The forced march had been brutal, but effective. With Hye setting an aggressive, unrelenting pace, the three hundred Ginmiao volunteers covered the distance to Zaoging in a fraction of the expected time. They arrived just as the last pale light of the setting sun bled into a thick, smoky dusk.
Zaoging did not look like a city under calm siege; it looked like a dying city.
The air was heavy with the familiar stench of woodsmoke and death, but laced with a sharp, metallic, burnt ozone smell that none of the soldiers recognized. Chong steered the column toward the South Gate, which remained mercifully intact. The ground outside was quiet, with no bodies and no evidence of assault—the enemy had clearly focused their attack elsewhere.
As they approached, they saw movement. Ten haggard Ginmiao soldiers, their armor scorched and their faces black with soot, were guarding the functional gate. They were the remnants of the city's defense, and they looked utterly terrified.
"They breached the North Gate," the lead guard choked out, gesturing vaguely toward the distant, smoke-shrouded side of the city. "Those bandits... they came through like a nightmare. The whole wall is gone."
Upon seeing an approaching, armed force of three hundred men—men they could not possibly recognize as their own, and in a sector untouched by the main fighting—panic seized the guards.
"Magoli!" one of the guards shrieked, his voice cracking. "They're hitting us in the rear! The bandits taken the North and now the Magoli come for the South!"
"Halt!" another guard screamed, raising a battered crossbow. "Any closer and we fire!"
Chong immediately hauled his horse to a stop, raising both hands. He could not afford a single death by friendly fire after risking everything to get here.
"Hold your fire! We are not the Magoli soldiers! We are Ginmiao soldiers!" Chong roared, riding slightly ahead of his column, forcing the skeptical, panicked guards to look past his familiar uniform to his face.
The fading daylight would soon make identification difficult for the Gimsong archers on the city wall, even for soldiers wearing friendly armor. Realizing this, Chong decided on a final, critical maneuver to ensure his men were not mistakenly shot down by their own countrymen.
"Hold your fire! We are not Magoli! We are Ginmiao!" Chong roared, his face visible in the faint light.
The lead guard, a scarred veteran, squinted through the gloom. "Every Ginmiao soldiers is in prison in Nue-Li!" he shouted back, his crossbow still leveled.
"We were released!" Chong insisted, his voice sharp. "I am General Chong! These are men who chose to fight for their home! Soldier, look at me! Do you honestly think the Magoli would risk their lives to assault a city that is already on the verge of collapse?"
The guard's jaw dropped. He recognized the face of his past commander, a man thought lost to the enemy prison. A wave of hope and utter confusion washed over the defenders, but it was the booming familiarity of the voice that truly settled the matter; he had served under Chong many years ago and knew that unmistakable command tone.
He looked down at the soldier standing by the gate mechanism. He shouted out, his voice now filled with a desperate, ringing relief. "It's our men, open the gate! It's really General Chong!"
The small knot of defenders immediately scrambled to comply, their crossbows dropping and their hands reaching for the gate's heavy securing bars. The heavy metal groaned, and the gate swung inward. The Ginmiao reinforcements, led by Chong and Hye, surged forward into the darkness and devastation of Zoaging City.
The veteran guard rushed down the stairs to meet Chong and his men, tears mixing with the soot on his face. "General Chong... it truly is you," he whispered. "The North Gate... the wall is horrifically mutilated."
"Lead us through, soldier! We have a battle to join," Chong said, his voice instantly firm and authoritative. He replaced his helmet and looked back at Hye, giving a curt nod.
As Chong and Hye rode deeper into Zaoging, following the path cleared by the first two detachments, the true cost of the "catastrophic fire" became horrifyingly clear. The South Gate entrance had been sterile, but a few hundred paces inside, the streets were a tapestry of destruction and death.
Hye's strategist mind immediately began cataloging the carnage. The cobblestones were a slick mess of blackened blood, water, and pulverized masonry. But the air was the worst part: the earlier scent of burnt ozone was now completely overpowered by the heavy, sweet, sickening odor of cooked flesh and panicked filth. This stench, utterly alien to men familiar only with the clean scent of steel and camp smoke, immediately broke the discipline of several Gimsong volunteers.
One soldier abruptly clapped a hand over his mouth, then lurched violently, vomiting the fresh Magoli bread and warm milk onto the street. The sight and sound spread like a contagion; soon, a dozen others were struggling to control their nausea, their bodies heaving with dry retching.
"Keep moving!" Chong shouted, his own face pale, forcing his horse past a pile of shattered wood and bone. "You can be sick later! Walk! Walk!"
Hye paid the retching men little mind, his focus on the bodies littering the ground. The corpses were everywhere, a chaotic mix of Ginmiao defenders and the common civilians.
Most of the Gimsong bodies bore terrible, traditional wounds—deep slashes, arrows buried in shields, and puncture wounds from debris. These men died fulfilling the oath to protect their people. Yet, in a cruel twist, even in death, they had failed, as the very people they defended lay dead alongside them.
Hye observed that the bodies were already stiff, indicating the main fighting had stopped sometime before sundown. The immediate threat wasn't an ongoing battle, but the unknown bandit force holding their ground.
He glanced at Chong, who was riding ahead grimly. "They're waiting," Hye muttered, adjusting his cloak against the cold wave of nausea washing over the column. "But what exactly are they waiting for? They could easily breach the city at any time now..." He paused, his strategic mind racing through possibilities, yet finding no immediate answer. He was unsure if the bandits were simply waiting for reinforcements to capitalize on the breach or perhaps waiting for the people of Zaoging to surrender on their own will, demoralized by the horrific destruction.
They pressed on toward the city center, seeking the Inner Citadel where Xue, Mao, Konn, and Xang—the surviving Ginmiao General and captains—were said to be making their last, desperate stand.
When they reached the inner Citadel, Chong and Hye were met not by the primary leadership, but by Mao and Xang. The two captains were visibly relieved but utterly exhausted. They quickly reported that Xue (the general in charge) and the young captain Konn were currently on duty at the damaged city wall, desperately trying to find a way to prevent the bandits from exploiting the massive breach.
With this vital information, Chong and Hye knew there was no time for rest or formal introductions. Chong immediately ordered the three hundred newly arrived soldiers to secure the Citadel grounds, rest, and await further orders. Leaving the weary reinforcements behind, the general and the strategist mounted their horses and rode straight out toward the source of the devastation: the North Gate of Zaoging City wall. They plunged back into the smoke and gloom, heading toward the frontline to meet the surviving leaders and see the terrifying breach for themselves.
In that moment, a single Ginmiao soldier slowly stepped backward, melting into the shadows and hiding behind a ruined home instead of joining the rest of the three hundred reinforcements. The soldier remained concealed just long enough to ensure no one was watching, then quickly slipped out of the Citadel and began running toward the direction that Hye and Chong had just ridden—straight toward the devastating breach at the North Gate.
As Hye and Chong rode, the subtle signs of damage gave way to a sudden, apocalyptic scale of ruin. The closer they came to the North Gate, the more the structures looked not merely damaged, but utterly erased.
The houses closest to the breach were not burned or collapsed; they were vaporized. Only the foundations remained—dark, geometric scorch marks on the earth where timber, clay, and roof tiles had once stood. The air here was thin and harsh, carrying the metallic, sterile scent of pulverized stone.
The street itself was nearly impassable. Hye and Chong had to slow their horses to a walk, picking their way through huge, jagged blocks of former wall stone that had been thrown hundreds of paces inland by the force of the blast. These blocks were fused with strange materials, their surfaces glittering with the same vitrified, black glass seen on the surviving wreckage.
The complete lack of structure created an eerie, flat expanse, an unnatural void in the middle of the city. Where buildings had once stood shoulder-to-shoulder, there was now a devastated plain of ash and debris, illuminated by the red glow reflecting off the smoke cloud that hung perpetually over the North Quarter.
Any houses that stood even slightly further back from the center of the blast were instantly recognizable as complete ruins. They looked as if a giant hand had pressed down from above, flattening the upper floors and leaving only a skeletal frame of blackened, splintered wood. Roof beams lay snapped like twigs, and the internal partitions—the walls that once separated kitchens from bedrooms, life from life—were simply gone.
"This is not war, General," Hye muttered, pulling his horse to a complete stop and surveying the desolation. "This is a cleansing fire. They didn't breach the gate to fight; they breached it to eliminate. We are looking at a tactical weapon, not a siege."
The devastation was so complete that, for a moment, the roar of the fire and the distant shouts of men seemed to disappear, leaving only a shocking, desolate silence. They were at the threshold of the final defense.
Hye and Chong saw a few soldiers standing guard near the colossal tear in the wall that was once the North Gate, and they dismounted their horses.
Chong walked straight toward the guards and grabbed one soldier gently by the shoulder. The soldier turned around, and it was none other than the young captain, Konn.
"General Chong?" Konn's face was instantly flooded with surprise and disbelief. "How did you get here? I thought you were captured by the Magoli soldiers?"
Chong gave the young captain a warm, reassuring smile. "My days have not ended yet, son. Where is your father?"
Konn looked quickly at Hye, then back at Chong, regaining his composure. "I will take you to him."
Konn immediately turned and led Hye and Chong toward a nearby stairwell—one of the few intact structures amid the ruins. It led up to a still stable defensive platform where Xue and ten exhausted soldiers were standing guard, silently surveying the breach.
"Father!" Konn's voice echoed with desperate relief across the stable platform and the ruins below. "Look who came to our aid?"
Xue, whose face was etched with exhaustion and soot, turned around at the sound of his son's voice. His eyes, dull moments before, instantly brightened as they fixed on Chong. He walked toward his old comrade, offering a rare, genuine smile.
"Chong! You magnificent fool!" Xue exclaimed, gripping Chong's arm tightly. "If you are here, then it means your wife and children are safe in Nue-Li with the others fleeing civilians."
Chong returned the firm grip. "They are, and they will remain safe. But the price was high." He paused, letting the severity of his decision settle between them. "I made a deal with the Magoli General Chinua: if I successfully help you defend Zaoging, I must go back and guard Nue-Li City with my soldiers for the rest of our life and generations to come. My soldiers and I will no longer be part of the Gimsong Kingdom, as Nue-Li City will become a neutral city that belongs solely to the people who live there."
Xue sighed, a sound of deep, conflicting emotions—relief for his family's safety mixed with the profound political consequence. He looked around at the destroyed wall, the evidence of a doomed kingdom. He offered Chong a warm, weary smile. "That's truly a golden bargain that no one can refuse."
Chong looked past Xue's shoulders and saw Hye standing at the edge of the city wall, gazing down at the approaching figures less than three hundred yards away.
"Hye," Chong said, his voice measured as he walked toward him. "What do you think of their formation?"
Hye turned, and his face was the color of ash, his expression a mask of profound dread. Seeing the raw terror in his eyes immediately worried the others gathered on the wall.
"Generals," Hye's voice was a croak, strained by a devastating truth. He turned back to face the enemy below. "You are not facing common bandits." He paused, the silence heavy. "You are facing the elite Razaasia soldiers of Zasra Kingdom."
A cold, collective sweat instantly broke out on the foreheads of the two generals, the young captain, and the ten Ginmiao soldiers. Their blood ran cold, and the hairs on their necks stood on end as the terrifying reality of their enemy—the fearsome Razaasia soldiers—crashed down on them.