The horn tore through the field and did not stop.
The space between the lines collapsed all at once. What had been measured and distant became loud and close, boots striking earth, shields locking, voices breaking into shouts that tangled and vanished in the noise. Arrows darkened the air. One struck the ground near Liang Wei's foot, the shaft shuddering where it landed.
She moved before thought caught up.
"Spear line," she called, her voice cutting clean through the chaos nearest her. "Hold."
The men obeyed. Wood met wood. Iron rang against iron. The first wave hit hard but uneven, bodies slamming into the line without coordination. Liang Wei braced and drove the butt of her spear into the earth, letting the impact travel through her arms and down into the ground instead of back into her chest.
The man in front of her raised his shield too high. She stepped in and drove the spearhead into the gap beneath it. He went down without a sound. She pulled the weapon free and shifted left before the body finished falling.
The line bent, then steadied.
Noise blurred into fragments. Orders shouted and swallowed. Someone screamed nearby, the sound sharp and short. The air thickened with dust and the metallic edge of blood. Liang Wei kept her focus narrow. Three steps ahead. The men beside her. The ground underfoot.
The spear did not fight her. It moved when she moved. It struck where she aimed. When she twisted her wrists, it followed. Honest. Reliable. She pushed back another attacker, then another, forcing them to stumble downslope where footing failed and balance followed.
The flank held. For a moment, it almost felt controlled.
Then the second wave came. They did not rush. They advanced in tighter formation, shields overlapping, weapons low and steady. Someone across the field shouted a command, and the pressure shifted, not louder but heavier, like a hand pressing down on the line.
Liang Wei felt it at once.
"Brace," she said, quieter now, and the men leaned in.
The clash was brutal. Spears struck shields and glanced aside. Blades slipped through gaps. One of her soldiers went down, dragged backward by the man behind him before his body could break the line. Liang Wei stepped into the space left behind without hesitation.
Her spear punched forward. Once. Twice. An arrow struck her shoulder hard enough to numb her arm. She absorbed it and moved on, breath steady, eyes fixed ahead. Pain could wait.
The field fractured. Orders no longer traveled cleanly. Units broke and reformed in pockets, fighting becoming close and personal, the kind that left no space for planning. Liang Wei found herself moving with the flow, adjusting on instinct, pulling her men back when the slope betrayed them, pushing forward when the enemy overreached.
She drove the spear forward again, the impact jolting up her arms.
A horn sounded from the enemy side, different in tone. Movement rippled through their ranks as a gap opened near the center. Soldiers parted, making way for a mounted figure pushing through the chaos with brutal confidence.
Marshal Li Jianjun.
His armor was heavier than the others, marked with command insignia dulled by use. His presence pulled attention like gravity. Men shifted instinctively to make space for him, fighting harder, faster, as if proximity alone sharpened them.
Liang Wei saw him and did not slow. She did not rush either. The marshal dismounted before reaching the main press, landing with practiced ease. His blade came free in a smooth motion, already stained dark. He cut down one of her men without breaking stride.
Something cold settled in Liang Wei's chest.
She adjusted her grip and moved to intercept.
They met without ceremony. His first strike was fast and heavy, aimed to end the fight quickly. She caught it on the shaft of her spear and let the force slide past her shoulder, stepping in close enough that his reach worked against him. She drove the spear toward his side. He twisted away, armor scraping, and countered with a backhand slash that forced her to drop and roll clear.
The noise around them dimmed, not gone, but distant, like water over stone. Liang Wei focused on his stance. The way his weight favored his back foot. The slight hitch in his left shoulder when he raised his blade.
He was strong. Experienced. Confident. But he underestimated her.
She pressed him, forcing him backward toward the uneven ground she had memorized hours earlier. He blocked, struck, advanced again. She gave ground deliberately, letting him think she was yielding.
His foot slid on loose stone. Just enough. She drove the spear upward, not with force, but precision. The tip found the gap beneath his arm where armor met flesh. His breath left him in a sharp, wet sound. He staggered, tried to bring his blade up again, and failed.
Liang Wei stepped in and finished it.
She did not look away as he fell.
Around them, the fight broke. Enemy lines wavered, then buckled. Someone shouted a retreat. Shields dropped. Men turned and ran. The pressure vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving behind only noise and bodies and the heavy silence that followed.
Liang Wei stood where she was, spear lowered, chest rising and falling. Her hands shook once. She tightened her grip until it stopped.
The sword remained wrapped at her side, quiet.
The horn sounded again, this time in a different call. Victory, or the closest thing to it.
She did not cheer. She did not look for praise. She turned back toward her men, already moving to regroup, to count losses, to tend the wounded. Behind her, Marshal Li Jianjun lay still on the broken ground.
The war had finally arrived. And it had taken notice of her.