Midnight fractured into chaos.
Inside the East Camp command post—a thick-walled stone chamber meant to withstand siege—Knight Rodon was dreaming.
In his dream, he stood beneath banners and gold.
Count Raymond himself placed a noble seal in his hand. A barony. Land rich with grain. Power, finally within reach.
A woman stood beside him—blonde, flawless, smiling softly as she offered him a golden goblet filled with dark wine.
He leaned in—
The world shattered.
"My Lord! Wake up! Something's happened!"
The dream collapsed into shaking hands and panic-stricken voices.
Rodon's eyes snapped open.
Reality hit like a slap.
His guard captain loomed over him, face pale, twisted with fear. Beyond him—noise. A rising tide of sound, like the world itself breaking apart.
"What the hell—?!"
Rodon shoved him aside, stumbling from the bed. He didn't bother with full armor—just dragged a chainmail shirt over his body, seized his sword, and staggered into the night.
Then he saw it.
Fire.
Endless fire.
The hillside beyond the South Wall burned like a descending hell. Flames stretched in every direction, swallowing the darkness. And beneath them—
voices.
Thousands.
Roaring.
For a moment—
he froze.
Confusion hollowed his face.
Impossible.
Those beasts? Those filthy sub-humans who skulked in ravines and forests?
Attacking him?
Here?
Then the confusion snapped.
Rage took its place.
Hot. Violent. Personal.
Just yesterday—Gago's warning letter.
"The sub-humans are dangerous… strengthen your defenses…"
Rodon had torn it apart. Laughed in the messenger's face. Called him a coward hiding behind city walls.
And now—
this.
A direct slap across his pride.
"They dare…" His voice cracked, rising into something shrill and furious. "They dare attack my mine?!"
He rushed to the parapet, eyes bloodshot, staring into the sea of fire below.
"How many?!"
A lookout nearby trembled violently, barely able to stand.
"My Lord—I—I can't see clearly! The fire—it's everywhere! But… this scale… at least two or three thousand! Maybe more!"
Rodon's pupils shrank.
Two or three thousand?
Gago said five hundred.
A flicker of doubt—
crushed instantly.
Then came something worse.
Greed.
Mad, swelling greed.
So what if there are thousands?
Untrained rabble. Beasts. Nothing more.
And he?
Eight hundred elites. Solid walls. Terrain advantage. Thousands of slaves to throw into the meat grinder if needed.
This wasn't danger.
This was opportunity.
Alfred of Dry Bone Valley had died like a fool—ambushed, humiliated.
Rodon would not.
He would win.
Here.
Now.
Clean.
Decisive.
A textbook defense.
His name would rise from this night.
"Good… good!"
A grin split his face—wide, feral.
"They came to die."
He spun, roaring at his officers.
"All East Camp units—move to the South Wall! Everyone! No one stays behind!"
"Archers! Armor-piercing arrows! Fire at the densest flames—don't stop! Turn them into pincushions!"
"Infantry! Bring logs! Stones! Oil! When they climb—crush them! Burn them!"
His voice thundered with certainty.
Because in his mind—
the battle was already won.
He saw no trap.
Only glory.
The camp surged to life.
Soldiers flooded out like a broken dam—armor half-fastened, weapons clutched tight. Orders collided in the air, shouted, repeated, distorted.
Within minutes, the South Wall was crowded—men, fire, movement.
A fortress awakening.
"Loose!"
Arrows darkened the sky.
Hundreds of shafts screamed downward, cutting through the firelit night toward the enemy below.
And missed.
Most fell short.
Some buried themselves uselessly in mud.
The distance was wrong.
The target—
uncertain.
Below, the enemy line shifted like something alive, staying just beyond reach.
Deliberate.
Controlled.
And then—
the return fire began.
Sparse.
Precise.
A single arrow struck near an officer's foot.
Another grazed a helmet, snapping it sideways.
No volleys.
No mass fire.
Just enough.
Enough to unsettle.
Enough to break rhythm.
Enough to make every man on the wall feel watched.
Hunted.
Rodon's forces grew restless.
Irritated.
Uneasy.
At the front of the enemy line—
two figures stood unmoving.
Boulder.
And Patton.
Boulder had stripped his armor bare, his scarred, bronze body exposed beneath the firelight. Axe in hand, he roared at the wall like a beast unleashed.
"Come down, you cowards!"
His voice carried.
Clear.
Mocking.
Provoking.
Patton stood beside him, silent, shield raised—a wall within the storm. His presence anchored the line, steadying every warrior behind him.
Together—
they drew every eye.
Every arrow.
Every thought.
Rodon saw them.
Focused on them.
Leaders.
Targets.
Everything made sense to him.
The fire.
The noise.
The pressure.
A full assault.
A frontal breakthrough attempt.
Crude.
Predictable.
Exactly what he expected from beasts.
Outside the South Gate, the battle roared—light and sound crashing together like a storm.
The anvil had struck.
Perfectly.
Rodon didn't see it.
Didn't question it.
Didn't look elsewhere.
Because while his entire force locked itself onto the fire and fury before him—
in the west—
in silence—
the real blade was rising.