Chapter 98 - Chapter 98: The Last Line of Defense

The sky over Northveil no longer acknowledged the existence of winter's pristine blue. The heavy, low-hanging clouds—once a soft blanket of white—were now a desecrated canvas of charcoal and soot, stained by the oily plumes of black smoke billowing from burning tenements and the rhythmic explosions of gunpowder. The falling snow, an eternal characteristic of the North, no longer reached the ground in its pure form; it transmuted into gray, suffocating ash mid-air, a silent witness to the carnage unfolding below. Along the coastline, the once-scenic harbor of Northveil had been carved into a grotesque labyrinth of defensive trenches, slick with a mixture of half-frozen slush, blackened engine oil, and the visceral, iron-scented blood of men.