The forest was a silent, monochrome world of black pine and white snow. Hundreds of miles behind Russian lines, deep in the vast, unforgiving wilderness of Siberia, Meng Tian's White Fox commandos were taking a well-earned rest. Their raid had been a textbook example of a perfect surgical strike. A stunning success.
They had descended like ghosts upon the lightly guarded railway switching yard east of Chita. The Russian reservists, old men and green boys who had believed they were a thousand miles from any danger, had been overwhelmed in moments. The Emperor's new steel had been terrifyingly effective. The sabers had sliced through rifle barrels and thick wool coats with equal, silent ease. The fighting had been swift, brutal, and decisive. Explosive charges had been placed with practiced precision on the main railway bridges and switching junctions. The White Foxes had then melted back into the endless forest, leaving behind a scene of chaos and ruin. The sound of the massive explosions, echoing through the Siberian night, had been the signal of their victory. They had severed the artery of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The entire Russian army in the Far East was now logistically paralyzed.
But the victory had a cost. Meng Tian knelt beside a shallow, frozen grave, the final resting place of one of his men. A stray bullet from a dying Russian officer. He had lost three men in the raid. Three good men. The after-action report he would eventually file would be another lie, another story of a "flawless, bloodless victory" to appease the Emperor's demand for perfection. The weight of his deceptions was beginning to feel heavier than his armor.
"Sir," Major Han said quietly, approaching with a map. "The men are rested. We should move. The Russians will be hunting us with everything they have by now."
Meng Tian nodded, pushing the grief down. He rose and spread the map on a snow-dusted fallen log. As he bent over it, tracing their planned escape route back toward Manchuria, the northern echo of Dr. Chen's experiment struck him.
It was not the piercing, psychic agony that had leveled the Emperor. Meng Tian's power was different. It was a passive, intuitive "Battle Sense," a constant, low-level stream of strategic data. When the resonance wave hit him, it was like that stream had suddenly become a tidal wave.
His mind was violently, instantly flooded. A million phantom battlefield scenarios, alien and incomprehensible, slammed into his consciousness. He saw visions of men fighting in deep, muddy trenches under a sky filled with strange, winged machines. He saw flashes of immense, silent naval battles fought by gray metal ships that moved without sails. He saw explosions that blossomed like malevolent suns. It was a chaotic, overwhelming torrent of pure, strategic data from a future he could not comprehend.
He cried out, a sharp, choked sound, and collapsed to his knees in the snow, his hands clutching his head as if to stop his skull from splitting open. A warm, wet trickle of blood suddenly burst from his nose, a stark, crimson splash against the pure white of the snow.
"Sir!" Major Han yelled, rushing to his side, his face etched with alarm. "Commander, what is it?"
But another figure emerged from the trees, his movements silent, his face a mask of cold, calculating observation. It was Colonel Jiao, the political commissar.
Jiao had used his authority to attach himself to the unit at the last minute, under the guise of "observing the Chief Strategist's elite forces in action." His true purpose, Meng Tian knew, was to spy. To watch. He had been a silent, judging presence throughout the raid. Now, he stood over his collapsing commander, and his cold, watchful eyes saw everything. He saw Meng Tian fall for no apparent reason. He saw the sudden, inexplicable nosebleed. And his mind, a machine for detecting dissent and disloyalty, made a profound and shocking connection.
He had heard the court whispers. He knew the stories about the Emperor's "exertions," how the Son of Heaven would sometimes bleed after performing one of his miracles. And here, in the middle of the Siberian wilderness, the honorable, perfect General Meng Tian was exhibiting the exact same divine affliction.
Jiao's eyes widened, just for a fraction of a second, with a stunning, profound realization. The great Meng Tian, the loyal sword of the Empire, the man held up as a paragon of martial virtue, was not what he seemed. He shared the Emperor's secret.
Meng Tian struggled to his feet, the psychic storm receding, leaving him dizzy, disoriented, and deeply shaken. He wiped the blood from his face and saw the look in Colonel Jiao's eyes. In that single, frozen moment, he knew. His deepest, most dangerous secret—the very nature of his strategic genius—was now exposed to the one man in the world he could not trust.
"Fatigue from the battle," Major Han said quickly, trying to create a cover story. "The Commander has not slept in three days. The strain…"
His words trailed off. The lie was flimsy, pathetic, and all three men knew it.
Colonel Jiao's face returned to its usual impassive mask. He said nothing. He simply gave a slow, deliberate nod, an infinitesimal gesture that was pregnant with a thousand unspoken threats. The knowledge was now his, a weapon to be stored away and used at the most opportune moment.
As if Meng Tian's crisis were not complete, a scout, one of the White Foxes, burst into the clearing, his breath coming in ragged, steaming clouds.
"Commander!" he gasped. "Cossacks! Thousands of them! They are sweeping the forests in a search grid. They have found our tracks. They have cut off the southern pass. Our escape route is gone."
The news fell like a hammer blow. Their "flawless" victory had just turned into a death trap. They were two hundred men, deep in enemy territory, with a wounded commander, being hunted by an entire army.
Meng Tian stood frozen in the silent, snow-filled forest. He was now fighting a desperate war on three fronts. In front of him was the entire Russian cavalry, closing in for the kill. Behind him was the Emperor, a master to whom he was bound by a web of lies that was about to unravel. And now, walking beside him, watching his every move with cold, knowing eyes, was the Emperor's personal spy, a man who held the key to his greatest secret and his ultimate destruction. Meng Tian looked from the worried faces of his men to the unreadable mask of Colonel Jiao, and he understood. His honorable deception, his desperate attempt to win a war while saving his soldiers, was about to end here, in the cold, brutal wilderness of Siberia, in the most bloody way possible.