It was funny to think it had been a mere three weeks since the breach had been opened, yet it seemed like an eternity.

Bati was trying to resist the urge to shiver – to show weakness - as he and the surviving members of a half-dozen different tribes were lined up by the champions.

Rat-kin, Dog-kin, Snake-kin, Tiger-kin. It mattered not.

They were all… prey, in this place. These muddy dugouts. All victims of the ever booming catapults overhead. He hated them. He hated the men around him. He hated this place. He hated the champions.

He hated himself.

A week earlier, when he had been safe and warm back at the camps, he had watched a dog-kin from another clan dive for the dirt in response to a child striking two sticks together. Bati had not been alone in laughing and jeering at the ‘coward’.

He understood now though. He understood all too well. And he hated it. Fear had infected him like a disease, and it spread amongst the inhabitants of the trenches like a plague.

He gripped his spear in callused hands, trying to cease the shaking as the constant booming continued. They were fine. The catapults were shooting at something far away for now. Likely the reinforcements from the camps who even now streamed into the trench in twos and threes.

These newcomers were shaken by the experience they had just endured, but Bati could see they still had vigor to them yet. It was in the way they didn’t yet flinch at the sound of the explosives in the distance. In the way they sneered at those not of their kin.

That would change in time, as it had for Bati.

If they survived the next hour.

They were close to the breach here. Almost within the shadow of the wall itself. It was the only ‘safe’ place beyond the camps. A series of trenches and dugouts that stretched for hundreds of meters in every direction.

Bati would know. He had helped expand it. The thought actually made him chuckle. Him, a brave tiger-kin, scrabbling in the dirt for safety like a rat or rabbit. It didn’t matter. So long as he was safe. From the cavalry. From the catapults.

…From the fire-lances.

Minutes passed by, and in that time the booming of the catapults grew closer and closer until it was almost overhead.

“That seems to be the last of them.” One of the champions in the trench with them said as she turned to her compatriot, both rat-kin’s once pristine fur matted and tangled by the time they had spent here. “Do you think it will be enough?”

Her companion shrugged. “It is or it isn’t. Either way, we have our instructions.”

“…There is the alternative.”

It said much about the mood of the horde that the rat-kin felt comfortable enough to say those words in full earshot of both her companions and the mortal tribesmen nearby.

There were no enforcers here.

“You would cross the Herald? Flee when fresh prey sits but a stone’s throw from us?” It was interesting to note that her companion did not sound accusatory. Merely curious.

This time it was the first champion’s opportunity to shrug. “She is wounded. Her second gone. Only her enforcers remain. And of the great feast we were promised, I have seen little.”

“Because you lack the strength to take it,” another Champion hissed, a newcomer to the trench, given the relative cleanliness of the dog-kin’s fur. “The Herald has opened the path. We need only walk it.”

Both rat-kin stared at the newcomer, before snickering.

“But of course,” the second said as she gestured over the rim of the trench. “You are welcome to take the first step, sister.”

The dog-kin’s ears twitched. “Neither of you are sisters of mine, rats.”

“We are all sisters in suffering here, dog.” One of them snickered.

The dog-kin snorted as she stepped passed the two moving to the rim of the trench, clearly ready to lead the charge. Other champions, new to the trench, walked with her, sneering at the veterans who hung back.

“Mortal,” she grunted, turning toward where a hunt-leader stood with the rest of the ‘lobbers’. “Are the countermeasures ready?”

The man nodded nervously as he clutched the heavy clay pot in his hand. “Yes, great one.”

“Then throw them. I have little desire to spend a moment longer in this rat’s nest than I must.” She turned back, her gaze sweeping over Bati and the rest. “Once I give the word, you shall all charge. We shall sweep over the enemy like a great tide and feast like Divinities.”

Many of the newcomers roared in approval, yet Bati and his fellow survivors remained silent. After all, they had heard similar speeches before.

Something the dog-kin clearly noticed, as her gaze swept over them all menacingly. “Yet know this, any coward that runs will pray that the enemy cuts them down, for that will be a mercy compared to the alternative.”

Bati believed her - even knowing the hell he was about to step into.

He had seen the fates of those cowards that had tried to flee beyond the borders erected by the Herald and he had no wish to share their fate.

To be killed by Domestics or eaten by kin was one thing, but to be torn apart by lowly beasts? His spirit destroyed?

No, that was a fate worse than death. At least here, if he fell, his corpse would be used to nourish those kin who came after him. His spirit would live on through them. Just as the spirits of those who had come before lived on in him now.

Would that they would give him the strength to cease this damnable shaking!

“Throw!” The dog-kin roared, making him jump.

The champions scooped the pots from the waiting hands of the mortals, hurling high into the air and over the rim of the trench. Some of them exploded in the air, caught by the slug of a fire-lance. They belched forth a black oily smoke that lingered in the air. Most landed where they were intended to though, blocking the entrance to the breach with rolling clouds of ki-charged dust.

Bati knew it wouldn’t last long. The wind or enemy cultivators would disperse it soon. For now though, it presented a small window of opportunity.

“Charge!”

The dog-kin leapt from the trench along with her fellows, bounding easily across the killing field. The rat-kin and her veterans from before followed after, though with significantly less enthusiasm.

Something Bati well understood as he followed his fellows out of the trench and into hell itself.

For while the enemy could no longer see them, they didn’t need to see to make some limited use of their strange weapons. The tiger-kin could already hear the distant popping coming from the breach, and he watched as a man went down nearby him, only his outline visible in the smoke.

Bati ran, pumping his limbs with all the fervor he could muster as he barreled forwards. He ignored the way the oily smoke seemed to cling to his lungs, making it hard to breathe. His focus was entirely on making it to the breach.

He did, however, stop his charge when he heard a cry from in front of him. A loud yowl that only grew as time passed, growing to a chorus as other voices rose to join it.

Ah, so that’s where the thorn wire is, he thought.

He had not been entirely sure he’d be able to see it in the smoke, but it seemed that issue had taken care of itself. He need only listen for the cries of those who hadn’t stopped before blundering into the rolling rows of serrated metal to know where they lay.

“Bring up the planks!” Someone shouted through the gloom and Bati honed in on the shouter to find them.

He arrived just as the planks were being employed. Large wooden bridges were being thrown across the devilish wire, allowing some small means of egress across the killing fields. The planks were long, ungainly things that required three men to carry, but it was better than the alternative.

In earlier assaults on the breach, it hadn’t taken long for most warriors to realize that in the absence of other options, a kin’s body could serve as a bridge.

Living or dead.

Unfortunately, the enemy had adapted as well. They now made sure to burn both corpses and wooden planks between assaults, necessitating the need for new bridges to be made each time they attacked.

Would that we were Champions who could just… leap over the blasted thorns, he thought as he clambered across, careful not to be knocked into the wire by the jostling of his harried fellows.

That happened sometimes and it was not a fate he would wish on anyone – as evidenced by the continued screaming of those unlucky enough to have it befall them.

Finally though, he made it through the wire and the smoke.

The champions had arrived first, naturally, and they battled with their opposite numbers right in the middle of the breach.

An intentional move on their part, a new strategy formulated by the Herald.

Rather than spreading to seek out their opposite numbers, or waiting within the ranks of the mortals for their enemy to come to them, she had instead instructed the champions to head straight for the enemy formation.

They would either dive into the mass of mortals, disrupting their ranged firepower, or the enemy cultivators would be forced to intercept them.

And for so long as the champions and Domestic cultivators clashed between the lines, the enemy mortals beyond them could not fire.

Bati could see them. The domestic mortals on the other side of the superhuman melee. They stood in ordered ranks, some crouching, some kneeling, all of them held strange spears in their hands that they aimed towards the breach.

Fire-lances, he thought with real hate as more and more of his fellows emerged from the smoke.

Many tribesmen had died during the charge, yet as he looked around him at the horde gathering, he saw that they had the enemy outnumbered all the same.

More than they usually had.

Perhaps this is it, he thought. The smoke worked. The planks worked. The strategy is working.

It had taken longer than he ever thought possible, but it seemed like the horde had finally managed to overcome the gauntlet.

“Let’s murder those fucks!”

At first, he was confused as to where the shout had come from, before he realized it was his own.

His cry was taken up by the horde as they all began to charge as one, aiming to slip past the dueling cultivators and make their way into the heart of the enemy formation.

That was when he saw it. Poking up from the back of the domestic formation as it rose on six great metal legs.

Inferno-crabs, his mind supplied.

He had thought them a myth. A tale told by survivors of the first assault on the breach to exaggerate the threat of the fire-lances.

Only it seemed they were real, and Bati knew he was not the only one who hesitated in his charge as the beast’s great snouts aimed down at the charging horde, sending a ripple through the lines.

They wouldn’t, he thought. The flames would hit their own people!

Indeed, the dueling cultivators had made no attempt to flee. They continued to fight – and thus the champions had no choice but to fight back.

For just a moment, Bati dared to hope that his theory was correct. That the arrival of the strange metal beasts was simply a means to intimidate.

Then, almost as one, all four beasts made a strange clunking sound.

And Bati’s world became fire and pain.

----------

Gao grinned as the enemy burned. Champions and Tribesmen alike. Billowing flames from the snouts of the Crawlers washed over them all.

Not the cultivators though.

To hear Lady Ren complain about it, it had not been a small task to acquire this many cultivators with an elemental affinity for – and thus a resistance to - fire. It had required extensive negotiations not just with the Imperial Army, but with the Sects as well. Gao knew not what payment the two factions had extracted from his master for their aid – if any. Yet even if they had asked for their weight in gold, he would say it was worth it now, as fire washed over the cultivators without harm, but torched champions and tribesmen alike.

He took but a moment to enjoy the glorious sensation.

Then it was back to work.

“As soon as those bodies stop twitching, I want you to get the incendiary rounds out,” he instructed. “We need to burn the planks they were using.”

The sergeant he was speaking to bowed, before leaving to do as he commanded.

Gao’s smile remained in place as the flames cut out and the cultivators pulled back, even their clothes untouched by the fire. As they did, a number of shots rang out from the line, putting down those tribesmen who had survived the fire and were now attempting to flee.

They did not get far. The smoke they had used to close the distance had already started to thin, and the flames of the Crawlers burned surprisingly cleanly, creating little smoke.

Once again, the enemy had been beaten back, and he had not lost a single man or woman.

He did not know how long that would last though. As backwards and barbaric as the enemy were, they were not stupid. They would find a workaround eventually. They were already making strides in that direction. The trenches. The planks. The smoke. This new strategy where they used the cultivators to tie up his firing lanes.

It might have worked were it not for the presence of the Crawlers and his pre-existing plan with the fire resistant cultivators.

Eventually though, the enemy would do something he had not planned for and people would die. It was inevitable. The best he could do was prepare for as many eventualities as possible.

And if things do go to shit, he thought. Well, I’ll keep my mouth shut.

His master had made it abundantly clear that he needed no disposable patsies to take the fall for him in an attempt to exonerate him of responsibility for any given failure.

The man considered Gao - and this was strange to think – more valuable than any face he might lose as a result of any given failure.

It was… odd.

Yet, many things about the Overseer of Jiangshi were odd.

Regardless, Gao was thankful for the man’s oddities, even if he didn’t truly understand them.

After all, what kind of cultivator values the life of a mortal over face?

------------

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

Zu cursed up a storm as her latest assault was repulsed by the creations of that damnable male. Flames ripped from her mouth and her motions aggravated her wounds as she stomped up and down the length of her command post, but she cared not a whit.

The breach had been open for three weeks. Three weeks! Three weeks with not an inch of progress to be spoken for.

She glared darkly about herself, as if daring any of the clan heads present to make an issue of her actions. None did, though she couldn’t help but note that not all were as quick to avert their gaze as they had been less than two weeks ago.

They sensed weakness.

“All of you, leave me.” She grunted, smoke billowing from the corners of her mouth. “I need to rethink my strategies.”

The assembled leaders were all too happy to escape her presence for one reason or another. Zu watched them go.

The horde had ever been ruled by strength and strength alone. The untidy patchwork of alliances between the clans was held together by fear, not love.

Now Jiguuer was dead and she was wounded. Not crippled, but her fighting strength had certainly taken a hit with the crippling of one of her wings and the damage to her ankle. Perhaps her authority might have survived the loss of one or the other, but not both.

Already, scuffles were being reported throughout the camps as old feuds and instincts reignited without her or her second there to quell them.

The horde was beginning to unravel – and her continued failures to take the wall were only accelerating the process.

It was only by feeding the most troublesome of the clans into the grinder that she yet retained power. In that regard, it was rather fortunate for her that the tribes most likely to rebel against her in her weakened state were also the most shortsighted and vainglorious.

For even if they killed her, Zu’s mother would ensure that her death did not go unavenged. Which was also likely another reason why most of the tribes remained subservient – for now.

Another few weeks of casualties with nothing to gain for it though…

Well, even if her underlings failed to kill her – her mother or father just might.

“Oh?”

Zu stiffened, a shiver running up her spine. Slowly, carefully, she turned to regard the monkey-kin that had spoken.

The woman herself was of little interest. A member of her guard detail and a champion of little consequence.

Were it not for the foul pungent ki that rolled off her form. Ki that had not been there but a moment ago.

“I would have thought you’d be done with that city by now.”

Those closest to the woman took a step back, awe and fear on their faces as their comrade spoke in a strange double toned voice, her eyes glowing in the evening gloom.

“Mother,” Zu breathed.

“In the flesh,” the monkey-kin giggled most unnaturally, her body twisting jerkily and without grace. “Or someone’s flesh at least. I mean, I made it in a manner of speaking. Or at least, I made this one’s ancestor at some point. Does that count?”

Zu eyed the puppeteered guard warily. “Why are you here, mother?”

She knew better to indulge one of her progenitor’s tangents.

“I was going to send you an order to stop glutting yourself and move onto your next objective.” The guard’s head cocked to the side unnaturally, her bones creaking under the forces her body was subjecting itself to. “Imagine my surprise to discover that not only have you not conquered Ten Huo, you’re still sitting outside it.”

Her eyes squinted for a second.

“Very far outside it.” She gazed up at her daughter. “Yet, I can sense that you have already cast the ritual I taught you. Oh, and you are injured.”

The ‘explain’ didn’t need to be spoken.

Zu took a deep breath, burying her shame deep. “The ritual was disrupted. I only managed to make a small breach in the walls before I was… incapacitated.”

“Fool girl, I warned you about the Imperial Scion’s-”

“It wasn’t her!” Normally, Zu would never dare to interrupt her mother, but the words slipped out before she could stop them.

Silence grew on the hilltop, broken only by the guard’s fingers snapping as through her Zu’s mother stared up at her.

“Not her? Then how did you manage to fuck up your father’s work?” she asked finally, blood dribbling from the guard’s right eye as some of the Divinity’s whimsical tone faded away to reveal real anger.

Sweat beaded Zu’s forehead. “There is a craftsman within the city. He has created… weapons that allow him to strike at me from miles away. That is why these camps are so far from the walls.”

“A craftsman?”

Zu could hear some genuine interest in the woman’s tone. Which wasn’t too surprising.

The monkey was, after all, a tool user. Even her creation of the Instinctive cultivation technique had not robbed her of that. In many ways, it had only reinforced it.

Seizing the initiative, Zu continued on. “It is him, not the dragon’s weak blood, that keeps me from fulfilling your mandates mother. Even now, he sits in the breach, like a spider in his web.”

Zu sighed. “And no matter what I try, I fear that I cannot quickly unseat him.”

She dared not say that she feared she might never do it. Not before the horde splintered around her. Neither her mother nor father had any use for failures, and Zu had no desire to be broken down for reagents like so many of her ‘imperfect’ siblings.

“Truly?” Her interest growing. “This… male, is that powerful?”

Zu nodded hastily.

“Oh, how I would love to have you bring him to me. So that I could… pick his brain.”

Zu shuddered.

The guard waved an arm carelessly, the forearm snapping loudly as she did. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the time for me to indulge my hobbies. The Dragon is proving stronger than I anticipated.”

“She’s adapting to your techniques?”

Zu was well aware that many of the advantages the Instinctive currently held over the Domesticated were borne of her mother’s efforts to throw the local wildlife into disarray – with the aid of her father.

Her mother laughed, causing an eye to pop out of the guard’s skull. “Not at all my dear. The old carp still flails about blindly. Unfortunately for us, even her blind swings are still powerful. To that end, I need you and your siblings to keep cutting her legs out from under her.”

The monkey-kin’s single eye glared up at Zu.

“Something your failure is delaying.”

Zu shrunk in on herself.

“To that end, your father will be swinging by to… expedite things.”

Zu’s heart skipped a beat as her skin paled under her fear. “Father is coming here?”

“Oh yes. Obviously, I’ve been trying to keep him at home and distracted with me, but you know how wilful he can be.” The monkey-kin chuckled again. “Naturally, he’s been looking for any opportunity to stretch his wings and your little wall problem has provided the perfect one.”

Zu couldn’t help but note the way her guards were all but shaking. Something they hadn’t done when one of their comrades started literally coming apart under her mother’s power.

No, it took the mention of her father to do that.

“Will he be… staying for long?” the ape-dragon hybrid asked.

Finally, the guard’s body seemed to give out under the strain as she collapsed to the floor, her other eye bursting in the process as more bones just… shattered inside her. Nonetheless, her mother managed to get a few final words out, gazing up at Zu though sightless holes in the woman’s face.

“Of course not, my dear. Not with my fellow Divinities moving. The Ox and the Tiger have already joined up with Dragon. And if my senses don’t deceive me, I think the cock is somewhere in your area.”

Zu shuddered, not just from the sight in front of her, but mostly from the knowledge that one of those old monsters was anywhere near her.

“The rabbit’s also starting to make noise from her little mountain top. And if any of them were to sense him deep in Empire territory they would not hesitate to move to intercept. We can’t afford that yet. So, he will pop in, fix your mess and move on.”

With those final words, the rancid ki finally dissipated and the guard’s body went still. Zu stared down at the ravaged, almost putrid smelling, corpse of one of her subordinates before sighing.

“Yes, mother.”

For better or for worse, it seemed her father was coming here. Ten Huo was doomed. She could only hope that she and the horde survived the experience.

To that end, she turned to her guards.

“Tell the enforcers to start gathering up virgin women from amongst the clans.”

One of her guards tore her gaze away from her downed comrade. “They, uh, won’t like that, Great One.”

Zu just shrugged, staring up at the sky. “Tell them my father is coming.”

Which was all that needed to be said really.