The wind over Baiyuan changed at dawn.
It was no longer the scorching breath of war, thick with the stench of blood, fire, and the heavy dread of siege. Now it came from the north—colder, damper, and carrying with it the unmistakable scent of retreat. It whispered not of triumph or defiance, but of unraveling lines, of shaken hearts, of walls about to fall.
From atop the blackened, battle-worn ramparts of Baiyuan, General Shen Ruolin stood cloaked in silence, his eyes scanning the horizon. He watched the once-proud banners of the enemy flutter now with weakness, their edges frayed by wind and fire. The great fires of the barbarian camps, which had lit the hills for weeks with the confidence of conquest, were going out—one by one—like dying stars in a collapsing sky.
And the riders of the Khan… they no longer moved like wolves.
They moved like shadows dragged down by dread.
Ruolin didn't need messengers. He didn't need scouts or intercepted letters. He already knew.
The Khan was retreating.
The news had fallen upon the barbarian lines like a thunderclap from a cloudless sky: the capital of the tribes—hidden deep in the northern grasslands—had been destroyed. Not raided. Not besieged. Burned to the ground by fire and steel. Over the following two nights, imperial sentries had watched in grim silence as enemy fires flared erratically across the distant hills, only to be extinguished just as fast. Like panicked men burning what they could not carry.
Supply wagons rolled northeastward in rushed convoys. Loose formations of cavalry moved without coordination or purpose. There were no more feints or encirclements. No clever ambushes. Only a disciplined, desperate flight.
And inside Baiyuan, panic spread like wildfire through dry brush.
The puppet army—founded on nothing but promises of power and false sovereignty—collapsed with the same speed and fragility with which it had been assembled. When the tribal horsemen began pulling back from the front lines, local soldiers panicked. Many deserted under the cover of darkness. Some surrendered outright. Others, lost to despair, set fire to their own granaries and flung open the rear gates, praying the chaos would let them escape retribution.
That was when Shen Ruolin gave the order.
"Advance. No pause. No mercy."
The imperial army surged forward in three vast waves, each one converging like rivers of vengeance. This was no longer a siege. It was a reckoning. The siege towers were abandoned, catapults fell silent, and the soldiers poured through every breach, every shattered gate, every crumbling wall. Their battle cries rang out not as calls to arms—but as final judgment.
Baiyuan fell in a single morning.
The last remnants of the puppet garrison made a futile stand in the courtyard of the old provincial palace. There, they attempted to shield their self-declared "Emperor of the North"—a pretender who wore a rusted copper crown and issued decrees with trembling hands.
Shen Ruolin found him hiding in a damp cellar, fingers stained with ink and blood.
"Writing your final orders?" he asked, his voice cold and empty.
The man barely managed a nod before he was dragged to the main square and impaled on a stake. His broken body was left beneath the shattered standard of his illusionary empire, as if to say: This is how false thrones end.
That afternoon, the townsfolk of Baiyuan emerged slowly from the ruins of their homes. Many had supported the puppet regime, not out of loyalty, but out of fear. They expected looting. Executions. Fire.
But Shen Ruolin was not a man of blind vengeance.
"I will not destroy this city," he declared before the gathered masses, surrounded by grim-faced officers. "I will destroy the idea that gave it birth. There is no Northern Empire. There never was. Only treachery wearing a mask. You will work again. You will serve again. But this time, under the true empire."
And so it was done.
The falsified records of governance were cast into fire. The puppet banners were torn down, strip by strip. Collaborators among the nobility were publicly tried—some hanged, others sent to labor camps in chains. But the common folk were given a chance: swear loyalty, and live. And many, with war still echoing in their ears and smoke clinging to their clothes, knelt and accepted.
Meanwhile, far to the north in the cold hills, the Khan rode in silence, his face hardened by dust, his heart by failure. Around him, the clans broke apart, fleeing in scattered bands with what little they could still carry. He spoke to no one. He ate nothing. He simply stared ahead, as though hoping the horizon would offer him absolution—or perhaps, direction.
He had lost more than a city.
He had lost momentum.
And worse still—he knew Luo Wen had not yet returned. The last and greatest blow from the empire had yet to fall. The thunder behind him was not yet spent.
Ahead of him… there was only cold.
Cold, and the long shadow of a war that was no longer his to win.