The Northern Campaign Strategy Room felt like the quiet heart of a gathering storm. Meng Tian and his young chief of staff, Major Han, had labored in secret for days, fueled by a shared, dangerous purpose. The result of their clandestine work was spread across the great table: a new battle plan, a document that was both a work of strategic genius and an act of profound heresy.
They had built a fortress of logic around a core of supernatural insight. The plan was now a flawless document, hundreds of pages thick, filled with meticulous logistical data, painstakingly rendered topographical analyses, and a web of cross-referenced, and entirely fabricated, "intelligence reports" from anonymous sources that perfectly justified every unorthodox move. They had not just created a plan; they had created an entire, plausible reality to support it.
"It is ready, sir," Major Han said, his voice a low whisper, though they were entirely alone. His eyes shone with the zeal of a convert. He was in awe of his commander's mind, of the brilliant, revolutionary strategy they had created together.
"Then it is time," Meng Tian replied, his own voice steady, betraying none of the cold dread that resided in his heart. He was about to take the greatest gamble of his life.
He requested a private audience with the Emperor, using the formal pretext of presenting "supplementary strategic options" for the Northern Campaign. The request was a risk in itself. It could be seen as a challenge to the Emperor's already-stated vision. But Qin Shi Huang, his mind already churning with suspicion about his two most powerful subordinates, was intrigued. Meng Tian's turbulent energy, the sense that he was hiding something, made the Emperor curious. The audience was granted.
Meng Tian and Major Han stood before the Emperor in the strategy room. The colossal map of Siberia loomed behind them like a silent, indifferent god of war. Qin Shi Huang sat on his raised chair, a lone figure of absolute power, his eyes holding a reptilian stillness.
"You have requested this audience to present 'options,' Chief Strategist," the Emperor began, his voice dangerously neutral. "I have already given you my objective. I hope you have not wasted your time on frivolous alternatives."
"Never, Your Majesty," Meng Tian said, bowing deeply. With Han's assistance, he began to lay out the new plan. He did not present it as a replacement, but as a "Phase One," a preparatory series of strikes designed to "soften" the enemy before the main invasion. It was a lie, but a necessary one.
He spoke with a passion and conviction he had not felt since the days before the Battle of the Sunda Strait. He argued for the surgical strikes, for the preservation of the lives of the Emperor's soldiers, for a more elegant and decisive form of warfare that would cripple the enemy's ability to fight before the first Imperial Dragon ever crossed the border. He was not just presenting a strategy; he was pleading for a more enlightened path to victory.
As Meng Tian spoke, his voice filling the cavernous room, Qin Shi Huang did what he now did with all his high ministers. He activated his Dragon's Spark. He focused his unique, perceptive power entirely on his general, searching for the scent of deceit, for the telltale physiological signs of a lie—the racing heart, the tensing muscles, the chaotic neural firing of a mind under stress.
But he found none of it.
Meng Tian was not lying. In his heart, in his soul, he believed with every fiber of his being in the absolute superiority of this new plan. He believed it would save the Empire from a catastrophic loss of life. He believed it was the only true path to victory. His physiological signature was not one of deception; it was a clear, brilliant, unwavering beacon of pure, unshakeable conviction. QSH could sense no falsehood because Meng Tian was speaking his own profound truth. The general truly believed this was the best way to serve his Emperor.
Simultaneously, Meng Tian's own latent power was humming within him. In the intense, high-stakes pressure of the Emperor's presence, his Battle Sense was subtly active. It was not a vision. It was a feeling, a low-level hum of intuition. He could not read the Emperor's mind, but he could feel the shifts in the energy of the room. He could sense the invisible waves of the Emperor's probing power washing over him, a strange, tingling pressure. An ordinary man would have panicked, his body betraying him with a spike of fear.
But Meng Tian did not panic. He felt the Emperor's supernatural scrutiny, and instead of shrinking from it, he leaned into his own conviction. He focused on his belief in the plan, on his certainty of its righteousness, and his own energy signature, his own sense of self, seemed to burn brighter, clearer, pushing back against the oppressive weight of the Emperor's power. He was using his sense not to see the future of a battle, but to navigate the treacherous, invisible currents of the Emperor's mood in the present.
Qin Shi Huang was left in a state of profound and deeply unsettling confusion. The plan that was being laid out before him was brilliant. It was audacious. It was also an act of near-insubordination, a direct contradiction of his own grand vision for a war of overwhelming force.
Yet, the man presenting it radiated an aura of such absolute conviction, such pure belief, that he could not be lying about his faith in its success. The Emperor was faced with two possibilities, and both of them were deeply disturbing. The first was that Admiral Meng Tian was a strategic genius on a level that rivaled, and perhaps even surpassed, his own ancient wisdom. The second, more sinister possibility, was that his general's uncanny insights were not coming from mere intellect, but from another, unknown source of power.
The Emperor was trapped by his own general's brilliance. He could not approve the plan without admitting his own initial vision was flawed, a sign of weakness he could not afford to show his court. Yet he could not dismiss it out of hand without ignoring a strategy that his own instincts—both natural and supernatural—told him was superior.
He let the silence hang in the room for a long, heavy moment after Meng Tian had finished. Finally, he spoke, his voice a cold, unreadable monotone that betrayed none of his inner turmoil.
"Your proposal is… unorthodox, Chief Strategist." He rose and walked toward the great map, his back to Meng Tian. "And your confidence in these 'anonymous intelligence reports' that form the bedrock of your assumptions is… remarkable."
He did not approve the plan. But he did not deny it either.
"Leave the documents with me," he said, his hand tracing the thin red line of the Trans-Siberian Railway. "I will consider your 'supplementary options.'"
It was a dismissal. Meng Tian and Major Han bowed low, gathered their other papers, and backed out of the room, leaving the secret battle plan lying on the table before the Emperor.
They walked through the silent corridors of the palace, their hearts pounding. Meng Tian had survived the presentation. His secret was, for the moment, intact. But he had no idea what would happen next. He did not know if he had just won the war on paper, or if he had simply signed his own death warrant by revealing the true, unsettling depth of his genius to a suspicious and paranoid god.