The city of Fayol was no grand metropolis, but merely a frontier town in the Duchy of Swino. Yet it was the very last city under the Northern Kingdom's control.
The rest of the Northlands had already fallen.
Count Jacob had led his valiant Scanian Legion of Honor across the land, raising the banner of the Northern Kingdom high. Absorbing exiled nobles and their private retinues, he had expanded the legion to tens of thousands of men, even liberating several cities in succession.
Supporters of the Northlands, both openly and from the shadows, were invigorated with fresh hope. They believed a miracle was at hand—that the heroes of legend would rise once more to lead them to glorious victory.
Yet none had anticipated that this was merely the Northlands' final dying spark.
Duoluo, Marshal of the Kingdom of Cinders, mobilized armies from every quarter to launch a full-scale encirclement of the so-called Legion of Honor.
It was said that for days and nights on end, the thunder of artillery never ceased, carving the very earth down three feet. Count Jacob and his army suffered staggering losses, falling back step by step.
In the end, Count Jacob led his final three thousand battered survivors in a retreat to Fayol, holing up inside—the Northlands' very last city.
***
The Duchy of Swino, the city of Fayol.
Scarred city walls, tattered banners, soldiers caked in grime and ash.
A devastated landscape, howling freezing winds, and the army of Cinders occupying the distant wilderness.
Atop the fractured gate tower, Count Jacob stood leaning on his sword, silently watching the mottled tide in the distance, his expression heavy beyond measure.
This man, hailed as the "Great Wall of the Northlands," wore heavy plate armor stained with grime and blood, coated in the dust of cannon fire, and pitted with bullet holes and embedded shrapnel.
Yet he still held his back straight, standing firm like a resilient pine weathering a blizzard.
"Are the Northlands truly doomed?" he muttered under his breath, in a voice barely audible even to himself.
Jacob Rosa was a man of unshakeable will. Having earned fame in his youth and accumulated glorious military achievements, he possessed nearly every virtue a warrior ought to have.
Yet gazing upon the tide of Cinders' troops encircling Fayol, even someone as resolute as he could not help but question whether victory was truly possible.
Was an army like that something mortals could defeat?
"My Lord Count."
The voice of his adjutant broke his reverie.
"The army of the Kingdom of Cinders is almost upon us. This time, it's the main force led by Duoluo himself, along with some of the Starfallen—roughly twenty thousand in total."
"Understood."
The reply was exceedingly brief, yet every word rang with resolve.
The adjutant sighed almost imperceptibly before asking softly once more, "My Lord Count, what should we do now?"
"Hold the line."
Still the same short, forceful response.
This time, however, Count Jacob climbed to the highest vantage of the gate tower. Under the watchful eyes of thousands of soldiers, he looked out across the ramparts, his gaze sweeping over their ash-smeared faces.
"Men, I have always treated you as my own sons..."
"And now, I tell you this—never give up."
"We are the last hope of the Northlands, the final bastion of the Scanians. We embody a thousand years of northern tradition, the true order and justice..."
"We may seem to fight alone, but our allies are everywhere. If we survive, all of Anzeta will rejoice; if we fall, the entire Feanso Continent will mourn for us!"
Finally, Count Jacob raised his sword high.
"For the Northlands!"
His voice was not deafening, yet every syllable was steeped in unyielding resolve.
And the tormented soldiers seemed to recover slightly from their exhaustion and sorrow.
Through such a protracted war, standing against an adversary that seemed utterly invincible, Jacob Rosa was no longer merely their commander or their liege lord. He had become their spiritual pillar, the very symbol of northern chivalry.
He was the anchor that kept every soldier clinging to life.
As long as Count Jacob did not fall, the men could still believe in miracles.
And so, tearing at their parched, hoarse throats, the soldiers roared with all their might.
"For the Northlands! Total victory!"
"Fight for the Count!"
Jacob's eyes swept over the soldiers' faces as a swell of tragic solemnity rose in his chest. Taking a deep breath, he parted his lips and began to sing.
"*I wander with the northern wind...*"
"*The white frost brings tidings of my end...*"
"*The snow blankets my corpse, and my beloved knows my face no more...*"
It was a northern elegy, yet on his lips, it sounded like a battle hymn of victory.
He sang of the Scanians' indomitable will, and of their solemn resolution to fight to the death without surrender.
"*Yet grieve not for me, for I fell upon the field of glory...*"
Stirred by his song, the soldiers joined in, their raspy, low voices chanting the familiar melody. The long, desolate refrain echoed across the wilderness, shrouding the parapets in a mournful, heroic air.
"*I wander with the northern wind—*"
"*The white frost brings tidings of my end—*"
A sudden voice rang out, extraordinarily booming.
It effortlessly drowned out the singing soldiers, rolling out across the entire city. The men peered outward in bewilderment, and even Jacob turned his head in shock.
How was this possible?
How could the army of the Kingdom of Cinders possibly be singing this song?
Jacob's psychological defenses cracked, and a sliver of despair surfaced from the depths of his heart.
Of course. Everything outside Fayol had already fallen, and the people of the Northlands were now captives. It was hardly surprising that they knew the melody.
—What none of them realized was that some player with far too much time on their hands had simply cranked up a loudspeaker to hijack their background music, and was even scheming to whip up a DJ remix.
"*Good luck comes, wishing you good luck!*"
"*Good luck brings joy and love!*"
The strains of the *Song of the Northlands* cut off abruptly, replaced by the wildly festive *Good Luck Comes*, jarring horribly with the grim, bloodstained battlefield.
"..."
Count Jacob's carefully cultivated solemnity was thrown into complete disarray.
His brow furrowed into knots, his complexion turning thoroughly dreadful. Without a word, he stepped down from the tower and instructed the soldiers:
"They are about to assault the walls. Prepare for battle."
Count Jacob offered no further words. After all, they had clashed with the kingdom's forces for many days, and they knew the enemy's methods all too well.
Sure enough, artillery wailed.
The wilderness began to tremble.
A harsh, air-shredding shriek pierced the sky.
Calm and composed, Count Jacob shouted at the top of his lungs, "Incoming artillery—hit the dirt!"
Before he even finished speaking, the soldiers scattered by sheer instinct, flattening themselves behind fortifications or darting straight inside the stone ramparts.
Having survived round after round of bombardment, they understood the terrifying power of these weapons all too intimately; nearly every man among them was an exceptional survivor who had cheated death under shellfire.
Anyone lacking that instinct was already dead.
Yet there was nothing they could do against it, save for praying for Tempus's protection, hoping fortune would spare their lives amidst the firestorm.
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Solid metal shells weighing hundreds of jin slammed down, blasting living flesh into ragged pieces, while jagged shrapnel tore straight through bone and sinew.
The Reaper's scythe reaped life after life.
Yet under the brutal torment of war, commanders and soldiers alike had long grown numb. Death was an everyday sight.
They did not scream or wail; at most, in the split second before being blown apart, someone might utter a brief, instinctive gasp, though even that was swallowed whole by the roar of explosions.
Flesh and shattered stone sprayed into the air. Baptized by cannon fire, sections of the walls crumbled into ruins, and several protruding turrets collapsed with a thunderous crash.
Chapter 368