The arrival of the High Elves changed the war overnight, but Ravencliff, a sprawling fortress carved into unforgiving mountain passes, did not fall quickly. The campaign, a brutal and bloody affair, stretched on for three full months. The Dark Elves' fifty thousand warriors were not just numerous; they were twisted by corruption, making them berserk and immune to surrender. Every battle was, therefore, a fight to the death.
First Month: Breaking the Outer Ring
At the grand war tent, Alden stood before a massive map, its surface dotted with markers for a hundred thousand troops. He commanded fewer than thirty thousand humans, while the approximately seventy thousand elves were divided among seven High Elves, each leading ten thousand of their kin. Though the High Elves bowed to him as their Prophesied "Savior," not all were pleased to take orders from a human. Sirenna held herself stiff and unreadable, and Lysandra's skepticism was a tangible thing.
"Sirenna," Alden began, tapping the western passes on the map, which were natural chokepoints fortified with dark magic. "Take your ten thousand and close this route. Encircle and isolate their forward bases. No crossings."
She gave a clipped nod, her scar-marred face unreadable. Siegfried, another High Elf, shot her a look of displeasure but remained silent.
"Garin, three legions to the east. Force the mountain passes, clear the supply routes. Keep my forces, approximately thirty thousand, in reserve for reinforcement. No piecemeal advances."
Lysandra cut in, her voice sharp. "Your pace is reckless, Supreme Commander. We cannot bleed ourselves dry before the siege begins."
"We will bleed more if we wait," Alden replied flatly, his gaze hard. "The longer they hold these passes, the stronger their position and their shadow magic becomes."
With the orders given, the coalition moved. The High Elves advanced on the left flank, Alden's Imperial Army on the right. Fighting was constant—ambushes in narrow gullies, night raids with shadow-forged arrows, and barricades of stone and magical spikes. High Elf archers were crucial here, clearing the high ground and dissolving magical defenses while human pike formations broke the chokepoints. By the month's end, the first ring of enemy defenses had fallen, and Ravencliff's outlying watchtowers were burning.
On the other hand, there was still no news from the empire. Even the secret agents were no longer responding. The last command he had given them brought no results. By this time, some report should have already reached him. It was then that Alden broke his own rule. Desperate for news from the capital, he resolved to use his pendant.
Alden's fingers tightened around the pendant that hung at his throat. He activated the coded summons, sending a silent signal through the network of agents and messengers he had painstakingly built. But no response came back. Not a merchant with empty wagons, nor a trapper wandering the wrong hunting grounds, nor a courier with the right passphrase.
The silence was absolute, as if every link in the chain had been severed. Alden kept glancing north. The thought of abandoning the campaign crossed his mind more than once. Even among the elves, whispers spread: the Savior was pacing too quickly, speaking too sharply, and taking greater risks than needed. Siegfried defended his authority, but others traded quiet looks of doubt. Alden noticed, and their pity only deepened the knot in his chest.
Second Month: The Assault
Days turned to weeks, then months. Still, no one came from the capital. The silence was its own kind of weapon, and Alden's growing madness was the ammunition. He had no time for a traditional siege. His army still had enough supplies, but Alden could not wait. His personal timeline was accelerating at a dangerous pace, driven by a frantic need for information about Aurenya.
Alden summoned the seven High Elves to the war tent. The massive table bore a detailed map of Ravencliff, now marked with a siege ring. This was not a siege of starvation; it was an all-out assault designed to overwhelm the enemy through brute force and relentless pressure.
"Sirenna, Lysandra, Garin," Alden said, his voice flat. "You each command a legion. Hold your flanks tight and keep the supply lines cut. No gaps."
Sirenna, steady as always, nodded. Lysandra's eyes narrowed. Garin shifted uneasily.
"Supreme Commander," another High Elf, Toren, spoke up, his voice sharp. "Why attack actively? We could starve them out. It's the safer route."
Alden met Toren's gaze. "We're out of time. The enemy grows stronger every day. We finish this siege now or lose everything."
Siegfried approached quietly, his voice respectful. "Your orders are bold, Supreme Commander, but some question your haste. They worry the assault will drain us."
Alden's jaw tightened. "Better to lose men now than lose the war later."
The tension among the commanders was clear. While their respect for Alden as "Savior" kept them in line, their resistance was a reasonable one. They were far from their home and had their people's well-being to consider. They tolerated his desperation because their own existence was at stake and their mother's final order, but at this point, their worry for their fellow elves was palpable.
But they, too, believed Ravencliff was a lost cause. The Dark Elves fought like cornered beasts, launching desperate, howling counterattacks at dawn and dusk. Alden rotated his human forces in waves, pushing forward with shields and pikes while High Elves tore down fortified gates to clear a path.
Amid the assault, Alden's thoughts kept returning to the capital. The pendant weighed heavily at his neck, his fingers itching to try to call for aid again. The silence gnawed deeper than the enemy's blades. By the end of the month, the High Elves had torn down the final gates, and Alden's vanguard stormed the breaches. The outer city lay in their hands.
Third Month: The Final Push
By the third month, Ravencliff was completely surrounded. The enemy, battered by a relentless two-month assault, was on the brink of collapse. Exhaustion and desperation forced them into reckless, howling charges at the gates.
Alden called the High Elves to the war tent. "We close this now," he said. "We sweep the outer districts and drive them into the keep. No one escapes."
Lysandra folded her arms. "You're pushing too hard. They'll fight like trapped wolves."
"That's the point," Alden replied. "Better one brutal push than another month of bleeding men."
The plan went into motion. The High Elves fell into place. Sirenna's legions forced enemy patrols into narrow streets, where Alden's pikes broke them apart. Garin's divisions cut through the east wall breaches, pushing into the old market quarter. High Elves brought down sections of the inner wall, and Alden led the vanguard directly into the breach.
Resistance hardened around the keep. Every hall was barricaded. Every stairway was trapped. Alden rotated fresh units every two hours, keeping the pressure constant. When the enemy finally fell back to the keep's great doors, Siegfried's siege teams advanced with enchanted spears. The gates burst inward, and Alden ordered the final charge.
Inside, Alden expected very strong resistance because the dark-cloaked special forces, the elite royal guards of the Ravencliff king, still hadn't shown their faces.
But as they proceeded inside, the situation took a strange turn. Unlike other normal Dark Elves who completely turned into monsters, the dark-cloaked special forces still held their appearance as Dark Elves, and they gave up too easily, as if they had already lost all hope. Not only did they not resist, they even surrendered immediately and cleared a path for them to enter the throne room.
Alden was curious, but in normal times he would have questioned them for an explanation; right now, he couldn't wait. He personally led the strike on the throne room, cutting down their commanders and king. Pyre teams moved in immediately, following the High Elves' suggestion to burn every corpse before the corruption could spread.
By the time the smoke cleared, the stronghold was silent. The war was over.
Of the twenty-nine thousand, eight hundred humans who had stood with Alden at the start of the campaign, barely fourteen thousand could still fight. The High Elves had lost a third of their warriors. And still—through the entire three months—nothing came from the capital. No riders, no couriers, no coded return signals.
Even the Brownhill couriers who once brought supplies had vanished long ago. It almost seemed as if the messages were not being sent at all. Alden's missives still sat in their hidden drop—a narrow crate in the rear supply depot—untouched week after week. No one had ever taken them.
It was as if the capital, if not the whole empire itself, had been erased from the map.