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At regular intervals, the garrison of Mei City sent fire arrows out from the walls — a measure to check for any enemy movement in the darkness.

Every time the arrows went out and revealed nothing, they let out a quiet breath of relief.

The walls blazed with torchlight, yet that same light made the silhouettes of the soldiers on the battlements look strange and distorted from outside. To the men crawling in from the darkness, those on the walls appeared warped. To the men on the walls looking out, the world beyond was a black abyss.

The banners hanging from the walls were no longer the battle flags of the Shu Province army — they bore the character for Zhou, the great flag of the Zhou Kingdom.

When Pei Qi declared himself Emperor at Mei City, he named his dynasty Zhou and claimed descent from the sage Zhou Fuzi — a grand banner to raise, fitting enough for a man with the character for “flag” in his own name.

To be a son of the Pei family yet renounce its bloodline — perhaps that choice, made the moment Pei Qi committed to it, was already a sign that he was entering his decline.

Perhaps he himself believed that the Pei family, though a clan of a thousand years standing, couldn’t provide the weight to prop up an emperor.

But had he ever paused to consider how much weight this emperor of his — holed up in Mei City alone — actually carried?

Claiming descent from Zhou Fuzi had brought Pei Qi no real advantage and won him no stronger loyalty from his people. Even his own soldiers were uncomfortable calling themselves the Zhou army — they would rather call themselves the Shu army, and if they had to have another name, they would sooner have accepted the old title of the Great Chu garrison troops.

The garrison troops had once stood at the pinnacle of honor.

Yet undeniably, they could no longer be called the Shu Province army. They were no longer garrison troops. They were only the Zhou army now.

Fire arrows fell on the open ground beyond the walls. General Yao Shenru watched for a moment, saw nothing unusual, gave a few more instructions, and moved on with his guards to inspect the rest of the walls.

The Ning army had halted its nighttime attacks on Mei City roughly six or seven days ago — reason enough for the Zhou garrison to be on high alert.

They expected a night raid. Every single night they waited for it in rigid tension.

This great breach in the wall was perhaps not the mortal wound to the walls — but it might be the mortal wound to the Zhou Kingdom itself.

After Yao Shenru and his patrol moved on, the craftsmen and soldiers at the breach resumed their work. Though every one of them understood it was little more than psychological comfort.

“Old Wu…”

A Zhou soldier unhooked his pipe from his belt, packed it with tobacco, and offered it to the man beside him.

Old Wu shook his head: “Don’t light it. The sergeant sees it, he’ll chew you out again.”

The soldier’s name was Zhao. He heard Old Wu and paused — then gave a tired smile.

“Let him chew me out. Who knows which day I’ll die in battle. No point in shortchanging myself.”

He lit the pipe anyway.

A puff. The tobacco crackled softly inside the bowl — an oddly pleasant sound.

Old Zhao exhaled a long breath of smoke, like some creature drinking in the essence of heaven and earth.

Looking out through that haze toward the world beyond the city — even the ground seemed to warp and shift.

Old Zhao rubbed his eyes. Maybe the smoke had gotten to him; his eyes stung and his vision blurred.

He raised his hand and pointed outside: “Old Wu — is that ground… moving?”

Old Wu glanced over: “Ground moving? You’ve smoked yourself cross-eyed. Stop, honestly.”

Old Zhao chuckled: “Didn’t I just say — who knows when any of us is going to…”

The words stopped.

He looked down instinctively. A moment later, the pipe between his teeth dropped.

It rolled down the slope of the wall breach, scattering sparks all the way. To a man, those sparks were tiny brilliant flashes. To the ants and insects below, they were stars falling from the sky.

“What’s wrong?”

Old Wu heard the sound, turned to look at Old Zhao — and saw an arrowhead in the center of Old Zhao’s chest.

Then his ears filled with the sound of rushing air — countless crossbow bolts flying out of the darkness. The men repairing the breach cried out in sudden panic.

One by one, men collapsed. And still the bolts came like a storm.

“Enemy attack!”

Old Wu croaked the warning with a hoarse voice — then his voice cut short as an arrow punched through his throat.

Before he died, he heard a shout like a thunderclap.

Then he saw soldiers rising up out of the ground, seemingly from nowhere, right below the breach.

In the final moment of his life, the one thing he most wanted to say was a reply to Old Zhao:

The ground really was moving.

“Kill!”

Gao Zhen was the first one up the slope, left hand braced against the incline, right hand leveling his repeating crossbow in rapid bursts.

There was no time to reload. When the magazine ran dry, he tossed the crossbow aside without a second thought.

Drew his blade.

“Justice for the fallen!”

After dropping several Zhou soldiers in quick succession, he drew his saber. One stroke cut down the Zhou officer directly in front of him, the body tumbling down the slope.

“A future for the living!”

Another slash, then another.

After cutting down several more, Gao Zhen reached the top of the breach.

“The King of Ning says — all under heaven shall be at peace under Ning! The peace of the word ning!”

Gao Zhen let out a roar and became the first man to mount the walls.

These Wolf-Ape Battalion soldiers had undergone the most grueling training imaginable. Every one of them could traverse terrain like this as if on flat ground.

They could leap through mountain forests. They could twist through jagged rock. They were the fusion of wolf and ape — agile and savage in equal measure.

Zhou soldiers on both sides of the breach opened fire. Wolf-Ape soldiers climbing up with blades clenched in their teeth took arrows and fell — but as long as they weren’t dead, they got back up and kept moving.

For the Zhou garrison, this was their first real clash with the Ning army.

Most of them were terrified. These soldiers with arrows still bristling from their bodies were still climbing, still surging forward with savage ferocity. Even in the darkness, you could see the feral light in their eyes.

Gao Zhen vaulted onto the wall, took one stroke to remove the head of the Zhou soldier before him, took another to cleave off the shoulder of the one behind.

He alone, with one blade, carved open a path through flesh and blood.

“The King of Ning says — all under heaven belongs to all people under heaven! All people deserve peace! Those who obstruct that peace — kill without mercy!”

He shouted as he fought, a beast with red eyes — but a beast that had gone red-eyed for the dream of bringing peace to the world.

His blade was his fang.

The Wolf-Ape soldiers coming up behind him rapidly expanded the territory Gao Zhen had seized.

“Drive both flanks! Hold this position for the main army!”

Another shout from Gao Zhen.

“The Wolf-Apes are up!”

One slash — an attacker split in two.

“This ground beneath our feet — it is Ning soil now!”

The Wolf-Ape soldiers roared in answer: “Ning’s land — we yield not an inch!”

It was an unreasonable claim — and yet it was the most reasonable thing about war. The logic of war is that the strong may dominate the weak.

Every step of ground these men’s feet pressed beneath them would be part of the future Ning Kingdom. And Ning’s ground would yield not a single inch to any enemy.

The Wolf-Ape soldiers pushed outward along both sides of the breach. The cost was brutal — but they managed to hold and expand a stretch of roughly ten zhang of wall.

By then, Pei Xuecheng himself had come forward to lead the counterattack.

Every Zhou soldier knew what it would mean if the Ning vanguard held the breach — it would only be a matter of time before the main Ning force flooded through. They had to wipe out these attackers before reinforcements arrived.

Pei Xuecheng’s eyes had gone bloodshot. He watched men fall at the front and kept driving them forward. When a soldier turned to retreat, Pei Xuecheng cut him down.

“Get back up there! Forward! Death to anyone who retreats!”

The Zhou army pushing toward the breach was now jammed so tight it was barely moving — they were trying to crush the Ning soldiers through sheer press of bodies.

“Hold this position!”

Gao Zhen’s voice was raw.

The number of Zhou corpses piled around him had long since lost count. The only reason the enemy had not yet pushed the Wolf-Ape soldiers off was that the Wolf-Ape soldiers were killing faster than the Zhou could press.

It wasn’t only Zhou soldiers dying — the Wolf-Ape soldiers were dying too, rank by rank.

But the Wolf-Apes were too savage. For every one of them that fell, the Zhou paid five. Ten.

To hold this breach — for the glory of the Wolf-Ape Battalion’s first battle — for that vision of a peaceful Ning Kingdom in their hearts — they used their own flesh and blood to build a second wall.

Among those battered, blood-soaked men, not one chose to refuse. Not one chose to flinch.

They stood arm in arm, braced against each other, all of them holding their heads high and facing the enemy with defiant eyes.

When Pei Xuecheng saw this, his fury exploded.

“Kill them all!”

He screamed.

The Zhou archers raised their bows again.

They hadn’t even loosed before arrows were already scything through their own ranks, men crumpling to the ground.

The Ning tower wagons had arrived.

From the highest platforms, Ning archers unleashed everything they had.

The arrows came down like a great clenched fist, slamming into the Zhou archer formation.

“Save our brothers!”

General Liu Ge’s eyes burned red as he bellowed.

Their brothers on the walls had been bullied by enemy archers?

Then slaughter the enemy archers.

The air filled with a howling rush — no one could have counted how many arrows flew up onto those walls.

Zhou soldiers fell like wheat cut by a scythe — a crop struck first by a downpour and then by a gale. The wind swept through, and they went down.

Pei Xuecheng’s face went white. The Ning reinforcements had come far too quickly.

He could not have imagined the determination with which those men had driven themselves. The soldiers pushing the tower wagons had leaned their shoulders into the frames and charged forward through sheer will.

Their shoulders were scraped raw and bleeding by the time they arrived — but they hadn’t slowed once.

For a structure that massive and heavy to have arrived in that span of time, it had cost them not only sweat but blood.

Perhaps in this moment Pei Xuecheng knew it was over. He felt the color drain from his face.

He looked toward the breach — the black flood had already poured into the city.

The sounds of battle were no longer only on the walls. They were spreading into the streets below.

The Ning army had broken through the breach and entered the city. Next, they would sweep back up along the inside of the walls like a wave that had crested the levee.

Pei Xuecheng felt the strength leave him all at once. His legs gave way and he dropped to the ground.

His personal guards rushed over and pulled him up, dragging him back from the walls.

On the wall, Wolf-Ape Battalion Commander Gao Zhen turned to look — a great crimson battle banner was rising through the breach and up onto the walls.

In this moonless night, flickering with torchlight, that banner blazed as though it radiated its own light — like a river of stars across the sky.

“Kill!”

Gao Zhen’s voice tore from his throat.

They picked up their weapons again — those sabers with countless chips knocked into their edges, sabers that now looked like saws.

These blood-soaked men. Moving forward.

“Wolf-Apes! Clear the path for the banner!”

“Hu!”

“Hu!”

“Hu!”