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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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From the secluded aviaries positioned near the command tent, two black ravens took to the skies. They were magnificent, terrifyingly intelligent creatures, bred specifically for endurance in the harsh, freezing altitudes of the northern mountains. Secured tightly to their legs were the tiny, lightweight silk scrolls carrying Sima Yi's freshly drafted orders.
They spiraled upward into the freezing night air, catching the powerful, high altitude crosswinds. High above the clouds, they split paths.
One raven flew hard toward the west, its dark wings cutting through the biting frost. It flew over the jagged, snow capped peaks of the Taihang Mountains, crossing hundreds of miles of unforgiving terrain to reach the arid, freezing deserts of Liang Province.
There, Taishi Ci stood amongst his veteran desert cavalry, his twin halberds resting by his side. When the raven finally descended into the western camp, bringing the Emperor's mandate to strike, Taishi Ci would read the cipher, smile a cold, ruthless smile, and order his men to mount up.
The other raven sped toward the east, fighting against the coastal gales, flying toward the snowy, mountainous passes of You Province. It sought out the legendary veteran, Huang Zhong.
When the bird arrived, the old master archer would read the silk scroll by the light of a watchfire, his aged but impossibly sharp eyes narrowing as he looked toward the Wuhuan territories. He would string his massive, custom forged war bow, signaling his northern command to prepare for the march.
The continent was linked by invisible threads of ink and feathers, drawn perfectly taut by the will of the Black Dragon. The trap was set.
The next day dawned, carrying the heavy, suffocating anticipation of war.
It was not a bright, welcoming sunrise. The sky was the color of bruised iron, a pale, slate gray canvas that promised snow and relentless cold. The freezing wind howled down from the steppes, biting at exposed skin and tearing at the massive red and gold Hengyuan banners that snapped violently above the camp.
But the cold was entirely ignored. The morning air was thick with the sharp, metallic scent of thousands of readied weapons and the distinct, musky odor of sweat, leather, and heavily armored soldiers preparing to march into hell.
At the very front of the unimaginably massive formation, standing mere paces away from the ancient, crumbling stones of a northern gate leading out past the Great Wall, Lie Fan sat tall atop his legendary steed, Pangu.
Clad in his magnificent armor, Lie Fan looked like a deity of destruction rendered in flesh and steel. The overlapping black steel scales of his bespoke suit absorbed the dull morning light, while the golden dragons roaring across his breastplate seemed to writhe and shift with every breath he took.
The freezing wind whipped his dark hair violently around his face, framing a visage of absolute, uncompromising focus. His grip was firm around the heavy, steel shaft of his legendary halberd, the razor sharp crescent blade resting effortlessly against his shoulder, thirsty for the blood of the Khans.
Right beside him rode Lu Lingqi, equally imposing and breathtakingly lethal atop her own massive, dark gray warhorse. She wore customized, form fitting heavy armor of polished dark silver, accented with deep crimson silk that matched the imperial colors. Her own halberd, a masterfully forged weapon gifted to her by Lie Fan, rested readily in her hands. Her eyes, cold and sharp as the winter wind, were locked onto the endless, grassy horizon before them.
Positioned directly behind the ruling couple stood the formidable vanguard.
This was not a standard frontline. This was a gathering of the most lethal, peerless killing machines the world had ever seen.
The elite Yellow Ghost Bodyguards formed the immediate, impenetrable wedge behind the Emperor and his wife. Their emotionless, dark iron masks gave away nothing, their heavy broadswords drawn and resting against their armored thighs.
Flanking this silent wall of assassins were the realm's most terrifying and legendary generals, forming a line of absolute, unbroken martial supremacy.
Zhang Liao sat atop his mount, his scarred face calm, his aura projecting an unyielding, stoic terror. Beside him, Zhao Yun, the Silver Dragon, looked pristine and flawless, his spear held with relaxed, terrifying perfection. Ma Chao, his colorful, vibrant armor standing out against the bleak landscape, practically vibrated with raw, predatory energy, his eyes scanning the horizon for the first sign of an enemy rider.
Dian Wei, gripping his massive twin iron halberds, looked like a mountain of muscle threatening to crush the earth itself. Gao Shun stood in absolute silence, the commander of the Camp Crushers embodying the very concept of unbreakable discipline. And flanking them all were the rest of the high command, the veteran lords of war who had unified the central plains under Lie Fan's banner.
Behind this terrifying wall of elite warriors stood the massed, highly disciplined ranks of Lu Lingqi's female battalion. The Soaring Valkyries stood in perfect, unwavering formation, their armor polished, their spears angled precisely, their faces set in grim, lethal determination. They were matched step for step by Lie Fan's personal battalion, the most heavily armored, fanatically loyal shock infantry in the entire empire.
And finally, backing this immense, concentrated tip of the spear, was the true, apocalyptic weight of the Hengyuan Dynasty.
An awe-inspiring sea of hundreds of thousands of Imperial Army soldiers stretched out behind them, blanketing the plains as far as the eye could see. It was a terrifying, perfectly ordered grid of black iron, polished steel, and crimson banners.
The heavy infantry stood shoulder to shoulder, their massive tower shields forming an unbroken wall of defense. Behind them, the elite heavy cataphracts waited, their armored mounts snorting in the cold. And further back, the dark, menacing silhouettes of the carriage mounted Black Dragon Cannons pointed their muzzles toward the north, ready to unleash thunder upon the steppes.
The silence that blanketed this million man army was absolute. It was the terrifying, heavy silence that exists in the fraction of a second before a lightning strike.
Lie Fan looked out at the frozen, uncharted expanse of the steppes. He thought of the centuries of raiding, the burning of the frontier villages, the chaotic, fractured history of the nomadic tribes, and the apocalyptic threat of the future Mongol Empire that he was about to surgically, permanently amputate from the timeline.
He had forged the ultimate weapon. Now, it was time to swing it.
Drawing a deep, freezing breath into his lungs, Lie Fan tightened his grip on the shaft of his weapon. With a smooth, immensely powerful motion, he raised his halberd high into the air, the cold steel blade catching the first, weak rays of the morning sun.
He held it there for one, agonizing heartbeat.
Then, he slashed it forward, pointing the tip directly at the heart of the north.
It was the definitive signal.
Instantly, the terrifying, absolute silence was shattered.
The massive, hide bound war drums, positioned at the center of the formation, were struck by muscular, shirtless drummers wielding heavy wooden mallets.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The thunderous roar of the war drums shattered the morning silence, the deep, bass heavy shockwaves rolling across the frozen earth, vibrating in the chests of every single soldier present. The massive, brass war horns wailed a terrifying, mournful cry that seemed to split the very heavens open.
"CHARGE!" the vanguard commanders roared in unison.
With a deafening, earth-shattering battle cry that tore from the throats of hundreds of thousands of men, the leviathan moved. Pangu surged forward, tearing up the frosted earth, Lie Fan leading the way into the abyss. Lu Lingqi kicked her horse into a gallop, matching her husband stride for stride, her Valkyries screaming a war cry that sent shivers down the spines of the veterans behind them.
The heavy iron boots of the infantry slammed against the dirt. The hooves of the cataphracts began a slow, rhythmic pounding that quickly escalated into a terrifying, ground shaking thunder. The entire, massive Central Command army surged forward, pouring out past the Great Wall and spilling onto the freezing grass of the steppes like a river of black steel and crimson blood.
And miles away, far across the continent, separated by mountains and deserts but bound by the unbreakable will of their Emperor, the exact same scene played out.
On the eastern front, in the snowy passes of You Province, the exact same thunderous drums began to beat in unison as Huang Zhong unleashed his army.
On the western front, in the freezing deserts of Liang Province, the war horns wailed as Taishi Ci led his army into the fray.
The three pronged assault had begun. The Black Dragon had unleashed his wrath upon the north, and the world would never be the same again.
And so began the colossal, earth shattering attack on the Xianbei, Xiongnu, and Wuhuan tribes.
Deep within the sprawling, frozen expanse of the northern steppes, the world was already drowning in blood long before the first Hengyuan war horn echoed across the frost.
At this exact time in history, these three great nomadic factions were currently deeply, violently embroiled in their own bloody, chaotic war with each other. The sprawling plains, normally a place of stark, terrifying beauty and endless grazing pastures, had been transformed into a nightmarish, frozen slaughterhouse.
For months, the Xiongnu and the Xianbei had been locked in a brutal war of absolute extermination. Following the sudden, chaotic deaths of their supreme Khans and Chanyus, the fragile alliances holding the vast tribal confederations together had completely shattered.
Minor chieftains and ambitious warlords had risen up, turning their composite bows and iron tipped arrows against their own neighbors in a desperate, frantic bid for supremacy.
To make the bloodshed even more catastrophic, the opportunistic Wuhuan tribe had swept in from the east, viciously attacking the exposed flanks and unguarded winter camps of both the Xiongnu and the Xianbei. The steppes were a mess of burning tents, slaughtered herds, and frozen corpses.
This relentless, three way civil war was completely, utterly exhausting their manpower and their vital resources. The once-proud, terrifying hordes that had raided the Han borders for four centuries were now fighting over the frozen scraps of their own ruined encampments.
Their horses were tired, their quivers were half empty, and their warriors were physically and mentally drained from the endless, paranoid cycle of raiding and defending against their own kind.
Because of this blinding, all consuming internal conflict, the nomadic tribes had their eyes fixed entirely upon each other's throats. They had completely ignored the southern horizon.
When the earth finally began to tremble, they initially thought it was simply another massive cavalry charge from a rival clan. The Xiongnu warlords rallying their riders, and the Xianbei chieftains bracing for impact, did not look south until the very last possible second.
When they finally did, the sudden arrival of the Han people, the grand, united imperial army of the Hengyuan Dynasty, completely surprised them and caught them incredibly, fatally off guard.
The shock was absolute and paralyzing. As the freezing morning mist rolled back, the nomadic warriors stopped their infighting, their composite bows dropping slightly as they stared in horrified, breathless disbelief at the southern ridges.
They expected to see the fragmented, poorly supplied border patrols of a dying Han Dynasty. Instead, they saw the apocalypse.
The Hengyuan army had arrived in massive, truly endless numbers that completely covered the entire horizon. The sprawling grid of black iron armor, polished steel tower shields, and thousands upon thousands of snapping crimson banners seemed to swallow the earth itself.
It was a mechanical, perfectly synchronized ocean of death, moving with a disciplined, terrifying silence that contrasted violently with the chaotic screaming of the steppe warriors. To the exhausted, fractured nomads, it looked as though the mountains themselves had uprooted and were marching to crush them.
But the sheer, mind numbing numbers of the Han soldiers were not the only thing that paralyzed the hardened riders of the north.
Rolling steadily forward, positioned menacingly behind the heavy infantry lines and flanked by the elite cataphracts, the Hengyuan army was bringing in weird, terrifyingly powerful machineries that the nomads had never, ever seen before in their lives.
The tribal chieftains squinted through the freezing wind, staring in sheer confusion at the heavy wooden carts being pulled by blindfolded draft horses. They saw massive, dark bronze tubes resting on reinforced iron carriages. They saw strange, box like wooden constructs filled with hundreds of small, dark holes, angled aggressively toward the sky.
To the horse lords of the steppes, who measured a man's worth by his skill with a composite bow and a spear, these silent, heavy wooden constructs made absolutely no sense. They did not understand the threat. They did not understand that Emperor Lie Fan had brought the industrial fires of the future to burn the ancient world to ash.
Then, Lie Fan's halberd fell, and the order to fire was given.
The world of the nomads ended in fire and thunder.
The mysterious weapons were the deadly Hwachas. At the command of the artillery officers, the fuses were simultaneously lit. A terrifying, high pitched, shrieking hiss filled the freezing air, a sound unlike anything the steppes had ever heard. And then, the Hwachas unleashed hell.
In mere seconds, the wooden boxes violently erupted, raining down hundreds upon hundreds of explosive and flaming arrows.
The sky instantly darkened, completely blotted out by a massive, concentrated storm of rocket propelled death. The arrows shrieked through the air, trailing thick black smoke and bright orange fire, before slamming directly into the tightly packed, confused ranks of the nomadic cavalry.
The impact was absolutely devastating. The arrows did not just pierce flesh; they detonated. Massive, concussive explosions ripped through the Xiongnu and Xianbei lines, throwing armored men and shattered horses dozens of feet into the air.
The snow was instantly turned into a boiling, black slush of mud and blood. The unearthly shrieking of the rockets, combined with the sudden, fiery explosions, shattered the nerves of the nomadic warhorses instantly. Entire squadrons of elite riders were violently bucked from their saddles as their mounts went completely mad with terror, trampling their own riders in a desperate, blind panic. But the Hwachas were only the opening chorus.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0