When Altan and Chaghan emerged from the chamber, the mountain air met them not with wind, but with weight. It clung to the skin, pressed against the chest, and whispered of something changed. The plateau ahead, once merely stone and sky, felt altered—as if a boundary had been crossed and now the world waited to see what returned.
Burgedai stood by the overlook, arms crossed, silent as ever. Khulan knelt nearby, checking her bowstring, but her eyes lifted the moment she felt them. Her stare found Chaghan first.
He did not speak. His steps were even, measured, and quiet. But presence radiated from him. Not aura. Not light. Something deeper. Something seen only in the stillness before a killing strike.
Khulan rose. "You changed," she said. "I can't name it, but I feel it. Like the seconds before lightning hits."
Burgedai gave a slow nod. "His balance is different. He's heavier without weight."
Chaghan said nothing. His gaze stayed fixed on Altan.
Altan spoke evenly. "You've had time with what I gave you. Let's see if you earned it."
Burgedai stepped forward without hesitation. "The infantry's drilled every day. Formations adapted. Javelin volleys. Shield press. Still rough, but they're moving together now."
"Show me."
With a sharp whistle, Burgedai called down a squad. The soldiers arrived in disciplined rhythm, spears and shields in hand. He ordered the ranks and locked them into formation.
"Advance."
The shield wall moved like a solid slab, low and grinding, spears jutting with every third step. They stopped as one.
Altan walked through them like water between stone, noting footwork, breath patterns, the tension in knees and shoulders.
"You're pushing the brace too early," he said. "Drive only once your heel roots. A moving strike without root is just noise."
Burgedai nodded, eyes sharp. He barked the correction, and the men reset.
Altan watched a moment longer. "You've shaped it. Now breathe it. Make it theirs. And make them fear letting you down."
"I will."
Altan turned. "Khulan."
She didn't speak. She gestured, and the wind stirred. Four figures appeared from the trees and stone. Cloaks rippled, vanishing and reappearing like desert spirits.
"We took the Hollow Step and wove it into the Ashen stances. Split formations. Arrow traps. Hit and fade. They're not me—but they don't need to be."
An arrow flashed, slicing the edge of a leaf mid-fall. Another ranger vanished up a cliff wall.
"You've taught them the rhythm," Altan said. "Now teach them when to break it."
Khulan gave a short nod.
Altan stepped away and raised a hand. Elder elementalist shamans approached in silence, long robes stitched with runes of the Four. Each bore beads, relics, or carved stones of old lineage.
From beneath his cloak, Altan drew a stone tablet. It looked carved by time itself. Runes wound across it like veins, and the whole surface shimmered faintly, though no light touched it.
"This is the Measure," he said. "Every soldier. One by one. Let the stone decide their path."
The shamans set the tablet upon a slab. Lines of men and women began to form.
A grizzled veteran pressed his hand to the stone. It pulsed blue.
"Water," the eldest shaman whispered. He was sent to Khulan.
A hunter placed her palm next. The wind turned sharp. Pale silver light stirred.
"Air."
Khulan looked on. "Scouts. Archers. Light on their feet."
A thick-armed miner touched it. The tablet flared golden, deep and strong.
Burgedai stepped forward. "That's one for the front."
Then a younger fighter approached. When his hand landed, the glyphs danced in red and violet.
"Fire and spirit," the elder murmured. "Both."
Altan nodded. "War mages. Let the monks tame him."
The testing went on. More glows. More sorting. The stream thinned as the sun shifted west.
Then a hush settled.
The last group stepped forward. Twelve of them. Calloused hands. Scarred faces. When they touched the stone, nothing happened.
No glow. No stir. Just silence.
The shamans looked uneasy.
"These... have no reaction," one whispered.
Altan stepped toward them. "Elementally null. The stone shows nothing—but you're still standing. That means more than you think."
He glanced to Chaghan.
"You'll train with him."
Chaghan stepped forward. He looked at each of them, not as a commander—but as one who knew the road they would walk. They straightened beneath his gaze.
Altan gave no grand speech. "No magic. No weapons. Just bone, breath, and discipline. You start tomorrow. And you won't like it."
In the remaining months before the Zhong army reached the border, Chaghan began training the first officers of the Stormguard. Five would bear the title Warden-Marshals, seasoned veterans who would command detachments with iron clarity. The rest were shaped into Formation Leaders, known only as Iron Hands.
Their training was brutal, stripped of the flourish seen in other paths. Breath control to the edge of collapse. Endurance tests that blurred the line between flesh and will. Combat drills with shields locked and sabers short, driving them to move as one entity.
Each Warden-Marshal was taught to sense terrain through Echo Perception—a silent discipline that revealed the weight of intent rather than aura. Their Shield Doctrine, Mirror Edge, turned defense into the bait of death. With it, the shield struck like a hammer, locked a blade, or crushed a rib. The Leaf Saber Form focused on swift, precise strikes, each one meant to end the fight in a single motion.
Chaghan said little. His instruction came in movement and example. He would attack without warning, appearing at an officer's back with the tip of his sword resting just shy of vital points. Every failed defense became a lesson. Every bruise a mark of progress.
The Warden-Marshals followed him through cycles of sweat, blood, and silence. When the wraiths returned in the night, drawn by the storm forged in that chamber, Chaghan did not pull them back. Instead, he stepped forward.
"Form on me."
The officers hesitated only once. Then shields locked. Sabers rose.
The wraiths struck from mist and darkness, howling. But the Stormguard did not flinch.
They moved in sync. Deflect, strike, twist. Break the flow, reset the wall. Each motion fed the next. The battle became rhythm, and the rhythm became death.
At dawn, the plateau was silent again. The wraiths were gone. Chaghan stood at the front, unmarred. The Warden-Marshals behind him, breathing heavy but unbroken.
Altan watched from the ridge.
Two years had passed within that chamber. Only two months outside.
Time bent for the willing. And now, it would bend for war.