A City Too Proud to Kneel
North of the Free Cities League, Haiyuan stood as the last great bastion of Zhong rule. Three cities had already fallen in the south, their defenses pierced in days. Altan's northern push was methodical—no banners raised, no speeches made, only trenches dug and loyalists burned where they stood. Haiyuan was different. Bigger. Older. Built for siege and defiance. The city lay on high stone ground, flanked by crags and buried talismans from forgotten dynasties. It had never been taken by force. Not once. Not until now.
Before the sun rose, Haiyuan had already been surrounded. Three cities had fallen. Flames still smoldered in the east where the last garrison outposts were butchered. Now Haiyuan stood alone. A proud Zhong stronghold ringed by trenches, siege mounds, and the quiet hum of Stormcaster wards etched into the earth. Inside its walls, ten legions of Zhong loyalists waited, grim-faced and outnumbered. One legion of city guard, poorly trained but fiercely territorial, held the inner courts and towers. Their food stores would last a month. Maybe less. The siege had choked every road, stream, and goat path. They would starve. They knew it.
Altan gave them a chance. Not a demand—an offer. Open the gates. Release the women and children. Only them. They would be allowed to leave. No harm, no shame. It wasn't mercy. It was protocol. Clear the board of non-combatants so the blade could fall without hesitation. Most civilians took the offer. They left with only what they could carry. But no one left unchecked. Hospitallier detachments ran full inspections: tongue, pulse, aura, and qi signature. Two Zhong officers tried to pass with forged breath masks and false limbs hiding sealed documents. One carried a talisman embedded under skin. He screamed in the breath-sever ward for seven hours before dying.
At first light, the frost hadn't yet melted from the corpses outside Haiyuan's gate. The next day, the gate opened again. Not for surrender. For war. Eight legions came out, armored and silent, flying the black sun of Zhong. They formed in the valley beyond the trenches. They were going to die. But they would not die behind walls. Their commander, Marshal Ling Huai, rode to the front. His armor bore a dozen patched seals from wars older than most men alive. He made no speech. He just raised his blade once, then pointed it at the enemy line.
Altan stood at the center of the field with three legions behind him in phalanx. His armor was matte steel, no ornaments, no crests. He carried a single saber. His command spread without raised voice or flourish. His men needed none. Behind him, Wen Tu's two thousand Stormcasters stood with hands already bleeding from ritual carvings. They had not slept. Their breath shimmered in the cold. Some whispered to the ground. Others stared at the sky. None blinked.
To the left, Nyzekh waited with his Virak'tai dark elves. Their obsidian weapons reflected nothing. Their armor was alive with spirit-binding glyphs. They did not speak, not even to each other.
To the right, Bruga's Sturmwulf lined the rocky slope. Massive men in hide and ironwood, blades longer than most spears. They moved in loose packs, eyes wide with killing calm. Their breathwork was primitive and brutal, designed to break bones through the air alone.
Kael was gone, buried in the city with his infiltrators. Ryoku waited behind the hills with Stormriders, a thousand cavalry poised to strike like thunder over open plain. Overhead, Qorjin-Ke scouts watched everything. Five hundred trained for vision relay, speaking directly to Altan's awareness through breath-threaded jade.
Then the Zhong moved. Eight legions marched forward in tight ranks. They didn't shout. They didn't hesitate. They would break through or be broken.
Altan stepped forward. Then he ran.
Three legions of Stormguard moved with him. Perfect rhythm. Perfect silence. They slammed into the enemy's center like a hammer into dry wood. Altan cut straight through the first line. His saber moved without pause. He was the tip of the spear. He broke everything in his path. Zhong formations shattered. He saw openings before they existed.
Stormguard followed: swords high, shields locked, every step driven by breath-control and battlefield rhythm. They fought like a tide that couldn't be moved. No screams. No wasted strikes. The center folded in minutes.
Wen Tu raised his staff. Stormcasters chanted. The ground exploded under Zhong feet: pillars of fire, ruptures of sound, pulses of pressure that broke qi barriers like glass. The Zhong flinched, staggered, then fled into worse fates.
Nyzekh's Virak'tai descended from the flank, slicing like wire across flesh. No light, no noise. Their blades entered eyes, throats, spines. Dozens fell before anyone realized the flank was gone. Bruga shouted once. His Sturmwulf crashed down the slope, breaking the right flank with raw mass and fury. Men were torn apart by glaives, trampled under iron boots. Zhong units disintegrated.
Ryoku struck last. The Stormriders circled from the hills, galloping full speed into the exposed rear. Lances pierced spine and steel. The Zhong legions were surrounded. Full encirclement. No retreat. No command. Just collapse.
By dusk, the battlefield was a ruin. Tens of thousands dead. Haiyuan's walls still stood, but only in name. The gates guarded nothing. Altan did not speak. He did not cheer. He simply looked at the blood-soaked valley, then at the hawks circling above. He waited for the next order.
This was not glory. It was process. The work of erasing an empire, one breath at a time.
Aftermath: The Division of the North
The north was carved before the bodies cooled.
Haiyuan, once the unbroken bastion of the Zhong loyalists, was renamed by decree: Bastion Vrael. The name was short, brutal, and foreign to Zhong tongues. Its meaning didn't matter. It meant Altan owned it. The city's sacred halls became barracks. Its towers, mage spires. Its archives, ash. The last Zhong governor was found hiding in a well beneath the old grain vaults. He died gagging on storm-salt.
The division was swift. The lands along the western coast, where Haiyuan had stood, were given to the Stormguard. There, Bastion Vrael would rise as the anchor of Altan's rule. Farms were repurposed. Villages fortified. Roads widened for war supply chains. No Zhong flags remained. Only black banners stitched with the storm-mark and Altan's silent will.
The northeast, harsh and jagged, was granted to the Sturmwulf clans. Bruga led them down from the passes, claiming a stronghold and one of the lesser cities. It was colder than their homelands, but the stone and ice suited them. They moved in by nightfall, bringing war-beasts and steel.
To the northwest, Nyzekh's Virak'tai took what bordered the Dark Elf realms. One city. One set of walls. They arrived without negotiation, without ceremony. The Zhong names were scraped off the gates and replaced with moonlit runes. No one was left behind. No prisoners were taken. Whatever happened beneath those cities, no word ever returned.
To the southeast, near the trade routes and the inland roads, a city was handed to Prime Minister Qiu. It was untouched by siege, rich with records, built for administration. He accepted it with calm lips and quiet eyes. This was not just a reward. It was a message.
The terms were clear. All former citizens would choose. Serve those who now ruled the land, or leave. Altan said it plainly, then looked to the elves and the clans and reminded them—those who stayed were to be treated with restraint. With some measure of mercy.
The North was no longer loyal.
It was claimed.
And converted.