The seal cracked in the fire just after dawn. No delay, no hesitation. Orders were given, and the Gale moved. The Warden of the Recruits read the message once, dropped it into the brazier, and turned away without a word. Phase Three was active. No survivors. The command spread through the keep like smoke. Within an hour, the old legions were ready, men who had once been put into the vaults with honors and false promises of peace, now summoned again by cold necessity. They came with rust-edged swords, battered armor repaired a hundred times over, and eyes that had seen the world end and start again.
Alongside them marched three hundred chosen: Qorjin-Ke scouts who trained in the tunnels beneath Ferrum Noctis, Stormblades who moved like splinters of broken steel, and the Whispershell Sect, flesh-bonded freaks who fed on venom and whispered to insects with tongues scarred by ritual. Their armor smelled of bone and rotted resin, soft but layered with living chitin. No one asked what they carried in the sacks across their backs. No one wanted to know.
Seven days later they reached the Wardenate of the South. The Warden of the South stood at the gates. He didn't argue. He knew what Phase Three meant. He stepped aside. Command shifted. The border was no longer under garrison control, it was war doctrine now.
The new commander said nothing. He didn't need to. Instead, he gave one order: release the Whispershell. The scouts scattered before nightfall, moving with surgical precision through the sands. They had names for every oasis, every groundwater vein, every forgotten spring. These places were mapped, tagged, and treated. The tonic they poured wasn't poison, it was something older, designed by the Stormguard's mages and perfected by Altan himself. Clear as glass, tasteless, invisible to magic. It didn't kill. It unspooled. Mixed into the vials was a scentless compound, undetectable to the men who drank it, but coded to the instincts of desert insects. It marked them as untouchable. As part of the hive. As not prey.
It took a week to reach every waterhole. The desert shifted under their movement, soft dunes hiding sealed flasks and carapace-wrapped vials. Every site they touched became a trap with no visible edge.
Three days later, the Southern Kingdoms moved. One legion of Chainmasters, each bound to an ancestral bloodline, each wielding glyphfire whips and command seals etched in obsidian. Four legions of Zhatiruun slave-warriors marched with them, every man sealed with a glyph-brand, tethered to a master by the old rites. They moved like clockwork, armor black and gold, weapons heavy and standardized. They looked invincible from a distance.
They drank from the springs.
For seven days they crossed the dunes. By the second ridge, the effects began. Zhatiruun lines started to drift. Formations wavered. Marching became sluggish. Discipline broke not with screaming or panic, but with confusion. A lieutenant reported hesitation in his ranks. Another whispered that his men began to murmur names, names they should not have remembered. By the third night, one warband simply stopped. They stared at the sky like it held answers.
The glyph chains had started to rot. What no mage could detect was the unraveling of obedience, tiny fractures in the spirit-forged bond that kept the slaves docile. Not sickness. Not sorcery. Just something forgotten waking up.
When they reached the southern border wall, they found a citadel. It wasn't old. It had been built three months ago, raised in silence by war mages and engineers. It had no banners, no towers of pride, no murals carved for kings. It was stone and iron, put together like a weapon. Its purpose was simple: hold.
The Shah's generals ordered siege preparations. Chainmasters began their rituals. The Kavazir drilled formations. But the Zhatiruun were different now. Some kept formation. Some stared blankly. Others twitched or gripped their weapons like they didn't know what they were for anymore.
That night, the Whispershell Sect struck. Not against the slaves. Against the minds that controlled them. Scouts dug beneath the sand. Scarabs slipped into breathing tents. Flesh-burrowers crawled into mouths and eyes. Fire-cicadas burst into light inside command wagons. Soldier ants swarmed the camps and climbed the sleeping men, biting through cloth and skin until they tore muscle from bone. Scorpions skittered under blankets and stung throats and spines. Spiders laid eggs in nostrils and open wounds. The deaths were quiet but brutal. No alarms. No resistance. Just men torn apart from within.
By morning, most Chainmasters were dead. Some tried to escape. They didn't make it far. Those who lived had no one to control. The glyphs on their arms flared, cracked, and went dark. The Zhatiruun stood in place. Some still obeyed out of habit. Others began walking without orders. A few simply sat down. One threw his spear into the sand and walked away.
From the southern wall, no counterattack came. The Stormguard simply watched, weapons readied, formations sealed behind heavy iron and shielded bulwarks. They did not speak. They did not move. There was nothing left to fight.
The south had marched in as a blade. It now stood as pieces. No cohesion. No command. Just fragments waiting to be swept away.
At dawn, the camp devolved. The dead Chainmasters rotted in their silk tents. Some Zhatiruun screamed without restraint, clutching at their skulls as if trying to tear something out. Others killed each other. Confusion and fear boiled into blood. The sand turned black with fluids. Soldier ants came again, tearing apart corpses. All that remained were bones, armor, and the stink of burned flesh.
But not all broke. About half survived the collapse of command. These were the ones who had something left inside, scraps of will, identity, fury. The ones who remembered what it meant to choose.
That was when he arrived.
A Stormguard stepped through the lines, armor dulled from travel, cloak torn, carrying only a spear and a gaze that didn't blink. He passed the corpses. He didn't stop for the dying. He walked to the center of the survivors and looked at them like they weren't slaves. Like they were men.
He raised three fingers.
"Altan of the Gale offers you three things," he said.
"One. Freedom.""You already have it. If you don't want anything more, leave. No one will stop you."
"Two. Purpose.""Something to fight for. Something that makes this march mean something."
"Three. Retribution."
"If you stay, you march with us. We'll return to the south."
"You'll have your vengeance."
"Not as tools."
"As soldiers."
He didn't wait for applause. He didn't need to. One man stepped forward. Another followed. Then dozens. Then the rest.
By midday, the Zhatiruun were no longer Zhatiruun. The chains were gone. The glyphs were fading. They stood in formation, not as slaves, but as warriors. Not for loyalty. Not for pay.
For blood.
Far to the south, in the war chambers of the southern cities, no one knew what had happened. The last report from the chainmasters had been received four days ago. Then nothing. No messengers returned. No scouts. Just silence.
Some whispered that the desert itself had swallowed them. Others feared to speak it aloud, afraid the truth would summon it closer.
No one reported the collapse to the Dazhum Empire, not yet. There was no proof, only absence. The commanders argued. Should they send another army? Should they fortify? Should they retreat and brace for something worse?
In the end, they chose to wait. The campaign in the north would decide the war. Not the ruins in the sand.