Chương 7

"Fire!" General Arkhon's roar cut through the morning air like a blade, raw and commanding. Instantly, the battlements erupted in disciplined fury. Bowstrings twanged in near-unison, releasing a black cloud of arrows that arced high before plunging toward the green tide below. For a breathless moment, the sky itself seemed blotted out, the sun reduced to a hazy disk behind the deadly swarm. The sound was a thunderous thrumming that vibrated through Drelion's bones, a sound he had heard in nightmares for days.

The impacts came in a staccato rattle, thuds against flesh, clatters off crude armor, the occasional wet puncture that made more than one archer flinch. Drelion watched from the parapet, his breath held, willing the volley to turn the tide. His knuckles were white on the stone, the rough surface biting into his palms. But as the arrows spent themselves, grim reality asserted itself.

Most shafts skittered harmlessly across thick, leathery hides or embedded shallowly, drawing only beads of dark blood that sealed over in heartbeats. The trolls barely slowed. Only the Qi-infused arrows from his elite knights, glowing faintly with channeled inner power, drove deep enough to stagger a troll or slow its stride. Even those wounds knit closed with obscene speed, muscle and sinew writhing back together like living vines. Drelion felt his stomach turn at the sight.

It was wrong, unnatural, an affront to the natural order of life and death. The trolls' vitality was monstrous, a legend made flesh. Drelion felt the first cold fingers of doubt creep into his chest, icy and insistent. He had staked everything on preparation: ditches spiked with iron, stockpiles of arrows and oil, mages drilled to exhaustion. All to buy time, perhaps days, until imperial reinforcements thundered from the capital. But this… this relentless advance mocked his plans.

At this rate, holding until sunset would be a miracle, let alone another dawn. Though fewer in number than a full human legion, the trolls' sheer scale turned them into a nightmare horde. Towering bodies rippled with unnatural muscle, tusked jaws gaping in guttural roars that vibrated through the stone underfoot and rattled the teeth in his jaws. The stench of them carried on the wind, sweat, blood, and something rotten and primal that made his gorge rise.

And at their heart lumbered the Great Troll Warrior, a behemoth easily twice the height of its kin, its scarred hide like ancient bark. It hefted a crude axe forged from a massive stone slab lashed with vines and iron bands, a weapon that could fell trees or shatter gates with a single swing. The ground trembled with every step it took, as if the earth itself feared its passage.

"Shoot again!" Arkhon bellowed, voice hoarse but unbroken. Another volley flew, arrows expended without restraint. Theloca's forges had worked night and day; they had shafts aplenty. Yet the effect was pitiful; a few trolls clutched at feathered protrusions, snarling in irritation more than pain, before ripping them free and charging onward. The sound of arrows being torn from flesh was wet and sickening. The horde's battle cries rose then, a guttural chorus that shook the air and rattled teeth in jaws.

Deep, resonant bellows laced with primal rage, carrying the stench of sweat and blood on the wind. Drelion's soldiers gripped weapons tighter, faces paling beneath helms. The trolls broke into a lumbering run, wooden clubs, tree trunks banded with metal, dragging furrows in the earth as they closed the final distance to the walls. The impact of their charge sent vibrations up through the stone, and Drelion felt it in his legs.

"Mages, now!" Arkhon commanded. The robed figures along the battlements stepped forward, staves raised, hands weaving intricate patterns. Mana surged visibly, auras flaring in hues of blue, red, and gold. The air itself seemed to thicken with power, humming against Drelion's skin like a living thing. He had always respected the mages, but in this moment, they were Theloca's last, desperate hope.

The first spells unleashed in a spectacular cascade: fireballs the size of wagons streaked downward, exploding in roiling infernos that engulfed clusters of trolls. The heat washed over the battlements in a blistering wave, and Drelion had to shield his face. Ice lances followed, crystalline spears that impaled beasts and pinned them writhing to the ground. Bolts of lightning cracked from a clear sky, charring flesh and filling the air with the acrid scent of burned hair.

Whirlwinds hurled trolls sideways, slamming them into comrades with bone-crushing force. For the first time, the advance faltered. Trolls howled in genuine pain as flames clung stubbornly, searing the flesh and skin; ice encased limbs in unyielding prisons; lightning convulsed massive bodies. A dozen fell outright, smoking or frozen, their regeneration overwhelmed by the onslaught. The sight sent a surge of fierce, savage joy through Drelion's chest.

A ragged cheer swelled from the defenders, archers pumping fists, knights banging swords on shields. Morale, battered moments ago, flickered back to life. Proof, tangible and blazing, that they were not powerless against these brutes. Drelion allowed himself a fleeting spark of hope. Mages were Theloca's hidden strength, rare souls gifted with affinity for mana, honed through years of rigorous study and practice. In single combat, their casting delays left them vulnerable, easy prey for swift foes.

But in siege warfare, arrayed on high ground with time to weave? They were engines of devastation, capable of turning battles alone. Yet rarity was their Achilles' heel. Theloca boasted perhaps one hundred and fifty true mages, including guild adventurers drawn by the crisis. Precious few, despite their population surpassing fifty thousand. Every spell cast was a treasure spent, and Drelion could see the strain already etching lines on their faces, the way their hands trembled after the first barrage.

The trolls recovered with terrifying speed. Those not felled outright roared in fury and surged forward again, trampling the fallen without a second glance. The Great Troll Warrior at the center bellowed a challenge that shook the walls, and the horde answered with renewed frenzy. Clubs the size of tree trunks smashed against the reinforced eastern gates with thunderous booms that Drelion felt in his chest. The portcullis groaned under the assault, iron straining.

"Again!" Arkhon roared, his voice cracking with the effort.

"Mages, hit the big one! Archers, focus fire on the climbers!" Drelion watched in grim fascination as the Great Troll Warrior waded through the chaos, shrugging off fire and ice as if they were summer rain. Its axe swung in great, sweeping arcs, and each blow sent defenders flying or crushed them against the battlements. Blood, human blood, splattered the stones, and the metallic tang mixed with the stench of burning troll flesh. Drelion's heart hammered against his ribs. This was it.

The moment he had dreaded since the first reports arrived. The walls were not going to hold. A section of the eastern parapet cracked under a direct hit from the Warrior's axe. Stone exploded outward, and three knights were hurled screaming into the air. They fell among the trolls below and were torn apart in seconds, their screams mercifully short. Drelion felt bile rise in his throat. These were men he had trained with, men whose families he knew by name.

And they were dying because he had not been strong enough to stop this.

"Reinforce that section!" he shouted, his voice hoarse.

"Mages, target the Warrior's legs! Slow it down!" The mages obeyed, pouring their remaining strength into spells that lashed the giant's limbs. Ice crept up its legs, fire scorched its hide, lightning danced across its massive frame. For a moment, it slowed, roaring in frustration as its regeneration struggled to keep pace with the damage. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. But it was not enough.

With a final, earth-shaking bellow, the Great Troll Warrior smashed through the weakened gate, the portcullis buckling like paper under its strength. The sound of rending metal and shattering stone was deafening. Trolls poured through the breach like a green flood, clubs swinging, jaws snapping. The defenders on the ground met them with spears and swords, but it was like trying to hold back the tide with bare hands.

Drelion saw a young knight he recognized, barely more than a boy, impaled on a troll's crude spear, his Qi-infused armor crumpling like tin. The boy's eyes met Drelion's for one terrible second before the light left them. Drelion's vision swam with rage and grief. He drew his own sword, the familiar weight a cold comfort in his hand, and prepared to join the melee. If this was to be the end, he would die with his men, defending the city he loved. But then the world changed.

A sound like the sky tearing open split the air. A sphere of golden-crimson fire, no larger than a man's fist at first, shot from the treeline beyond the battlefield. It arced over the chaos with impossible speed, beautiful and terrible against the smoke-filled sky. It detonated above the Great Troll Warrior. The pressure wave hit first, a thunderclap so powerful it slammed into Drelion's chest even at this distance and flattened grass in a perfect circle for hundreds of paces.

Trolls caught directly beneath the blast were simply gone, reduced to drifting ash before they could scream. Those farther out were hurled skyward like broken dolls, limbs flailing, skin already blistering and blackening. But the real horror came after. Flames unfolded like the petals of some colossal, malevolent flower. Layer after layer of clinging, devouring fire spread outward in hungry waves.

Wherever the golden-crimson flames touched troll flesh, they burrowed inward with merciless patience, outpacing even the creatures' legendary regeneration. Green skin split and charred. Muscle sloughed off bone in wet chunks. Still the fire burned deeper, eating through flesh and Qi alike like it was starving. Howls of agony rose across the battlefield as the trolls, creatures that had been shrugging off arrows and magic only moments before, began to die in earnest.

The Great Troll Warrior at the center staggered, its massive torso engulfed in the persistent flames, its double-headed axe falling from numb fingers as it thrashed and bellowed in futile rage. Even its superior regeneration could not keep up with whatever this fire was doing to it. Dust and smoke billowed upward in a towering mushroom cloud, blotting out the sun for a long, terrible minute. When it finally began to clear, the battlefield had been completely transformed.

A blackened crater scarred the earth where the densest part of the troll horde had stood. The surviving trolls, fewer than a third of the original force, broke and fled in animal panic, trampling one another in their desperation to escape the flames that still clung to their bodies and refused to die. From the walls came a moment of stunned, ringing silence so complete it felt louder than the battle had been. The defenders were too shocked to even cheer.

Drelion lowered his sword, chest rising and falling in deep, unsteady breaths. His ears rang. His hands trembled. The backlash of whatever power had been unleashed pressed against his senses like a physical weight. He had never felt anything like it, not in twenty years of rule, not in all the battles he had fought or witnessed. Though he has heard rumors, people capable of controlling mana so potent they can destroy a city on their own. Archmages. Movement caught his eye.

From the treeline emerged a solitary figure: a young woman, slender and composed, striding casually across the devastation as if it were a pleasant meadow. Long black hair flowed unbound save for a low ponytail, catching the breeze; her robes, foreign in cut, flowing black silk accented with vivid red, remained pristine, untouched by ash or blood. From this distance, her beauty struck like a blade: ethereal, almost unnatural perfection. Drelion's breath caught in his throat.

'Her doing? That cataclysm… from one person?' The woman paused at the crater's rim, head tilted as she surveyed the glassy scar she had carved into the earth. A faint, almost private smile touched her lips, satisfied, appraising, the look of an artist stepping back from a finished canvas. Then she resumed her walk, unhurried, as though strolling through a quiet garden rather than across a field of ash and ruin. Awe held Drelion frozen for a heartbeat longer than propriety allowed. Then leadership reasserted itself.

"With me," he snapped, voice rough with urgency. He vaulted down the stone stairs two at a time, cloak snapping behind him, Arkhon and a knot of knights pounding at his heels. At the main gate, he did not wait for the guards; he seized the iron wheel himself and hauled the heavy portcullis upward, the gesture deliberate, an unmistakable sign of reverence. They stepped out onto the plain together, boots crunching on cooling cinders. The wind carried the acrid bite of scorched flesh and superheated stone.

With every pace the woman took toward them, her presence grew heavier, like a tide rising against his senses. Qi vast and impossibly refined pressed against his awareness, an ocean held in perfect stillness. Drelion had met powerful masters before, mages, wandering martial artists, even a sword saint once, but nothing like this. This was something else entirely. Something that made his instincts scream that he was standing before a force of nature given human form.

The woman stopped a dozen paces away, her dark eyes meeting his without fear or deference. She was even more striking up close, delicate features that belied the power she had just unleashed, an aura of calm that seemed untouched by the carnage around them. Drelion bowed deeply, deeper than he had bowed to anyone in years. When he straightened, his voice was steady despite the storm raging in his chest.

"My lady," he said, the words formal and heavy with respect.

"I am Drelion Vael, Marquess of Theloca. On behalf of my city and my people, I offer you our deepest gratitude. You have saved us all." The woman regarded him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she inclined her head slightly, a graceful acknowledgment.

"Ming Xuan Ji," she answered at last, tone light yet carrying effortless authority.

"Just Ming or Xuan Ji is sufficient."

"I was passing through," she said simply, her voice calm and clear, carrying a faint accent he could not place.

"The noise was… distracting." Drelion almost let out a bitter smile at the understatement.

'Distracting? She had turned a battlefield with fifty thousand souls at stake into a crater with a single technique, and she called it distracting…' Arkhon stepped forward, his gruff voice thick with emotion.

"My lady, if not for you, we would all be dead. The city would have fallen. My men… my family…" He trailed off, unable to find the words. The woman's gaze softened almost imperceptibly. She looked past them to the open gate, where citizens had begun to gather in silent, wide-eyed clusters. Whispers rippled through the crowd, disbelieving, reverent, awestruck. Drelion cleared his throat.

"If I may be so bold," he ventured, careful to keep his tone respectful without sliding into theatrics, "are you passing through our lands? Theloca is small and far from the kingdom's heart, but we would count it the greatest honor to offer you hospitality, however brief." Her gaze drifted past him to the open gate.

"A few days of rest would be nice," she admitted after a moment.

"I have been… training in the mountains these past months. Solitude loses its charm eventually." Drelion barely kept his eyebrows from rising. Months alone in the forbidden forest, and she emerged looking as though she had stepped from a walk in the garden, with pristine clothes and impeccable appearance, not a wilderness crawling with horrors. He inclined his head, hiding his wonder behind courtesy.

"Then allow me to extend every comfort we possess. My manor is modest compared to the capital's palaces, but it has hot baths, quiet gardens, and cooks who can prepare dishes worthy of an honored guest. After what you have done, it would be unconscionable to offer less." Arkhon stepped forward half a pace, voice gruff with emotion.

"The entire city would take it as a blessing, my lady." The knights murmured fervent agreement. The woman, Xuan Ji, considered them a moment longer, expression unreadable. Then she dipped her chin in graceful acceptance.

"Very well. Lead on." Relief flooded Drelion so sharply it nearly buckled his knees. He gestured toward the gate.

"This way, if you please."

"Arkhon," he added, turning to his general, "secure the field. Tend the wounded, catalog the fallen, and send scouts to confirm no stragglers remain."

"Yes, my lord." The general saluted, eyes lingering on Xuan Ji with open awe before he turned to his duties. As they passed beneath the raised portcullis, the gathered citizens parted like reeds before a ship's prow. Whispers rippled outward, hushed, reverent, disbelieving. Children peered from behind parents' legs; old men removed caps and pressed them to their hearts. Drelion walked beside her, matching his stride to hers, mind racing beneath a calm exterior.

Xuan Ji walked through the silence as though it belonged to her, dark eyes taking in the timber-framed houses, the smoke rising from forges now stilled, the banners fluttering in the grateful breeze. She seemed utterly at ease, as if she had not just ended a battle that would have destroyed them all. Drelion led her to the waiting carriage, his thoughts a whirlwind of questions he did not dare ask. Who was she? Where had she come from?

What kind of power allowed one person to annihilate an army of trolls in a single stroke? But those questions could wait. For now, his city was saved, his people were alive, and the woman who had made it possible walked beside him as an honored guest. As the carriage began its journey toward the center of the city, Drelion allowed himself, for the first time in days, to breathe. The nightmare was over. And something new, something he could not yet name, had just begun.