Day Five: The Last Stand
The fifth day of the war began at the Yue capital beneath a sky that had barely seen the light of dawn.
Before the morning mist had lifted from the plains surrounding the Imperial capital of Yue, the horns of the Wu Kingdom echoed across the battlefield.
Their first assault had begun. Unlike the previous day, this was no demonstration of force. Tens of thousands of soldiers advanced in disciplined formations.
These stretched across the horizon like a tide of steel.
Siege towers rolled forward behind thick wooden shields while massive battering rams, reinforced with iron bands, were dragged toward the capital's main gate.
Nearly eighty thousand soldiers participated in the first assault alone.
Standing upon the city wall, Princess Ning Luo silently watched the rapidly approaching army.
Her golden armor reflected the pale morning sunlight, while the crimson cape behind her fluttered gently in the cold wind. Her expression remained calm.
"Raise the banners." The command was passed down immediately. The drums thundered from atop the walls. Archers took their positions.
The defenders gripped their weapons.
Every one of them knew the difference in numbers. Ten thousand, against three hundred thousand.
No reinforcements. No hidden reserve.
No miraculous strategy. Only stone walls and their determination. The battering rams reached the city gates before long.
Boom!
The entire wall trembled. Another strike followed.
Boom!
Splinters burst from the reinforced gates.
Yet Princess Ning Luo remained utterly and completely unmoved. The enemy believed they were breaking into the capital. They were mistaken.
Long before the siege had begun, she had ordered thousands of sandbags, timber beams and stone blocks stacked behind the gate itself.
Even if the wooden doors shattered completely, nothing short of dismantling the barricade piece by piece would open a passage into the city.
"Loose!"
Thousands of arrows darkened the sky.
Men screamed. The first ranks of the Wu Kingdom collapsed. Then the second immediately replaced them.
Ladders slammed against the walls. Hooks caught the battlements. Soldiers climbed upward without hesitation. Boiling water poured over them. Flaming oil followed.
Burning men tumbled from the ladders, crashing into those climbing beneath them. Heavy stones rolled from above.
Logs crashed through tightly packed formations.
Yet the attackers continued. There were simply too many. Soon enough the first Wu soldiers climbed onto the walls. Steel met steel.
The battle immediately descended into brutal close combat. Princess Ning Luo drew her sword.
Its blade was long and slender, forged for speed rather than brute force. A golden hilt inlaid with deep crimson gemstones gleamed beneath the morning sun.
The first soldier rushed toward her. His head left his shoulders before his feet had stopped moving. The second followed. Then a third.
Her sword danced like flowing water.
Every movement was clean. Every strike devastatingly fatal.
Blood splashed across the polished gold of her armor until its original brilliance was barely visible beneath layers of hardened blood glowing crimson.
Still... They kept coming. Hour after hour the defenders fought without pause. Every staircase became a battlefield.
Every tower became a fortress.
Every section of wall changed hands multiple times before the defenders reclaimed it through sheer unyielding determination.
Princess Ning Luo never retreated.
Wherever the fighting grew fiercest, she appeared. Whenever a breach opened, her sword was already waiting.
The soldiers gradually stopped looking toward the command banners. Instead, they searched for the flash of golden armor. As long as the princess still stood. The wall had not fallen.
Three brutal hours passed. By then more than four thousand defenders had died.
Almost half the city's entire garrison had vanished.
The Wu Kingdom had lost nearly sixteen thousand soldiers in return. An exchange any ordinary commander would have considered catastrophic.
The Wu generals merely smiled. Four thousand defenders could never be replaced. Sixteen thousand attackers meant little to an army of three hundred thousand.
Eventually the enemy surged again and again over several sections of the wall simultaneously. For just one terrifying moment...
The Imperial Capital stood upon the brink of collapse. Then... Then the deep cry of war horns echoed across the battlefield. The attackers withdrew.
Not because they had been defeated.
Because they had already learned everything they wished to know.
The first assault had merely been a probing attack.
It had revealed every weakness in the city's defenses. As the last enemy descended the ladders, silence gradually returned. The stone walls resembled a slaughterhouse.
Blood flowed between broken bricks.
Discarded weapons lay everywhere.
Bodies rested atop one another until the original stone could scarcely be seen.
Princess Ning Luo slowly lowered her sword. Blood dripped steadily from its tip. She looked across the exhausted survivors.
Barely six thousand soldiers remained capable of fighting. If the next assault matched the first... The capital would surely fall indefinitely.
Far away from the battlefield, Luo He silently folded the latest report. "It has begun..." His voice remained calm.
Everything had unfolded exactly as he had expected. The capital was now completely surrounded. There would be no easy path in or out.
Luo He went to find the Transcendent level body guard he got. His name was simply, Jun. He possessed no family name. He had been born a commoner.
Only his extraordinary talent had earned him a place beside the old patriarch. Luo He respected capable people regardless of birth. So he admired Gin Wenyuan.
Without wasting time, he withdrew a rolled map from his sleeve and spread it across a fallen tree. Jun immediately leaned closer. His eyes widened.
The entire route had already been marked in precise red ink. Mountain paths. River crossings. Villages. Bridges.
Everything had already been planned.
More surprising still... Dozens upon dozens of small red crosses covered the map.
"What are these?" Jun finally asked.
Luo He pointed toward one of the markings. "Food."
Jun frowned. "Food?"
"Supply caches. I prepared them months prior." Luo He replied confidently. "If any reinforcements were ever required, an army would need grain before it needed soldiers."
He calmly traced the route with his finger.
"Do not burden the cavalry with any unnecessary provisions. Travel light."
"Every one of these locations contains enough grain, dried meat and horse fodder to sustain your advance." Jun stared at him in silence.
Months before the war... He had already hidden supplies throughout the entire countryside.
It was as though Luo He had anticipated this very campaign long before anyone else believed war possible.
Luo He rolled the paper map closed, and immediately handed it to him. "You will lead the cavalry. Ride to the Prosperous Silk Isle. It should take roughly three to four days."
The horses are excellent. Each rider had three mounts. So rotate them constantly, they will lose very little speed. And Jun accepted the map respectfully.
"And you?" He asked.
Luo He smiled. "I cannot afford to travel at a horse's pace. The capital needs me."
Without another word, he silently stepped towards the waiting Black Cloud Shuttle. Its dark body hovered quietly above the earth while it's sides glisten golden. Luo He stepped aboard.
The shuttle awakened with a low movement. Moments later, the shuttle shot into the sky like a streak of black lightning, immediately disappearing beyond the clouds.
By the time the afternoon sun reached its highest point, alone black looking object descended silently outside the Imperial Capital. Luo He stepped onto the ground.
In one hand... He carried an very ancient looking banner. Its wooden pole had clearly weathered over countless centuries. Time had darkened the wood until it resembled aged ebony.
The banner itself was woven from faded golden cloth. Its edges were bordered in black silk, frayed by age yet somehow refusing to tear.
Across its center, written in deep purple calligraphy that had astonishingly retained its color despite the passing of untold generations, stood three ancient characters. 'Human Sovereign Banner'.
Nothing about it appeared extraordinary.
No dazzling light. No overwhelming aura.
No terrifying pressure. It looked no different from an old ceremonial banner forgotten by history.
Day Five: The Beggar at the Wall
The Black Cloud Shuttle descended much further in the capital. It did not land anywhere near the Imperial Palace or the main military district.
Instead, Luo He guided it into a secluded section of the capital where the streets were narrow, the buildings tightly packed, and almost no one passed through.
The shuttle settled silently onto the roof of an abandoned building. Luo He stepped down. He looked around. No one. Perfect.
He concealed the Black Cloud Shuttle beneath several old pieces of roofing material and debris. From the street below, the roof looked no different from the countless neglected buildings.
The building scattered throughout the poorer districts of the capital. Even if someone searched the alley, they would have little reason to look upward.