Chapter 118 “The Field of Fire”
This Translation is hosted on bcatranslation.com
As thick plumes of smoke unfurled into the sky, intermittent flashes of fire could be seen flickering within them. The streets were filled with people running in every direction, their faces contorted with fear, their shouts filled with urgency. Duncan’s eyes widened slightly the moment he heard their alarmed cries echoing through the air.
“The museum… The Oceanic Museum near the Crossroad… Nina!”
His mind instantly turned to Nina, who had gone to visit the Oceanic Museum with her classmates that very afternoon. The museum was situated close to the Crossroad, and disconcertingly, that was the exact direction from which the towering column of smoke was rising.
Without wasting a moment, Duncan started to sprint toward the museum. However, he soon recognized the logistical challenges that lay ahead. The smoke was certainly visible, but the labyrinthine, winding streets of the city would delay his arrival considerably. Hailing a cab wasn’t a practical solution either. Public transportation options were scarce in this area, and even if he did manage to flag down a so-called cab in this world, it was unlikely that any driver would risk approaching the blaze.
Duncan’s thoughts raced, but he managed to stay focused and composed. After swiftly assessing his options, an audacious idea took shape in his mind.
“Ai!” he mentally commanded, quickening his pace before disappearing into the shadow of a building in a nearby alley.
In response, a green, ethereal flame flickered briefly before dissipating. From out of nowhere, Ai, a mystical dove that had been patrolling nearby, appeared. Her wings gracefully fluttered as it descended to land gently on Duncan’s shoulder.
Duncan looked at the dove, his mind already formulating a plan. He knew that Ai had a special ability: it could transport physical objects through space while maintaining the integrity of whatever it carried. Moreover, Ai had an incredibly large carrying capacity, one that had never shown any sign of limitation throughout all of their trials and experiments.
Could Ai possibly transport him, a living being, directly to the museum?
The idea crystallized in Duncan’s mind, filled as much with audacity as it was with a sense of awe. Duncan had never before attempted to have Ai transport a living person, and the potential risks were high. Initially, he’d planned to use Ai’s capabilities on an evil cultist—a fitting test subject—but the urgency of the present situation eclipsed those plans. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.
If he couldn’t find another test subject, Duncan reasoned, then he was willing to offer himself—both body and soul—as the first living cargo. He had faith that Ai could safely carry out the task. And even if some unforeseeable force were to harm him during the journey, his ability to reincarnate would provide him with another chance, albeit in a different body.
“I need you to make a delivery,” Duncan said, gently stroking the feathers on Ai’s wing. “Take me to the Oceanic Museum at the Crossroad—the one near that large white building you flew over earlier today.”
Ai cocked its head to one side, her eyes gleaming with a level of intelligence that rivaled that of a human. Catching sight of the rising column of black smoke in the distance, the dove quickly understood the urgency etched on Duncan’s face. “Are we embarking on an impromptu journey?”
“Just confirm whether you can do it or not,” Duncan retorted, a layer of impatience creeping into his voice.
“Let’s do it, let’s do it!” Ai declared with unwavering resolve.
In an instant, Ai flapped her wings with immense energy, erupting into a burst of ethereal green flame. The flames consumed it, transmuting its form into a skeletal dove composed of pure spiritual energy. The spectral bird soared upwards, circling tightly around Duncan. As it did, the otherworldly green flames seemed to consume him as well, transforming his physical form into a streak of luminous energy that was quickly absorbed into a swirling vortex of fiery light.
Moments later, a pristine, snow-white dove emerged from the shadowy depths of the alley, its wings carrying it swiftly toward the ominous plume of smoke that continued to rise from the vicinity of the Oceanic Museum.
Meanwhile, near the museum at the Crossroad, firefighters had arrived in haste. Given the prime location and public nature of the museum, emergency response measures were already in place. Fire hydrants and emergency exits dotted the area, aiding the firefighters in their mission to subdue the raging inferno. Some panicked visitors had managed to escape through the building’s side exits and were now huddled together at the edge of the plaza, visibly shaken.
Their conversations were filled with horrific accounts of the sudden fire that had consumed the hallways and galleries. People spoke of unexplained, booming explosions echoing from within the building and of strange, twisted shadows that seemed to dance in the flames. Some individuals, clearly overwhelmed by the stress of the situation, even claimed to have witnessed grotesque and terrifying phenomena, further amplifying the panic that had already seized the crowd.
Amidst the chaos, a team of professionals was already in motion. Priests and guardians from a nearby chapel, experienced in dealing with psychological trauma and mass hysteria, sprung into action. Two priests waded into the crowd, swinging censers filled with calming incense. Several guardians began identifying individuals who seemed particularly vulnerable to psychological stress, intending to offer them immediate counseling and subsequent resilience assessments.
Just a few dozen meters away from the frenzied scene at the museum’s plaza, the air shimmered as a surge of green flame materialized in the shadow of a building. The flames spiraled into a tight vortex, giving the impression of a portal manifesting out of thin air. Duncan stepped out from this mystical gateway, the remaining tendrils of green fire dissipating into the wind as if they had never been. Ai, now back in her original form, fluttered its wings before landing softly on his shoulder.
As Duncan moved out of the shadows, he couldn’t help but make a mental note of this new and incredible experience. The sensation of being “live transported” by Ai was unlike anything he had ever felt. He also noted that Ai had chosen to “fly” him to the museum rather than execute the “instantaneous arrival” it usually performed when moving objects between Duncan’s antique store and the Vanished.
This observation led Duncan to conclude that Ai’s teleportation abilities operate based on some kind of anchor point system. When Ai teleported between the antique shop and the Vanished, the anchor points were “the antique shop owner,” which was Duncan himself, and “the captain” at the Vanished. But when Ai transported one of these anchor points—like Duncan—she couldn’t teleport instantaneously; instead, she had to fly through real space to reach the destination.
The experience of being “carried” by Ai during this flight was extraordinarily supernatural. Duncan remained conscious throughout the process, but his perceptions were somewhat distorted. Through the connection created by the ethereal green flames, he was able to loosely share Ai’s point of view—catching glimpses of the landscape from above and feeling the air currents rush past them. However, these shared perceptions felt distant, as if they were obscured by a translucent veil, never as vivid or intuitive as his own bodily sensations.
Duncan mused that perhaps this limitation was due to the fundamental differences between Ai’s avian physiology and a human’s, or possibly because Ai possessed its own will, preventing it from being completely overtaken or controlled by him.
For Duncan, these questions were intriguing but not immediately pertinent. The ability to unlock Ai’s new form of “transportation” under such urgent circumstances was a remarkable feat in itself. Any nuances or limitations could be dissected and studied at a later time. Right now, his primary concern was the safety of Nina.
Even though flying wasn’t as quick as teleportation, it still far exceeded the speed of conventional travel. It took Duncan only a matter of minutes to fly from a neighboring block to the vicinity of the Oceanic Museum. And while this was happening, he could already see the horrifying scene unfold before him.
The museum, an elegant three-story white building, was engulfed in flames. The fire had consumed the first and second floors and even licked up to the third. Plumes of dark, heavy smoke billowed from various windows on the second floor, punctuated by periodic bursts of angry flames. Above the building, a pillar of smoke ominously hinted at additional, hidden fires within the structure.
The scene suggested that a gigantic column of fire had erupted from the ground floor, shooting upwards through multiple floors and possibly even the roof.
Firefighters were already on the scene, unspooling hoses from several hydrants situated around the square. Powerful jets of water were aimed at the museum’s exterior walls in a desperate effort to lower the temperature and preserve the integrity of the centuries-old structure. A group of survivors had assembled at the edge of the square, some being consoled by priests, others speaking nervously with officials.
Duncan made a beeline for this group of survivors, his eyes darting back and forth as he scanned their faces for any sign of Nina.
As he moved through the crowd, he overheard snippets of conversations. Survivors were recounting their experiences in trembling voices, their faces etched with disbelief and fear.
“…The fire just materialized out of thin air,” one survivor was saying, their voice shaking. “It’s as though it had been invisibly smoldering for a while, only to burst into view without any warning. It felt almost… supernatural.”
These accounts sent a shiver down Duncan’s spine, but he couldn’t afford to be distracted. Right now, finding Nina was all that mattered.
Survivors congregated on the outskirts of the square, their faces etched with horror as they recounted the surreal and terrifying scenes they had witnessed within the museum.
“There were these ungodly howls—sharp, piercing sounds that seemed like they were coming from the very bowels of hell, as if demons were mocking us,” one survivor exclaimed, eyes widened in disbelief.
“Listen to this,” another chimed in, shaking as he spoke. “I saw a man that was horribly burned from head to toe crawling out of a room. He looked like he was dressed in clothes that looked like they were from decades ago. Even weirder, the room he crawled out of showed no signs of fire before he appeared. It was as if his emergence caused the very flames that consumed the building!”
Duncan approached this frenzied group, scanning their faces for any sign of Nina. Among them, he noticed a man dressed in the dark robes of the Storm Church, easily identifiable by his short, neatly trimmed black beard. The priest’s face was a battlefield of emotion, a maelstrom of worry, concentration, and barely contained alarm.
“The level of hysteria among these people is extreme. I estimate that at least one-third are displaying signs of mental instability. It’s as if they’ve been touched or tainted by some form of malevolent supernatural energy,” the priest spoke in urgent, hushed tones to a guardian standing nearby.
“Reinforcements from the cathedral will take at least another half hour to get here,” the guardian replied.
“That’s far too long,” the priest declared, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at the still-burning museum. “If there’s something unholy at the core of this disaster, considering the scale and the emotional charge, it could spiral out of control in mere minutes.”
Turning briskly to an attendant at his side, he ordered, “Inform local law enforcement to take control of the crowd; we have more pressing matters to attend to.”
In a fluid motion, the priest removed his ceremonial robe, revealing an outfit of more functional black garments underneath. He lifted a tome, the Storm Codex, and began to pray with fervent intensity: “Bear witness! We forge ahead with determination!”
The group of guardians surrounding him responded in unison, “Bear witness!”
As their collective voice resonated through the air, a faint mist started to materialize around them. It swirled as if conjured from some mystical ocean, wrapping around each member like a protective shroud of sea waves. Then, with a sense of unified purpose that defied the chaos around them, the priest and the guardians charged towards the still-blazing structure of the museum.
Duncan watched them go, awestruck by their swift, purposeful action. Yet he couldn’t shake the unsettling accounts he had just heard. If even half of what the survivors claimed was true, then what sort of monstrous force were they dealing with? And most pressing of all, where was Nina in the midst of this calamity?
I hope Nina’s okay
Okay I think I have a theory. The fire is actually a city-wide anomaly, one could say that it exists as a plane separate from the space and time of the city in the present. A frozen moment where everything is being destroyed by flames, so Nina nightmares and the city lord visions are reality overlaps of the destruction of the “city at the moment of the anomaly.” That explains why that severely burned person and the museum fire appear simultaneously, it is a synchronization, a momentary union of the 2 planes. It also explains why Lorcan’s memory does not take place in the 4th district, it was probably in another sector of the city that was not “really” affected by the fire, another overlap of the events of destruction and containment.