“(YOU BASTAAARDS…!)”

The elder’s beard, thick with the grease of nomadic life and the grit of passing years, was meticulously braided and heavy with bone ornaments. His face was a map of deep, weathered furrows, each line punctuated by the jagged, silvered tracks of old battle scars.

“(How dare you strike at our hearth while our warriors are away?!)”

With a guttural roar, the old warrior seized two notched, blood-stained axes. As he hoisted them high, the corded muscles and taut tendons of his forearms bulged, his thick, cerulean veins pulsing with a final surge of adrenaline.

“(Do not mock our people! No matter how many of you weak Central Plains dogs swarm us at once, I’ll—!)”

“(Elder, get down—!)”

A sudden, desperate shout cut through the air as a heavy weight slammed into his side, shoving him roughly into the dirt.

“(Ugh—?!)”

The elder, a veteran warrior who had once been a tribal hero, tried to scramble up to identify the one who had pushed him. “(Who dares—?!)”

The enemy gave him no time for questions.

“Commencing fire.”

Before the calm, low-pitched voice of the Central Plains commander even reached the elder’s ears, a sickening THUCK echoed across the plain. It was the sound of a heavy impact, akin to being struck by a galloping warhorse.

The figure who had just saved the elder was sent spiraling through the air. The elder’s vision locked onto the boy—for he was just a boy, recognizable by the training garb of a youth born into internal energy cultivation and raised in the safety of the rear. A thick, blackened iron bolt was buried deep in the child’s shoulder.

As the elder reached out, his eyes searching for the boy’s face, a second THUCK pulverized the air.

The boy’s skull shattered like a overripe pumpkin, a dull, wet sound that preceded a horrific spray of bone and gray matter. The elder’s face was instantly coated in the hot, viscous remains of the youth’s life.

“(—!)”

A howl of pure, incandescent rage built in the elder’s chest, but before he could leap to his feet, a frantic tide of children rushed past him. Dozens of boys and girls, clad in training robes and wielding whatever weapons they could find, spurred their undersized ponies forward.

“(Protect the tribe!)” “(We must guard our families!)”

The elder reached out with his axes, trying to snag their clothes and pull them back, but it was useless. Like their ancestors who had once commanded the continent, they rode with the spirit of heroes—but their fates had already been sealed by a cold, mechanical logic.

“Designated marksmen, all targets confirmed.”

“Release.”

The rhythmic, synchronized twang of specialized steel-wire bowstrings echoed across the field. The sound was hauntingly familiar—it reminded the elder of the time a decade ago when an unprecedented storm had shredded the thick canvas of their great tents.

Thuck! Thuck! Splurt!

The screams were mercifully short. Beneath the orange glow of the late afternoon sun, the sky was painted with the blood and flesh of the tribal youth.

Neigghhh!

With final, pained cries, the tribe’s horses collapsed into the grass, their hides riddled with iron.

“Reload.”

Clink. Clank.

The heavy, metallic thud of spent magazines hitting the ground filled the sudden silence. The calm, rhythmic clicks of new iron bolts being chambered was the only sound in the now-quiet clearing.

“Anyone with string issues, fall back and swap. The rest, maintain readiness.”

The commander’s voice was as detached and serene as if he were conducting a routine drill on a training field.

“(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH—!)”

A primal, incoherent shriek erupted from the elder’s throat. It was impossible to tell where such strength came from in his ancient, broken frame—perhaps it was the final, fleeting blessing of Tenger. He pushed off the earth with explosive force, hurtling toward the enemy like an arrow loosed from a bow.

“Fire.”

SHREEEEEE!

Again, the sound of tearing canvas.

“(Kuff—!)”

Excruciating pain flooded his nervous system as black iron bolts riddled his torso. His momentum failed instantly, and he was driven face-first into the dirt.

A pool of dark, clotted blood fountained from his mouth, staining the dry grass. His arms trembled as he tried to push himself up, but his strength had finally evaporated.

From the distance behind him, he could hear the faint, haunting sounds of the end: the screams of women, the wailing of infants not yet weaned, and the frantic scrambling of the elderly trying to flee on feet too weak to carry them.

Cough!

The elder struggled to lift his head, his vision blurring. A low, steady voice drifted over the smoking remains of his home.

“Commencing free fire.”

The elder understood very little of the Central Plains tongue, yet in that moment, the meaning was unmistakable.

Bwaaaaaaaa-!

Whoosh! Crackle!

As his ancestral home was consumed by pillars of thick black smoke and pillars of hungry, crimson flame, the elder’s face went slack. He no longer had the strength for anger, nor the will for grief. He was simply empty.

Thump. Thump.

The slow, steady rhythm of hooves approached from behind. The enemy commander.

“(Who… who are you…?)” the elder wheezed, his voice a mere thread of sound. “(Are you… the Silk Road Rangers of Xi’an…?)”

The warhorse came to a stop. The rider reached up and pulled down the cloth masking his face, revealing a sharp, weathered countenance. He answered in the Northern tongue.

“(I am.)”

The man was Jeong Ryung, commander of the Silk Road Rangers.

“(Why…?)” The elder looked up through the haze of death. “(Why are you doing this to us?)”

Jeong Ryung didn’t answer immediately. He looked toward the burning tents and the littered corpses, his eyes reflecting the fire. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, yet it carried an undercurrent of ancient, cold fury.

“(And you?)” he asked. “(For generations, you have raided the caravans of the Silk Road. You have murdered and plundered as if it were your birthright.)”

Jeong Ryung produced a piece of tobacco, lit it, and took a long, slow draw. “(You have systematically burned our border villages, butchering the men and selling the women and children into slavery. Tell me, Elder… as you committed those atrocities, did you never stop to think that the debt would one day be called due?)”

“(That was…)” The elder gasped for air, the smoke stinging his lungs. “(It was… for our survival.)”

“(Survival, is it?)” Jeong Ryung let out a short, cynical laugh. “(Perhaps it was, in the beginning.)”

He blew a cloud of white smoke toward the burning camp. “(But as your wealth grew from plunder, so did your population. More mouths required more food, which required more raiding. And so, your strength grew until your tribes merged into alliances, then unions, until a powerful leader arose and formed legions.)”

The elder remained silent.

“(A snowball rolling down a mountain eventually becomes an unstoppable avalanche,)” Jeong Ryung continued. “(If the Dread King Yelü Nuzhucha was the external result of our own corrupt politicians’ greed, then you were the internal catalyst—following the natural order of escalation until it reached this point.)”

“(Then… what were we supposed to do?)”

Jeong Ryung shrugged. “(I don’t know.)”

“(How can you—?!)”

Click.

“(All I know,)” Jeong Ryung said, leveling his hand-held repeating crossbow at the elder’s forehead, “(is that if the war you started was inevitable, then the annihilation of your tribe is equally inevitable. It is the natural conclusion.)”

The elder’s eyes flared with a final, poisonous light. “(Then your Empire…! It, too, shall inevitably fall to ruin one day…!)”

Jeong Ryung didn’t bother to argue. He pulled the trigger.

Splat!

Leaving the lifeless body of the old man behind, Jeong Ryung turned his horse away. Step, step, step.

“…The prosperous must decline, and the living must perish,” he muttered, exhaling a long plume of smoke toward the setting sun. “In the end, everything has its conclusion. We are all just fighting to survive for one more day.”

His adjutant approached, his expression grim. “Sir… the cleanup is complete.”

The adjutant’s voice was heavy. For a unit that had spent its history defending the trade routes, the cold-blooded massacre of a village felt alien and wrong.

“Good.” Jeong Ryung flicked his tobacco into the flames and raised his voice. “Move out! On to the next tribe!”

***

The Command Center of the Dread King, Yelü Nuzhucha.

“(WHAT?!)”

The Dread King, who had been sitting in a daze following the death of his brother, bolted upright. “(The rear is—?!)”

He caught himself, dropping his voice into a low, urgent mental transmission. [(You’re saying our home tribes are under attack?!)]

The intelligence that the Namgung Clan had intercepted had finally reached the ears of the sovereign.

[(Yes, Your Majesty. It began several days ago. We have reports that numerous tribes have already been put to the torch…!)]

[(Impossible…!)] Yelü Nuzhucha shook his head violently. [(That shouldn’t be possible! No Central Plains forces should be moving in our rear!)]

“(Your Majesty…?!)”

His inner circle quickly formed a physical screen around him, hiding their King’s agitation from the rest of the tent.

[(The Head Eunuch of the Imperial Palace himself…! The heads of the Sixteen Imperial Families! they gave me their word!)] The King roared in his mind, his eyes turning a bloodshot red as he grabbed the aide by his collar. [(They promised no movement from the borders!)]

Had it been a mere verbal promise, he never would have trusted them. But they were supposed to be bound by the logic of a shared destiny within the current strategic context.

“(Y-Your Majesty…!)” The aide wheezed, his throat constricted by the King’s grip. “(We must… we must respond to this immediately—!)”

[(No!)] The King’s mental shout was so powerful it felt like a physical blow to the aide’s skull. [(If word of this spreads…!)]

Though he had been momentarily broken by grief, the Dread King’s tactical mind was far from dead. [(If this gets out, not only will my personal legion waver, but every allied unit currently marching to reinforce us will retreat to save their own families!)]

“(B-But, My Lord—!)”

[(Let the rear burn! Let the grass and the empty plains be taken!)] Yelü Nuzhucha’s eyes glinted with a burgeoning madness. [(Instead, we will seize the fertile North of the Empire! We will march on their capital and squeeze their throats until—!)]

At that moment, the sounds of a scuffle erupted outside the command tent.

“(Wait! General!)” “(You cannot enter without permission…!)”

A general burst into the tent, physically shoving the aides aside. He saw the Dread King through the gap in the inner circle and bellowed a question that froze the room.

“(YOUR MAJESTY! Is it true?! Is our homeland burning?!)”

[(—?!!)]

The Dread King’s face drained of all color. How did it leak?

***

Aloft on the cliff.

“And so it begins…”

Yeon So-hyeon stood silhouetted against the dying sun, a dark, predatory smile curving his lips.

“That makes three.”

The first was the death of the King’s brother, the Great Warrior Atar. The second was the systematic slaughter of the King’s personal legion by the Diancang Sect and the main host. And now, the third loss. The internal rift triggered by the destruction of the homelands.

“Tell me, Dread King. How will you stop this landslide of ruin?”

So-hyeon’s cold, ominous laughter rang out across the canyon, sharp and clear against the winds of war.