By the time the Order's forces breached the fortress, nothing could stop them from claiming victory.
The Order advanced like an unstoppable tide, yet the Order of the Wolf continued to fight like cornered beasts.
The collapse of the walls had shattered the militia's courage, but it could not shake the knights who had already accepted death.
They had resolved to perish alongside their fortress.
As always, Lion led the charge from the front.
The knights around him took him as their example, following him with burning conviction.
When the walls collapsed, countless defenders had already been buried beneath shattered stone and dust.
Only a dozen or so knights remained to make a futile last stand.
They raised their weapons in an attempt to halt him.
Before Lion's blade. They were no sturdier than stalks of wheat.
The instant he swung his sword.
Their heads rolled from their shoulders.
They were all brave warriors.
Yet their sacrifice meant nothing. They could not even slow Lion's advance.
"Charge!"
"For the Order!"
"For Caliban!"
"For our brotherhood!"
Lion's roar thundered across the battlefield.
The knights answered with a roar of their own.
"For Lion!"
"For the Order!"
Just like the collapsed outer walls.
The towering inner walls had already been reduced to rubble.
A siege should have been grueling.
Every fortification ought to have been contested repeatedly.
Every inch of ground should have demanded a bloody price.
Yet now without the natural protection of the walls. The Order's assault under Lion's command was utterly unstoppable.
The allied forces surged over the broken ruins like a tidal wave, overwhelming the stubborn defenders through sheer numbers.
Fewer than a hundred Wolf Knights held their final line atop the shattered remains of the inner wall.
Silent. Determined.
They fought with chainswords and bolters, desperately trying to hold back the allied army.
But they were not the fortress's only defenders.
Among the ruins stood rows upon rows of enormous iron cages. Tracks and massive gears crisscrossed the ground with the fortress in ruins, it was impossible to tell what purpose they had once served.
Some cages were empty. Some had been crushed beneath fallen masonry.
Others. Still held Great Beasts.
There were giant reptilian creatures with leathery wings.
Enormous rabbits whose heads writhed with black tentacles.
Others possessed multiple deformed heads and bodies covered in jagged spikes, so grotesquely mutated that their original species could no longer be identified.
These were the very Great Beasts Lion had sworn to exterminate.
Now they hurled themselves madly against the iron bars.
Shrieking. Howling. Roaring.
Driven into greater frenzy by the sounds of battle.
The Order of the Wolf's practice of raising Great Beasts had long ceased to be a secret upon Caliban.
Yet seeing them with their own eyes still made every knight shudder.
Great Beasts varied enormously in strength.
The gap between the weakest and strongest was far greater than the differences between knights.
The mightiest Beast Lords required dozens of veteran knights working together merely to stand a chance.
They had always been the greatest obstacle to the extermination campaign.
Without Lion personally slaying those Beast Lords.
The hunts would never have been possible.
Now every beast kept here ranked among the strongest of its kind.
Each required at least a battle-hardened veteran knight merely to contend with it.
Among them were even several Beast Lords.
The instant the cages were opened the Wolf Knights withdrew into the fortress's final stronghold.
They had never completely tamed the beasts.
Driven by savage instinct the monsters attacked everyone within sight indiscriminately. The Wolf Knights needed only to stand aside allowing the beasts to bleed the allied army dry.
But before the Lion every calculation became meaningless.
A three-meter-tall beast scarcely had time to scream.
Before its enormous head rolled across the floor the knights barely caught a glimpse of movement.
They could not even follow Lion's attacks.
He was like Death itself charging into a herd.
Wherever he passed only fountains of blood and towering beast corpses remained.
By the time the other knights finally caught up.
By the time Lion at last ceased killing.
The ground behind him had become a carpet of shattered monster remains, thick blood completely soaked the marble floor. The Lion's combat flowed like water every movement was flawless nothing unnecessary yet he had deliberately spared more than a dozen beasts.
Not one of them had been wounded.
None had been blinded.
None had lost a limb.
They had been left.
For the other knights.
They were trophies.
He was a king but no king ruled the world through his own strength alone.
He would not monopolize glory.
A king never stood alone.
The knights who followed him also longed for honor.
A true king could never ignore that.
A king did not merely command.
He also shared glory.
"For the Lion!"
The knights instantly understood his intention.
Their eyes blazed with battle lust.
The Lion had generously shared honor with them.
They would never betray that trust.
Lion never slowed.
He would not interfere in another knight's battle nor would he stop for anyone.
He would simply witness their deeds and remember their honor.
Even if someone fell in battle Lion remained only the witness.
Any knight was free to stop no one would blame them but if they chose to follow their king.
Then they had to keep pace with him even if they collapsed trying no one would pity them that had always been Caliban's law.
With one mighty swing Lion cleaved apart the gate of the keep.
But the resistance he expected never came, the great hall stood completely empty.
The ceiling hung with mold-covered cobwebs.
The place felt desolate as though abandoned for many years.
Yet only moments earlier Lion had personally watched dozens of Wolf Knights retreat inside.
'Where had they gone?'
He advanced through narrow corridors lined with carved stonework and faded tapestries.
Bronze lamps cast flickering shadows across ancient walls.
At the corridor's end a heavy door engraved with a spiral symbol stood slightly ajar light seeped through the crack.
Lion placed his gauntleted hand upon it with a deep groan the door slowly swung open beyond lay a vast vaulted chamber.
It was a library. Rows of square columns supported the ceiling.
Towering bookshelves stretched almost to the roof, filled with leather-bound volumes.
At the end of every aisle stood broad oak tables piled high with yellowed parchment and scrolls.
The collection was nearly ten times larger than the library of Aldurukh.
Merely organizing this treasury of knowledge would require generations of scholars dedicating their entire lives.
An elderly man sat upon an ornate wooden throne draped with wolf pelts.
His hair had turned completely gray though old his body remained vigorous stacks of books surrounded him even now he continued writing rapidly upon parchment.
"You arrived quickly."
The old man looked up and sighed softly.
"You don't mind waiting a moment?"
"Take your time."
Lion showed him that final courtesy.
When a man was about to die his words often deserved hearing.
"You shouldn't have come."
Sartana no longer seemed hurried calmly he continued writing.
"I thought you'd already understood."
"Caliban needs the Great Beasts."
"Caliban does not need the Great Beasts."
Sartana looked up, "Your Caliban, perhaps?"
"That's right."
"Caliban is mine."
Lion spoke without haste.
This was his era, his world.
Caliban belonged to him and he would not permit Great Beasts to exist upon it.
"Without the Great Beasts."
"How will you stop the Ancient One?"
The Ouroboros remains sealed. We have no need to stop it. As long as mortals are forbidden from entering the Northern Wilds."
"The corruption will not spread."
"Then why insist on exterminating the Great Beasts?"
Lion did not answer.
Perhaps because the question itself did not deserve an answer.
Why should anyone need a reason to destroy mankind's enemies?
Sartana continued. "And without the Great Beasts."
"What becomes of the knightly orders?"
"The Order has always been the oddity among us. You actually permit commoners to become knight's, you recruit peasants."
"This absurd equalitarianism has done nothing but undermine Caliban's traditions."
"I never imagined you'd survive that assault much less continue growing stronger over these past decades."
Lion narrowed his eyes.
"The attack upon Aldurukh decades ago. You planned it?"
"Of course not."
"I was only a child. What sort of conspiracy could I possibly have planned?"
"It was my father's doing and the Grand Masters of several other knightly orders.
"And that."
Lion replied, "Is exactly why your generation is being left behind."
"Children inherit their fathers' positions."
"Commoners never receive a chance."
"Our traditions have endured for thousands of years had it not been for you and your father they would have endured for thousands more. At the cost of leaving our world forever stagnant."
Sartan shot back, "So what?"
"At least our world wouldn't slide into the abyss."
Lion said, "The abyss advances with every passing step."
"If you refuse to move."
"It will eventually consume you anyway."
Sartan said, "Then you should have led us backward. Instead, you're pushing us toward the abyss."
"I have never pushed anyone into the abyss."
Lion pointed toward the sky.
"We're moving upward."
"That is the proper direction."
Sartana snorted.
"I judged you correctly."
"A conceited, ignorant child."
"You wish to eliminate the Great Beasts but have you considered what becomes of the knightly orders?"
"For thousands of years our sacred duty has been one thing alone."
"Protecting our people from the Great Beasts."
"That is our way of life it is the reason we exist."
"This war. The war that has lasted five thousand years within Caliban's forests belongs to us it is our tradition and thanks to you our traditions will vanish together with the Great Beasts."
"That is the true danger."
Lion remained unmoved.
"The tradition you speak of is nothing more than an excuse to preserve your own importance."
"The longer the Great Beasts remain within the Northern Wilds the deeper their corruption and the stronger they become."
"One who raises bandits to strengthen himself will eventually raise a tiger."
"I merely killed the tiger while it was still a cub."
Lion looked directly into the old man's eyes.
"You called me arrogant."
"You were wrong."
"I may indeed be arrogant."
"But the ignorant one."
"Has always been you."
"Me?"
Sartana laughed angrily.
"Look around you."
"This library contains more books than every other knightly order on Caliban combined. I've read more books than you've slain Great Beasts!"
Lion nodded, "I believe you."
"But reading countless books doesn't necessarily make a man wise."
"Some people the more they read, the more ignorant they become."
"They see only immediate benefits."
"They congratulate themselves for those gains."
"Yet fail to realize that society bears the cost or perhaps they simply don't care."
Sartana glared at him.
'Don't think I don't know exactly who you're insulting.'
Lion said, "My father once told me."
"That on Old Terra. Plato proposed the famous Allegory of the Cave in his work The Republic."
"A group of prisoners are chained within a dark cave they possess only a small campfire for light hey mistook the shadows cast upon the wall... for reality."
"You people, who cling so tightly to 'tradition'."
"Are the ones controlling that campfire."
"You understand perfectly well that the fire is the foundation of your rule."
"So you prevent everyone else from leaving the cave."
"The prisoners never see the sun."
"You hunt rats inside the cave and by hunting them."
"You preserve your authority."
"That is why you fear eliminating the rats."
"You fear losing your own position and all the while you congratulate yourselves."
"Believing you're protecting everyone else."
"What you fail to realize is that even after the rats are gone there are greater beasts waiting outside."
Sartana answered immediately. "The knights can still protect the people."
"If even you admit there are dangerous beasts outside."
"Then why insist on leaving the safety of the cave?"
Lion answered, "Because beyond those beasts there are vast continents and boundless oceans."
Sartana said, "You see only the vastness of the world."
"You ignore the fact that we cannot defeat those beasts."
Lion replied calmly. "So what? Should we hide inside a cave forever simply because we cannot defeat them today? The beasts have always wandered outside, they simply haven't been hungry enough to enter."
"If you refuse to fight them for the world... if you continue hiding, the day they finally enter the cave you'll have nowhere left to run and even if they never come."
"Meteors."
"Earthquakes."
"Floods."
"Forest fires."
"Any one of them could destroy the cave."
"Who told you."
"That the cave was safe?"
Sartana gave a dry laugh.
"I'll admit, you're a gifted speaker."
"You'd rather admit I possess talent."
"Than admit I'm speaking the truth."
Sartana asked, "The truth and how do you know the beast isn't already waiting outside the cave?"
"Perhaps it's standing there even now ordered to guard the entrance."
"Devouring anyone who attempts to leave and what you're doing."
"Is personally leading the people of Caliban into the abyss."
Lion replied, "And how do you know. That there is only one cave?"
"Perhaps the people of other caves have already stepped into the outside world."
"Perhaps they're helping the people of other caves leave as well."
"One day it will be Caliban's turn but those who leave willingly and those forced out will occupy completely different places in that new world."
Those who stepped outside by choice would become the strong.
They would boldly explore the world and help others leave their own caves.
Those dragged outside against their will would remain weak. Even after witnessing the vastness of the world.
The slightest disturbance would send them fleeing back into the darkness.
Sartana was silent for a long time, then suddenly looked up. "Where do you come from?"
"Terra."
Sartana laughed, "Legend has it that our ancestors came from Terra."
"It seems the Terrans have left the cave again. And you've come to enlighten the primitives?"
"But so what? Won't you eventually be forced back into the cave by the storm?"