Deep within the vast, snow-choked wilderness of Russian Siberia, news from the civilized world arrived like a message from another planet. A Qing courier, one of a secret chain of runners established to maintain contact with Meng Tian's deep-strike force, finally reached their hidden forward camp. He was half-frozen and exhausted, but he carried a precious, waterproofed satchel containing the latest official court circulars from Beijing.
Meng Tian and his officers gathered in the relative warmth of a small, cleverly disguised shelter dug into the side of a snowdrift. By the flickering light of a tallow lamp, Major Han read the dispatches aloud. Most of it was dry, bureaucratic news of appointments and edicts, but then he came to the report from the south.
His voice was filled with disbelief. "It says here… sir, it says the entire Shanghai telegraph hub, after a complete and catastrophic failure, repaired itself in a matter of hours. The engineers are calling it an 'inauspicious omen' for the Empire's enemies. A miracle."
The other officers murmured in astonishment. Sergeant Lin, who was sharpening his knife by the fire, let out a short, cynical scoff. "A miracle? Or a lie to scare the Russians. The old men in the capital love their ghost stories. It's cheaper than paying soldiers."
The men chuckled, but Meng Tian did not. As he read the official report for himself, a profound, bone-deep chill that had nothing to do with the Siberian wind washed over him. The others saw propaganda, a lie, an impossibility. He knew, with a sudden, terrible clarity that resonated in the deepest parts of his soul, that he was reading the truth.
It was not a miracle in the way they understood it. It was an act of will.
He thought of his own strange power, the Battle Sense. He thought of the way he could 'feel' the flow of a battle, the way he had sensed the weakness in the ice of the frozen lake. It was like having an extra sense, an intuition that operated on a plane beyond normal human perception. Now, he tried to imagine that same power, that same sense, amplified a thousand, a million times. He tried to imagine it focused not on the chaos of a naval battle, but on the delicate, intricate mechanics of a machine. He tried to imagine a will so powerful, a perception so vast, that it could reach out across hundreds of miles and not just see the problem, but impose its own order upon it.
He could almost conceive of it. And in that moment of terrifying empathy, he understood. The Emperor hadn't just ordered a repair. He was the repair.
The revelation struck him with the force of a physical blow. It changed everything. His primary concern, the secret that had weighed upon him day and night, had been the need to hide his own strange, burgeoning gift from a paranoid Emperor. He now understood that the Emperor's paranoia was not a personality flaw; it was a rational response born from the reality of his own immense, world-altering secret. The Emperor was not just a man with a gift; he was a being of a different order entirely.
His own power, the Battle Sense that had felt so unique and momentous, now seemed like a child's parlor trick in comparison. His ability was a stream. The Emperor's was a raging ocean.
He felt more profoundly and terribly isolated than ever before. He was a man with a secret, serving a man with a far greater one. And he was now aware of two people in the world whose existence defied the known laws of nature: his Emperor, a being of near-divine power, and himself, a general with a strange and growing strategic intuition. The "honorable deception" he had perpetrated at court, the carefully constructed lies about his victory at the Klyuchi Pass bridge, now seemed laughably insignificant, a child's fib told in the court of a god who could likely see the truth in the very beating of his heart.
But this new, terrifying knowledge did not make him more fearful. It made him more resolute.
He looked around the small, cramped shelter at the faces of his men. He saw Major Han, his face alight with intellectual curiosity about the "miracle." He saw Sergeant Lin, his expression one of deep, abiding cynicism. He saw the other young officers, their trust in him absolute. These men had followed him into this frozen hell based on his word alone. Their lives were in his hands.
He looked down at the map spread on the makeshift table, at the elegant, dagger-like thrusts of his secret battle plan. He understood now, with a new and chilling clarity, the true stakes of his mission. The Emperor, in his god-like power and isolation, saw this war as a grand game on a continental map, a matter of his own irresistible will. He saw casualty projections not as dead soldiers, but as acceptable numerical losses. He saw his armies as extensions of his own power, pieces to be moved and sacrificed as needed.
He, Meng Tian, was perhaps the only person in a position of power who saw the truth. He saw the faces of the men who would have to die for the Emperor's grand vision. He felt the weight of each individual life.
His secret plan was no longer just a matter of sound strategy versus a flawed one. It was no longer just a way to save lives and win a war more efficiently. It had become a moral imperative. It was a rebellion, not against the throne, but against the cold, inhuman calculus of a god. He was the only thing standing between the soldiers of the Great Qing Empire and the casual, world-altering whims of the very man they all served.
This new burden was heavier than any he had ever carried. He was not just fighting the Russians. He was not just deceiving his Emperor. He was now actively working to protect the men of the Empire from the very nature of their ruler. His secret war had just gained a new, far more profound, and far more dangerous purpose.
He folded the dispatch and tucked it away. "It is a story for the court," he said to his men, his voice calm and reassuring, a carefully constructed mask of command. "We have our own work to do."
He turned back to his own map, his eyes tracing the path to their next target. He now bore the weight of two great secrets, a burden that would force him to become a master of deception in the name of honor, a traitor in the name of loyalty. And he would bear it alone.