“Huh?” The women scratched their heads like a flock of puzzled sparrows, nerves itching as Medith kept half her words behind a veil, dangling bait that set their whole bodies on edge.
“Mm...” Milia’s mood tightened like a drawn bow before she settled to think. Iling tapped her chin with a fingertip, eyes deep as still water. Even Nameless and Fangge drifted into the circle of analysis, so the Lina Sisters hurried to split the pair apart like quick-handed attendants at a tea ceremony.
One on the left, one on the right, they boxed Nameless in. Fangge’s lips puckered under her mask like a cherry in frost as she whispered something. Nameless didn’t budge; all his focus flowed into the sea-ink lines of the big map spread on the table.
Gulo and Gerald watched for a long while, faces like lanterns dimming at dawn. Knowing they were of no use, they slipped away like shadows so the war council’s waters wouldn’t ripple.
Medith lounged on the ground-floor bench, gaze lifted to a full moon pouring milk-silver over her face. That intoxicated look made everyone think she was there to admire blossoms and moonlight.
“Hey, General Medith,” Gerald called, half laughing, half grim as tinder flares. “The enemy’s at the gate, our eyebrows are on fire. You don’t look the least bit worried. Got a flawless plan, do you?”
Medith’s mouth curved, mystery coiling like mist over a spring. “Heaven’s secrets can’t be spilled. Heaven’s secrets can’t be spilled.”
“Heh...” Gulo’s laugh rolled out like a warm wind over wheat. It drifted to the mercenaries’ ears and, oddly, steadied their hearts like stones set in a riverbed.
If the top was laughing, a plan must exist. Any method would do. People sighed out a lungful of haze; Medith was Medith—legend brave and wise, but the living presence hit harder than rumor.
...
“I... think I know what Medith’s aiming for.” After half an hour, near two in the morning, Milia lifted her head, eyes bright as midnight stars.
“What? What? Spill it, quick!” Sais snapped awake from a half-dream, her mind fogged like a valley at dawn; brain-burn was never her terrain, and her earlier thinking had already scraped the limit.
This time, Milia didn’t refuse. She laid out her guess, thread by thread, like silk unspooled across a loom.
“This... This is Medith’s plan?” Fangge’s shock bloomed like a peony. Her slender hand rose without thinking, and she slipped off her mask, revealing a face like a painting come alive.
By candle and moon, they could read Fangge’s expressions in fine brushstrokes. Her cherry mouth parted in surprise, fuller under starlight. Moon-silver sprinkled a dreamy sheen, while her deep black eyes flickered like lake-light at night. Such rich color on one face was rare, like cranes in snow.
“The day we fought at the Sanctuary of Freedom, I only saw the Commander’s ferocity. Not her cunning. Today—she’s lightning behind cloud.” Nameless worried his nail, reverence and refusal wrestling on his face.
All of them had racked their brains, and even then they only guessed Medith’s scheme after her hints. How did she, alone, read it all in a blink, like counting beads in a storm?
“The Commander’s art of war doesn’t belong to this continent...” Nameless remembered the Ancestor Master’s tales, then matched them to the tattered half-scroll of stratagems passed down in his homeland. He almost fixed Medith’s identity.
Art of war—that’s a name used only inside the Dragon Kingdom. Ever-changing, it turns to an invincible talisman when wielded right. Years of war left the already incomplete copy like a torn sail. Our kingdom has only that half-roll.
The Holy Emperor treats it like a sacred relic, a flame you guard even if your soul scatters. It’s the crystallized wisdom of old ancestors, the strongest tool of war, even as a flawed copy.
The Dragon Kingdom is weaker than the Eastern Isles. The Holy Emperor relies on that broken scroll’s insights to resist, like a reed boat batting waves, barely holding parity.
“Who is the Commander, really?” Nameless spoke without meaning to, a hunch rising like a hawk: Medith might be from another world. Her strength and battlefield sense soar beyond normal lines.
Most crucial, her tactics are a sky apart from this land. Only from a higher perch can you see the board whole.
They were crawling for fragments on the ground. Medith took wing and looked down on the chessboard from the clouds.
“This plan is seamless. One ring locks another, all with high odds of happening. Even the retreat road is paved. Medith... truly a monster.” Fangge had read the plan now, and the sigh left her like wind through pines.
Milia shivered, goosebumps rising like frost-grain. It was pure reflex. She had seen more, so the fear bit deeper. Medith set this snare the moment she spotted those scouts.
Back then, Milia thought that “casting a long line to hook a big fish” meant breaking out, slipping into the city, and forcing them back. Too naive. This woman is the ultimate monster.
“Yunita, perform well.” Milia patted Yunita’s shoulder, voice heavy as rain. “Eek—” Yunita jolted, body twisting like a shy fawn, cheeks warm with dew-lights of shame.
They sighed as one. Yunita was young, untouched by much of the world, newly joined the Dusk Legion, and had staggered through hardships on the road. Strip out Medith’s factor, and asking her to carry a battlefield’s weight alone was truly harsh.
But Medith wouldn’t care for that. Sais would bet on steel and fire: if Yunita couldn’t do it, Medith would train her with methods that bite like winter.
“Shame none of us can take your place...” Sais looked across the women. Her figure and hair made it impossible. Erig and Manto had seen her; she’d be exposed in a heartbeat.
Green long hair, Medith’s resemblance, body and motion all a perfect mirror—only this little girl matched the silhouette.
“Can she really? Look at her. If Medith were like that, never mind the enemy—the cracks would start on our side.” Fangge folded her arms, worry steep as a cliff.
Come on. With Yunita this soft, half-resisting, half-inviting, our morale would spill out in a second. If the supreme commander looked like that, who would follow into the storm?
“I believe she can.” Milia’s voice held like a knot in rope. Yunita’s eyes skittered away twice, unable to meet them.
Seeing that, Milia dropped a heavy dose. “Even Phiby managed it. You’re better than her. Absolutely no problem.”
“Eh? Phiby, she...” Yunita’s head lifted, surprise clearing like sun through cloud.
“Yeah. That day, she was more timid than you, even cried in fear. But Medith chose to trust her without a doubt. Alone, in cold grass of wilderness, she watched a city gate fall. We bled like a river, and she did not waver.
Until one arrow flew like dawn breaking, and the battlefield turned. That single shot helped us seize victory.”
“Phiby...” Yunita’s hands clenched, a spark hardening her face. Milia spoke of details most never saw. People remember the highlight, but forget she was merely an underage Elvenfolk girl.
“I’ll do it. I must.” Yunita’s vow rose like a banner, then dropped as her shoulders slumped. She glanced around, small eyes flicking, afraid of a laugh like a pebble thrown.
They only smiled, soft as spring rain. “We believe in you.”
Seeing that, Yunita’s tears brightened like dew on leaves. She nodded hard.
...
On 9.13, nothing of note. Both armies rested as if by tacit pact, a day of quiet with no drumbeat. With crushing strength, they only encircled and didn’t strike, a courtesy that gave Medith face like a lantern kept lit.
Medith’s crew enjoyed the stillness. The mercenary bands did not. The players under siege on all sides felt no change; the key commander looked out of ideas, wearing a clouded face all day like iron sky.
Compared to yesterday’s bright spirits, a shadow rolled over hearts, thin as smoke and thick as rain.
...
At dawn on 9.14, the war horn blared like a storm breaking cliff. Medith jolted from sleep, clothed herself in a rush, and burst out the door like a hawk loosed.
Minutes later, Medith, her people, and Gerald’s cadre stood atop the wall, faces turned to a horizon like an ink-black sea.
Ahead stretched an endless field of black-and-white reapers, flags snapping like ravens. The weight of numbers pressed down like a mountain, almost stealing breath.
Medith’s face darkened, the line of her mouth cut like flint. The cadre looked ashen, shades under thunderclouds, making everyone surer there was no plan at all.
A hundred meters out, Harrison paced before the army, eyes on that familiar silhouette on the wall—one that stirred fear like cold water poured down the spine. He dared not come closer.
He glanced back. Erig and Manto flicked him a look, calm as stone, meaning all clear. Harrison steadied, raised a spyglass, and studied Medith like a hunter reading a cliff-face.
He saw shadow pooled on Medith’s face, dark lines across her brow like storm cracks. Her left hand pressed the parapet, knuckles white with force. Her eyes were heavy, like someone staring at the end of the world.
Her formerly untouchable cadre stood like dead water in a bowl, eyes dull on the coalition of the Hexclaw Legion and Segireneto, as if despair had wrung their souls dry.
Harrison’s heart leapt like a fish breaking surface. Under Erig and Clive’s elite cover, he edged forward and called up, easy as old friends meeting under a willow. “Long time no see, Eunomia’s most revered Holy Knight. How have you been?”
Medith didn’t answer. Her hand pressed harder, fingers a vise on stone.
Harrison’s joy stayed masked, his smile warm as spring wine. “General, you must have mistaken us for thieves the other day. That’s why you struck, right?”
At that, Medith’s brows loosened a hair like a breeze through reeds, then snapped back. Harrison saw it clearly and kept his smile gentle.
“General, His Majesty holds you in high regard. This is a matter between us and the Radiant Knights. Rest easy—we’ll handle it properly, by the book.
If you don’t trust me, you trust His Majesty Ostos. You trust Eunomia, don’t you?”
Medith drew breath to speak. Harrison cut in like a knife sliding under silk. “If you stand down now, I guarantee we’ll let bygones be bygones. You’ll remain the one Eunomia respects most. Our friendship with Xurenxus City won’t break.
One last word of counsel. This is a matter between nations. If you meddle at your rank, His Majesty will be unhappy.”
The map ran out; the hidden dagger flashed. Medith’s eyes flew open, disbelief flooding like ink in water. A thick smell of conspiracy rose, and she finally grasped why the Hexclaw Legion marched in the first place.
At a distance, Harrison’s mouth curled, a shadowed smile like a blade half-drawn. An unexpected harvest, really. He hadn’t thought things would sour with Medith this fast.
