Altan knelt beside a crude map drawn in charcoal and dyed ink, its lines etched directly into the hard-packed earth. Surrounding him, his commanders crouched in silence, their breath misting in the cold predawn air. The Twin Serpent Lakes dominated the sketch—two long, narrow bodies of water that mirrored each other like blades unsheathed by ancient gods. Between them wound a single road, the spine of the valley, hemmed in by pine-thick ridges and granite cliffs.
"Here," Altan said, tapping the gap between the lakes, "is where they'll die."
He didn't speak like a warlord giving orders. He spoke like a teacher, voice calm, clipped, precise. Every line of the map was deliberate. Every choice, weighted.
"They'll see an empty road and believe we've fled east to Feihu. They'll stretch their column to maintain momentum. Supply wagons, siege engines, infantry in dense blocks. The vanguard will enter first, unaware of what waits above them." He looked up, sweeping his hand to the surrounding ridges where fog clung like old breath. "The terrain favors us, but only if we fight as one body. Not just as warriors, but as qi-bearers. This isn't just a trap. It's a resonance."
He rose, eyes flicking from Khulan to Burgedai, to Chaghan, his lieutenants drawn from clans and schools long thought rivals. "This is the strategy we'll pass down. Let your disciples remember it. Let the Empire learn it in fear."
The valley had been silent for centuries. Now, it stirred.
At his command, the Gale Army dissolved into the land. Chaghan's shield-bearers fortified the western slope, carving Stone Root Glyphs into the cliff face, grounding the path with Iron Breath Wards that pulsed like deep drumbeats beneath the soil. Their qi would resist any force short of divine thunder. Khulan's scouts moved like mist along the lakeshores, inscribing illusion talismans from the Shifting Mirage Script, their movements blending into cattails and waterglass. Beneath the surface, they planted Sleeping Fog Bombs and Mud Bind Traps, disguised beneath layers of lotus and river weed.
Altan and Burgedai took a dozen riders into the high range behind the valley's throat. There, in caves forgotten by man but not spirit, they waited—horses veiled with Silent Gale Ink, armor sealed against qi leakage. For three days, the Gale Army became wind, stone, water. Nothing more.
On the fourth day, the storm came.
The imperial vanguard marched beneath banners of crimson and gold. At its center rode General Rong Hai, a disciplined man of fire aspect and steel will. His reputation was legend. His mistakes would become myth. His blade, the Ember Halberd, shimmered with restrained flame as he led twenty thousand into the serpent's throat.
They did not see the runes watching them. They did not hear the wind whispering their arrival into Altan's ears.
He waited until the column's full weight pressed into the narrow pass, until the imperial formation became one long breath drawn too deep.
Then he raised two fingers and traced them down through the air.
A silent command. The Seal of Shattering Calm.
The valley erupted.
Sigils flared along the cliffs like veins catching fire. Stone glyphs detonated with molten force, blasting the front ranks into ruin. Screams tore through the morning mist as Khulan's archers revealed themselves, loosing arrows inscribed with Flickering Thorn—a technique that guided arrows with spiritual memory. They curved mid-flight, spiraling like falcons toward exposed joints and throats.
The lakes hissed. Traps burst beneath the surface. Cavalry and supply wagons vanished in explosions of mud and smoke. Hooves thrashed. Wheels snapped. The road became a killing floor of shattered bone and torn cloth.
From the western ridge, Chaghan's phalanx charged. Shields brimming with Earth Pulse Qi absorbed the chaos, and their advance thundered in perfect rhythm—the Mountain Heart Formation, a technique designed to walk through fire. They pushed forward, unshaken, spears stabbing in relentless cadence.
Then came the riders.
Burgedai's cavalry swept in from the back range, sabers flashing with Storm Lash Qi, each cut igniting arcs of lightning that danced from flesh to iron. They did not fight—they hunted. Every stroke was a sentence. Every charge, a verdict. The imperial center broke.
Then the wind itself entered the field.
Altan descended like a whisper between heartbeats.
He wore no crown, no sigil. Only dark leather over silk woven from wind-silk moths, stitched with patterns of the Breathless Path—a style born from monks who lived above the clouds, who walked barefoot on cliff edges, who breathed storms like wine.
His movements were impossible to follow. One step became three. A turn of the wrist sent a ripple through the air. He became a phantom of intent. Each cut of his blade, light as breath, left men collapsing with the realization they were already dead. His qi, Lingfeng—the Wind Soul—swirled around him in subtle pressure, turning arrows aside and snapping enemy blades at the hilt.
He made for the command banner.
Rong Hai met him atop a burning cart.
The general fought with the Sun-Drenched Form, his halberd engulfed in spirals of fire qi, each swing a comet's arc. His discipline made him a wall, but Altan had never been built to siege walls. He was built to pass through them.
Their clash lit the valley anew. Wind against flame. Precision against power. Rong Hai's strikes cracked stone, but Altan danced with Void Swallow, the final breath of his path—each pivot stealing power, each sidestep redirecting momentum. Their battle lasted only a dozen exchanges.
On the thirteenth, Altan stepped past flame and iron, and drove his blade beneath the general's collarbone.
Steel shrieked. Fire died.
"You should've stayed in the palace," Altan murmured.
The halberd dropped. Rong Hai fell. The imperial host shattered.
The battle ended with no cheer. Only wind, and flame, and silence.
Ash smoldered across the twin lakes. The once-pristine waters frothed with blood, their reflections broken. Gale soldiers moved among the dead, stacking blades and armor, dragging bodies from the water. They buried both friend and foe. No banners were raised. No songs sung.
Only work. And memory.
Altan stood at the edge of the western ridge, his gaze lost in the horizon. His cloak fluttered in the aftermath, the wind still answering him.
"Sound the horns," he said. "Let the Empire hear what happened here. Let them know the wind sharpens."
Khulan stepped beside him, her expression unreadable.
"Three victories in one month," she said. "They'll send monsters next."
"They already have," Altan replied. "We just haven't seen their true faces yet."
Below, the prisoners were being sorted. Above, clouds gathered—not with rain, but with omen.
And far to the east, within the dragon-towered courts of the imperial capital, a scroll arrived in blood-stained silk. The Emperor read it in silence.
His fist closed.
And one command spread through the Empire's veins like poison:
"Awaken the Lotus Guard. Summon the War Sages. Prepare the Fang Division."
Because across mountains and rivers, a name had risen on every fearful tongue.
Altan.
Wind of Ruin.
Storm General.
Ghost of the Valleys.
And storms do not kneel.