Lin's heart jolted violently.
A dangerous thought surged up from somewhere deep and desperate.
If I join them…
If I submit…
She might live.
The villagers might live.
For a moment, the idea clawed at him, frantic and persuasive.
Then reason slammed back just as hard.
If he did that, he would become one of them.
A monster.
No better than the things standing before him.
The conflict twisted inside his chest, and for an instant his expression wavered.
His wife's legs trembled.
Fear shook her from the inside out.
And yet—
She smiled.
It was a terrible smile. The kind born not of hope, but of resistance pushed past its breaking point. A smile that crushed terror down and refused to let it show.
Her voice was weak.
But every word rang clear.
"Lin will never join you monsters."
"No matter what tricks you use," she said, breath unsteady,"you cannot hide what you are. You were born to enslave others."
The Iron Cavalry General tilted his head and looked at her with pale, pupil-less eyes.
There was no anger in them.
Only mild curiosity.
Almost admiration.
"Oh," he murmured."So she is the head of this household."
He laughed softly.
The sound was dry and broken, forced up through old bone and dead throat.
The bronze warriors around him burst into laughter. Rough. Cruel. Unrestrained. Like wild dogs howling at prey.
What shattered Lin was not that.
It was that a few of the bound villagers laughed too.
Their laughter was hollow and shaking, filled with fear and submission. The laughter of people trying to survive by pleasing whoever held the knife.
"Join us," the general said."You may enslave them as well. A privilege you have never known."
He spoke as if offering a gift.
Like tossing a gnawed bone at someone starving.
Lin's wife drew a ragged breath. Her chest rose and fell sharply, but she kept her eyes locked on the general.
"You misunderstand," she said."We only want to live quietly."
"Naive," the general replied.
He shook his head, as if dismissing a dull and tiresome question.
"Without us, you would still be enslaved by kings. The king is dead. I killed him for you."
He lifted his chin slightly.
"Should you not thank me?"
"You are the same!" she shouted.
Her voice cracked, raw and hoarse, snapping back through the clearing like a broken wire.
"You are worse! When will this world ever end?"
Lin nearly moved then.
Nearly threw himself forward.
Even if it meant being torn apart.
The Iron Cavalry General sighed.
He shook his head again, as one might when deciding how to dispose of something troublesome.
His patience was gone.
"She lives," he said.
The words were flat.
Final.
In the same instant, his claw pressed down.
"And you come with us."
Thin lines of blood appeared at once, seeping down from Lin's wife's forehead, tracing her cheek in trembling paths.
The world seemed to tilt.
And something inside Lin broke, cleanly and forever.
Lin's fingers loosened one by one.
The length of dead wood slipped from his palm, rolled once through the grass, and vanished into the fog as if it had never existed.
He did not look at the general.
He did not look at his wife.
He simply stepped forward.
"Let her go."
His voice was steady.
"I'll go with you."
The fog churned at their feet, as though stirred by some invisible force.
The General stood where he was. His armor caught the moonlight and the distant fire, reflecting it back in cold fragments. His towering form filled the space between shadow and flame like a mountain that had never learned how to fall.
Lin did not retreat.
His back was straight, his shoulders locked in place. His fists tightened slowly at his sides, knuckles whitening as the strength drained from them.
His eyes burned red.
But he did not let the moisture spill over.
The air grew heavy, dense as forged copper. In the fog, their breaths crossed and tangled, yet neither of them lost control first.
In the next instant, anything could happen.
The volcano could erupt.
Or it could remain silent forever.
The General seemed to understand.
His cracked, lifeless mouth drew slowly apart, forming a smile that did not belong on anything once human.
"I believe you."
He lifted one hand and gave a casual wave.
"Let them go."
The ropes were cut.
Several villagers were shoved aside roughly, stumbling backward as if released too suddenly from a long-held grip.
Lin's wife was freed as well. Her arms fell loose, and she swayed, nearly collapsing before she caught herself.
"Lin!"
She rushed toward him, almost falling into his chest.
Lin closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, his lashes were soaked with heat and tears.
He did not embrace her.
He only spoke once, quietly.
"Take care of Wei."
The words were soft.
But there was no hesitation in them.
Then he turned.
The undead legion moved.
Lines of bronze armor and pale bone shifted as one, parting in perfect silence. The sound of metal sliding against metal echoed through the fog, slow and deliberate, like the opening of a massive iron gate.
A path appeared.
Not a path to life.
But a path into them.
Lin walked forward.
He did not look back.
His figure was swallowed quickly by armor, bone, and night.
The fog closed in again.
The ranks sealed.
As if the path had never existed at all.
-----------------
Even the darkest forest has an end.
The shadows of trees stretched through the night like the knotted fingers of old men, one by one pointing toward the broken cliff ahead.
At the cliff's edge hung a suspension bridge, narrow and lonely, swaying faintly in the mountain wind. If the bridge were destroyed, this escape route would be strangled completely, cut off as if someone had closed a fist around its throat.
At the slope before the bridge, a small fire burned.
The flames flickered low, jumping nervously, like a frightened heartbeat.
Beside the fire, a silver-armored undead warrior crouched, roasting something over the coals.
The smell reached them first.
Burned flesh.
Sharp, greasy, unmistakable.
The warrior's movements were unhurried, almost leisurely, as though he were on holiday, treating the mountain forest as his private courtyard.
Near the fire sat a small figure.
A little girl with a butterfly bow in her hair.
The wind stopped.
Not gradually.
Suddenly, as if someone had quietly pressed pause on the world.
The grass fell unnaturally still. Only a few stubborn blades lifted themselves again, as though curious to witness whatever cruel farce was about to unfold.
At the edge of the forest, two young shapes lay pressed flat against the ground.
Wei and Chun lay hidden among the leaves, motionless. Even their breathing slowed until it was nearly impossible to hear.
Chun reached out and tugged gently at Wei's sleeve, then pointed ahead.
Wei patted his chest and whispered, relief slipping into his voice before he could stop it.
"Good. The bridge is still there."
Chun shot him a look and grabbed him sharply.
"Wei, are your eyes just for decoration?" she hissed."There's an enemy right there."
Wei followed her finger.
Only then did he see the silver-armored warrior.
Chun inhaled quietly.
Her sense of smell had always been sharp, and now her brows knitted tight. The stench rolled in thick waves, carried by the cold wind, crawling into her nose and turning her stomach.
She tried to hold it back.
She failed.
A soft, involuntary retch escaped her throat.
And then she saw her.
"Wei…" Her voice thinned until it was barely sound."It's Little Butterfly."
The girl was five years old.
A child from the village. Cute, shy, rarely spoke to anyone.
Now her arms were tied behind her back. Moonlight fell across her damp cheeks, and she looked exactly like her name: a butterfly caught in rain, wings soaked and trembling, fragile enough to break at the slightest touch.
She was crying.
But she did not dare cry aloud.
The sobs came in broken pieces, stifled and forced down, as though she had already learned what happened when she made noise.
She had been captured for some time.
Beside her, something lay on the ground.
A body.
It did not move.
Wei could not tell whether it was unconscious—
Or never going to move again.
The clothes were torn and blackened, marked by burns.
Most likely her father.
Or her mother.
Chun's heart clenched as if someone had seized it in their fist.
Her right hand dug into the grass, gripping it so hard the stems stabbed into her palm.
The pain helped.
It kept her mind sharp.
"Wei…"
She swallowed and whispered through her teeth.
"If we don't save her…"
"She'll die."