A man stood in pitch-black armor, a night tide clinging to him like oil. Scaled plates jutted along his limbs like overlapping dragon scales. The chest crest had shed its rose-slit-by-sword and become a leopard, eyes narrowed like embers in ash. Its jaws split wide, baring cold fangs like icicles in a cave.

His helmet hadn’t changed; it swallowed his face like a lid over a well. Only his eyes were no longer human, twin red coals glowing like a beast in the dark.

He held a black-gold spear, the shaft dark as a moonless river. The spearhead looked charred like burnt wood, its depth as bottomless as a pit before dawn.

A faint black mist trailed him like winter breath, and his whole getup screamed of a reaper walking out of hell’s gate.

“Erig… so this is your Lawbreaker Form…” Medith’s gaze grew heavy, a stormline across calm water, because this shape of his felt like a blade at her throat.

“Damn it… magic… is there really no way out?” Sais bit her crimson lip like a petal crushed in frost. Pride sagged like a torn banner. One mountain’s always higher, and the world’s a wide ocean. Don’t shackle yourself to what’s before your feet. The old prophet had whispered that since she was small, like wind in the eaves. She let it pass like rain past a window. The Queen let it pass like clouds past the sun.

Medith had seen through the veil long ago, like seeing footprints before the snow. She’d decided the Elf Clan couldn’t lean only on magic and that half-grown wall. People were the true line of defense, like roots beneath a grove. But peace had lulled their eyes like spring haze, and they brewed a war of bitter harvest.

Most people stared at Erig’s new shape in frozen awe, like deer in torchlight. Medith didn’t. Whether the enemy wore a halo or horns didn’t matter to her, like waves that don’t care what rocks they break. “The plan’s perfect. Drop the gate.” Her stare met Erig’s like a falcon stooping on a fox.

Erig’s hand bulged with ropes of vein, a storm under skin, and he blasted upward like a thrown spear. As he barked for archers to loose, he used the spear itself like a ladder, each thrust a foothold, climbing fast as flame up dry vines.

“Archers fall back. Shields, ready. Release the rolling stones.” Medith’s confident smile lifted like a lantern in the dark. The archers peeled back like receding tide. At the same time, shield-men surged from the sanctuary, heavy shields locking into an iron wall, tight as scales on a carp.

Up on Lachesis, guards scrambled like ants up a trunk, bundles of stones on their backs like nests of rock. Erig caught his spear and looked up like a hunter eyeing a ledge. Ten-plus meters still yawned between him and Medith, a gap like a river in flood. He knew he wouldn’t close it.

Arrows fell like rain on slate roofs, clanging off the iron wall like hail off a bell. They skittered away like startled beetles, hurting no one. At the top, rubble came down at him like meteors, a shower of jagged night.

“Commander Erig! Above—” A soldier’s voice cracked like a twig.

Their attack had stopped like a fire hitting stone, useless, only feeding the enemy’s coffers like grain to a granary.

“Medith…” Erig’s grip could’ve snapped the spear like dry bamboo. Medith stepped from the shield phalanx like the moon from clouds, her waist-length hair swaying like millet in wind. Her eyes held him with contempt, cool as winter glass: “You lost, dear Commander Erig. Oh right, thanks for the hundreds of Wind-Cleaving Arrows. Truly, thanks. Love you~.”

She winked, left eye bright as a firefly, stuck out a pink tongue while twirling a Piercing Army Arrow like a reed in a stream. The wall panels slid shut like lips pressed together. Everything returned to normal as if the night had swallowed the scene.

But above, the stone rain still poured like a gray monsoon.

[High tower at the East Gate]

“Report the losses.” Manto sat on a carved chair like a king on a cold throne, his voice level as ice over a river. Everyone knew that ice was about to crack.

Erig knelt on one knee like a rock under surf, respectful and bitter as old tea. “Warhorses lost: twenty-three. Dead: one hundred sixty-eight. Wounded: two hundred thirteen. Fifty-two combat ineffective… and one Blackblood War Chariot destroyed, five hundred-plus Piercing Army Arrows and—”

“Enough!” Manto slammed his palm down like thunder, splitting the stone table with a jagged fissure like lightning in rock. “Useless! You fell for bait like a fish in spring, then for their trap like a boar in a pit! What were you all doing—eating fog? We dragged half the nation’s strength here, braided it tight as a rope. Thousands of Royal Capital armors! The Royal City shields—why didn’t you hold? Why counterattack? Huh?!”

“I accept my fault…” Erig’s body went stiff like a bow drawn to the ear. He dared not talk back, words locked in ice.

“Sergeant Major Manto, our losses are far heavier than yours.” Skaro pointed at Erig like a knife at a throat. “Their aim was clear, and most of the fire hit us like a storm on one house. We lost over eight hundred! Three of our captains too! You could’ve covered us—Commander Erig stood still as a stump. Don’t you think that’s on you?”

Manto spoke with chilled calm, a winter pond holding a drowning moon. “I deeply regret what happened to your chieftains. This all came from Erig’s moment of rashness. Rest assured, when the wall breaks, I’ll tie Medith up like a trussed boar and gift her to you. But when you’ve vented, return her to us. She still has great value.”

“That’s it? Sergeant Major, do you take us for children you can bribe with sweets?” A lion-headed chieftain rumbled like distant drums. “Just a Sprite to fob us off? Even if I’d agree, the brothers won’t. Sprites—if we want, we can go to the Southern Kingdom and fetch a few to play with, like hawks snatching chicks. Sure, I’d love to see that woman humbled like rain-drenched silk. But before that, how about you show some sincerity?”

“Exactly. We followed you out of respect, like pups following a wolf.” A scruffy chieftain leaned in with a stink like damp fur. “Treat us like this, and our hearts turn cold as river stones…”

“We’re low-born, and we know you look down on us like a hawk on rats.” Buck, warmed by the others, spilled what lay knotted in his gut like old rope. “We’ve looted enough, eaten our fill, and had our fun. If you won’t give us a proper answer today, we’ll walk.”

Skaro stared, disbelief flickering like moths around a flame. Fear gnawed his belly like winter mice, but he’d held on for the glitter behind the wall. That was where the biggest merit lay, a laurel bright as sunrise. If he fought here, word would spread like wind on grass: “Sprite Knight,” “Grand Rider-Commander under Medith.” The glory would gild his face like gold leaf.

But—was it worth it? Do I wager my life like a dice cup? Skaro hesitated, breath thin as fog. Tonight, Medith didn’t lose a single soldier. With thirty, she sent them reeling like boats in a squall. Their weakness he could swallow like bitter medicine.

But Erig? Strong as a mountain, and she still counted him like beads in a monk’s hand. She measured his anger, his range, his every move, clear as stars in clear water. The sprites’ armor-piercing arrows flew at horses and war chariots like hunters ignoring a tiger to hamstring its deer. They barely spared him a glance. Only those last two arrows were true fliers.

They’d lost so many. What happens when the wall breaks like a rotten dam? Delaia said there were five thousand more inside. At Medith’s thirty-to-a-thousand pace…

Manto was silent a long while, like an old tree holding back wind. “Chieftains, don’t be hasty. Tonight was a turn none of us expected, like fog rolling in on a clear night. No one thought they’d hide inside the wall. Erig ate the bait as well. And that so-called five thousand is surely inflated, like fishmongers weighing with a thumb. After the first clash, they’ve bled.

“They’ve got, at most, three thousand now. Our cavalry is intact, and your losses are still within the bone. So here’s this: after success, all of Medith’s people, plus half the treasure in Sia City, and we’ll add gear and a hundred warhorses. How about that?”

The four chieftains fell silent, quiet as stones under snow. Skaro hesitated long, an unnamed fear flowing over him like cold water, and he nodded.

The other three grinned with greed, teeth like white pebbles. “We want seventy percent. And the head of former Grand Admiral Kasda. If you won’t agree, we pull out now. No incentive, no sweat from the brothers. Don’t you think?”

Manto drew a slow breath, like a bellows filling with night, and let it out like smoke. His gaze turned strange and scornful, like a cat watching trapped birds. The three chieftains felt fear bloom like frost on glass. They opened their mouths.

Sinis, who hadn’t moved, drew a dagger like a crescent pulled from the dark and swept it through empty air like slicing silk.

The blade sketched a silver-white line in the night like a cold river. A heartbeat later, three throats spurted like slaughtered fowl, blood arcing far as sprayed wine. They clutched their necks and gurgled like clogged drains, then toppled like felled trees.

“Ah… ah…” Skaro lost control, shame and stench spilling like split slop. He’d seen corpses before, fields sown with iron and bone. But to be laughing one heartbeat and staining the floor the next—it broke him like a brittle twig.

“Now, of the four great chieftains, only you remain, Chieftain Skaro. A toast to your far-sighted righteousness.” Manto took off his helmet, revealing his old face like a mask lifted from an actor.

Skaro stared at that face, memory rising like smoke from embers. His mouth hung open, words stuck like rice in his throat.

“A toast…” His cup clinked against the devil’s like ice tapping glass.