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He did not twitch when the cries of his people echoed faintly through the palace corridors, or when the ground itself trembled with each strike against stone and timber. The great king lay sprawled upon silk cushions, his body glistening with sweat, surrounded by women who did not smile when he touched them, who did not laugh when he joked, but who pretended all the same because to do otherwise was to invite pain.
When dawn fully rose and light crept across the jeweled lattice of his chamber, he awoke only because the noise of laughter, his own concubines attempting to mask their dread, reached his ears.
Lazily, he gets up and stretched, the weight of his indulgence heavy on his belly. A concubine, eyes lowered, poured water into a goblet and held it before him. He drank, not noticing how her hand trembled slightly.
"Ah," King Rudravarman IV said, smacking his lips, "a fine day. By now, Darsaka surely has those fools of our foreign invaders beaten back. Perhaps we should go to the balconies and watch the gods smite our enemies. But I just better be here spending time with all of you here."
One of his younger concubines, a girl named Lasra who had been taken from a merchant family the year before, her face pale with exhaustion, dared to whisper timidly, her voice trembling, "Your Divine Majesty… the battle… should you not go to the walls to command the battle? To show your presence to the soldiers and inspire the men?"
The king snorted through his nose like a pig disturbed at a trough. "Command and inspire them? Ha! Do you question me? My mere existence inspires them, girl! I am the incarnation of the gods themselves. My will alone bends the tide of battle. Why should I dirty my hands with sweat and dust? Darsaka is there, and he knows my will. Victory is assured. The gods favor me." He popped a grape into his mouth, chewing lazily. "Now, come here. Your king requires distraction."
He then leaned back, dragging another concubine against him with careless roughness, not seeing how she flinched. He laughed at his own words, at the confidence that only a man completely detached from reality could carry.
But in the hearts of Lasra and many of the women forced into his bed, a different laughter stirred, silent, bitter, and cutting. Many had been taken from their families by force, dragged here to live as playthings for a man they despised. They mocked him inwardly, every single one of them, though not a whisper passed their lips.
While they smiled and bowed in his presence, in their hearts they whispered prayers that the invaders would break through the gates, storm the palace, and skewer him upon their spears. To see Rudravarman IV's blood soaking the marble floors would be liberation. To them, his death was not a tragedy but a deliverance. For in his death, perhaps, their chains would break.
Meanwhile, beyond the palace walls, war was tearing Vijaya apart.
The defenders who had managed to hold their positions through the first thunderous hours of bombardment now faced something far more devastating than stone and fire: betrayal.
At first, they had been shocked enough by the sheer discipline and power of the Shi Clan's troops. Siege towers rolled forward with uncanny precision, ladders bristled with soldiers who moved as one, and massive shields locked together like walls of iron. But then came the cruelest blow, the realization that the ranks among the enemy were not just foreigners.
They saw familiar faces. Cousins, uncles, brothers. Men who spoke their tongue, men whose ancestors shared the same blood, now marching beneath the banners of the Hengyuan invaders. Worse still, they did not march as slaves, they marched willingly, proudly, their spears raised high, their cries of war carrying across the battlefield with the conviction of men who believed themselves righteous.
"It's… it's Thanh!" a young militiaman stammered, pointing a shaking finger at a unit of auxiliaries forming up near a siege tower. "From the next village over! He's with them!"
"And that's old man Binh's son! I'd know that scar anywhere!"
It shattered something in the defenders. The sight was a psychological earthquake. For the royal guards, the elite who had dedicated their lives to the crown, it was a bewildering betrayal. Because if their own kin had abandoned the so called divine king, what did that mean?
Meanwhile for the militia and volunteers, it was a terrifying question made flesh, If our own brothers and cousins are fighting for the other side, who are the real traitors here?
Morale, which had been brittle, now began to shatter. The defenders' arrows lost their conviction, their shouts of defiance dying in their throats. They were not just fighting an external enemy, they were confronting the horrifying possibility that their cause was unjust, that their king was not worth dying for.
When word reached Darsaka, carried by a breathless, bloodied messenger finally fought his way through the chaos to the command pavilion, where the air was thick with the smell of wine and fear sweat.
He bowed low despite the debauchery that surrounded him, the self styled general was in the midst of pawing at one of the terrified women. Her tears streaked her cheeks, but he ignored them, his laughter booming in the perfumed pavilion. He paused only long enough to hear the words.
"General! General Darsaka!" the messenger gasped, dropping to one knee. "The enemy… they have Champa troops with them! The soldiers on the wall have seen it. Morale... morale is—"
For a moment, Darsaka's lecherous smile twitched. Then it vanished and twisted into a snarl of pure rage making his face look crueler.
"Traitors," he spat. "Filthy worms who dare spit upon the Divine King's grace. Kill them all. Spread the word to the walls, our soldiers are to cut down any man found fighting with the enemy. Let them rot, their corpses staked high for all to see. That is the fate of those who defy their god. Any soldier caught lowering his weapon, executed!"
The order was carried swiftly. But with it came devastation.
On the walls, the proclamation spread like wildfire. The king's voice, carried through his lackey, had declared kin to be traitors, kin who now stood just beyond arrow shot, their faces clear, their voices calling.
And then came the second, deadlier blow.
The Champa auxiliaries under Po Kandar, men who had once served beside the very soldiers now defending Vijaya, raised their voices in unison. Their cries echoed over the clash of steel and the thunder of siege engines.
"Brothers! Do not die for him!"
"Lower your weapons! Open the gates! You fight for a king who feeds on your blood and calls it divine wine!"
"Your lives mean nothing to him! He sends your mothers, your daughters, to die for his greed!"
"Do not die for Rudravarman! Do not die for a man who feasts while you starve! Join us, and live!"
Each word was a blade. Each sentence dug deeper than any catapult's strike. It was then that Po Kandar acted.
Standing among his men, his armor dusted with chalk from the siege stones, he raised his voice so that it carried across the plain and echoed against the battered walls. His men, the Auxiliaries, took up the cry, amplifying his words so they rang out clear.
"Brothers of Champa! Why do you bleed for a tyrant who has never bled for you? Why do you fight for a king who steals your grain, taxes your children, and drags your wives from your homes? Look at us! We are your kin! We fight not for strangers but for freedom, from the fat pig who gorges himself while you starve!"
Every word was a hammer blow on the already fractured will of the defenders. A royal guard captain, a man named Vannak who had served for twenty years, felt the truth of the words like a physical blow.
He looked at the young, terrified faces of the militiamen beside him, boys who should be learning a trade, not dying on a wall. He thought of his own family, of the exorbitant taxes that had forced him to sell his wife's jewelry last year. He thought of the king, whom he had never once seen show concern for a single common soldier.
The Auxiliaries shouted again, their voices ringing like thunder.
"Do not waste your lives on a king who calls himself a god but hides in his palace like a coward! Lay down your arms! Open your gates! Do not die for a man who would not lift a finger to save you!"
This words caused them to remember of their king's absence. Where was King Rudravarman IV? Where was the divine light he claimed to embody? He was not on the walls. He was not with them. He was in his palace, gorging on flesh and wine.
But the defenders did not yet surrender. Not yet. Fear of Darsaka's cruelty and the king's wrath held them fast. But the seed had been planted, as surely as an arrow loosed into the heart. Doubt spread through their ranks like cracks in stone. The defense of Vijaya had not yet broken, but its spirit had.
And slowly the first day of the siege on Vijaya slowly drew to its weary close. What had begun with thunder, the crash of stones hurled by mangonels, the roar of drums, the cries of men rallying their courage against fire and iron, now faded into a low, trembling hush as dusk smothered the sky. Smoke from smoldering fires drifted lazily over the battered walls, the air thick with the sour reek of sweat, charred timber, and blood.
The sun, now nothing more than a dim copper smudge upon the horizon, bled its last light across the plain. In its waning glow, the banners of the Shi Clan rippled defiantly in the breeze, their crimson threads catching what little radiance remained, as if to remind both friend and foe alike that the day belonged not to the defenders but to those who pressed against their walls.
Yet Shi Xin, commander of the Shi Clan Army, was not a man intoxicated by the noise of victory or blinded by arrogance. He was calm, disciplined, a veteran who understood that wars were not won in a single push, but in the measured rhythm of strikes and retreats.
Standing upon a small rise that overlooked the battlefield, Shi Xin's eyes traced the ruined outlines of siege ladders, the corpses strewn across the moat, and the jagged silhouettes of Vijaya's towers against the darkening sky. He exhaled slowly, his breath misting in the cooling air, and then gave the order in a voice firm but measured. "Sound the retreat. We do not waste our men when patience will bring us victory tomorrow."
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 35 (202 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 9)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 966 (+20)
VIT: 623 (+20)
AGI: 623 (+10)
INT: 667
CHR: 98
WIS: 549
WILL: 432
ATR Points: 0