The final impact of the wolf-headed ram was deafening. The center boulder didn't just break; it shattered. Rock fragments hissed through the air like shrapnel, flying in every direction as the dust of a thousand years rose in a choking cloud.
With a triumphant roar, the first wave of Payapasian soldiers surged through the breach, weapons leveled and hearts set on a slaughter. But as the dust settled, the roar died in their throats.
Their path was not clear. Instead, the ground ahead was choked by a forest of heavy stone poles that had somehow risen from the earth during the chaos of the demolition. To their further confusion, the rain of arrows from the cliffs above suddenly ceased. The silence that followed was more terrifying than the noise of the battle.
The Paayasian vanguard faltered. They had focused so much of their energy on breaking the boulders, foolishly believing that once the wall fell, the mountain would surrender. They stood in the shadow of the stone pillars, glancing at one another with shields half-raised, unsure whether to advance or wait for orders.
They thought the bandits had finally fled back to the safety of Salran Hill. They were wrong.
A deep, mechanical groan vibrated through the floor of the pass—the sound of heavy gears and weighted counter-balances shifting deep within the mountain. Suddenly, the hundreds of stone poles began to rotate. They spun clockwise with increasing, lethal speed, and from hidden slits within the stone, hundreds of bamboo spikes whipped outward.
The air began to whistle as the bamboo spikes reached a blur of speed, the sound growing into a high-pitched scream just before the first wave of red armor was met with a storm of wood. The forest of stone had truly become a forest of spinning blades.
For those fast enough to raise their shields, the wood splintered against steel, saving them from the first lethal volley. But for the hundreds who were a heartbeat too slow, the last thing they saw was a blur of sharpened bamboo.
Terrified and unable to move forward, the Paayasian soldiers began a desperate retreat, shuffling backward while keeping their shields locked high. They thought they were moving toward the safety of the broken boulders. They were wrong.
The very ground they had stepped upon seconds ago suddenly groaned and slid away toward the mountain walls. It was a perfectly balanced trapdoor. Five full waves of Paayasian soldiers vanished in an instant, plunging into a dark pit lined with a forest of upright bamboo spikes. Their screams were cut short as the artificial ground slowly slid back into place, sealing the tomb with a sickening, heavy thud.
Some died as they landed on their backs; others were skewered through the chest or stomach. A few lucky, or perhaps unlucky, ones landed on their feet, only for the weight of their falling comrades to crush them into the spikes below.
When the dust finally dissipated, the passage to Pojin was hauntingly empty. Not a single living soldier stood to guard the path. There were only the hundreds of stone poles standing like silent sentinels, the muffled cries of the buried echoing from beneath the earth, and the mountain waiting for the next wave of red armor to try its luck.
From two hundred yards away, General Leej sat motionless atop his horse, staring at the forest of stone poles. His eyes, usually sharp with cold calculation, were now clouded with a dawning surprise.
He had crossed this border many times on his "sneak attacks" against Salran Hill. On those days, the only defense the bandits could muster were a few clumsy boulders and poorly aimed arrows. But this? This was a masterclass in lethal engineering. It wasn't just a trap; it was a machine.
He realized with a growing chill that his strategy—his "shatar" game—was being countered by a player he hadn't identified. Behrouz was a brawler, a man of strength and simple ambushes. He could never have built this.
Who? Leej thought, his grip tightening on his reins. Who is the architect of this slaughter?
He had banked on Chinua being trapped in the burning streets of Ntsua-Ntu. He had assumed Pojin would be a vulnerable fruit, ripe for the picking while the capital's eyes were turned inward. But now, as he looked at the empty passage, there were no bodies to reclaim. There was only the "smear of blood" on the stones.
He raised his hand, signaling a full halt. The silence of the morning was shattered by the muffled, fading voices of his elite soldiers. They were moaning beneath the very soil they had come to conquer, calling for help from a tomb they had walked into with their eyes wide open.
The sun was high now. The entire morning had been wasted at the gate. Despite all their gold, all their "Objects," and all their heavy armor, the Red Tide had yet to set a single foot in Pojin.
Deep beneath the surface of Salran Hill, a different kind of war was being waged. While the sun scorched the rocks above, the air in the tunnels was cool and smelled of damp earth and iron.
Bandits moved like shadows through the labyrinthine passages, their arms laden with fresh bamboo spikes. They worked with a gruesome efficiency, clearing the traps and "refurnishing" the spikes. To them, the fallen Paayasians weren't men anymore—they were obstacles to be cleared and resources to be used.
"Make sure their bodies are here to stay," Behrouz's voice boomed, echoing through the narrow stone corridors. He walked with a heavy, confident stride, his massive sword strapped tightly across his back. "Let them fertilize our trees and nourish our grass. If they want our land so badly, we shall make them a permanent part of it."
He paused, looking at the faces of his men and women—his "sons and daughters" of the mountain. "Be ready. Those cats from the east might try again tonight, but we will not sit and wait for them." A dark, low chuckle rumbled in his chest. "Because tonight, we bring the battle to their tents."
A scout rushed forward, breathless. "Chief! All the children, the elders, and those who cannot fight are secured in the deep caves of Salran Hill. The evacuation is complete."
Behrouz let out a long, weathered sigh, the tension finally leaving his shoulders. He looked up at the stone ceiling, as if he could see through the mountain to the village of Pojin.
"Good," Behrouz said, his eyes flashing with a predatory light. "Now we can fight with a peace of mind."
Behrouz moved through the tunnels with the practiced ease of a man who knew every crack in the granite. He checked the sentry posts and the trap-rooms, ensuring every warrior was in their place. Finally, he reached the heavy iron-bound doors of the command room.
The air inside was still and cool. He walked toward the massive stone table where the high-backed chairs of Chinua, Hye, and the others sat empty. Their absence felt heavy in the room. Behrouz walked over to the mountain wall, where a master map of the Salran Hill tunnel system had been meticulously carved into the stone.
He let out a long, weary sigh, but a smile soon followed. Today was a victory he had truly earned. For the first time, the "exchange of blood" was tipped in his favor; his losses were a mere fraction of the Paayasian lives swallowed by the earth.
He stared at the empty stone chair to the right—the one usually occupied by the brilliant strategist, Hye—and let out a soft, gravelly chuckle. It wasn't a laugh of mockery, but one of deep, sudden understanding. He remembered Chinua's warning: she had told him she could burn down Salran Hill without losing a single man.
At the time, he might have doubted her. Now, he had seen it with his own eyes.
Back then, the hill was just a hideout with a few loose rocks and hidden pits. But Hye had seen the mountain differently. He had looked at the granite walls and the shifting shale and seen a mechanism.
Under Hye's direction, the bandits had spent months digging, carving, and installing the counterweights and gears that now powered the rotating stone poles. Hye had designed the "sliding ground" to use the very weight of the Paayasian soldiers to trigger the trapdoor. It was a masterpiece of passive defense—the more enemies that stepped on it, the faster it would fall.
Inside the command room, Behrouz ran his rough, calloused hand over the stone table. He realized now that Hye hadn't just been strengthening a hill; he had been building a shield for the people of Pojin.
He stared at the empty stone chair where Hye used to sit, sketching out blueprints with charcoal and a steady hand. He let out a soft, gravelly chuckle. Hye had known exactly how a Paayasian general like Leej would think. He had designed these traps to exploit their arrogance and their reliance on heavy, slow-moving formations.
"Yeah—" Behrouz muttered, his voice full of a rare, deep respect. "With the two of you combined, you surely could have burned my hill to ash." He smiled at the stone map. "Hehehe... Hye, you brilliant devil. Even when you aren't here, you're still killing them with the very brain you left behind in these walls."
Behrouz stepped out of the command room, the heavy iron-bound doors thudding shut behind him. The flickering torchlight of the corridor hit the faces of the one hundred men and women standing in the hall. These were his most elite warriors—the ones who had survived a hundred skirmishes and knew the rhythm of the mountain as well as their own heartbeats.
They stood in absolute silence, their faces smeared with soot and ash to hide their skin from the moon, their weapons wrapped in cloth to prevent the clink of steel. They were no longer a disorganized gang; they were the "sons and daughters" of the mountain, transformed by Chinua's training into a razor-sharp blade.
Behrouz looked at them, his eyes reflecting the orange flame of the torches. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face. He didn't need a long speech. They knew the plan. They knew the tunnels. And they knew the enemy.
"Let's burn some cats' tails tonight," Behrouz said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
A ripple of silent, grim smiles answered him. With a single nod from the Chief, the one hundred shadows vanished into the dark, heading for the "Shadow's Throat"—the tunnel that would deliver them into the heart of the Paayasian camp.