The edge of the world was a place of biting wind and profound, desolate silence. The staging post for Operation White Fox—the new, secret designation for Meng Tian's mission—was a collection of heavily insulated yurts hidden in a fold of the mountains in northernmost Manchuria. Here, the very air was an enemy, a razor-sharp cold that stole the breath and turned exposed skin a waxy, dead white in minutes.
Meng Tian and his hand-picked company of one hundred elite marines had spent three days here, acclimatizing and making their final preparations. The mood was not one of pre-battle excitement; it was a tense, focused, professional calm. These were veterans, not recruits. They understood the nature of the beast they were about to face. They checked their equipment with meticulous care: new, experimental smokeless rifles whose actions had been specially lubricated to prevent freezing, compact explosives wrapped in oilcloth, climbing gear, and white, multi-layered camouflage that made them ghosts against the snow.
Meng Tian walked through the camp, observing his men. He felt a fierce, paternal pride. These were his soldiers, men who had followed him across the sea to Japan and through the jungles of Sumatra. Now, he was about to lead them into a frozen hell. He found Sergeant Lin, his new, cynical advisor, showing a group of younger marines how to properly wrap their boots with strips of oiled leather over their wool socks.
"The cold is the first enemy, General," Lin said without looking up, his voice a gravelly rumble. "It is a patient assassin. It will kill you silently in your sleep if you give it the smallest invitation. Forget the Russians. If your feet are not dry, you are already dead." His practical, grim wisdom was already proving more valuable than any tactical manual. He was the anchor of pragmatism that kept the mission grounded in the harsh reality of their environment.
The order to move out came on the third night, under the cover of a blinding blizzard that reduced visibility to less than ten feet. To a conventional army, such weather was a signal to halt. To Meng Tian's elite unit, it was the perfect cloak. They crossed the unmarked border into Russian Siberia, single file, each man stepping in the footprints of the man before him, phantoms swallowed by the raging snow.
The journey was arduous, a brutal test of endurance. They moved through dense, snow-choked pine forests, the silence broken only by the howling of the wind and the crunch of their own footsteps. They navigated by compass and by the stars when the storm briefly abated, avoiding the known routes of the Russian border patrols. Sergeant Lin was invaluable, his instincts for the terrain honed by his own desperate escape years ago. He taught them how to read the snow, how to find shelter, how to move without leaving a trail.
After two days of punishing travel, they arrived at the edge of their first major obstacle: a vast, frozen lake that stretched for miles to the horizon, a single, unbroken sheet of white under a pale, unforgiving sky. According to their maps—and Meng Tian's own secret, intuitive knowledge—crossing the lake directly would save them two full days of travel through treacherous, hilly terrain. It was a calculated risk, but a necessary one to maintain their tight schedule.
The scouts, two wiry marines with years of experience, went out first. They cautiously tested the ice near the shore, chipping at it with their bayonets. They returned with their report. "Sir, the ice is solid. At least two feet thick here at the edge. It should hold our weight easily."
The logic was sound. The temperature had not risen above freezing in weeks. The lake should have been a solid highway of ice. Major Han nodded in agreement. "We should proceed, sir. The men are strong, but two extra days in this cold will take its toll."
Meng Tian stood at the edge of the great lake, staring out at its flat, white emptiness. Everything in his training and experience told him to trust his scouts, to take the logical path. But as he looked out at the ice, his Battle Sense, the strange power that was both his gift and his curse, flared to life.
It came not as a vision, but as a sudden, jarring premonition of absolute disaster. It was a cold dread that had nothing to do with the temperature, a visceral feeling of wrongness. He "sensed" the lake not as a static object, but as a living, deceptive system. In his mind's eye, he saw the solid sheet of ice for what it was: a thin, brittle crust. And beneath it, he could feel a powerful, unseen force—a deep, warm underwater current flowing from a subterranean spring, a current that kept the ice in the center of the lake rotten, weak, and perilously thin. It was an invisible trap, a grave waiting to swallow his entire company without a sound, without a trace.
"Halt!" His voice was a sharp, explosive command that cut through the wind. "Do not step on the ice! Turn back! All of you!"
His men, who had been preparing to move out, froze in their tracks. They looked from the solid-seeming ice to their commander, their faces etched with confusion. This was an order that defied all reason.
Major Han and Sergeant Lin rushed to his side. "Sir, what is it?" Han asked, bewildered. "Our scouts tested the edge. It's solid."
"I've walked on ice like this my whole life, General," Sergeant Lin added, his own brow furrowed. "It's safe."
Meng Tian was on the spot. He was trapped between his inexplicable certainty and his men's rational disbelief. He could not explain the source of his knowledge. He could not tell them he had seen the lake's treacherous heart with a sense no other man possessed. To do so would be to declare himself a madman or a sorcerer. All he had was his authority, and their trust.
He looked away from the ice and met the eyes of his men, first Major Han, then the cynical, steady gaze of Sergeant Lin.
"Sometimes a veteran knows the terrain, Sergeant," Meng Tian said, his voice low but firm, imbued with an absolute, unwavering conviction. "And sometimes, a commander just… knows. I cannot explain it. I cannot prove it. But I am telling you, there is death under that ice. I will not sacrifice my men on a feeling, but I will not risk their lives against one, either."
He locked eyes with Lin. "The Emperor has entrusted me with the lives of every man here. That trust is my highest duty. We go around."
He did not wait for their agreement. He turned his back on the lake, on the tantalizing shortcut, and began to walk the long, difficult path along the shoreline.
For a long, tense moment, his company hesitated. They exchanged confused, uncertain glances. This was a strange, illogical command from a man they respected as a peerless strategist.
Then, Sergeant Lin, the ultimate pragmat-ist, the man who believed only in what he could see and touch, made a decision. He had looked into his general's eyes and seen not madness, but a terrifying certainty. He trusted the man more than he trusted the ice.
"You heard the General!" he barked at the other men. "He's the one who has to answer to the Son of Heaven if we all end up as frozen statues at the bottom of a lake! Move out! The long way!"
His gruff command broke the spell. One by one, then as a whole, the company turned. They fell into line behind their commander, their faith in him overriding their own senses.
Meng Tian led them on the long, arduous detour, his heart heavy with the weight of his secret. He had successfully saved his men from a disaster no one else could have foreseen. But in doing so, he had been forced to expose a sliver of his inexplicable nature to his most trusted followers. They did not understand what they had seen, but they had seen it. The secret of his power was no longer entirely his own. And as he trudged through the deepening snow, he wondered how many more times he could command such blind faith before it curdled into suspicion.