The dawn arrived not with light, but with a low rumble that vibrated through the soles of Lin Wei's worn boots. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ox Li in the center of the 7th Battalion's ragged line.
Before them, a vast, mist-shrouded plain stretched out, its stillness a lie. On the far side, dark shapes moved like a gathering storm.
The Jin banner, a stark silhouette against the brightening sky, filled the air with a palpable menace.
The Song army was arrayed in three crude lines. The 7th Penal Battalion formed the shaky core of the front.
To their left and right, the regular infantry of the 4th and 5th Battalions stood in tighter, more disciplined formations, their spear tips forming a glinting, uneven forest.
Behind them, on a slight rise, stood ranks of crossbowmen and Commander Xin's personal guard—the men tasked with ensuring the penal troops did not break.
The tactical plan was simple: the 7th would be the anvil, the regulars the hammers. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, sweat, and the metallic tang of fear.
Lin Wei's world had shrunk to the men immediately around him. To his left, Ox Li breathed in heavy, ragged gulps, his massive hands clenched white around his long spear. The shaft was slick with his sweat.
To his right, Sly Liu fidgeted endlessly, adjusting his ill-fitting helmet, his eyes darting towards the rear, calculating the distance to the archers at their backs. "Just hold the line, just hold the line," he muttered, a desperate prayer.
A few paces behind, Scholar Zhang stood among other non-combatant support, his face a mask of academic horror, utterly divorced from the brutal reality about to unfold. The ground underfoot was churned mud, littered with stones and clumps of grass.
Lin Wei's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the deeper, growing thunder of hooves. His mouth was dry as dust.
The system interface, usually so clinical, was a silent, panicked scream in his mind, his heightened senses feeding it data it couldn't process:
"[Adrenaline levels critical. Tachycardia. Hypervigilance.]"
It was a diagnosis of pure terror. He could smell the sour breath of the man in front of him, see the nervous tremble in Sly Liu's jaw.
Every fiber of his being, trained to preserve life, screamed at him to run. But the memory of the heads on the stakes and the archers at their backs was a cage.
Then, the world exploded.
The Jin heavy cavalry hit the 7th Battalion's line like a tsunami of iron and flesh. The sound was not a single crash, but a symphony of horrors: the splintering of spears, the tear of leather and mail, the wet, final crunch of bone, and the screams of men being trampled and torn apart.
To Lin Wei's right, "Sly" Liu shrieked as an arrow punched into his thigh, sending him sprawling to the ground. Before Lin Wei could react, a Jin lancer was upon him, the spear point aimed at his heart.
Time seemed to distort.
The surgeon in him calculated the angle instinctively. He twisted aside at the last possible moment, the lancehead tearing a gash in his arm instead of his chest. Searing pain shot through him, and his own spear clattered from his numb grip.
In his peripheral vision, he saw "Ox" Li, a rock in the raging river, bellow as he drove his spear deep into a horse's neck. The beast went down, throwing its rider. But instantly, two more cavalrymen closed in, sabers flashing. Ox Li parried one blow, but a second saber bit deep into his shoulder blade. Blood soaked his tunic, and he grunted in agony, buckling to his knees.
"Scholar" Zhang was trying to drag a wounded man clear when a panicked horse slammed into him, throwing him hard to the ground where he lay, stunned and gasping.
The 7th Battalion's line dissolved. This wasn't a battle; it was a slaughter. The penal troops were serving their purpose exactly as intended: a bloody anvil upon which the Jin charge was blunted. As Lin Wei clutched his bleeding arm, scrambling to avoid hooves in the churned mud, he saw the signal flags wave.
The Song regulars on the flanks finally advanced. They weren't coming to rescue the 7th; they were the hammer, moving in to smash the Jin cavalry now bogged down and disordered by the carnage. The 7th Battalion had fulfilled its function.
The focus of the battle shifted. For the shattered remnants of the penal battalion, the fight was over. The surviving Jin horsemen and the Song regulars became locked in a new struggle, leaving behind a zone of terrible quiet—the corpse-strewn ground where the 7th had stood.
Lin Wei pushed himself up. His arm throbbed, but the system coolly assessed:
[Laceration to brachialis muscle. Major vessels intact. Recommend debridement and suture.]
He looked around at the hellscape.
Sly Liu writhed on the ground, clutching his arrow-pierced thigh, face white with pain and terror.
Ox Li knelt, a deep, gruesome wound gushing blood from his shoulder, his attempts to staunch it with one hand futile.
Scholar Zhang struggled to sit up a short distance away, likely with broken ribs, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
They were all alive, a feat that many did not achieve. But they were all seriously wounded, bleeding out on this forgotten corner of the battlefield.
And just as he knew they would, the Song army medics in the distance were busy tending to the regular troops. Not a single one glanced toward this penal graveyard.
The instinct to survive warred with the oath he had sworn in another life. He looked at his bloodied hands, then at the companions dying around him.
[Directive: Survive.]
[New Objective: Ensure Survival of Key Assets.]
The system interface flickered with the update. These "key assets" were his only connections in this brutal world. The battle was over. The real test of his skills was just beginning.