The horn calls echoed like a death knell, rolling across the burning field. The enemy army advanced in dark waves, shields glinting, banners snapping in the smoke-stained wind.
The soldiers around Shen Liang trembled. Some gripped their swords with white knuckles. Others had already dropped to their knees, praying for miracles to happen and none moved to stand.
If they break now… they will be slaughtered. We would all be slaughtered.
Shen Liang inhaled slowly, forcing the tremor from his hands. His abdomen throbbed with every heartbeat, but he straightened, voice cutting through the panic.
"Pull the wounded back! I want every man who can't stand to be dragged to the treeline. Use cloaks, use shields... hell, use your bare arms if you must... Move! Now!"
The command rang sharply, practiced, and not the plea of a stranger, but the order of someone used to being obeyed. Instinct took over; men scrambled to follow and do what they were expected to.
Shen Liang fixed his gaze on the young archer, a wiry boy gripping his bow as though it might splinter in his hands. "You there... get to higher ground. A tree, a ridge, whatever you can find. I want your arrows raining down before they close in the distance."
He didn't wait for the boy's answer, his focus already shifting. Three soldiers staggered past, one clutched his thigh where blood jetted in sharp, rhythmic bursts with each heartbeat. An arterial wound. He could live for minutes, or maybe less.
Shen Liang lunged forward, forcing him down. "Tourniquet! Give me your belt.... now!"
Another soldier fumbled at his waist and handed it over. Shen Liang wrapped it tightly above the wound, twisting until the bleeding slowed. "Keep pressure here. Don't stop until I tell you."
The soldier blinked at him, dazed. "Y-you saved him?"
"Not yet, I'm experimenting.." Shen Liang said flatly. "But you will live to see tomorrow if you follow orders."
A cry went up; the enemy was closer now, and they were marching to a steady drumbeat.
The remaining men looked to Shen Liang again. This stranger... the doctor, was all they had
They needed leadership, and Shen Liang soon realized. They needed hope, or this line breaks before the enemy even reaches us.
He rose to his feet, dagger still slick with monster blood, and faced them. His voice was low, but every word coming from his mouth cut as sharply as a scalpel.
"You have lost your captain. You have lost your healer. But you haven't lost your lives, not yet. If you want to live, then listen to me. I will keep you alive."
Faces lifted. Broken, bleeding men clung to his words like a lifeline.
Shen Liang's arm shot out, finger stabbing toward the smoldering carcass of a toppled siege cart, its charred beams jutting from the mire like broken ribs.
"Fortify there!" his voice cracked like a whip. "Raise shields into a wall, lock them tight. Spearmen to the front, blades ready just behind. Wounded fall back, but stay within the line. No stragglers, no one left for the crows!"
For a heartbeat, doubt clouded their eyes, then one man moved and another one followed. Then more.... Like stones catching in a rushing stream, order began to take shape. What had been chaos drew itself into a line, rough-edged but hardening under the steel of his command
The System pulsed coldly in his mind:
{ Command established. Morale stabilizing. Survival odds increased to 38%. }
Shen Liang's lips tightened. Still too low for a win, but all their lives were in the line...
The ground trembled beneath their boots as the vanguard stormed forward, a tide of steel and fury. Their war cries tore through the air, raw and violent, shattering the fragile order of the battlefield.
Shen Liang raised the dagger, the blood on its edge glinting in the firelight. His voice thundered over the roar of battle.
"Hold the line! I will keep your hearts beating.... just keep swinging!"
And with that, he surged forward, the surgeon's precision guiding every strike, every step, cutting arteries, severing tendons, dismantling armored foes as if they were nothing more than flawed anatomy laid bare on his table.
Behind him, for the first time since their captain fell, the soldiers roared as one.
Steel clashed. Men screamed. The night swallowed them whole.
Shen Liang's dagger danced in his grip, not like a warrior's blade but like a surgeon's scalpel, precise, ruthless, always targeting the vital lines of life.
A slash across the wrist tendon disarmed one foe; a thrust under the ribs ended another. He saw not men but anatomy laid bare before him, and he cut with terrifying efficiency.
The soldiers around him fought harder. His presence steadied them, turned panic into grim resolve. The line that had threatened to break moments ago now bit deep into the enemy's charge.
Yet the onslaught only thickened. One slain meant two more pushing into the fray, the tide swelling instead of thinning.
"Shields up!" Shen Liang barked, ducking under a wild swing. His dagger opened the attacker's throat before the man's sword could fall. "Spears, thrust on my mark.... NOW!"
A forest of points punched outward, impaling the front line of the enemy in unison. Screams tore through the night as armored bodies collapsed into the mud. The enemy wavered. Just enough.
The System's cold voice cut through the din:
{ Coordination efficiency: 64%. Enemy morale is wavering. Probability of survival: 52%. }
Better. But still not enough, the survival probability could plummet any time...
A horn blared on the enemy's flank. Shen Liang's bloodied head snapped toward it, fresh troops, armored heavier than the rest, pushing through the treeline.
"Damn it." He clenched his jaw, vision swimming from blood loss. "We will be overrun."
He turned, eyes locking on the archer perched in a tree above. "You! Bring them down before they close the gap!"
The boy's hands trembled, but he nodded firmly. His arrows sang, striking eyes, throats, and exposed gaps in armor. Each body that fell bought them seconds... precious, irreplaceable seconds.
"Good." Shen Liang pivoted back to the men. "Don't wait for death... make them bleed for every step! That's the only way to win..."
The clash resumed. The air stank of blood and sweat, of iron and mud. Shen Liang's stitches tore; warm liquid seeped down his side, but still he fought. His dagger flashed again and again, severing life with surgical certainty.
Then... a shout rang out...
"Captain!" one soldier cried, pointing through the melee.
The enemy formation split as a mounted giant charged forth, black armor gleaming, a crimson crest blazing atop his helm, his spear fixed on Shen Liang like a predator's strike.
The System chimed sharply:
{ High-value target identified. Enemy officer. Probability of breaking enemy formation if neutralized: 78%. Risk of host fatality: 93%. }
Shen Liang's lips thinned. So be it. He didn't seem to have any other options available for him...
He stepped forward, boots sinking in blood and muck. The rider thundered down, spear tip gleaming with murderous intent.
At the last heartbeat, Shen Liang dropped low, the world slowing into surgical clarity. His dagger arced upward, not at the man, but at the horse.
The blade slashed across the beast's tendon, and it screamed, legs buckling, collapsing in a brutal crash. The rider toppled, thrown sprawling into the mud.
Before he could rise, Shen Liang was there. He plunged the dagger straight into the exposed gap of the officer's throat, twisting with practiced precision.
The enemy captain gurgled, convulsed, and stilled.
For a breath, silence reigned.
Then the enemy line faltered. Men stumbled back, eyes wide, seeing their leader fall. The retreat began as a ripple, then spread like wildfire. Within moments, the black tide broke, men fleeing into the night, abandoning the field.
Shen Liang staggered, knees threatening to buckle. His dagger dripped, his body screamed, but he raised his voice one last time, hoarse but unyielding.
Hold your ground!" Shen Liang barked. "Reform the line and tend to the wounded! So long as one man draws breath, we claim victory!"
The soldiers froze for a second, then obeyed.
When it was finally over, the field was a graveyard. Bodies lay heaped in the mud, broken weapons jutting like tombstones. The survivors stood in a ragged half-circle around Shen Liang, staring at him, not with doubt, not with fear, but with something sharper.
Reverence.
A soldier whispered, his voice thick with awe... "He turned the tide… with nothing but a dagger and his voice."
Another murmured: "No… not just a dagger. A scalpel. And a commander's heart."
Shen Liang sagged to one knee, clutching his side as darkness crept at the edges of his vision. His work was not finished, not here, not yet.
But as the men bowed their heads toward him, he knew one thing for certain:
In this world of blades and blood, his scalpel had become a sword.
And both were instruments of survival.
The field stank of iron and smoke. Groans of the dying tangled with the hiss of fire from shattered carts. Shen Liang stood in the wreckage of the line he had forged, shoulders heaving, blade so slick with blood it threatened to slip from his grip.
"Hold…" he rasped, vision tunneling. Soldiers still stood, battered but breathing, because he had forced them to. That thought anchored him, briefly.
But then the pain crashed in, sharp and merciless. A burning slash across his ribs, a bruising ache in his arm, the leaden weight of exhaustion dragging him down, and the world tilted.
He staggered, forcing his hand to point once more. "See… to the wounded…" His words cracked, barely louder than a whisper.
And then, at last, his knees gave way.
The last thing he saw before darkness swallowed him was a half-formed shield wall holding firm, the men obeying not because they had to, but because they believed.