Erig spoke in a voice as calm as a moonlit lake. “Winners write the story. Losers like us can howl all night; it won’t change the tide. You don’t think I’m dumb enough to lose my head and attack you, do you?”

Kasda choked on words, like a fish flopping on dry stone.

“Our aim’s simple,” Erig went on, his tone a low, magnetic rumble, steady as a drum in fog. “I don’t crave slaughter. I want one thing. Hand over Wangyi. I pull back at once. How about it?”

Beside him, a rat‑eyed, needle‑thin bandit bristled like a cat in rain, but didn’t dare bare his claws.

“Oh?” Kasda kept his face flippant, yet inside a lightning bolt hit the ribcage. Erig even knew Delaia’s trail. That was a chill down the spine.

“The former Commander meant those two in the Royal Capital? They’re in the capital, of course. You think they just stroll out when they feel like it?” Kasda scoffed, masking nerves with smoke.

Erig paced and shook his head, his long pheasant plume swaying like grass in a night wind.

“Don’t feed me fog. Why do you think we chose tonight for the siege? One line. Hand him over, we withdraw. Refuse, and we flatten Sia City till we drag him out.” His killing intent bled like frost over steel.

Kasda did the math, cold beads gathering; Delaia should be near. With that thought, he said slow, “How do I know you’ll really pull back? I give you the man, you stay put—then what?”

Erig gave no answer. After a breath of silence, he clenched his right fist, knuckles white as bone. “Stalling for time? Kill.”

The word cut like a horn at dawn. The host moved. Heavy troops surged first, a dark wave hammering the line, while the Mountain Bandits scattered like wolves and leapt for roofs and high perches to butcher the archers.

Heavy cavalry began to eat the flank, gnawing like iron locusts at a defensive line near fifteen hundred strong. The walls were taken; hundreds of turncoat city guards poured down a rain of death, arrows hissing like sleet.

Soon, numbers and steel showed their weight. The line of barely over a thousand buckled and tore. The cavalry found a breach and drove in like a spear, cleaving formations in an instant.

“Fall back—!” Kasda knew the tilt and tasted iron. He led a thousand‑odd men, stepping back while trading blows, a tide ebbing under storm. The scattered guards, a few hundred without formation or faith, were swallowed in less than a quarter hour, like sparks snuffed in wind.

But that blood bought Kasda’s group a breath, enough to link up with Delaia.

Delaia saw the field, eyes like flint. He ordered a retreat to the western edge, to lean on stone like a cliff and pray for a thin line of survival.

As that thought rose, a hundred Magic Breakers fell like meteors at the west wall. The moment they hit, they invoked Regido; earth and masonry cracked like dry riverbeds, bursting open a jagged breach that bled dust.

Delaia’s army froze in a vice. Ahead, Magic Breakers—hard as thunderheads. Behind, a dead tide—cold as winter. It was a coffin with no lid.

“Split a thousand to hold them. Don’t let them break through to us!” Delaia’s voice struck like a bell. A thousand guards pushed out, holding two last defensive works like stitches in torn cloth.

If those two works fell, Sia City would tip into pure hell, no one left to stop the trampling hooves.

Delaia watched the field—songs of doom on all sides—and bit down hard, a tiger’s tooth on fate. He pulled a crystal from his breast, a rhombus clear as ice, with green motes drifting like fireflies inside.

“My lord! Are we truly doing this?! Those who haven’t fallen back won’t make it—they’ll all die!” Kasda saw the crystal and his face went pale, like ash on snow.

Delaia shoved it into his hands. “No time.” His expression turned devilish, shadowed like a mask at dusk. Kasda knew this was a road with no return.

“Regido—!” Kasda roared. From his body burst a beam like a serpent of light, coiling up with a hiss. A heartbeat passed. Nothing changed—no usual ring of devastation, no ripple.

Soldiers stared, baffled, but the crystal blazed, then flew skyward like a star. It cast a thousand lines of light, and those lines wove with naked speed—walls rising like linen stitched by lightning, four sides sewn tight.

[Inside the West Gate]

“Sais! Look at that!” Sais cut down a Magic Breaker, breath steaming like a kettle, eyes fixed on the far, uncanny weaving of walls.

Medith’s sword danced, silver arcs like moonlit spray. She tore the throats of three Magic Breakers and saw it too. No time to mull. She and her women flashed forward, speed burning like oil. With their magic flaring hot, three hundred meters vanished in heartbeats, and they dropped into Delaia’s ranks like wind‑borne leaves.

“Medith?! Medith Waheit?! Why are you here?!” Delaia jolted, and a Cyclone seemed to blow—suddenly a hundred guards and Medith’s women stood in front of him like a storm‑born phalanx.

“No time to explain. What’s happening right now?!” Medith’s armor was wet with blood, crimson like a plum blossom in snow. No wonder the Magic Breakers hadn’t pushed in first—they’d smashed against her.

“When this wall completes,” Delaia said, eyes heavy as stone, “it’s hope—and it’s despair.” He looked toward the guards still fighting in a bath of blood, blades ringing like winter bells.

“It’s Lachesis!”

“Ah! Get inside! Get inside now!”

“Lord Draela! No! Please, just one more moment! Let me send my child away—”

“Lachesis has triggered. There’s no retreat. We must hold and die if we must. Stop them before the weaving completes!”

“Yes! Not one step back!”

“Erig, this is that life‑wall you mentioned?” the rat‑eyed bandit, Skaro, asked, eyes glittering like wet pebbles.

“Mm.” Erig’s gaze stayed flat, like a lake under clouds. “Skaro, you likely haven’t seen it. This thing is called absolute defense. No force has cracked it head‑on so far. It’s the key obstacle to a siege like ours.”

“Is it that fierce? Can it beat Sia City’s gate?” Skaro sneered, lip curled like a hooked blade.

Erig shook his head, a winter reed in dusk. “You don’t understand.”

“If there’s no answer to it, why not die trying?” Skaro snapped, pride pricking like a thorn. His men bled most; their gear and armor were thin as bark.

“Do you know why ‘Lachesis’ means ‘to cut the thread of life’?” Erig’s voice was a quiet drum. “Inside that wall, all Impado and Regido fail—dead leaves in frost. Our strength will be halved. If we rush in and a twist severs our lines, we’ll have tears and no hands to wipe them.

“Lachesis lasts at most three days. After three days, it scatters like fog. Then we take the city with ease. Why gamble with the storm?

“Until then, every place the weaving doesn’t cover belongs to you, Chief. Those men and women—yours to handle. After we’re done, we pay you in gear and treasure heavy as a chest of coins. Play ‘king’ here for a few days—taste it.” Erig spoke like wine poured slow.

Skaro’s smile bloomed, greedy as a fire. “I heard Eastern Nation women are hot as spice, even the courtesans are top shelf. Countless mountain delicacies, fine dishes like rivers of fat. Today I finally get my wish.”

They sang their duet and watched the far wall finish. Lachesis stood pure white, four sides rising like cloud‑bright cliffs, covering seventy percent of the city. The walls reached forty meters, a height like a silent sky—untouchable, unscalable.

Sixpetal Rose blossoms appeared along the wall, petal by petal like frost prints. This time the roses were gray. A final stand, grief heavy as smoke, courage bitter and bright—gray for mourning, gray for tragic valor.

Medith and her women stared at the sky‑piercing wall, stunned like deer in snowfall, long moments with no words on their tongues.