They moved at night, not for concealment but for rhythm. The Sapphire Road, a vital artery of imperial control, shimmered faintly under the starlight. Paved in blue-veined stone and etched with centuries-old warding glyphs, it had stood untouched by rebellion or sabotage for generations. That night, it became a memory.
From the high ridge overlooking the valley, Altan stood still, his eyes narrowed beneath the wolf-fur edge of his hood. No banners fluttered, no horns cried out. Behind him, shadows shifted. Fur rustled. The Qorjin-Ke waited in stillness, dire wolves breathing mist, falcons circling like drawn blades in the cold sky. They had arrived without call or summons. Their leader had simply stated that his beasts had howled when Gale bled, and therefore he had come. Altan had offered only a nod. No oath was needed when instinct already bound them.
Above, a falcon dipped in a crescent arc, a single shriek piercing the quiet. A beast tamer beside Altan exhaled softly. "Flank shift. Ten riders, three crossbows, one with fire glyph primed."
Altan didn't ask how he knew. He simply gestured.
Khulan's shadow squad descended from the rocks like falling silk. Breathless Step guided their motion, soundless even across loose shale. Their blades, forged in the Silent Forge and honed with Temper Qi, glided through armor and bone alike. A sentry blinked. That was all he had time for. The next heartbeat, he crumpled, throat severed. No alarms sounded. Only the falcons cried again, diving as signal.
Burgedai's vanguard surged from behind the ridge with the weight of a falling cliff. His warriors stomped in unison, each step laced with Rootwake Qi. Their combined motion fractured the outer wards of the road barricades, sending hairline cracks across the stone. Screams rose as the first defenders were flung from their perches, shields shattering from the quake.
Then came the wolves.
Dire beasts twice the size of steppe hounds leapt into the chaos. One landed atop a glyph-wagon and tore through the driver's throat. Another spun midair, catching a flaming javelin in its flank, only to barrel forward, jaws clamping down on a mage-adept. Flesh ripped. Fire flared. The wolf didn't stop. It burned and killed until the flames died before it did.
Chaghan descended next, not running but walking, the Stormguards flanking him. His helm showed no face. His presence carried no qi flare. But each step carried the unbearable weight of Stoneheart Resonance. His first strike landed on a shield wall, and the man behind it crumpled without a sound, ribs caved in by Thousand Weight Pressure. Another soldier stabbed for Chaghan's throat—his saber redirected it effortlessly, catching the wrist and snapping it with a crunch. He didn't hesitate. The follow-up shattered knee, clavicle, and helmet in three perfect motions.
Elsewhere, a defender tried to rally a formation, shouting spells. But Khulan's blade silenced him mid-chant. Her movements were lean and merciless, each strike a whisper of steel and death. One of her shadows flickered into a torch-lit gap and gutted three archers before their arrows left the string.
The Stormguards pressed forward with the inevitability of erosion. Blood slicked their armor, but they neither cried out nor relented. One was set aflame by a trapped glyph, yet he moved through it without pause, his saber cleaving the enemy in half before finally falling to his knees, fire still clinging to his pauldrons.
A horn finally sounded from the enemy ridge. Reinforcements surged in from the east flank—heavy infantry, helmed in jagged bronze, riding heina: part striped hyena, part tusked boar. Their snarls rolled like thunder across the broken stones. The beasts trampled over their own dead without pause, tusks swinging low, fangs wet with froth. Archers loosed volleys from their backs, arrows trailing emberlight from fire-laced feathers.
Altan stepped down from the ridge, blade unsheathed. "Chaghan," he called, sharp and even, "Break them."
Chaghan nodded once and stepped forward into the stampede. The first heina charged him, tusks gleaming with crude enchantment. He moved to the side and slammed his palm into the beast's ribcage. The impact rippled outward, a compression shock that caved its side inward and flung the rider free. Another tried to flank him, spear aimed low, but Chaghan twisted, seized the shaft, and used the rider's own momentum to slam him headfirst into the stone.
Khulan and her shadows reappeared behind the boar-creatures, cutting riders free from their saddles and vanishing before the beasts could react. Wolves lunged at the flanks, drawing them apart. Falcons dove to distract and disorient. Chaos spiraled, but the Gale forces shaped it, bent it.
Altan advanced without hesitation. His blade danced between forms, Wind-Cut Spiral to Falcon's Descent, his breath locked into the Spiral Flow—qi rotating along the spine, each motion drawn from silence. A rider swung high. Altan ducked, severed the beast's front knee, then rose into a backhand that split the rider's throat. One moved to spear him from behind. Altan dropped, kicked the legs out from under the mount, and drove his blade straight through its skull as it crashed.
"Left ridge!" Burgedai's voice thundered. "More riders coming in!"
"I see them," Altan muttered. "Chaghan—ridge sweep, now."
The Stormguards changed formation mid-stride. A wedge of armor and fury, they broke left and climbed the ridge under cover of wolves and falcons. Explosions followed. Dust. Screams. The heina-riders died in droves.
The second wave came with cold fury. Glyphcutters detonated the foundation of the gate, collapsing centuries of reinforced stone. Miner-adepts emerged from the dust, having tunneled beneath for two weeks in secret, their breath heavy with root-stone chants. Explosions echoed through the valley. Glyphs flared and died. Screams folded into the wind.
The Sapphire Road cracked.
Not metaphorically. The ancient route, once the pride of imperial architects, shattered beneath the weight of flame, qi, and iron. Cart wheels splintered. Runes shattered. Blood mixed with blue stone. What had once been the Empire's spine now ran with death.
By morning, the smoke had thinned. Bodies lay in ruin—some whole, others broken across siege carts and shattered glyph walls. No survivors fled. No messengers escaped. The silence afterward was not peace. It was the breath held before war truly began.
A beast tamer stood in a ruined watchtower, his wolf at his side. They watched the wind carry embers eastward, toward the sleeping empire. Above them, a falcon wheeled once and vanished into cloud.
The path was chosen. The storm would not wait.