Chapter #60: The Wall of the Fallen
"Fire! Fire while you still can!" roared Colonel Olivier Armstrong, her voice cutting through the frozen wind like a blade. "Make every shot worthy of Fort Briggs! Let Drachma remember this day!"
Her words were more than orders—they were an oath. The soldiers, exhausted and wounded, with red-stained snow beneath their boots, found new strength in that cry and raised their rifles once more. The walls of Briggs answered with a relentless rain of bullets, thunder rolling endlessly through the valley.
Olivier did not remain behind.
Sword in hand, she advanced straight toward Snake. The botanical alchemist, wounded yet still alive, struggled to focus—to touch the ground, to summon roots and vines that might give him an advantage. Olivier did not allow it.
Every thrust was precise. Every slash was calculated—not to kill immediately, but to disrupt.
"Move!" she shouted as her blade cut through the air, grazing arms, shoulders, ribs. "Move—and die!"
Snake staggered backward, gasping, unable to complete a transmutation. Blood flowed from multiple shallow wounds—strategic ones. Olivier knew exactly what she was doing. She gave him neither space nor time.
"Weren't you so eloquent a moment ago?" she spat. "Where's your truth now? Where's your faith?"
Snake snarled and lunged in a desperate strike.
It was his mistake.
For a fraction of a second, he lowered his guard.
Olivier's sword traced a clean arc.
One single cut.
Snake's head rolled across the snow, his eyes still open, frozen in surprise. His body collapsed heavily, his alchemy extinguished forever.
Olivier dropped to one knee, breathing hard, her sword planted in the ground.
"One less…" she murmured.
There was no time to rest.
A few meters away, the fight between Buccaneer, Falken, and Armd was brutal—primitive, devoid of technique or elegance. Only strength, rage, and years of accumulated lies.
Falken managed to get behind Armd, using all his weight and force.
"Today we die together, brother," he said, his voice breaking. "But not as enemies."
He turned his head toward Buccaneer, who was struggling to stand.
"Major!" he shouted. "Run us both through!"
Buccaneer froze.
His fingers trembled against his automail. Before him were not simple enemies, but two brothers trapped in a tragedy that should never have existed.
"Do it!" Falken roared. "Before Drachma wins!"
For one eternal second, Buccaneer hesitated.
Then he screamed and charged.
His automail drove into Armd's body—but not all the way through. The impact was brutal, enough to wound him, but not to kill.
Armd responded with a savage blow that sent Buccaneer crashing to the ground. The Major lay unconscious, blood staining the snow around him.
"Forgive me, my friend…" Armd whispered, just before Falken struck him across the face.
The two brothers began trading punches, each blow accompanied by words that hurt more than torn flesh.
"Drachma told me you were dead!" Armd shouted. "That you wanted peace, and that I had to fulfill your final wish!"
"They told me you died in a Drachma attack!" Falken replied. "That's what they told me!"
"They said a corrupt general had taken power!"
"And they told me my own brother had abandoned me!"
Every punch was a delayed confession. Every fall, a lie exposed.
Then they noticed it.
The missile launcher.
Its indicators glowed red. The metal vibrated. Heat began to melt the snow around it.
"The temperature change…" Falken gasped. "The impact… we turned it into a ticking bomb."
Armd looked up, understanding immediately.
"If it explodes here… Briggs is gone."
The brothers locked eyes. For the first time, without hatred.
Without a word, they pushed the missile launcher together, tipping it toward the advancing Drachma troops.
Buccaneer groaned awake and, seeing the scene, forced himself up to help. The three of them, shoulder to shoulder, shoved the machine of death forward.
Olivier, now back on her feet, charged ahead.
With her bloodstained sword, she tore through the Drachma soldiers like a storm. Every movement was lethal. One by one, they fell before her. There was no blind fury in her eyes—only absolute resolve.
"Fall back!" she shouted to the few remaining Briggs soldiers. "That's an order!"
At the main entrance, reality struck hard: too many tanks. Too many enemy soldiers.
The Drachma general, watching from the rear, saw Snake's decapitated body.
"Fire," he ordered coldly.
Falken, Armd, and Buccaneer climbed onto the missile launcher. Buccaneer grabbed a bazooka and began firing from the outside, covering them as they programmed the system to detonate on impact.
"We're not getting out of this," Armd said, with an eerie calm.
"I know," Falken replied. "But Briggs will."
Olivier understood instantly.
She ran and leapt onto the moving launcher, grabbed Buccaneer, and hurled him off the structure. They both slammed heavily into the snow.
"What the hell are you doing!?" he shouted.
"I've lost too many men today," she answered, locking eyes with him. "I won't lose one more."
Buccaneer tried to protest—but it was already too late.
The missile launcher kept moving.
It slammed head-on into Drachma's tanks.
The explosion was deafening.
A single blast that melted the snow, shook the mountain, and painted the sky in fire. Tanks erupted one after another. The entire valley trembled.
The Drachma general, pale, gave the order to retreat.
Briggs had endured.
When silence returned, only smoke, ruins… and absence remained.
Falken and Armd had died together.
Not as enemies.
As brothers.
As heroes of the North.
Olivier stood motionless as the frozen wind swept across the battlefield. She clenched her fists.
Briggs still stood.
But the price had been written in blood.
End of chapter