"Fire!"
Braxen roared, eyes wild with fury. The sky shrieked as ballista bolts tore through the air, whistling toward the enemy like banshees of iron and death.
But then—movent.
From the flanks of the Stormdrake legion, figures burst forth.
Knights.
Clad in dull gold armor that shimred not with ornant but with the weight of mastery. Each bore a long spear that humd with power.
With a unified motion, they swung.
And the impossible happened.
The bolts shattered mid-air, torn to splinters by the sheer force and precision of the spear swings.
Braxen flinched. "No…"
At first, he tried to dismiss it—a single Spear Expert, perhaps. Every great army had one.
But then—more beams. Dozens.
Spears thrust, not at enemies, but at the sky itself—projecting spearlight, razor beams of energy that lanced through the air, shredding the remaining projectiles.
Over fifty.
His breath hitched.
To be acknowledged as an Expert—in any weapon—one had to reach the Imperial Rank. Braxen staggered back from the battlent, face paling. "What kind of army is this…"
"Catapults!" he bellowed. "Now! Kill them all!"
Crews obeyed, frantically cutting rope after rope—boulders scread through the air, aid to crush the Stormdrakes like insects.
But then, they stopped Mid-air.
Dozens of boulders hung, frozen, suspended as if ti had faltered. The Stormdrakes continued their slow march forward, untouched, unslowed.
At the rear of the army, on horseback, a handful of riders had arrived.
At their center rode a man with snow white hair. A long black coat fluttered at his back, frost clinging to its hem.
His gloved hand was raised lazily toward the sky.
His na didn't need to be spoken.
Asher.
At his side rode the BloodBlade, battle-hardened and grim. A few chief paladins, their auras fierce and unwavering, flanked him.
As the Stormdrakes advanced, the ground quaked beneath their disciplined march. In response, thousands of Hounds surged forward n encased in bright gold armor, adorned with battle skirts and thick boots, their heads hidden behind heavy helms. Each carried a curved khopesh and a small, round shield polished for intimidation. Their arrival raised a storm of dust, their montum thunderous.
From the tall buildings of Antioch, countless onlookers leaned from balconies and arched windows. Eyes wide, they watched in anticipation—the infamous Hounds, brutal slave soldiers, prepared to clash with this unfamiliar enemy.
When the distance between the armies vanished, a voice thundered out from the vanguard.
"Spread!" roared Aegon.
Like a single beast with a thousand limbs, the great army obeyed. The Stormdrakes divided into multiple segnts, company by company, flowing out to the right and left, an organized storm rolling over the earth. The sudden shift forced the Hounds to break formation, adjusting frantically to et the diverging threat.
Like steel-clad berserkers, the Hounds leapt, roaring, their curved blades raised high.
But the skies betrayed them.
They t the cold bite of spears—long, diamond-tipped, thrust with such force that they punched through their fad armor as if it were parchnt.
Blood fountained. Screams burst through clenched jaws.
Hundreds of Hounds were slaughtered within monts, impaled mid-flight or crushed the instant they landed. Though so managed to brace, swinging their khopeshes with skill honed through a hundred battles, it mattered little.
The formation of the Stormdrakes—their ruthless cohesion—was unlike anything the Hounds had faced. From above, their ranks looked like shifting cubes, their spacing perfect, designed to trap the enemy within.
And trapped the Hounds were.
Outmatched in discipline, in skill, and in the sheer quality of their armor, they found themselves dying by the hundreds.
From the ramparts of the wall, one of Braxen's guests from Galvia narrowed his eyes, spotting a lone man amid an inferno.
Moses.
He walked through the chaos like a man possessed, unleashing waves of fla so violent, that enemies were burned to blackened husks before they could scream. His spear danced like fire itself, and wherever it moved, limbs flew, bodies dropped, and the air howled.
His strength was not that of a man. It was monstrous. Not a single Hound survived a clash. Their blades shattered, their arms broken from the sheer impact of his thrusts. Those who managed to step back were consud in exploding balls of fla, hurled without warning.
It was a massacre.
The Galvian guest's voice was low, grim with awe.
"Those n in silver—all of them are clad in full diamond-ranked armor. And the ones in gold? That's imperial rank. I don't know who you've offended, Braxen, but it's best to surrender."
Braxen turned to him, face pale and sweat-soaked. His voice cracked in disbelief.
"Diamond-ranked?"
His most fearso soldiers were outfitted with a patchwork of silver-ranked parts, and at best, gold-ranked cuirasses.
That had taken decades of trade, blood, and coin. And now, before him stood an army—this colossal force—all draped in diamond, their elite wielders armored in imperial-grade tal fit for legends.
It made no sense.
Their banners did not belong to the Sacred Fla Empire, nor to any known kingdom. And yet… Braxen's heart dropped.
A na flickered in his mind—a rumor, spoken in passing.
Ashbourne.
Before he could think further, a voice bood across the entire city, carried by force, not magic.
"Those that kill their masters will be given a plot of land in the territory of House Ashbourne!"
"None without shackles should be spared!"
Aegon's decree thundered through the air, and silence rippled across the chaos like a blade slicing through cloth.
In one of the finer districts, a noblewoman stood over a male slave, her boot crushing his back.
She looked down, lips curling to speak.
But she never finished.
The man lunged, snapping his bonds and slamming into her. A scream pierced the street.
Her guards rushed to her aid—but from the marketplace, from alleyways and slave quarters, a wave surged.
Slaves, n and won, rose, emboldened by the vision of the Stormdrakes cutting down the Hounds. They poured into the streets, eyes gleaming with vengeance.
A group of battered won descended on their torntor, screaming, crying, breaking her bones with bare hands and iron tools.
So slaves remained loyal, fighting for their masters—only to be crushed by the stampede, swallowed by the fury of the masses.
The city erupted.
Steel clanged against flesh, houses were set ablaze, and flas danced across the skyline. Screams overlapped with the roar of fire and the thud of collapsing stone.
Braxen trembled.
His hand gripped the cold stone of the battlent as his city fell apart below him.
Then—a hand on his shoulder.
He turned sharply.
A man stood behind him, face completely concealed behind a smooth white mask, featureless save for two eye holes.
No nose. No mouth. Just silence.
His voice was calm. Flat.
"My lord, you are not safe here."
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