!"
Jeanne looked at the soldiers, sensing a deep, underlying sorrow beneath their resolve. They were throwing themselves in front of her simply because they had no other choice left.
"If you knew it would end like this, why leave Kazdel in the first place?" Jeanne sighed, shaking her head.
Just as she raised her hand to clear the path, a ringtone suddenly cut through the heavy silence.
"Hold that thought. I need to take this," Jeanne held up a hand, leaving the soldiers blinking in confusion.
She pulled out her communicator, eyebrows raised in curiosity when she saw the caller ID.
"What do you want at a time like this?... How did you know I was here? Right, right, you know everything, don't you? So why are you calling me now..."
Jeanne completely ignored the line of armed Sarkaz, chatting away on her communicator as if standing in a grocery aisle.
The soldiers made no move against her. Their objective wasn't to defeat this terrifying girl, but to stall her as long as possible. If she was willing to stop on her own, there was no reason to throw their lives away for nothing.
A few younger soldiers in the back harbored a sneaky thought, wondering if a quick crossbow bolt while her guard was down could wound her and earn them a grand promotion.
Before the fools could even lift their weapons, several veteran comrades knocked them flat with heavy wooden bludgeons. The veterans glared at the idiots in absolute horror—a useless teammate was far more dangerous than the enemy, capable of getting everyone around them slaughtered in an instant!
"You... fine. But if that's the case, you better think carefully about the terms we discussed earlier."
Jeanne hung up the call with a sigh, turning her gaze back to the standing Sarkaz soldiers. The moment her eyes landed on them, the entire line instinctively took several steps back.
"Consider yourselves lucky. Someone just stepped up to bail you guys out," Jeanne said, her interest in chasing Theresis completely gone. "Surrender now. I'm not going after him."
She clapped her hands together, leaving the Sarkaz soldiers staring at her in utter disbelief. They couldn't believe it was over just like that.
Prepared to die on the spot, the soldiers never expected a chance at survival. Yet they knew this mercy wasn't out of the goodness of her heart. So what had happened?
"Excuse me... what is going to happen to us?" a soldier asked nervously, his voice trembling.
They knew playing dumb was safer, but nobody wanted to be dragged away blindly without knowing their eventual fate.
"Your fate? You'll probably be sent back to Kazdel to face proper judgment," Jeanne replied, recalling her phone conversation. "Don't look so terrified. Given the current situation over there, nobody's going to execute you."
Hearing the name of their homeland, the soldiers slumped their shoulders in resignation. Whatever awaited them, being able to return to Kazdel and see home one last time wasn't the worst way things could end.
Leaving the disarmed soldiers behind, Jeanne walked back toward the main cavern. The soldiers didn't have the key to open the main gates anyway, meaning they had nowhere to go.
"Looks like things went smoothly on your end, too," Jeanne said, walking up to Talulah and biting her lip to fight off a sudden urge to burst out laughing.
Talulah was covered head-to-toe in black soot and grime, looking like a coal miner after a double shift.
"Smooth enough—if you ignore that weird black fire," Talulah muttered, wiping a streak of ash off her cheek. "Seriously, what was that stuff? Why did it only burn the stone statues and tomb walls?"
She knew exactly how ridiculous she looked right now. Looking at Jeanne's twitching lips, Talulah felt like laughing at herself, too.
"Those? Just a bunch of ancient souls seeking a little peace," Jeanne answered, looking at the dwindling inferno. The lingering spirits had almost completely burned themselves out.
"Wait... souls?" Talulah's hair stood on end. She had never imagined that the raging wall of black fire was made of spectral entities.
Having heard her fair share of ghost stories during her travels, her imagination immediately started running wild, conjuring up a full horror movie in her head.
"No need to look so spooked. They're just harmless flames now," Jeanne smiled gently, looking into the fading fire. Faint, shimmering silhouettes seemed to be waving a quiet farewell before vanishing into the air.
"Easy for you to say... it still feels eerie," Talulah sighed softly, looking at the charred ruins around them.
"Then don't dwell on it. We've got our own work to do," Jeanne picked up the Sigh of Kings resting on a fallen pillar. "Now, where should we store this thing?"
Far outside the mausoleum complex, Theresis collapsed against a stone wall, drawing deep, ragged breaths. He felt more disheveled and battered than he had in centuries—worse even than during the climax of the civil war two hundred years ago.
"Your Highness, we need to fall back and regroup," the Confessarius urged, his voice remaining eerily calm despite the grim circumstances. "I cannot say how many of our soldiers will make it out alive, or what choices they will make..."
"It was my miscalculation," Theresis admitted darkly, pushing himself up. "We leave immediately—"
Theresis suddenly cut himself off, tilting his head slightly to listen.
From the shadows just ahead, a subtle, rustling sound was creeping toward them.