The wind on the Gian front was thin and dry. Winter had not yet arrived, but the fields already felt dead.
Ou Sen stood on a ridge overlooking the path north. Behind him, the remnants of the Qin army were reorganizing. Ren's Gu Ren Tai, bloodied but intact from Atsuyo, had been ordered to remain behind and assist with regrouping efforts. The army had taken losses — severe ones. Supply lines were frayed, and half of Sekirei's reinforcements had been lost to poisoning.
Ou Sen's eyes never left the northern ridgeline.
"He'll go anyway," Ren murmured beside Kai.
Ou Sen hadn't ordered Kan Ki forward. On the contrary, he had made it clear that they would pause and rebuild. But Kan Ki, as always, listened to no one.
By the time word reached them, it was already too late.
From the north, a stream of bloodied messengers arrived in rapid succession, their horses foaming at the mouth. The tale they told was unbelievable — and yet entirely Kan Ki.
He had pushed ahead with his army, ignoring the risk, and entered the Gian region alone. The Zhao had been waiting. Three hundred and ten thousand soldiers. A steel net of men and cavalry. A trap designed not just to kill a general, but to destroy a myth.
And still, Kan Ki laughed.
He broke the first encirclement with a bluff formation — a four-pronged cross — long enough to escape into the night. But even that maneuver cost him dearly. By the time he appeared again, it was at Hika, a town just north of Gian. He faked a civilian massacre — false screams, staged bodies, torched buildings — all to draw Ri Boku out of hiding.
It worked.
Ri Boku arrived and walked straight into the ambush. His head was nearly taken. Kan Ki's men tore through Zhao's front lines like demons, but the trap was already closing.
Zhao battalions flooded in from the hills.
Kan Ki was surrounded again. This time, truly and fully.
The messenger's voice dropped. "He charged Ri Boku. Cut down General Ko Haku Kou on the way. But… he didn't make it."
No one spoke for a long time.
Kai exhaled slowly. "And the others?"
"Zenou… Koku'Ou… Raido… scattered or dead. They held to the end, but the army's gone."
Ren remained still.
He had seen it coming. The recklessness. The hunger for one last inferno. But hearing it confirmed struck harder than he expected.
Not because Kan Ki had died.
But because he had died exactly how he wanted to — in flames, surrounded, laughing like a mad god as the world tried to erase him.
When the last messenger left, Ren approached Ou Sen directly.
"Permission to move north?"
Ou Sen didn't look at him. "To recover a corpse?"
Ren's jaw tightened. "To ensure it doesn't unravel what we've built."
Ou Sen finally turned, his gaze unreadable.
"Denied. We hold here. Until winter breaks, we do not advance."
Ren nodded stiffly and walked away.
Later that night, sitting near a cold fire, Kai spoke up.
"We could've been there."
Ren didn't answer.
"But if we were… we'd be dead."
Ren finally looked at him. "You think Kan Ki cared who died with him?"
Kai hesitated. "No. But I think he wanted someone to see it. Someone like us."
Ren looked out over the darkened fields. He remembered Kan Ki's eyes — the ones that never reflected pain. Not truly.
"I saw enough."
In the coming weeks, as Kan Ki's death echoed through the battlefield, Ren remained behind. His message to Sei — about the sixty thousand prisoners he had secretly saved — had already been approved. The prisoners were now fortifying Retsubi and Gyou under close watch. No more massacres. No pointless fires.
Where Kan Ki ended in fire and blood, Ren quietly laid the foundation of Qin's next advance.
Kan Ki died as a demon. But Ren… Ren lived to build a wall.