Blackstone Bastion Settlement.
This was a human settlement in the Land of Chaos.
Almost everyone here was human—what Charlotte called destitute rabble and paupers.
In truth, that was more or less accurate. There were no wealthy people here, and it lay in a relatively barren part of the Land of Chaos.
Blackstone Bastion Settlement was named as such...
Because it sat within a small basin. To enter or leave this basin, there was only one relatively passable road.
The other routes were all difficult to traverse—mountain trails that, even if an army could pass through them, allowed for extremely inefficient movement.
And along the only easy road, a fortress had been built here during the reign of the Ancient Elven Empire.
That fortress protected this small basin behind it.
This fortress was Blackstone Bastion.
It was built entirely from black stone. Its walls stood dozens of meters high, and its defenses were formidable.
But the present-day Blackstone Bastion was still vastly different from what it had been during the Ancient Elven Empire.
First, there was a clear distinction in the fortress's main walls.
Back then, the Giant Empire had once conquered this fortress, and its walls had been battered into ruin.
At least one-third of the once-unyielding black stone walls had been destroyed.
The original Blackstone Bastion's walls had been protected by sorcery runes, granting them immense defensive power as well as multiple sorcerous effects.
But now, all of that was gone.
After Blackstone Bastion had been breached and destroyed by the Giants, the fortress changed hands several times before finally falling into the hands of human paupers.
At present, Blackstone Bastion's defenses were far inferior to what they had once been.
The walls were one-third shorter, and many sections had been patched up afterward, leaving them less defensible than