Night does not arrive.
It is forced.
The first Zhou frameworks finish locking into place just as the moon claws its way above the eastern ridge—too precise, too assured. Monk-engineers kneel in mirrored rows, their chants neither prayer nor spell but calculation, sound converted into boundary, breath turned into law. Brass rings hum. Drums throb once, twice. The air hardens.
Ling An answers.
Stone groans. Sutras flare a sullen red along streets and walls, symbols buckling under pressure they were never meant to resist. People run—not screaming, not praying—moving because the city itself tells them where it is no longer safe to stand.
That is when Wu Shuang steps into the open.
Not from a doorway.
Not from shadow.
From alignment.
The street straightens around her as if embarrassed by its earlier hesitation. Her form is sharp now, disciplined, the distortions that once leaked from her pulled tight against her body like folded wings. Her shadow stretches too long, then snaps back into place.
I feel her intent spike—clean, cold, deliberate.
"She's cutting," Shen Yue says beside me, already moving, already calculating. Her voice does not tremble. "Not attacking. Severing."
I nod once.
"Let her," I say.
The Presence hums beneath my ribs, deeper than before, not eager, not restrained—awake.
Wu Shuang raises her hand.
The Zhou boundary does not shatter.
It slides.
A clean diagonal opens across the framework—no explosion, no light—just a sudden disagreement between two sets of rules. The air screams as it tears. Monk-engineers stagger, some collapsing as their instruments backfeed sound into bone. Blood runs from ears, noses, mouths.
Zhou reacts instantly.
Their horns sound—not alarm, but command.
Troops surge forward in disciplined blocks, shields interlocked, pikes leveled. Siege infantry pour through the opened sector, banners snapping into place as if to claim the wound Wu Shuang has cut.
That is when I move.
"Now," I say.
The Black Tigers rise.
Not from one direction.
From everywhere.
Alleys disgorge steel. Rooftops bloom with silhouettes. Sewer grates burst upward as claws of men explode into the Zhou flanks. This is not a charge. It is a collapse inward.
Steel meets steel.
The sound is deafening.
Zhou's formations hold for a heartbeat—trained, disciplined, lethal. Shields lock. Pikes thrust. Tigers die in that first clash, bodies punched backward by momentum and math.
Then Shen Yue breaks the rhythm.
She steps forward, palms snapping into seals too fast to follow, charcoal sigils flaring into existence in the air. She does not call power.
She reassigns it.
The ground beneath the Zhou line turns treacherous—not collapsing, not swallowing—but forgetting how to be flat. Soldiers stumble. Shields tilt. Pikes slide off-target.
The Tigers surge again.
I am in it now.
There is no distance.
No abstraction.
Just breath and blood and timing.
A Zhou officer swings at my head. I step inside the arc and break his throat with the pommel. Another lunges; I twist, feel the Presence tighten—not to strike, but to permit. Space gives me just enough room to pass where no room existed.
Wu Shuang moves like a blade thrown by someone who knows exactly where it will land. Wherever she passes, Zhou cohesion dissolves. Men die without understanding why their armor failed them, why their limbs stopped obeying.
She does not look at me.
She does not need to.
Above us, the palace finally commits.
Wu Jin's banners rise—not advancing, not retreating—blocking. His troops clash with Zhou reinforcements attempting to widen the breach. The fight there is brutal, confused, desperate. Wu Jin is fighting to prove the throne still matters.
It doesn't.
Zhou realizes it a breath too late.
This is not a siege anymore.
It is a meat grinder.
Frameworks collapse as Wu Shuang carves through their anchors. Monks scream as equations fail them mid-chant. Tigers die—many of them—but every death buys chaos, and chaos is what I trade in now.
"Pull back!" Zhou's command horns blare.
Too late.
The streets fold.
Not magically.
Tactically.
Barricades snap shut. Gates slam. Smoke blooms, thick and choking. Zhou's rear lines collide with their own advance as retreat routes vanish. Panic finally breaks discipline.
Bodies pile.
Blood runs in gutters that were dry an hour ago.
Ling An becomes a battlefield in the old sense—close, personal, unforgiving.
I catch sight of Shen Yue again, her face streaked with ash and blood that is not hers. Our eyes meet across the chaos.
No words.
Just confirmation.
This was never betrayal.
This was coordination under fire.
Wu Shuang turns at last, meeting my gaze for the first time that night.
For a heartbeat, the world narrows.
"You've changed," she says, voice carrying effortlessly through the roar.
"Yes," I answer. "So have you."
She smiles—thin, dangerous, almost pleased.
"Good," she says. "Then we won't hesitate."
She turns back into the slaughter, and the Zhou line finally breaks.
Men throw down weapons. Others flee only to find nowhere left to run. The Black Tigers press, ruthless now, no longer surgical. This is no longer about control.
This is about ending the test.
By dawn, the frameworks are ruins.
By dawn, Zhou's dead carpet the eastern wards.
By dawn, Ling An reeks of iron and smoke and old incense burned too hot.
And standing amid it all—bloodied, breathing hard, Presence humming steady as a drum—I know the truth with perfect clarity:
This night has made one thing certain.
Zhou can be beaten.
The South will come faster now.
Wu Jin's throne is a symbol at best.
And whatever I am becoming—
whatever Wu Shuang already is—
the world has finally learned it cannot contain us
without paying in rivers of blood.