The first light of dawn did not bring the gentle warmth of a new day, but the cold glint of steel. Chinua, her face a stark mask of resolve, sat astride her horse at the head of a formidable column of Magoli soldiers. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and anticipation, the only sounds the creak of leather and the low rumble of a thousand hooves on the road. Before them, the massive gates of Neu-Li City rose from the mist, their iron-banded wood a symbol of defiance and a challenge. Chinua raised a hand, and her army halted as one, a silent, disciplined force poised on the threshold of history. This was not a march of conquest, but of reclamation, and as the sun crested the horizon, its rays seemed to burnish her purpose into a gleaming, deadly point.
Chinua wheeled her horse around to face her soldiers, her gaze sweeping over the ranks of hardened faces. "On the battlefield," she began, her voice ringing with an authority that commanded absolute silence, "there are no men or women. There are only soldiers in armor, and you are my warriors. Show your enemy no mercy, for they will show none to you. When you draw your swords, you do so for your people, for your land, for every memory stolen and every life lost."
She paused, letting the words sink in. "And yet, you must remember that we fight with our code of ethics, so that at the end of the battle, our enemies admit defeat not by the number of soldiers we came with, but by the moral code we represent."
Her eyes blazed with a fierce intensity. "Fore there, history doesn't write itself; it is people like us who write history. They said Neu-Li City cannot be taken, but today, we will bring Neu-Li City to her knees. Let those who question our ability swallow their own doubts. Now, forward!"
A soldier raised a war horn to his lips and gave a hard blow, signaling that they were ready for war. As the horn's call echoed, the roar of Chinua's soldiers answered, a single, powerful sound that promised to shake the very foundations of Nue-Li.
The Magoli soldiers at the front of the formation marched with the solemnity of men who understood their purpose. They were a human shield; a living wall meant to draw the city's fire and provide an opening for the others. Fear was a cold knot in their guts, a terrifying sensation crawling up their spines, but not a single person showed it. Their faces were stoic masks, their eyes unblinking as they fixed on the city gates. To an observer, their relentless advance looked like an ordinary stroll to the morning market, their bodies moving with a calm, purposeful rhythm. In their hearts, however, they knew they were walking into the jaws of hell, their only mission to destroy the dreaded automatic arrow machines that would greet their arrival.
The first light of dawn was just a pale gray line on the horizon when the Ginmio soldiers were jolted awake. The high, piercing shriek of a war horn sliced through the morning quiet, followed instantly by a sound that seemed to tear the very air—the unified roar of the Magoli army. In the chill of the morning, men scrambled from their meager sleep, their hands fumbling for their swords and shields. The ground beneath them began to tremble, a deep, resonant hum that grew more powerful by the second. It was the sound of a thousand boots marching as one and the thunderous, relentless beat of horses stomping the earth, an unyielding rhythm that was not just approaching the city but shaking it to its core.
A shrill, frantic blast from a soldier's horn tore through the morning air, a desperate, wailing signal that a new sound was overwhelming the chaos—the low thrum of a thousand hooves. The soldier, his face a mask of terror, clutched his horn as if it were a shield, his eyes fixed on the distance. At the sound, Chong, Nta, and Xao scrambled up the ladder to the city wall, their hearts pounding in their chests. They reached the top just in time to see the sun glinting off a sea of steel and leather. Far in the distance, stretching across the horizon, were the relentless, disciplined lines of Magoli soldiers, a silent, terrifying force marching steadily toward the gates of Neu-Li City.
A collective mask of dread fell over the Ginmiao soldiers as they gazed upon the approaching enemy. Their faces, once flushed with sleep, were now a pale gray, jaws clenched tight with a mixture of fear and defiance. In the ranks, some men's eyes were wide and hollow, reflecting the cold horror of facing a force so vast and unified, while others bore a grim, resolute scowl, a hardening born of sheer will. Sweat beaded on foreheads despite the morning chill, and the silent tension on the ramparts was a palpable thing, a shared expression of men who knew that the safety of the walls was an illusion, and the real fight was about to begin.
Chong's voice boomed across the city wall, a singular, urgent command: "Take your positions!"
From his perch high on the city wall, Xao watched the unblinking, disciplined march of the Magoli soldiers. His heart was a drum of worry in his chest, a stark acknowledgment of the terrifying force arrayed before the city gates, yet a grim, almost imperceptible curve formed at the corner of his lips. He watched them advance, their rhythm unwavering, their faces set like stone, and his smile widened just a fraction. They saw a great wall and an undefended gate, but they were blind to the ground beneath their feet. Xao knew with absolute certainty that the moment they crossed that unseen line, that point of no return drawn into the earth before the city, their march to glory would become a descent into a very different kind of hell."Get ready, here they come!" Nta's voice echoed.Even as the cold sweat of fear beaded on their brows, the Ginmiao soldiers on the city walls gripped their bows and arrows with a fierce, unwavering resolve. They were outnumbered, their numbers dwarfed by the endless ranks of the approaching Magoli army, and the thunderous roar from below was enough to curdle the blood of any ordinary man. Yet not a single soldier turned to flee. Instead, their eyes, though wide with the terror of what was to come, were fixed on the enemy with a grim determination. Their courage was not the absence of fear, but a defiant answer to it, a silent oath that they would stand firm, ready to face the overwhelming odds and defend their home to the last man.
On the ground, Chinua raised a single hand, and the low thunder of the Magoli advance came to an immediate, profound halt. The army stopped just two hundred yards of the three-hundred-meter marker, a specific line on the battlefield that she and Hye had discussed. With a silent, forward motion of her hand, she ordered the elite vanguard to advance.
Khunbish, Zhi, Timicin, Och, Chaghatai, Erden, Terbish, and Od led the charge, the eight men quickly followed by a disciplined group of eight hundred soldiers, most of them women. With their bows and arrows tightly secured behind their backs, the soldiers gripped their spears and shields, their formation a solid wall of steel and flesh. Without hesitation, they began their relentless march forward, crossing into the no-man's-land that lay between them and the city walls.
Chenghiz, his face a mask of bitter disbelief, watched from behind Chinua as the vanguard advanced. He was with his platoon, a seasoned group of men that included Dawa, Jochi, Arban, and Bolor, all of them veterans who expected to lead the charge. Instead, the honor of being first had been given to a force of eight hundred soldiers composed almost entirely of women. He shook his head in silent frustration. "So," he muttered to the men around him, his voice thick with derision, "our victory is supposed to lie in the hands of those female soldiers?"
Dawa's grim expression was a stark contrast to Chenghiz's scoffing. "We have not seen General Chinua fight in a battle before," he said, his voice flat and serious as he looked at the advancing vanguard. "Let's watch and see what she has to bring to the table." He paused; his gaze fixed on the exact spot where the vanguard was now crossing. "The last time we crossed that three-hundred-meter marker with two thousands of our soldiers, half of them were wiped out, and we only managed to reach two hundred yards beyond it. This is a killing ground, and she seems to know it."
The Magoli vanguard, led by Chinua's eight chosen men, did not rush forward in a concentrated mass toward the gates of Neu-Li City. Instead, the moment they crossed the three-hundred-meter marker, the eight hundred soldiers executed a pre-planned maneuver, fanning out in various directions along the city wall. As they spread, the automatic arrow machines on the ramparts shuddered and raised from the ground, the whir of gears followed by a low thump as they launched their first deadly volley. A hail of arrows screamed through the air, and the Magoli soldiers instantly dropped to the ground, lying flat on their backs with their shields held tightly over their bodies. Where the machines were meant to find a tightly packed legion, they found nothing. The volley of arrows, programmed for the main force, flew harmlessly over the vanguard and landed with a series of dull thuds into the line of dense hay bales that stood between the two armies.
As soon as the volley of arrows passed harmlessly over them, the deep, resonating beat of drums sounded from the main army. At that signal, the Magoli vanguard rose as one, a swift and synchronized movement that transformed them from a line of fallen men into a single, charging wave. With their shields held high and their spears readied, they rushed forward with a ferocious war cry, their every step purposeful as they stormed toward their objective: the eighty automatic arrow machines, now vulnerable and reloading. At the same time, hundreds of arrows from the Ginmiao archers rained down upon them from the top of the Neu-Li City walls, a renewed and relentless assault that the vanguard was forced to endure as they sprinted through the open ground.