The Khan stood atop a low hill, just beyond the outer edge of the ancient sacred circle. From that quiet perch, he watched the slow, uncertain rebirth of what had once been the beating heart of his people. Around the newly raised totem —a crude but defiant monument to survival— the remnants of his nation moved like shadows that still remembered how to be human.
Children stumbled through lessons in horseback riding, their small hands clutching reins with more hope than skill. Makeshift blacksmiths hammered bent scraps of iron over cracked stones, coaxing life from discarded steel. And the elders—those who had seen too many suns rise and fall—murmured old tales beside the fire, their voices raw with memory, as if each word clawed its way out from a grave of silence.
The Khan said nothing. His gaze swept over the camp, steady and still. But within his mind, no images of harvests or songs bloomed. There were no dreams of peace. Only a single, voiceless flame burned there—its name carved into the very bones of his will: vengeance.
"A kingdom may win the war," he whispered to one of his generals, "but it cannot kill what still refuses to die."
That was when the scouts returned.
And they brought no peace with them.
Dust-covered, half-mad with exhaustion, their eyes wide with fear and their lips cracked from the cold, they came like the wind before a storm. One collapsed before he could speak. Another dropped to his knees before the Khan, his breath a ragged rasp in his throat.
"They're coming!" he gasped. "From the south—he's here! Luo Wen!"
The Khan felt the earth shift beneath his feet—not from hoofbeats, but from something deeper, older. Instinct. The cold, cutting echo of fear dressed in iron.
"How many?" demanded the general beside him.
"Too many," the scout choked out. "No smoke trick this time. They're real. They're here. Hundreds—no, thousands!"
Without a word, the Khan turned on his heel, vaulted onto his younger, stronger horse, and raced toward the high rocks that overlooked the plains. From there, the horizon stretched open like a wound.
And on that horizon… the storm was coming.
Not a trick of shadows. Not the old deception.
A true army.
The dust rose in vast, thick clouds—waves rolling across the earth. At the front, like a spearhead driving into the skin of the world, marched Luo Wen's cavalry. There were no dragging logs this time. No smoke screens to fake their numbers. This was the edge of the empire made flesh.
"This can't be…" muttered the general who had followed him, eyes shining with disbelief. "He retreated. He retreated!"
The Khan didn't reply. His jaw clenched so tightly it ached. He drew one deep, slow breath, as if tasting the end in the air.
"He came back," he said at last. "This time… to end it for good."
There was no time for tactics. No space for calm deliberation.
What followed was chaos.
The camp exploded into frantic movement. Men rushed to throw up makeshift barricades with splintered beams and broken carts. Others buried sacred relics in trembling haste. Women wrapped children in furs and fled to the shadows of the tents. And among the elders, some began to hum the death songs of their forebears—as if they knew, deep in their marrow, that tomorrow might never come.
The Khan dismounted. His boots hit the earth with a force that belied his age. He turned, voice raw with fire, and shouted:
"Everyone to the center! Defensive formation! We stand like the old days!"
But these were not the old days.
There were no walls. No towers. No fortresses to anchor their hope. Only patched-up tents, battered warriors, and a will that had bled too long.
Luo Wen was close now. So close the wind carried the clipped, deadly cries of his vanguard. The swish of lances slicing air. The thunder of hooves pounding frozen soil. The empire wasn't sending a message this time.
It had come to erase.
"Why now?" the Khan whispered, eyes locked on the storm drawing nearer. "Why not wait?"
But even as the words left him, he knew the answer.
Because Luo Wen did not come to let ashes bloom again. He came to grind them into dust.
He came to destroy even the memory.
"If we are to fall," the Khan bellowed, climbing atop a jagged rock so all could hear him, "then let us fall with fury, not with tears!"
Spears were raised. Sacred fires lit. Warriors smeared their faces in the war paints of their ancestors. Mothers strapped blades to their children's arms. And in every eye, there was something more than fear.
There was defiance.
The defiance of those who have nothing left to lose.
And then… the riders of Luo Wen arrived.
They were no longer an illusion. No longer a whisper in the wind.
They were the hammer of fate. The roar of centuries. The end.
The Khan, sword in hand, watched as the tide of steel bore down on them. He did not run. He did not beg.
He simply said, one last time:
"If we are to die… then let the world never forget us."
And with that, he charged.