Dawn arrived without asking permission.
A thin, rose-colored line stretched across the horizon, slowly pushing back the remnants of night.
The imperial army—exhausted, wounded, and confused—received the light as if it were yet another enemy.
Because the light…
The light revealed what no one had wanted to see.
There were no drums.
No orders.No martial fanfares heralding a new day of conquest.
Only silence.
A heavy, suffocating silence.
Thousands of imperial soldiers stood motionless, their armor stained with blood that was not their own.
All of them were looking back.
Toward the place where the mages, the conjurers—the pillars of their offensive—should have been.
But there were no ranks.No organized lines of living men.No functioning camp.
There was a carpet.
An endless carpet of corpses.
Hundreds…thousands…
Every imperial mage from the rear lines had been slaughtered with surgical precision.
The wind stirred the Empire's red banners—yet even they seemed to tremble.
Commander Varos Keldren of the Sixth Legion—a towering man renowned for fearing nothing—dismounted with shaking hands.
His face, always hardened by campaigns and victories, was pale as ash.
He knelt beside one of the bodies.
He recognized the mage—an old veteran who had served under him for six years.
The wound was perfect. Clean. No signs of struggle.
Varos clenched his fists.
"This… this wasn't an ambush," he muttered. "It was an execution."
The officers around him exchanged glances, unable to respond.
The campaign's commanding general, Hektor Narveth, arrived minutes later with his escort.
He surveyed the massacre in silence.
His lips tightened.His breathing grew rough.
The soldiers expected him to shout, to rage, to issue orders.
But Hektor knew exactly what this meant.
"Who was it…?" he finally whispered.
It was not a shout.Not a strategic declaration.
It was a lament.
A chill ran down the spines of the officers around him.
"General," a colonel ventured, "does the offensive continue? We've lost over a thousand mages. Our long-range capability has collapsed—"
"We will be at a tactical disadvantage in every coming engagement," Hektor interrupted, his voice as cold as the dawn. "We have no breach capacity. No magical support."
He turned toward the fortress of Dara, its walls still standing.
Where the Imperial Princess awaited proof of her army's strength.
Where the Kingdom—now reinforced—looked down upon them with dangerous smiles.
"We pull the line back two kilometers," he ordered. "And I want full reports. I want to know how many died, how many remain, and how many saw anything."
A lieutenant swallowed hard.
"My general… the survivors claim they saw no enemy."
Hektor looked at him sharply.
"They lie out of fear. Every man sees something before he dies."
The lieutenant lowered his head.
"My general…" he whispered. "They say… death spoke to them."
A cold knot tightened in Hektor's stomach.
He did not reply.
Among the bodies, they found Gareth Helmström.
His eyes were still open, fixed on the waking sky.
The sergeant of his squad dropped to his knees beside him. Gareth had been a respected veteran—unyielding, strong as stone.
They had seen him raise towering walls… stop catapults… crush enemies beneath pillars of rock.
And now he lay there, dead from a single, clean wound.
"Gareth… you stubborn old bastard…" the sergeant murmured, voice breaking. "You said you'd conquer Dara and go home."
No one answered.
By the time the sun had fully risen, the Empire had made its decision:
The battle would not continue.
Not that day.
Not without understanding what in the abyss had happened.Not without knowing how a handful of men—or perhaps a single one—had eliminated their entire magical artillery.
Not without knowing who that phantom in the night truly was.
Hektor Narveth drew a slow breath and spoke:
"Prepare everything. I will inform the Princess personally. This war changed last night."
His tone was dark, laden with a fury he had not yet allowed himself to show.