The seal cracked like bone. Phase Three.
Kael stood beneath the wind-beaten banners of the Warden's Fortress, his cloak stiff with frost. The message was brief, scrawled in tight script and sealed with the glyph of command. Gale High Command had approved the next stage. No survivors. No delays. That left no room for mercy, and Kael had none left to give. He turned from the signal tower without a word and descended into the war chambers where the map still burned with inked roads and pinned markers.
At dusk, two Stormguard legions moved out—Third and Ninth, the oldest formations under Wen Tu's command. They were trenchmen, siege-breakers, mages trained to twist earth and air. They moved without banners or drums, just the low hum of breathwork pulsing through the frost. War mages carried rods of copperwood and sun-glass. By the fourth night, Haiyuan was encircled. The siege took form—not by fire, not yet—but by breath-bound sigils etched into the ground, each one anchored to suppress lightning and grind spirit arts into static.
Wen Tu walked the lines barefoot, cloak dragging across half-frozen trenches. He tapped a rune-stone into place with his staff and muttered a breath charm in the tongue of skyfolk. Ice coiled around the edges of the glyph, anchoring it to the wardline. Above him, hawks circled the city, riders strapped beneath their wings. No arrows came from the ramparts. The Zhong inside were watching, but they didn't know what they were looking at.
Langyuan. Dazhou. Guxin. Three cities still held for the Zhong. Kael had been preparing this step for months. Sleeper agents. Poison scripters. Dream-crafters. They were not soldiers. They were stormblades of the Qorjin-Ke, trained in the Ferrum Noctis—an unspoken arm of the Gale that even commanders feared to mention aloud.
In Langyuan, the governor died in his sleep, skin swollen black, lips cracked open from internal heat. Truth-wasp venom, delivered through a folded letter sealed with perfume. His guards found the body cold, locked from the inside. In Dazhou, lightning wards collapsed in silence. A null-field detonated from inside the guard compound, and five minutes later, every gate opened. The city militia formed lines in confusion. The Stormguard walked through them like floodwater. Guxin's fall was messier. Kael sent only one operative. The seal-forge ignited with dream-leech powder. Elders breathed it in. And in their panic, they confessed imagined crimes. Accusations turned to violence. By morning, the city council had butchered itself.
Over the span of ten nights, the gates of all three cities opened. Ryoku rode in with three legions. He didn't pause to ask how. The mission was clear. One legion per city. Suppression. Total control.
In Langyuan, the Stormguard cracked the militia line in a single push. One formation, one breath. The militia captain begged for terms. The response was a clean thrust under the ribs. They burned the city archive and left the corpses on the library steps. Dazhou resisted harder. Archers and street-fighters tried to hold rooftops. Oil bombs fell like rain. The Stormguard burned the market clean, collapsed three districts with breath-triggered sigil bombs, and left behind only cinders. Guxin died desperate. The last Zhong prince held the high citadel with six hundred veterans. They held for twelve hours. Then siege tuskers from the cliff tribes rammed through the main gate. The prince offered parley. Ryoku answered with a spear through the envoy's heart.
When it was done, Lord Qui arrived. Prime Minister of the Free Cities League. Not a warrior. But he brought twelve thousand officials, lawmen, tax-scribes, logistics teams—and five thousand League soldiers to secure and defend the cities. While the Stormguard moved on, Lord Qui stayed to clean the ruins. In Langyuan, he executed every remaining officer and put a League tax governor in place. In Dazhou, he demolished the temple and built a war tribunal. In Guxin, he hung the last loyalists from irrigation scaffolds, then rebuilt the aqueducts. He raised no flags. He gave no speeches. The League returned by blade and ledger.
Three legions peeled off and marched east to Haiyuan. The siege ring thickened. Five legions now surrounded the city. Trenches ran like scars across the landscape. No one left. No one entered. The Zhong defenders inside Haiyuan watched the horizon and realized too late they were already buried.
Kael stood on the highest ridge above the southern trenchline. Beside him, Ryoku spit into the dirt, reading a casualty report. Wen Tu twirled his war staff idly, mouth crooked in an amused grin.
"We press now, they break," Ryoku said, pointing toward the city. "They're starving."
Kael didn't answer. His eyes tracked the ridgelines. The fifth seal hadn't yet been broken. He felt it in the air, like pressure before thunder.
Wen Tu shrugged. "Storms to the west, rot to the east, trenches in between. Smells like stew."
Kael said nothing. He turned and walked.
At dawn, the signal came. A hawk landed on the central command post, talons digging into the war table. Its scroll bore the final seal: cracked in red.
Altan moved.
He came through the frost trails of the northern mountains with no banners and no words. The Sturmwulf Clans walked with him, highland warriors of the cliffholds. Their formation was rigid, built on ritual, discipline, and old codes. No howls. No chants. They moved with practiced coordination, weapons strapped in tight binds across their backs. Their breathwork was short and brutal, meant for endurance and shock. They were commanded by Bruga, a former clansword and student of Altan, now sworn Warden under the Gale.
Behind them came the Virak'tai. Dark elves, soul-marked and silent. Their faces were masked. Their weapons lacquered to reduce glare. Each unit moved light, formation tight. They did not speak. They didn't need to. They were led by Nyzekh, another of Altan's students, once a ghost-ranger from the shadow marches. Now Warden of the Void, his orders absolute.
Altan gave no commands. He simply led.
He wore unadorned Stormguard armor. No helm. His long black hair was tied back like a steppe warlord. A short sword hung at his hip. He rode a black horse, its hooves and lower legs marked in vivid red, like fire painted into flesh.
Flanking him were twenty Stormguard escorts, silent and disciplined. At his side rode Stormwake, his war coordinator and silent hand, commander of the Qorjin-ke elite scouts who followed close behind, eyes sharp, formation tighter than any regular legion.
The last city would fall soon. Not from fire or speeches. But from the slow pressure of men who didn't care if they lived through it, as long as the gates broke first.