The terrible, metal hum that had shook through the marrow of the mountains ceased so suddenly that the silence felt like a physical blast wave.
Across the broad southern valley floor. There, the rain-washed earth smelled richly of sweet damp loam and wild clover, one hundred thousand demonic war-beasts came to a shuddering, staggered halt.
For three weeks, these creatures had known only darkness. Bound by the malignant hum of the underground blood-crystal, their minds had been trapped in a nonstop, waking nightmare of phantom starvation and man-made frenzy. They had run until their hooves split, until their breath burned like lye, whipped forward through brambles and crags by handlers who treated them as expendable flesh for siege engines.
Now, as the last traces of the cut curse dissolved into the cool morning air, the crimson glare in their eyes flickered out.
Like lanterns put out by a sudden draft, the blood-red glaze over thousands of pupils faded. It showed natural amber, warm brown, and soft black glass irises. The huge horned iron-rhinos lowered their plated heads, trembling on shaking knees. The four-armed climbing apes dropped down onto the damp grass, blinking at the sky in dazed confusion. The razor-tusk boars, still gathered in their dense phalanxes outside Tie Shan’s shield gate, swayed on their trotters, let out confused grunts. Then it looked at their own muddied hooves as if wondering how they had arrived on this side of the mountain range.
A young iron-bone wolf whimpered softly, collapsing onto its side in the soft moss, its tongue lolling out in total tiredness.
Then, down the gentle slope from the safe hall’s southern palisades, a new scent arrived on the morning breeze.
It wasn’t the scent of burning oil, blood-pitch, or corpse-ash.
It was the rich, intoxicating aroma of roasted sweet yams caramelizing over slow peachwood coals. It was the fragrant, nutty steam of pearl-barley mash simmered with crushed mountain walnuts and dried persimmons. It was the savory, mouthwatering fragrance of giant kettles of yellow turnip soup seasoned with ginger root, dried mountain mushrooms, and a generous pinch of rock salt.
From the high gateway of the safe hall, the heavy hardwood gates swung wide open with a smooth, oiled glide.
There were no archers with notched arrows. There were no spear-walls or flying swords dropping from the castle walls.
Instead, a cheerful procession rolled forth onto the muddy battlefield. Leading the column was Su Ling’er, her vermilion silk robes gathered neatly at her knees. She pushed a four-wheeled cedar handcart loaded with three steaming wooden barrels. Flanking her were two hundred fox maidens, badger miners in clean linen aprons, and sturdy bear cubs, each steering similar carts or balancing broad woven baskets heaped with warm, fluffy steamed barley buns.
“Careful with the ginger broth, Little Bao!” Su Ling’er called out, her amber eyes sparkling with gentle amusement. “Don’t splash the buns. The hungry ones in the front row look like they haven’t eaten a solid meal since the last full moon.”
“Got it, Lady Ling’er!” a young bear cub shouted, proudly pushing a cart twice his size.
Lin Xiao bounced along at the head of the convoy, perched atop a massive wooden ladle resting across the front barrel. His azure body was round and cheerful, bobbing with each roll of the cart wheels like a floating sapphire buoy.
“Alright, everyone!” Lin Xiao announced, his telepathic voice carrying across the entire meadow with warm, conversational cheer. “Breakfast is officially served! Nobody needs to fight, nobody needs to push, and there’s more than enough for seconds! If you have horns, watch your neighbors’ ribs when you lean down!”
The wild horde watched in total, stunned confusion.
A huge blood-plated iron-rhino, standing nine feet tall at the shoulder with a horn thick as a tree trunk, stepped forward slowly. It had been the battering ram of the western assault, starved for five days to sharpen its aggression. Its ribs pressed visibly against its thick hide, and its breath came in ragged wheezes. It lowered its massive, armored snout toward the first wooden trough placed in the grass by two young badger workers.
Inside the trough lay fifty pounds of steaming pearl-barley mash, swimming in sweet turnip broth and topped with mashed honey-yams.
The giant rhino sniffed. Its nostrils flared wide.
A single, leathery eyelid twitched.
SLURP.
The rhino extended a broad, pink tongue, tasting the warm mash. The sweet, rich flavor exploded across its very thirsty palate like a potion-made miracle. With a low, rumbling groan of sheer bliss that shook the grass, the massive beast dropped to its knees in the mud and began shoveling the food into its mouth with wild, joyful snorts, its tail wagging like an overgrown hound.
Seeing their largest vanguard commander happily face-down in a tub of warm porridge, the rest of the wild horde fully broke formation.
There was no battle charge. There was no territorial bloodlust.
Tens of thousands of wild beasts simply surged forward with desperate, hungry curiosity. Iron-bone wolves trotted up to the fox maidens, whining politely and nudging their aprons with wet black noses until they received broad wooden platters piled with roasted root vegetables and boiled barley cakes. Four-armed apes scrambled down from the bluffs, sitting cross-legged in circles on the grass as bear cubs handed them whole roasted squashes still steaming from the ovens.
Even the fierce razor-tusk boars, who minutes earlier had been ramming Tie Shan’s iron-hard metal shields, flopped onto their bellies in long rows along the ditch, happily slurping up vegetable trimmings and steamed grain from wooden gutters that Elder Lu Da’s otters had hastily redirected from the lower granary.
Tie Shan walked among the seated beasts. He carried a fifty-gallon iron kettle in each hand like a pair of tea cups. He chuckled loudly, his deep booming across the meadow. He poured warm broth into troughs lined with eager snouts.
“Eat up, you ugly rascals!” Tie Shan roared with affectionate warmth. “You ran fifty miles on an empty gut just because some pale-faced demonic runt waved a bone rattle at you! Put some meat on your ribs, and next time stay away from folks who wear human leather coats!”
A three-horned boar grunted happily, leaning its muddy head against Tie Shan’s armored knee in a clear gesture of thanks. Tie Shan grinned, reaching down with a massive paw to scratch the beast roughly behind its bristled ears.
Lin Xiao hopped down from the ladle. It rolled across the muddy lawn to check on a mother shadow-lynx curled beneath an elderberry bush with three tiny, shivering cubs.
With a gentle flex of his mass, Lin Xiao formed a small, shallow saucer from his own azure surface. It filled it with warm, sweetened goat’s milk he had retrieved from the kitchen stores. He nudged the dish toward the cubs with a soft gurgle.
The mother lynx looked at the strange blue creature with wide, exhausted eyes. Sensing zero malice—only boundless, calm kindness—she gave Lin Xiao’s jelly shoulder a tentative, raspy lick before gently nudging her cubs toward the warm milk.
“See?” Lin Xiao whispered, bobbing in place. “Nothing beats a warm meal on a chilly morning. Fighting on an empty stomach is just bad for the soul.”
Su Ling’er walked up beside him, holding a bamboo clipboard and an ink brush. Her expression was one of deep, quiet respect as she looked out over the emerald valley.
Where an hour ago an army of one hundred thousand terrifying demonic war-beasts had threatened to tear down the safe hall and butcher every living soul, there was now only a vast, peaceful pastoral scene. Tens of thousands of animals were lounging in the morning sun, belching contentedly, napping in the mud, or licking each other’s fur clean of old demonic ash.
“Master,” Su Ling’er murmured softly, her fox ears twitching as she listened to the contented snores and chewing sounds echoing across the basin. “In all the histories of the Azure Cloud Realm, every beast tide has ended in rivers of blood, mountains of cut heads, and hundreds of years of bitter revenge. No sect in ten thousand years has ever defeated an invading army by inviting them to breakfast.”
Lin Xiao gave a floating, jelly-like shrug. “Well, that just proves those sect elders spend too much time reading dusty manuals and not enough time cooking. When people—or beasts—are angry, ninety percent of the time it’s because they’re either starving, exhausted, or being bullied by an idiot with a whip. You give them a hot bath, a warm bowl of porridge. A place to rest their paws, and suddenly nobody wants to bite each other anymore. It’s just common sense.”
“Common sense to you, Master,” Su Ling’er smiled. Her three tails wrapped gently around his bouncy mass. “To the rest of the world, it’s an impossible, divine miracle.”
“Well, let’s make sure we don’t run out of turnips,” Lin Xiao said. He looked toward the kitchen carts. “At this rate, we’ll need to harvest the northern patch by Tuesday.”
Before Su Ling’er could note down the agricultural directive, a sudden, unnatural coldness seized the air.
The warm morning breeze died instantly.
The thousands of resting beasts froze mid-chew, their ears pinning flat against their heads as an ancient, primal dread gripped their spirits. The grass beneath their paws began to whither. That turned to brittle, frosted gray as a choking, putrid aura rolled down from the upper stratosphere.
High above the valley, the blue sky began to bleed.