Phoenix Sanctum

"My King, as of today, all the requests and pledges that we made during our vow, are now fulfilled."

The huge chamber was filled with people. On one side, an orderly group of lining up men in white. At the opposing end of the room, a rowdy crowd of some kind of officials, surrounding the majestic throne, with a plain figure resting on it.

"To think that my own guard would raise up against me one day… Wasn't I a good father to you all?"

Barely stopping his voice from cracking, the royal figure on the throne commented.

"My King, I would advise you to keep in mind that all the peace and prosperity that we created, can be destroyed with far less effort than it required to appear in the first place."

Crack.

All at once, the entire scene fell apart, like a mist during the sudden appearance of the storm. In one moment, the entire picture split into a myriad of fragments, only to assemble itself back in a time shorter than Fen required to blink.

"My brothers!"

Standing in front of a huge army of men all dressed in the pure, white clothes, the same man that bowed to the king just a moment ago, was speaking to his men.

"After years of toiling away for this dynasty, ever since the lands of our ancestors got destroyed, we strived towards the day when we will be able to recreate our country. A place where we could put our weapons to the rest, without the worry of someone trying to kill us overnight. Yet, even after we fulfilled our end of the deal, this devious man decided to go back at the words of his ancestor!"

Instead of pulling out some kind of weapon to add some seriousness and fighting spirit to his words, the middle-aged man simply raised his hand to the skies. In a small explosion of flame, his fingers gripped the handle of a suddenly appearing, red sword as he swung it towards the approaching front units of the enemy.

"Today is the day that we become free!"

Crack.

Once again, before the encounter would turn to its most interesting part, the scene broke apart. At this point, Fen could only wish that whoever was sending those visions to him, had enough of compassion in him to hear the pleas of his soul for those scenes to last long enough for him to understand what was going on!

Regretfully, the pace at which the destroyed fragments of the previous vision were modelling themselves into yet another one, proved that whatever was its source, had no compassion to speak off.

"Sir, we have been travelling for over two months already. What if the stories were nothing but myths?"

From the wrinkles that appeared on the skin of the main character of those visions, Fen could tell that quite a lot of time has passed ever since the battle. No matter whether the men in white won or lost it, it seemed as if quite a few years had to go by before they finally attained their freedom.

"At this point, we can't go back. I thought we left all those willing to become Emperor's dogs behind?"

For some reason, even though the visions were all happening from the first-person perspective of the same man, Fen could tell that if a stare could kill, then the man in front of him would be dead seven times over.

"Sir, I wouldn't dare…"

A quick hand's wave was enough to silence the man. With Fen's vision once again moving to the front of the ship on which the two men stood, only one more line appeared before the scene started to fall apart once again.

"Now, we can only pray to Phoenix that we will find our king."

Unwilling to let go of this scene, Fen attempted to reach for the sparkling shards that made up the images, only to realise that he didn't really have a body to speak off in his current state. Even when he appeared in the sea of flames, he still had at least his fire to himself, yet right now, he was nothing but a free-floating consciousness!

"May your spirit soar with the Phoenix, father."

For the first time ever since those strange images appeared in Fen's mind, the perspective changed. Finally capable of looking at the face of the man whose memories the young man was peeking at, the young arcanist felt how a sense of loss started to nibble away at his sanity. While the face itself was not familiar to him at all, to the point where the word 'exotic' fitted it the most, there was an underlying sense of a great loss that Fen felt whenever he looked at the motionless body of the man.

Crack.

Shattering into pieces like it did several times already, the scene returned to the gory images that Fen expected to see during the second vision he saw. This time though, rather than showing the situation before the battle, the young man could experience a huge fight's aftermath.

"Where did Plativious go? We nearly died without him here!"

Standing atop a small hill of mangled corpses, the fire sword in the main protagonist of the vision continued to waver a bit, as if the man was slowly losing control over it.

"Sir, during the battle we received report… It appears that the entire northern expedition was massacred. There is no main force to bring relief to anymore."

For the very first time, the scene didn't break apart in such an important moment. For a short while, Fen could observe the reaction of the man who brought the reports, to the changes that were ongoing on the main character's face.

"Then we have no other choice but to head south. Gather everyone up, bury the dead. We can't afford any further division from now on."

Only after this phrase left the lips of the main character, did the vision did its thing, reforming into something entirely else. This time, all the anxiety and other tense feelings that accompanied the earlier events were now gone. With what seemed like just a single unit from the enormous army that Fen saw in the second vision of his, yet another person was leading them through the streets of a destroyed city.

As soon as what had to be a detachment of the main force lurking somewhere outside of main character's vision, the leader of just a few hundred men received a huge banner from the hands of his aide, before injecting it forcefully into the middle point of the random square.

"Starting today, we declare this land to be Phoenix Sanctum!"