The first mistake was assuming the wall was the weapon.
The second was assuming the king had used his best hand.
Far beyond Aurelion's eastern fields, in a temporary command site carved into black stone, the surviving reports were read twice.
Then a third time.
A tall figure lowered the slate slowly.
"A modified barrier," it said. "Adaptive. Impressive… for a border city."
Another voice answered, calm and amused. "So they finally learned to bend instead of resist."
"Yes," the first replied. "But only locally. The structure was improvised."
That conclusion settled comfortably in the chamber.
Improvised meant limited.
Limited meant repeatable.
Repeatable meant solvable.
They smiled.
Back in Aurelion, Aldric was not celebrating.
He stood in the war room with Arinelle, Lysenne, and Rovan, listening as engineers excitedly explained what they thought had happened.
"…so if we reinforce the secondary anchors—"
"No," Arinelle said flatly.
The room paused.
Aldric hid his smile.
"That will make it rigid again," Arinelle continued. "Which defeats the point."
An engineer frowned. "But that would increase output."
"And get people killed," she replied.
Silence.
Aldric leaned against the table. "You all did well," he said. "Now stop improving the wrong thing."
They looked at him.
"We're not building a stronger wall," Aldric said. "We're building a smarter city."
That shifted the room immediately.
Arinelle looked up sharply.
"…You're thinking layers," she said.
"Yes."
"Not stacked," she added. "Distributed."
"Exactly."
She grinned.
That grin would terrify the right people, Aldric thought.
The next attack came two nights later.
Not at the eastern wall.
At the river gates.
They came faster this time. Cleaner. More confident.
Five figures.
Same pressure-based movement. Same calculated strikes.
Different angle.
"See?" one of them said, watching from a distance. "They adapted once. They won't adapt twice."
The river barrier lit up.
And then—
It split.
Not breaking.
Separating.
Five independent layers shifted in different directions, each reacting to a different vector of force.
The first attacker slammed into the wrong layer and was redirected sideways into the water.
The second overcorrected and stumbled.
The third managed to land a solid hit—
—only for the force to be absorbed and fed back into the fourth layer, which lashed outward like a controlled wave.
The river exploded upward.
Guards stared.
Archers didn't even need orders.
By the time the attackers realized this wasn't the same defense—
Two were down.
One was retreating.
And one was very, very confused.
Arinelle stood at the control platform, hair loose, eyes blazing.
"They assumed a single mind," she muttered. "So I gave them five."
Aldric watched calmly.
In the future, this maneuver would be called the Distributed Response Model.
In the future, it would change siege warfare.
Right now, it was just working.
"Rovan," Aldric said. "Advance teams."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The remaining attackers fled.
They didn't regroup.
They didn't test again.
They ran.
Silence returned to the river.
This time, there was no cheering.
Just stunned realization.
One of the engineers whispered, "They… didn't even slow us down."
Arinelle exhaled, hands trembling slightly now that the adrenaline faded.
"That's because they were solving the wrong problem," she said.
Aldric nodded.
"They thought the wall was the threat," he said. "They never asked who designed it."
Lysenne looked at him.
"And now?"
Aldric turned toward the map.
"Now," he said, "they'll stop sending probes."
The room stiffened.
"And start sending answers," Lysenne finished.
"Yes," Aldric said calmly. "Which is exactly what I wanted."
Far away, the reports arrived late.
Incomplete.
Contradictory.
One thing was clear, however.
The target had not merely adapted.
It had anticipated adaptation.
The figures stood in silence this time.
No smiles.
No amusement.
One finally spoke.
"The king remembers," it said.
Another replied quietly, "Then this is no longer a frontier problem."
A third voice added, colder, sharper:
"Escalate."
Back in Aurelion, Aldric stood beside Arinelle on the wall.
She looked exhausted. Satisfied. Alive in a way only people who solved real problems ever were.
"You're thinking too hard," she said suddenly.
Aldric glanced at her. "About what?"
"About whether this was enough," she replied. "It was."
He smiled faintly.
"For tonight," he agreed.
She looked at the city lights, then at him. "They'll come back different next time."
"Yes," Aldric said.
"And you're already planning for that."
"Of course."
She shook her head, half-laughing. "You're unfair."
Aldric looked east.
"So are they," he said. "I just learned faster."