It was late afternoon, though the sun made no effort to prove it. The clouds dimmed everything to a cold, pre-evening glow.

  Beyond the walls of Einhartturm, the land flattened into silence. A brittle field stretched outward—scorched in patches, crusted with mana residue, grass withered and colorless.

  Beneath that quiet soil lay a network of death. Spike pits hidden just beneath brittle roots. Glyph traps laced in intersecting arcs. Buried mana detonators tuned to body heat, pressure, motion. A field designed not to slow, but to kill. The traps had been set far enough that the first volleys could still reach, but close enough to be seen. It was within reach. Defensible. Deadly.

  Thin lines of faint rune-light pulsed in certain corridors—barely visible from a distance, but unmistakable to trained eyes. These marked the narrow paths the Unterkreis Division would use, threading through the killing zone without triggering its fury. Only they were allowed to walk the serpent’s jaw without being bitten.

  Behind the minefield, the ground had been churned and reshaped into the beginnings of a fortified line. The Oberkreis Division worked without pause, hands glowing with shaping glyphs as they raised barriers, dug moats, and carved obstacles into the earth. Every ditch, every spike-lined trench, was another layer of space meant to delay contact. Mages didn’t fare well in melee. Distance was survival. Distance meant they could cast.

  General Berbaris moved along the growing line, issuing sharp commands, adjusting angles, repositioning barriers. His blade was sheathed, but his authority radiated like heat. No part of the defense was built twice. Everything was placed right the first time.

  The Unterkreis Division was there as well. They were assisting with the construction. They reshaped terrain with glyphs, using magic to do most of the work. Their work was rougher, less refined, but it added up. This was their task before sallying out. Even without Arkmarschall’s order, they knew this already—he had drilled it into them. Every task, every stage. There was no need to ask.

  Nearby, their horses stood secured in a makeshift stable, the structure raised by earth casters—simple but sturdy, enough to keep the mounts calm until the moment came to ride.

  The effort would have broken lesser units. For Einhartturm’s forces however, it was routine. Grueling, yes. But normal. Arkmarschall Leopold had built them for this. Discipline that bordered on cruelty. Training that flirted with collapse. Every mage on the line had bled in drills. Most had passed out at least once during the drill. “You are not yet an Einhartturm mage if you never woken up in the hospital after training” is the common saying. It was the only way to hold ground like this. You didn’t defend volatile land with comfort.

  Once their task was done, the mages downed vials of Vorran's Red Draught—a crimson elixir that jolted the system back to full readiness. It restored stamina and mana in minutes, but the risk was known. Too many doses, and it shredded the organs from within. The price of readiness was always steep at Einhartturm.

  Burden animals creaked their way through the opened gates of Einhartturm, led by stablehands and escorted by junior levies. Their backs were laden with crates of elixirs, stabilizers, repair glyphs, and reinforced tools. Some even hauled small artillery platforms, their iron limbs clinking with every jolt—ordnance meant for the forward moats where range would mean survival.

  Behind the working mages and hastily carved moats, the Splittermarsch Division stood under tight watch. Their handlers moved between them in calculated passes, chanting stabilization incantations and fixing scroll-bound seals to exposed veins and arcane grafts.

  One of the Splittermarsch twitched violently as the scroll fused against his grafted skin—his handler muttered tighter containment spells, jaw tight. Too early for a rupture.

  Behind the final line where Splittermarsch waited under containment, the Aschezug Division moved with brisk efficiency. Their task was not glorious, but essential—setting up the relay points that would keep the entire defense alive.

  Thick metal foundations were driven into the dirt, etched with concentric runic inscriptions. Each relay would receive short-range supply casts from the main depot within the wall—close enough to reduce distortion, far enough to stay out of direct combat. The glyphs glowed faintly, tested and recalibrated with each pulse to ensure mana alignment during Fluxzeit.

  Makeshift tents rose nearby, formed from hardened soil and stone sheets conjured by earth-shapers. These weren’t comfortable, nor were they meant to be. They were field hospitals in name only.

  Stabilizers were applied on-site—just enough to keep them breathing. If deemed stable enough to survive a short-range jump, they were teleported to the main supply depot using the same platform used for transporting goods. If not, they were carted there by burden animals, escorted by non-essential personnel.

  But few ever made it that far. In Einhartturm, being pulled from the line meant you were already half a corpse. That was the unspoken rule—you fought until the dirt claimed you, or until someone dragged you off it.

  Among the organized chaos, citizens and levy units moved in steady rhythm, woven into the larger machinery of preparation. They carried crates, reinforced tents, dragged supply sleds across rutted paths—no task beneath them, no hands left idle. Orders flew from senior mages and division officers, and were followed without question. In Einhartturm, there was no distinction between soldier and civilian when war loomed. Only function mattered.

  While the outer lines hardened their formations, atop the wall, the rhythm turned frantic.

  “I need more shells for the eastern cannon!”

  An Oberkreis mage shouted from the walltop, voice cracking like a whip above the din. His coat billowed as he turned. “Double the load—now!”

  The wall bustled with motion. Citizens and levies swarmed like clockwork—hauling crates, stacking ammo, engraving shield glyphs with raw, glowing chalk.

  Chaos, but coordinated. Desperate, but deliberate.

  “Move faster! We’re at war. You rest when you’re dead!”

  A mother’s voice cut through the noise—frantic, pleading.

  “Please, sir—he’s only eight. He can’t keep up.”

  The mage didn’t even glance her way.

  “Citizen, this isn’t a nursery. If he doesn’t move, we all die before midnight.”

  Above them, a voice barked through a megaphone glyph.

  “I want more shells for the east battery! Now!”

  Another officer shouted from the central gantry,

  “Shield scribe team, rotate positions. Group B, you’ve got five minutes to reset your arrays!”

  All along the ramparts, the wall seethed with motion. Citizens, children, and conscripted levies moved in tight corridors between mounted ballistae and spell barrels, passing ammunition, anchoring support glyphs, and loading fresh scrolls into repeater cores. The scent of ink and iron filled the air. Sweat clung to every surface.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  At the command post, Hauptmagus Rellgardt hovered over a rune-slate, mana threads from a dozen channels wrapping around his arms. Reports scrolled past—logistics green, battery linkages stable, shielding pattern aligned. It should’ve been enough.

  “Everything’s on schedule,” a junior mage reported, panting as he climbed the final steps.

  “Supply chains holding. We’re ready to fire on command.”

  Rellgardt’s jaw twitched. He didn’t look up. He flicked a finger across the display, zooming in on the pulse-line nearest the minefield.

  “We need all sectors at overload capacity before the first wave hits.”

  A few meters down the wall, a young levy dropped beside a crate, catching his breath. His face was drawn, his voice half-laughing through exhaustion.

  “Damn it… first assignment and I land in this bloody fortress.”

  He looked up at the gray sky.

  “Could’ve been posted at Vondhaven. Lakes. Clean barracks. A bakery.”

  The soldier next to him didn’t answer at first. Older, sharper-eyed, he kept watching the mana fields stretching in the distance.

  “You want bread and soft beds,” the man said finally, “you joined the wrong army.”

  “No joke,” the younger muttered.

  “This place is insane. Even the kids look like they’ve been through three wars.”

  Beneath the ramparts, the streets of Einhartturm pulsed with urgency. Cobblestones that once echoed with merchants’ wheels and students’ boots now clattered with crates, steel, and the relentless steps of conscript officers.

  Arguments flared in doorways and courtyards.

  “You can’t take both my sons!” a mother shouted, clutching the arm of a boy who looked no older than twelve.

  “They’re listed, woman. Drill schedule shows they’re trained. Unless you want us short on gunners, let go.”

  “They’re children!”

  “They’re citizens,” the officer snapped back, “and citizens defend what feeds them.”

  Einhartturm was no backwater outpost. The citadel sprawled wide across its high ground, tiered in stone and steel. Though perched at the border’s edge, it housed a population to rival duchy capitals. Nearly as dense as Netterhelm itself. Because this wasn’t just any stronghold—this was the seat of power for the Herzog of Silbermark.

  Its location wasn’t chosen for glory but for resources. The mountains nearby bled silver, iron, and mana-laced ore. Powder-rich stone ran thick beneath the soil. It was a county of wealth, but wealth mined with bloodied hands.

  Where most dukes ruled from velvet-lined thrones, Leopold—Herzog of Silbermark and its acting Arkmarschall—remained in the mud, where the guns were needed.

  The coin that might’ve gilded banquets went elsewhere. Into drills. Into gunpowder. Into officers who knew how to break down a spellform in thirty seconds flat. Into battle instructors who trained children until their fingers blistered from loading crossbows.

  By age ten, most children in Einhartturm had passed their first fire drills and rune casting benchmarks. If they could walk and channel, they could serve.

  That was why, when the alarms rang, almost every soul in Einhartturm moved like they’d done it a hundred times. Because they had. Because that was what all the drills, all the sacrifices, all the rerouted gold had been for.

  This was not a citadel that merely endured its position on the edge of the Reich. It stood—with teeth bared, boots grounded, and a thousand hands ready to fight.

  That was how Einhartturm survived.

  And through the chaos, Vierna ran.

  Her breath came sharp as flint as she kept pace with the rest of the research staff—white-cloaked figures, some clutching scrolls, others half-carrying vials and stabilizer cores. The stable subjects moved with them, silent and in sync, each one marked by the scars of grafting and arcane augmentation.

  Beside her, Lina sprinted effortlessly. Her mask was drawn tight, eyes forward, her silver hair swaying behind her as if it were her shadow.

  “Do they have training excercise in the facility too?” Vierna managed between breaths.

  “Nope,” Lina said, not even winded, “but I was a good sprinter before they shipped me off to the lab.”

  She grinned under the mask.

  “Long legs. Graceful stride. Built like a goddess of flight. Shame they train me for competition instead of grafting wings on that guy back there.”

  She tilted her head slightly, indicating one of the more monstrous-looking subjects pounding ahead like a charging beast.

  Vierna let out a breath that was part chuckle, part disbelief.

  “You're joking at a time like this?”

  “Of course I am,” Lina replied, “wouldn’t want to die with bad posture and no punchline.”

  Vierna’s boots struck uneven cobblestones as she ran, but her eyes flicked sideways—drawn not to the path, but to the people lining it.

  There were children, dozens of them, some no older than ten, moving in practiced rhythm. Some wore tailored coats with brass-threaded hems, others simple tunics patched at the elbows, but it didn’t matter. The silk-clad worked beside the rag-wrapped, no difference between them now. Each one held a crossbow or musket nearly as long as their own arms, gripping them with both reverence and fatigue.

  Lina noticed her gaze lingering.

  “Strange, huh? seeing the rich and the poor doing things together. That almost never happens anywhere else.”

  Vierna didn’t answer. She just kept watching. A boy in a silk vest passing crates beside a girl with bare feet and bandaged hands. Her brows knit, as if trying to fit the image into something that made sense.

  As they turned a corner, she saw an old man with one leg, seated on a bench with runes glowing beneath it. He wasn’t moving crates, but he was scribbling scrolls—his fingers deft despite the tremor in his wrist. Beside him, a child handed him fresh ink every time he ran dry.

  A woman with burn-scars across half her face barked orders to a group of levies, her voice firm, her stance unwavering. No one questioned her.

  And off near the edge of the depot, one of the Splittermarsch personnel—his skin laced with arcane seams—was talking easily with a levy boy. The child listened, unafraid, nodding along as if speaking to any other soldier.

  Vierna glanced over, her gaze lingering.

  A researcher running beside her caught the look and spoke between strides.

  “He’s one of the stable ones.” she said.

  Vierna nod, she said nothing. She just kept running, the image sitting with her longer than it should have.

  The depot loomed ahead—a squat stone fortress pressed against the inner wall. Not grand, but solid. Built low, thick, and wide. It wasn’t meant to inspire—it was meant to survive.

  Vierna slowed as they neared. The gates stood open, guarded by levies who barely glanced at their coats. White robes said enough.

  Inside, the courtyard ran like a well-oiled machine. Crates stacked in precise rows, wax-sealed and rune-marked. Compared to the chaos outside, it felt… calm. Controlled. Someone had carved structure into the storm.

  Wide corridors branched inward. Some rooms brimmed with scrolls, stabilizers, enchanted rope. Doors were labeled in glowing sigils: rations, ammo, repair kits. Even the silence here had rhythm.

  One hall turned sterile. Clean air, glowing vents, the scent of alchemy and old blood. Cots lined the walls, some already occupied. The hospital wing.

  Halwen turned, voice clipped but clear.

  “Our job’s simple. Sort the supply. Keep the teleportation rune active. When the relay calls, send it fast.”

  “Most of us will stay here—supervise, sort, dispatch. Only a handful are needed for the hospital wing. The ones going there, your job is to stabilize anyone they send through. Do it fast. If they’re still breathing, keep it that way.”

  “When this lights up—move. Fast. You don’t want to be standing on it when someone teleports in.”

  Lina nudged Vierna with her elbow, voice light despite the tension in the air.

  “Well then, let’s go, your nerdiness. Our castle’s under attack.”

  But before they could move, Halwen’s voice cut in, sharper than usual.

  “Not you two, you’re with me. From now until I say otherwise, you’ll assist me directly. Relay orders. Handle anything I throw at you.”

  Halwen approached, slipping two small rune-etched slivers from his coat pocket—barely longer than a fingertip, each one glowing faintly with inner light.

  “Hold still.”

  Without ceremony, he pressed the first one to the side of Vierna and Lina’s neck. The rune flared, then sank into their skin with a hiss of mana.

  “You’ll hear my voice through this,” he said. “Just listen—and follow.”

  He handed them a folded slate-scroll, already marked with glyph sequences and anchor instructions.

  “Your first task—set up the scrying eye projector. Everyone in this depot needs to see what’s happening outside the wall in real time. That includes the supply lines, relay points, and the kill zone. You’ll find the lens base in Storage Room C.”

  He gave them a sharp look.

  “Read the manual. You should be able to handle it.”

  Then he turned away, already issuing orders to the other staff without waiting for confirmation

  Vierna held the manual tight against her chest, the weight of it somehow heavier than it looked.

  Lina cracked her knuckles with a lazy grin.

  “Well then, your nerdiness, Let’s go find Storage Room C before Herr Halwen starts screaming in our skulls.”

  They moved. Not soldiers. Not mages. But in this war, that didn’t seem to matter.

  Unterkreis = Junior Mage Division

  Oberkreis = Senior Mage Division

  Splittermarsch = Mutant division (Almost succesful test subject)

  Aschezug = Ash division (canon fodder)