Madoc’s POV:

"Attack—" Sue had just said when a sudden movement below grabbed Madoc’s attention.

"Hold on! They’re doing something!" He quickly stopped her, and they all paused for a beat to see three bound figures being pushed to the edge of the cover the dome provided.

"Who are those? Do you know them?" Sue asked with an irritated tone. An inkling of why Finn had truly sent her here was starting to form in her mind, but she didn’t want to believe it.

Madoc squinted, pushing his vision to its limits. He could see a man with messy green hair who looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Next to him was a black-haired woman of similar age, her posture stiff and unnatural. The third was a much younger girl, also with black hair, whose head hung low.

All three of them walked with a dull, rhythmic gait. Their faces were vacant and their eyes were wide but empty of any recognition. They strode mindlessly to the edge of the dome on their own, as if they were following pre-programmed directions etched into their very souls.

"No. We don’t know any of them," Madoc replied, and he was supported by Osmund, who also affirmed the same.

But the two Anaelle could tell what was going on already. The fact that the Soul Sanctum was ready and well-prepared to face Finn in the first place, meant that those three individuals down there were of some level of importance to Finn. Enough to be used as hostages, at least.

Don’t tell me... Did the Lord Errant predict all of this?! Madoc thought in shock. Is this what he stayed back to prepare for?

He glanced towards Sue, who had a deep scowl on her face. She looked to have come to that same conclusion already, and perhaps even more. There was a tinge of genuine surprise hidden beneath her anger. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Madoc raised a brow slightly, then followed her gaze. She was staring particularly at the younger female among the three hostages far in the distance below.

Does she know who the girl is? He mused internally.

Sue let out a long, heavy sigh, then her expression eased into one of calm, cold conviction. She looked like a person who had stopped fighting against an inevitable current and had decided to simply swim with it. She muttered something under her breath that was barely audible even to Madoc, who was standing right behind her:

"It looks like I have no choice but to go all out..."

"You two!" she barked as her body began to hum with a dangerous charge that made Madoc’s white fur stand on end. "Follow after me immediately. And don’t stop attacking for a second. Wreak as much havoc within these twenty minutes as possible as you can!"

In an instant, Madoc felt his footing give way to nothing. He was suddenly in a free fall as Sue withdrew her soul mass — likely to conserve her soul power as much as possible. But Madoc wasn’t bothered by this fact.

Rather, his eyes were wide open like saucers as he saw the young girl blur towards the dome in the distance in a blitz of spatial jumps!

"Space magic?!" Madoc and Osmund yelled at the same time, their minds going numb, struggling to come up with an explanation for the spectacle before them.

Sue is a fragment bearer of the abstract concept of Space? Madoc’s mind moved a mile a minute.

No! That can’t be! Aside from Osmund and I... and also Hagen, there is only Egon Callahan!

But then Madoc also remembered the Husks — the abomination that was the result of one of the Space Transcendent, Casmir’s, many experiments.

While he hadn’t met any of them yet, he had seen visions of them at one point. Glimpses of a possible timeline when Finn had just arrived on their island back then.

Not to mention, back at the site of the Arcanist and Ossuarist battlefield where they had briefly stopped along their journey here, both he and Osmund had felt traces and residues of spatial magic.

Madoc had attributed it to the original Space Transcendent’s presence. Casmir’s core vessel, Egon Callahan, had surely been there. But what if it hadn’t just been him?

Finn had said the Husks could now fully control space magic easily. So what if it wasn’t just the Husks? What if there were more creatures? More experiments? And even... humans, who now wielded the ability to manipulate space?

There was one right before his eyes right now, so it wasn’t an idea that was too far-fetched.

Madoc grit his teeth and yelled at Osmund, snapping his companion into attention. The attack had begun, and they had to commit and follow after Sue immediately, or else they would put her at a disadvantage.

"Think later, Osmund! Now is the time for battle!" He roared and burst into a series of rapid spatial jumps, his expertise in the use of space magic showing fully. Each jump that he and Osmund made covered more distance than Sue’s own use of the ability.

In a few heartbeats, they were not far behind her, just as she came up to the dome that felt like a literal impenetrable wall, both physically and even while moving through the fabric of space.

Madoc pushed on nonetheless. A moment of hesitation could cost them dearly. They had begun their attack, and regardless of the outcome, they now had to commit fully.

So he could only put his trust in her as she spearheaded the attack, hopeful that she had something up her sleeve to pierce through that dome.

At this point, barely five seconds had passed. Such was the pace of battle for people at their level. The Ossuarists inside the dome had not even reacted.

Maybe it was because they simply trusted the dome to hold up with full confidence. Or perhaps it was because of the vast difference in levels between the mish-mash of Grade 1s, 2s, and 3 Caretaker-ranked Ossuarists standing at the forefront within the dome, compared to the solidly Preceptor-level strength of the three incoming attackers — Madoc, Osmund, and Sue.

Only the stray Preceptor-ranked Ossuarists scattered here and there could process the speed with which the three moved and react accordingly. Though even their reactions seemed languid, save for the Preceptor guarding the hostages at the front.

It was the Sanguis Sepulchre family ancestor. His eyes were cold and calculating as he tracked the three rapidly approaching attackers. While he trusted the dome to hold, he could feel a bit of uneasiness that he couldn’t really explain.

And for someone of his experience, he had learned to trust his intuition whenever he felt such inexplicable unease. It had saved him many times over the course of his life.

It was for this reason that before Sue even got close to the dome with her spatial jumps, he moved instantly and positioned himself within grabbing distance of Micah, Isis, and Yvonne.

It was a decision that turned out to be the only thing that saved the Soul Sanctum and the Ossuary as a whole from facing the most humiliating conclusion to their carefully prepared defensive stance before the battle even started.