Chapter 27: The First Assault—Blood and Stone
The siege towers burned like massive funeral pyres, and Paul learned that some walls could not be predicted around—only endured with whatever courage and supernatural enhancement he could bring to bear against stone that had stood for centuries.
"All that planning. All those visions. And still the reality is worse than anything I imagined."
Floki's engineering marvels—wooden towers tall enough to breach Paris's walls, equipped with bridges and protected by shields—approached the fortifications with the confidence of Viking craftsmanship meeting Frankish stone. For a moment, it seemed possible that pure audacity might overcome impossible odds.
Then the burning oil came down like rain made of fire.
Frankish defenders poured liquid flame from the towers, transforming Floki's siege engines into blazing coffins that trapped Vikings inside structures that had become their crematoriums. The screams that echoed from within the burning towers carried a particular agony that spoke of men dying slowly while their friends could only watch.
Paul activated Odin's Whisper the moment the ground assault reached the walls, burning his mana completely to navigate two minutes of chaos with supernatural precision.
[ODIN'S WHISPER ACTIVATED]
[DURATION: 120 SECONDS]
[MANA COST: 100% CURRENT MP]
[REMAINING MANA: 0/29]
The world split into reality and perfect future, and Paul saw the crossbow bolt that would have opened Ragnar's throat if he hadn't tackled the Viking king sideways at exactly the right moment. The section of burning tower that would have crushed three warriors if Paul hadn't pulled them clear. The pattern of falling stones that turned the approach to the walls into a killing field where geography itself became weapon.
"This isn't warfare. This is slaughter with extra steps."
Paul moved through the chaos like water flowing around obstacles, his enhanced perception allowing him to save lives that would have been lost to the mathematics of siege warfare. But when Odin's Whisper ended, he collapsed behind the shields that offered minimal protection from the rain of death falling from above.
"Fourteen mana points left. Almost nothing. And this is just the beginning."
The real breakthrough almost came from Lagertha's berserker charge—a ladder assault that spoke to pure Viking fury overwhelming tactical impossibility through sheer audacity. Paul watched her lead shield-maidens and warriors up siege ladders while arrows fell around them like deadly snow.
She reached the wall top. She killed three defenders in as many heartbeats. For one impossible moment, it seemed like courage and skill might create the breach that would bring down walls that had never fallen to force.
Then Frankish reinforcements arrived, and Paul watched Lagertha get pushed back toward a fall that would break her body against stones stained with Viking blood.
Something triggered in Paul's mind—panic, desperation, love transformed into supernatural power that he'd never known he possessed.
[CRITICAL MOMENT DETECTED]
[FATE THREAD MANIPULATION UNLOCKED (LEVEL 1)]
[EMERGENCY ACTIVATION AUTHORIZED]
Paul activated the new ability instinctively, not understanding what he was doing but knowing that Lagertha's life hung in the balance of the next thirty seconds.
[FATE THREAD MANIPULATION ACTIVATED]
[DURATION: 30 SECONDS]
[MANA COST: 200 MP]
[OVERDRAFT: -171 MP - EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED]
The world became malleable around him—probability flowing like water that could be redirected with sufficient will and desperation. Paul focused on the Frankish archer drawing his bow on Lagertha, reality bending slightly under the pressure of supernatural intervention.
The bowstring snapped. The arrow that should have pierced Lagertha's heart instead struck the defender beside her, creating the moment of confusion that allowed her to retreat safely.
Paul immediately consumed his second Major Mana Potion, the liquid restoration barely enough to bring him back from mana overdraft that should have left him unconscious.
[MAJOR MANA POTION CONSUMED]
[MANA RESTORED: 50% - 14 MP]
[CRITICAL STATUS: STABILIZED]
[POTIONS REMAINING: 0 MAJOR MANA, 2 MAJOR HEALTH, 1 MINOR HEALTH SALVE]
The assault collapsed with the inevitability of gravity. Ragnar's horn called retreat, and Paul helped carry wounded warriors while Lagertha's elite fighters covered their withdrawal. Three hours of violence had accomplished nothing except demonstrating that Paris would not fall to traditional Viking tactics.
Back at camp, Paul helped count the cost while trying not to vomit from mana overload and the particular nausea that came from altering reality itself. Two hundred dead. Three hundred wounded. Morale shattered by contact with an enemy that fought from behind walls too high to climb and too strong to break.
Ragnar stared at the Paris walls with obsessive intensity, his mind already calculating new approaches to problems that defied solution through conventional warfare.
"The walls won't fall to courage," Paul told him, his voice hoarse from shouting warnings over the sound of battle. "We need a different strategy."
"What strategy?" Ragnar asked with the particular desperation of someone whose entire identity depended on achieving the impossible.
"I'm working on it," Paul lied, knowing that his Monthly Vision had shown only partial success through approaches that would cost more than victory was worth.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFYING DEATH'S CERTAINTY]
[REWARD: +0.5 MAGIC, +0.4 AGILITY]
[NEW SKILL: FATE THREAD MANIPULATION (LEVEL 1)]
[WARNING: REALITY ALTERATION DETECTED]
[SYSTEM CAUTION: EXCESSIVE PROBABILITY MANIPULATION MAY TRIGGER CORRECTIVE MEASURES]
[NEW STATS: STR 2.4 (24 HP), STA 2.9 (29 MP), AGI 4.0, MAG 3.6]
That night Paul lay in the medical tent, recovering from mana overdraft that felt like his brain had been set on fire and slowly extinguished. He'd unlocked the ability to alter fate itself—to push probability sideways through sheer will and supernatural power.
But the völva's warning echoed in his mind with new relevance: "Reality pushes back."
"I just manipulated fate to save Lagertha's life. Changed the fundamental structure of what was supposed to happen. How long before the universe decides I've gone too far?"
Outside the tent, he could hear warriors tending wounds and planning new assaults against walls that had proven themselves insurmountable. Paris would take months of grinding siege warfare that would break the Viking force against stone and determination.
And somewhere in that grinding attrition, Rollo would find his opportunity to betray everything he'd once called family.
[SYSTEM POINTS EARNED: 250]
[TOTAL SYSTEM POINTS: 1,075]
[MENTAL STRAIN: 78% CLARITY]
[FATE THREAD MANIPULATION: COOLDOWN 10 MINUTES]
[WARNING: REALITY DEBT ACCUMULATING]
Paul closed his eyes and tried not to think about what price the universe would eventually demand for the supernatural interference that had saved the woman he loved.
"Let it come. Whatever the cost, keeping Lagertha alive was worth it."
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