The battlefield erupted into a cacophony of shattering wood and dying screams as General Hanai's "Comb" strategy slammed into Toro's defenses with surgical precision.
The barbarian shock troops did not waste their lives throwing themselves against the heavily fortified sectors of the wall. Instead, guided by Hanai's brilliant calculations, they surged up the iron-reinforced ladders precisely where the "Void" sectors lay. The straw dummies dressed in spare armor were hacked to pieces in seconds, and before the hidden reserves of Toro's garrison could swing around to execute their planned pincer movement, the barbarian vanguard was already over the battlements.
"They knew!" a squad captain screamed, his voice cut short as a massive barbarian war-axe cleft his shield in two. "The barbarians knew our formations!"
A brutal, claustrophobic melee consumed the ramparts. The defenders of Toro gave it everything they had, fighting with the feral desperation of men who had backbones of steel and nothing left to lose. Pierre moved through the slaughter like a silver whirlwind, his broadsword reaping a heavy toll of barbarian blood, but even his legendary prowess could not check the bleeding. For every three invaders he cut down, five more climbed over the stone lip.
Slowly, inexorably, the sheer numbers and flawless positioning of the horde pushed the defenders back. The battlements were transforming into a slaughterhouse, and the stairs leading down into the city's lower courtyards were breached. A massive detachment of barbarian warriors began battering the heavy wooden internal doors of the primary gatehouse, intending to throw open the main city gates from within.
Standing atop the inner keep, Prince Siros watched the collapsing perimeter, his pale face illuminated by the harsh afternoon sun. The city was seconds away from a catastrophic breach.
"My liege!" a blood-soaked messenger panted, collapsing at the prince's boots. "The western wall has fallen! The gatehouse defenders are being overwhelmed! We cannot hold them!"
Siros did not panic. Instead, a sharp, terrifyingly calm glint flashed through his eyes. He reached into his leather belt, grasping the smooth plastic of the demon's artifact.
"They want our city," Siros whispered, a cold smile tugging at his lips. "Let us give them hell instead. Deploy the Incense of Damnation. All sectors, now."
Down in the gatehouse courtyards and along the inner murder-holes, specialized teams of alchemists and engineers had been waiting for this exact, desperate signal. They had not prepared arrows or boiling oil. Instead, they stood around massive, cast-iron braziers filled with glowing, white-hot charcoal, normally used to heat defensive oil.
At the prince's command, the alchemists unscrewed the caps of the one hundred pristine plastic bottles Jason had delivered. With heavy hearts and silent prayers for their own salvation, they poured the mysterious, concentrated liquid directly onto the smoldering coals.
The reaction was instantaneous and cataclysmic.
The moment the synthetic, industrial-grade chemical novelty weapon hit the superheated coals, it did not merely burn—it vaporized, expanding into a dense, invisible, airborne cloud of pure, concentrated malice. Assisted by the natural drafts of the stone ventilation shafts and the wind whistling over the battlements, the vile stench swept across the entire front line like a rolling wave of biological terror.
It was a smell that defied mortal vocabulary. It was the concentrated essence of a thousand rotting corpses, mixed with the sulfurous bowels of a volcanic trench, fermented inside a stagnant sewer for a century.
The barbarian vanguard, caught mid-battle-cry, inhaled the airborne heresy deeply.
The effect was devastating. The fierce, bloodthirsty warriors who had braved rainstorms of arrows without flinching instantly collapsed internally. The sheer, overwhelming toxicity of the odor bypassed all psychological resilience. Men dropped their weapons, their eyes bulging as tears streamed down their faces.
"URGH—!"
Across the battlements, hundreds of hardened barbarian veterans dropped to their knees, clutching their throats as violent, uncontrollable dry-heaving racked their bodies. The fierce war cries turned into a chorus of desperate, pathetic retching. The monstrous warrior who had been leading the assault on the gatehouse doors threw up so violently inside his own iron visor that he suffocated on his own breakfast, collapsing onto the cobblestones.
The psychological shock was total. The barbarians genuinely believed the heavens had cursed them, or that the ground beneath Toro had opened to release the literal, unholy fumes of the underworld. Their iron discipline disintegrated into a panicked, weeping scramble for fresh air.
From his distant command tower, General Hanai watched the absolute breakdown of his vanguard in utter, paralyzed horror. His perfect strategy had succeeded; his men were inside the city. Yet, through his spyglass, he could see his elite shock troops dropping like flies, weeping, vomiting, and clawing at their own throats as if fighting invisible phantoms.
"What is happening?!" Hanai roared, grabbing his subordinates by their collars. "Why are they retreating?! What magic is this?!"
Before his advisors could offer a response, a deafening trumpet blast echoed from within the walls of Toro.
TRRRRRUUUUUM—
Simultaneously, the massive iron-reinforced gates of Toro—all of them—screeched open.
Out from the darkness of the city tunnels surged the hidden reserve of Toro's heavy cavalry. But they did not look like ordinary knights. Every single rider, from the vanguard to the rear guard, wore a terrifying, elongated leather mask shaped like a predatory bird, their visors wrapped tightly in thick linen cloth. The interiors of their masks had been stuffed to the brim with crushed mint leaves, lavender, and heavy royal perfumes, completely shielding them from the airborne devastation.
"For Toro! Ride them down!" Pierre's voice echoed boisterously through his custom respirator as he led the charge from the main gate.
The masked cavalry struck the incapacitated, weeping horde like a thunderbolt.It was no longer a battle; it was a systematic execution. The barbarian warriors, completely blinded by tears and paralyzed by the agonizing stench, couldn't even lift their shields to deflect the incoming lances. Toro's horses, their nostrils smeared with heavy menthol salves, trampled through the retching ranks, while the knights easily skewered the elite of the Ka'han's army like sitting ducks.
The retreat turned into a catastrophic rout. The very vanguard that had broken the city walls was systematically butchered within minutes, their bodies littering the outer trenches as the masked cavalry chased the survivors back toward the tree line, leaving the air behind them thick with the sweet, unmistakable victory of absolute chemical warfare.