Hitler rode at the front of the column, the hooves of his black horse striking the dirt with authority.
Behind him marched an army— of more than ten thousand strong.
Wagons carrying cannons creaked over rugged terrain. Mortar teams pushed their heavy gear in silence. Riflemen marched in perfect lines, each man bearing the polished steel of industrial death. Infantry followed, their iron swords gleaming under the gray sky.
But it wasn't just fighters.
Medics marched with satchels of bandages and vials. Couriers moved swiftly between ranks, messages in hand. Engineers hauled crates of equipment and tools. Non-combatants—cooks, smiths, record-keepers—followed in organized columns. They bore no weapons, yet every man and woman in the procession knew: this war could not be won without them.
All were necessary. All were part of something far greater than themselves. And they followed the Führer.
The open fields bore nothing but trees and heavy cold, crisp winds. They'd been walking for a little over a day to reach the city ahead.
Beside Hitler rode Riese, his towering right-hand officer—the same man who once accused him in a dimly lit bar and fought in the rebellion, now marching as his shadow. Seven feet tall (213 cm), carved from pure muscle, yet sharp of mind. Riese had trained alone in the mountains, studying maps, books, and war manuals until his brain was as lethal as his fists. His strength was terrifying, but his loyalty was absolute.
The wind howled through the pines as the city crept into view. Black walls. Spires. A skyline built to intimidate. Smoke from hearths and torches rose lazily above the stone.
Hitler's breath came out in steam as he rode forward.
"You know this one's different," he said quietly.
Riese tilted his head. "Because of the walls?"
"Because of what's behind them."
The fifth-largest city in Larrak. Seventy thousand demi-humans, if the old maps were right. But that wasn't the number that mattered.
"What do the scouts say about the human count?" Riese asked, his deep voice calm beneath the wind.
Hitler's eyes didn't leave the horizon. "A hundred and thirty thousand. Possibly more. Starving, scattered, traded like meat. It's hard to get a real number with all the prisons and markets. Some die before they're even counted."
Riese didn't respond immediately.
Then, after a breath: "We'll change that."
"We have to," Hitler said flatly. "This city is a node. A center of power. When we take it, their supply routes fracture. Their morale will crack. But this time—" his gloved hand tightened around the reins, "—we do not raid. We conquer."
Riese grunted in approval.
"What's the plan, then?"
"I've already told our commanders what to do once we reach the walls," Hitler replied. "They are not to wait for my signal. They will act as one. Mortars behind the treeline. Riflemen only advance once the northern towers fall. Infantry follows with engineers and medics. No second guessing. No hesitation."
"And the civilians?"
"Rescued. Prioritized. Any human found—no matter their age or condition—is to be pulled out and fed. Any soldier who disobeys that will be put against the wall."
"And the enemy?"
Hitler's voice dropped to a razor edge.
"They are not human. They are slavers. Brutes. A lower race. They will not be given mercy."
Riese nodded slowly.
"I assume Elisabeth has her cavalry stationed east?"
"Correct. Her campaign did not last long."
"She'll move once the bombardment begins. Her orders are simple—cut off any retreat, intercept nobles, and collapse the rear gate if possible. No messages get out."
Riese's thick fingers rested on the hilt of his blade. "And if the city holds?"
Hitler glanced at him, cold fire in his gaze.
"Then we bury it."
A long silence followed. The city loomed closer—its watchtowers faint against the graying sky, its gates like the mouth of a beast.
Then, Riese asked one last question.
"What name does this place go by again?"
Hitler answered without emotion.
"Norhadar."
Riese smirked.
"Not for long."
Hitler's stare didn't waver. His voice was calm, absolute.
"We won't fail…"
He gripped the reins tighter, boots brushing against the cold metal of his stirrups.
"…because I'm here."
A few moments later, the human army halted across the frost-lined field. The wind howled low, rustling cloaks and banners, but not a single man moved without purpose.
With silent discipline, they broke into their assigned formations.
Riflemen and infantry paired into modular combat teams—each unit housing a designated medic and an engineer. Packs were dropped. Cannons remained behind. Every action precise. Every man knew his place.
Schützenbataillon 9 was the exception.
A brutal spearhead of the army, it was comprised of towering, six-foot-plus warriors clad in heavy plate—men trained to carry their iron bulk into melee without fatigue. Their riflemen were the elite—calm, precise, blooded in previous offensives. The battalion's combat medics were hardened field surgeons. Their engineers? Experts in demolition and siege tactics.
Over a thousand meters back from the front line, nestled in the sparse hilltop undergrowth, the mortar teams adjusted their tubes. Each barrel angled high toward the city, calculations scribbled down in notebooks, dialed into targeting scopes using the coordinates Otto's scouts had provided days earlier.
No one waited for Hitler's voice.
He hadn't said a word.
But they all knew what to do.
Moments Later
A bell rang.
Then another. Then a third.
Within seconds, an alarm swept the streets like fire. Loud, echoing chimes roared from the temple towers, from watchposts, from guard barracks.
The city erupted into chaos.
Men scrambled into armor, smiths abandoning forges mid-swing. Guards shouted orders. Swords and spears were ripped from weapon racks. Old shields, dusty from peace, were torn down and buckled on. The once-bustling marketplaces went dead in moments—children pulled by panicked mothers, merchants flipping over stalls and running, homes slamming shut.
Civilians bolted for safety, locking doors, closing shutters, grabbing whatever weapons they could. Dagger. Axe. Rusted halberd. Anything to defend their families.
A group of mounted city guards galloped through the cobbled streets, barking orders to the stunned populace.
"Get inside! Bar your homes! Protect your kin!"
Inside the command hall near the main gate, voices rose like a storm.
"The bells are sounding from the northern fields!"
"How many?"
"No count yet, sir, but they've stopped advancing. They've begun to break formation. We suspect artillery. And cavalry."
A general stood at the table, fists planted on the oaken war map. His name was General Kaelos, a lion-kin with a sharp silver mane and golden eyes full of battle-weariness. His furred brow creased deeper as his officers argued.
"Could it be the Kingdom of Gunder?" one asked, his tail twitching with nervous energy.
A second commander, a boar-kin in officer's armor, shook his head. "No… unlikely. Gunder doesn't deploy this far east without warning. It could be the dwarves—"
"The Kingdom of Dwarves?" Kaelos repeated, eyes narrowing. "I doubt it. We all signed the Continental Unity Treaty after the demon invasion two hundred years ago."
"That was then," another muttered. "There've still been minor skirmishes. Border tension. Who's to say the dwarves didn't break the pact?"
"If they did," Kaelos snapped, "then the Empire will intervene. You know the doctrine. 'In case of another demon invasion, the continent must be held as one.' They won't allow two major kingdoms to clash without oversight."
Murmurs followed.
"…Then who is it?"
A younger officer spoke up. "What if it's not a kingdom?"
The room stilled.
Kaelos turned. "Explain."
"The scouts said the banners were unfamiliar. Red flags. Black sigils. They don't match any nation's crest—human or demi."
Silence.
A wolf-kin leaned forward, voice dark. "You don't think it's… them, do you?"
Kaelos' ears flicked back. "You mean the rebels?"
"Yes. The human uprising. The ones in Larrak Valley. There were rumors they seized artillery, some kind of explosive weapons."
"Rumors," Kaelos repeated. "But… if it is them…"
He stepped back from the table, turning to the window. Smoke plumes dotted the horizon—faint, but present. The wind carried the distant sound of organized movement. Like thunder. Like order. Like war.
"…Then we treat them as a kingdom."
Kaelos turned back to his officers, voice sharp.
"Get all twenty thousand city troops to the wall. Archers on the towers. Cavalry at the gates. Ready the inner gatehouses in case of breach. Evacuate the nobles underground."
"Sir—what about negotiations?" the boar-kin asked.
Kaelos gave a grim nod.
"Yes. We don't know who they are yet. Send a messenger. White flag. We'll attempt a parley."
"And if they refuse?"
Kaelos' golden eyes hardened.
"Then we bathe these fields in fire."
Southern Plains — Before the City of Norhadar
The cold wind whistled low across the field. Men stood in rank and silence, rifle barrels catching glints of pale sunlight. Mortar teams remained hunched behind their tubes. Cannoneers waited with fingers over fuses. No one spoke.
Then, from the city gates, a lone figure emerged.
A lizardkin, mounted atop a spotted horse, rode cautiously into the open. He held high a long wooden rod draped with a white cloth, fluttering above him like a wounded wing. The soldiers watched him approach in silence, rifles tracking his every move.
Riese stepped up beside Hitler, towering and broad-shouldered, his cold breath visible in the winter air.
"Are they surrendering?" he asked, voice low.
Hitler's expression didn't change.
"No," he replied. "They want to negotiate."
Riese narrowed his eyes. "You think they're stalling?"
Hitler exhaled slowly through his nose. "Perhaps. But I enjoy games." His lips curved slightly. "Let's hear their terms… I'm curious how the roaches speak when they beg."
Riese gave a faint, amused snort. "Who isn't?"
The lizardkin rode slowly, heart pounding with each step his horse took toward the red-and-black banners. The human army didn't shift. No arrows flew. No shouts came. But the pressure in the air was crushing.
Then he saw him—a man mounted atop a dark-coated stallion, flanked by elite troops and a towering giant with the eyes of a wolf.
"That must be the commander," the lizardkin thought, swallowing hard. "The one leading this army… His coat, the way the others step aside... Yes. It's him."
But his eyes drifted to the weapons slung across the soldiers' backs.
"…Sticks?" he blinked. "Wooden poles with iron tips? What sort of army arms its soldiers with sticks? They mock us…"
Yet something in their eyes said otherwise.
Discipline. Focus. A quiet madness.
The lizardkin stopped a respectful distance away, reined in his horse, and raised his hands slightly in peace. He forced a neutral tone.
"I am a messenger," he called out, voice cracking in the cold. "Sent by General Kaelos of Norhadar. May I ask—are you the one who commands this force?"
Hitler's horse stepped forward. His eyes, pale and empty, met the lizard's with unsettling calm.
"And if I am?" he asked, voice low but clear.
The lizardkin hesitated. His throat bobbed.
"I come to negotiate… We don't want blood spilled."
"Continue," Hitler said flatly.
The lizardkin took a slow breath.
"Our general offers safe passage to anyone of your people we also will provide food and water for your journey back. In return, we ask that your forces withdraw from the plains. No further action. Let Norhadar remain untouched. We can avoid war here. Spare both our peoples."
He waited.
Hitler stared at him.
Then, with icy certainty, he answered.
"Denied."
The lizardkin's eyes widened. "Then… what would you accept?"
Hitler didn't blink.
"Send every human you've imprisoned or enslaved out of that city—every last one. Then, and only then, we will leave. Intact. Peacefully."
The lizardkin's face twitched.
"I… I don't think that's possible."
"No other way," Hitler said.
There was silence.
The lizardkin shifted nervously in his saddle. "If I may take that offer back to the general—"
Hitler raised his hand.
"One moment," he said. "I have something for you."
He reached into his coat.
The lizardkin tensed. "A gift…?"
But he never finished the thought.
A crack split the air. A flash. A jerk of the lizard's skull.
The back of his head exploded in a mist of blood and shattered bone. He slumped sideways off his horse and hit the frozen earth with a soft thud.
Hitler holstered his smoking pistol.
He turned to Riese.
"Start the siege."
Smoke curled faintly from a torch nestled beside the lookout post. Atop the eastern wall of Norhadar, a demi-human soldier leaned into his spyglass, furred fingers tightening around the brass handle.
"There… there he is," he muttered. "He's reached them."
Another soldier stepped beside him, a wolf-kin with one eye and a notched halberd across his back. "Well? What are they doing?"
The first didn't respond right away. His brow furrowed.
"They're just standing there… the commander, I think—he's the one in black. Tall. Cold-looking. Must be their general. The lizard's talking to him now."
Seconds passed in silence, then—
The spyglass twitched.
"What happened?" the wolf-kin asked sharply.
"He… just collapsed," the soldier whispered.
"Collapsed?"
"Yeah, just—fell. His head snapped back, and now he's—he's not moving."
"Was he stabbed?"
"I don't know. He just dropped. Gods, I think he's dead."
The wolf-kin swore under his breath.
Then the wind shifted.
A voice echoed across the plain. Not screamed—spoken. Yet it carried like thunder, amplified by some unnatural force. It rumbled through the stones beneath their boots.
"Commence the siege."
The soldiers froze.
The words didn't seem to come from any one man—but from the towering brute that stood beside the enemy commander. A giant clad in black steel, with arms like tree trunks and a face carved in fury.
Then—
BOOM.
A thunderclap rolled across the battlefield.
"What was that?" one soldier shouted.
Another looked to the north wall. "Something exploded! Near the gates!"
Then—
BOOM.
This time, it was closer. So close that dust spilled from the stonework, and several demi-humans flinched back from the ramparts.
"They're firing something—catapults?"
"No. Louder than catapults. What in the gods' names are those?!"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The ground trembled beneath them. Whistles cut through the sky like banshees, and then—
CRACK!
A section of the eastern wall erupted in fire and stone. A cannonball punched straight through it, sending a geyser of blood and masonry into the air. A soldier vanished instantly—no scream, just red mist and shattered limbs.
"GET DOWN!" someone shrieked.
The wall exploded again—this time on the northern flank. The smell of blood and gunpowder filled the air. Mortars began their haunting chorus—whump, whump, whump—followed by arcs of flaming death that soared into the sky and descended like vengeance from the heavens.
A cannonball struck just below a group of archers. The platform they stood on splintered, and they fell screaming into the courtyard below.
"Help him—his leg's gone!"
"I can't—I can't lift him!"
"We need medics! Where are the—AAAGH!"
A mortar shell burst nearby, throwing half a dozen soldiers to the ground like rag dolls. One man crawled forward with his guts dragging behind him, eyes glazed with shock.
Across the wall, chaos spread like fire. Arrows were useless. They hadn't even seen the enemy yet—only the aftermath. They were being slaughtered by thunder.
Another cannonball screamed through the air—ripping through a tower like parchment. It collapsed in a roar of rubble, crushing three officers beneath it.
"They're not even climbing the walls," a hawk-kin lieutenant gasped. "They're just… destroying them."
From the back, a voice roared above the madness.
"RETREAT!"
General Vaskal—commander of Norhadar's garrison—stood atop the central bastion, his armor cracked and stained with falling ash. His voice was hoarse, his tone iron.
"Abandon the walls! Everyone inside the city!"
"Sir, the walls—"
"DO IT!" Vaskal bellowed. "We fight in the streets! We can't stop this from up here!"
Horns blared as the order was passed. Officers screamed for retreat, pulling the wounded off the stone steps. Some soldiers had to be dragged—others didn't move at all.
The last defenders poured down the inner staircases, tripping over blood and broken stones. Mothers ran out of homes, clutching children. Civilians screamed from alleys as shockwaves burst through their windows.
Above it all, the cannons still spoke—louder than prayers, louder than hope.
And the enemy hadn't even shown their faces yet.
Only their will.
The walls trembled again. A glass window somewhere down the street shattered, followed by the dull collapse of timber and stone. Smoke drifted through the alleyways like the breath of death itself.
Two generals ducked into a two-story stone home near the city's center. Both were dust-covered and battle-worn, their armor scratched and smeared with ash.
A woman in her sixties stood motionless in the entryway, gripping a broom as though it might protect her. She looked up with wide, trembling eyes.
"This house will be used as a command post," said the first general, brushing past her. "You will be compensated after the battle."
She tried to speak, but nothing came out. The two men were already moving—boots thudding across her wooden floor, trailing dirt and blood into the sitting room.
The second general, Kaelos—tall, broad, and unmistakably lion-blooded—shut the door behind them. His mane, once regal, was matted with sweat and soot. He dropped his blade against the table with a heavy clang and let out a growl of frustration.
"What in the hells is this?" Kaelos snarled, voice low but dangerous.
The first general, Kyros, leaned against the shaking wall and scanned the rattling shelves. "It's not catapults. That was my first thought, but… this is different. It's too fast. Too precise."
Kaelos bared his fangs slightly. "Magic, maybe?"
Kyros shook his head. "No. If this were elven magic, we'd see arcs of light, bursts of fire and further yet they can't even shoot this many bursts. This is something else entirely. Something mechanical. Repeating."
Before they could say more, a young officer burst in without knocking.
"Sirs! The northern wall—it's gone. Completely collapsed."
Kaelos turned slowly, nostrils flaring. "What?"
"They're not even trying to breach yet—they're just tearing it apart. Stone by stone. It's like… they're playing with us."
Kyros's jaw tightened. "Then we take the game away from them."
Kaelos stepped forward. "How?"
"We abandon the outer walls. Pull everyone back. Set up traps. Hide our forces in homes, shops, under debris. Hit them where they least expect it—then vanish."
Kaelos grunted. "You want to fight them here, in the streets? That means we risk every civilian."
Kyros looked him dead in the eyes. "We're out of options."
A captain entered, removing his helmet and wiping sweat from his brow. "The nobles of House Feinald and House Rhakar refuse to leave the palace. They say the council must remain united."
Kaelos let out a low growl. "Idiots. If they die, our command dies with them."
Before they could argue more, another scout stormed in, panting.
"Generals! The eastern and southern gates—they've been cut off. Cavalry. Fast, well-trained. They're killing anything that tries to escape—soldiers, civilians alike."
Kyros slammed his fist on the table, sending a water jug toppling across the city map.
"They're surrounding us. No escape. No reinforcements. They want to trap us inside like vermin."
Kaelos growled, pacing. "They're cutting the city up like a carcass. This isn't a siege—it's a slaughter."
A low boom rolled through the house. Plaster cracked. The windowpanes buckled inward.
Then silence.
Kyros turned to the room, his voice steeled.
"Spread the word. All troops fall back to the inner quarters. I know for sure we lost a few thousand on the wall so no more open formations—split into kill squads. Street to street. Alley to alley. Turn every house into a bunker."
Kaelos added, "We make this city bleed for every step they take."
Kyros nodded grimly. "We won't survive if we try to hold walls. But if we disappear into the ruins—they won't see us coming."
Kaelos drew his sword and laid it on the table. "Then this is it. Our last ground."
He looked to the officers gathered, dust-covered, silent.
"We hold Norhadar until there's no one left to hold it."
Smoke drifted through the alleys like specters. The thunder of distant artillery still echoed in the north, but now it was blades, rifles, and flesh that ruled the blood-soaked streets.
Schützenbataillon 9 led the push.
Steel boots struck stone with precision. Their heavy armor gleamed with ash and blood. The Seasoned rifle men stood behind the metal giants using them as cover.
Behind them followed waves of regular riflemen and infantry, boots crunching over shattered glass and fallen tiles. The smell of burning cloth and old blood clung to everything.
As they passed, a young soldier from the sword corps nudged his comrade, whispering, "That's Battalion 9…"
The other nodded, awe written across his soot-smeared face. "They don't even flinch…"
Then a deep voice from up ahead barked:
"Kick the doors in."
They did.
One after another, heavy boots slammed into wooden doors, bursting them open. Inside—families. Mothers clutching babies. Fathers raising makeshift weapons. Screams echoed from within as iron swords came down without hesitation.
A woman wailed as her child was yanked from her arms and flung against the wall.
A rifle fired. Then another. Then silence.
Every home became a battlefield.
They advanced with discipline, clearing buildings, room by room, house by house. A soldier lifted a young demi-human girl by her hair—she couldn't have been more than six—before smashing her head into the floor like a melon. Others shot fleeing civilians in the back, stabbing those too slow to die cleanly.
Then came the trap.
A door exploded.
Splinters tore through the hallway as three human soldiers collapsed—shredded by shrapnel and blades.
From the smoke, ten demi-human warriors surged — axes, cleavers, hunting spears. They tore through the first squad like wolves among sheep.
A rifleman screamed as he was thrown against the wall, his chest crushed under a bull-kin's charge. Another had his throat ripped out by a jagged dagger. Blood sprayed across the walls.
"AMBUSH!" someone shouted.
The battle spilled into the street.
More demi-humans burst from cellar doors, sewer grates, and rooftop windows. Arrows flew from above. Blades struck from below.
A soldier named Renhart fired his rifle point blank into a cat-kin's skull, only to be tackled from behind by a wolf-kin youth. He rolled, shouted, "MEDIC!"—but no one came. The boy stabbed him once in the stomach, then again, then again until his screams gurgled into silence.
On the other side of the street, another unit was ambushed in a bakery. The floorboards gave way, and six human infantrymen fell into a pit lined with knives and broken glass. Only one crawled out. A demi-human teen slit his throat with a carving knife before running up the stairs.
Rifle fire raked the rooftops, and an engineer tossed a torch into a nearby home. Flames erupted. Windows shattered from the heat.
"THEY'RE HIDING IN EVERY CORNER!" a captain bellowed.
"CHECK THE CELLARS!"
"WATCH THE RUGS!"
"CLEAR THE ALLEY!"
The battle became chaos. Screams echoed down the alleys. Doors opened and closed like traps. Children stabbed men in the knees. Old women threw hot oil from second floors.
And yet, Battalion 9 kept pushing.
Inside a collapsed merchant hall, a group of humans were pinned behind overturned tables, their rifles empty. A squad leader barked orders. "Reload and sweep right! Use bayonets!"
They advanced, skewering a demi-human spearman hiding behind a curtain.
Another swung a mace—but was shot in the stomach by a rifleman who hadn't even blinked.
Then came the sound.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Not cannon fire. Not mortars. Steps.
A massive figure turned the corner — hammer in hand.
Riese.
The giant of the mountains.
He wore no helmet, only leather straps across his chest and a black coat torn by battle. His eyes were calm. Calculating. And when he moved, men and beasts alike scattered.
A lion-kin came at him with a greatsword.
One swing of Riese's hammer crushed the beast's entire torso into paste.
A second came from behind. Riese grabbed the demi-human by the arm and used him as a flail, smashing him into a wall with bone-cracking force.
Everywhere Riese went, walls cracked and blood painted the stones.
The enemy faltered.
More humans poured in. Riflemen filled the alleys. The ambushes became less frequent — the defenders, fewer.
And still, the battle will be raged for two days and night.
Inside a tailor's shop, five humans were cornered. A demi-human boy lunged from the ceiling, stabbing a soldier in the neck before being shot mid-air. Another soldier fell to a thrown cleaver. A third stepped over them and fired his rifle into a group of panicking civilians.
"Clear!" someone shouted.
Then came the palace.
After a night and day of fighting.
Battalion 9 reached it first — black flags waving behind them. The iron gates were blasted open, and a final resistance line broke under gunfire and steel.
Inside, maids and guards fled.
"Kill everyone!" a sergeant barked.
Blood hit the marble walls.
Human slaves were found in cages — starved, scarred, silent. Soldiers opened the locks and helped them stand. Some wept. Some collapsed in the soldiers' arms. Others looked around, dazed, unsure if this was just another hallucination.
Then the throne room.
Ten nobles stood there—draped in silk, wide-eyed in horror. One tried to run.
A rifle shot shattered his ankle.
"Don't kill them," the commander said coldly. "The Führer wants them alive."
So they were dragged.
Dragged down the palace steps like sacks of meat. Hair pulled. Robes torn. Faces bloodied.
All across Norhadar, fires burned.
Victory was won — but not without cost.
Not without pain. Not without blood.
Not without hatred.
The fires raged for days.
Ash drifted across the rooftops like a black snowfall. Smoke rose into the heavens, blotting out the sun as if the gods themselves had turned away in silence. The once-proud city of Norhadar — fifth largest in Larrak — now lay broken. Its walls crumbled. Its towers shattered. Its streets soaked with blood.
Bodies littered every district. Civilians, soldiers, rebels, and loyalists — dead where they had stood. Some homes still smoldered, others were reduced to husks of stone. And beneath the ruin… life began again.
From cellars, slave pens, basements, and underground prisons, over one hundred thousand humans emerged.
Some cried in disbelief.
Others collapsed in grief.
Many didn't speak at all.
They had forgotten what sunlight felt like.
Human soldiers, filthy and bloodied, helped them to their feet, gave them water, tore open ration crates, and called for medics. Some of the rescued had shackles still on their wrists. Others had brands on their backs. And yet—they were alive.
But victory came at a price.
six thousand human soldiers would never see the next dawn. Their bodies were lined up along the main avenue, each covered with a tarp or cloak. The youngest was fifteen. The oldest, nearly sixty. Many died clearing homes. Others perished in ambushes or shielded children from fire. Their comrades moved among them in silence, lighting candles and marking the names that could still be recognized.
And the enemy?
Both General Kaelos and General Kyros were confirmed dead. One crushed beneath falling stone. The other gunned down while leading a countercharge. The nobles of Norhadar had been captured — bruised, broken, and shackled for judgment.
The demi-human army, twenty thousand strong, was obliterated.
The final tally was staggering. Against all odds — against fortified walls, urban traps, and vastly superior numbers — the humans had won.
But it wasn't their rifles that had sealed the victory.
Nor the cannons.
Nor even the terrifying strength of their giants or discipline of Battalion 9.
It was something else.
A soldier said it best:
"We didn't win 'cause we had better weapons. We won 'cause we knew we'd win."
It was confidence — cold, unwavering, and fed by months of fire, loss, and steel. They had stared into the face of death and marched anyway.
And now, the world would remember it.
The Battle of Norhadar would go down in history. Not merely as a siege, not even as a turning point — but as a declaration. A signal to every noble, every slaver, every master of chains in Larrak:
Humanity has returned — not to beg, but to conquer.
From the rubble of one city, a new order would rise.
And the smoke would carry the message to the sky.