CHAPTER 109: CHAPTER 108. MARCH FORWARD

The Borgia knights advanced in a massive, large-built, and controlled wave, reaching the capital’s central gate as the royal guards shouted in alarm. But their cries are lost beneath the thunder of hooves of the Borgia’s large warhorses and the relentless tide of steel surging through the narrow streets.

Black banners edged in red fluttered overhead, no fanfare, no blaring horns. The Borgias didn’t need them. Their presence alone carried the absolute power. At the very front rode Maxim, his armor bearing the scars of countless battles against monsters, though the torchlight still caught the polished steel. His grip on his halberd never wavered, his face unreadable as chaos erupted around him.

The gate guards braced, shields raised, but one swing from Maxim shattered their resolve. His halberd tore through the first man’s shield, splintering wood and biting deep into the armor beneath.

The sound echoed under the archway, and the defenders hesitated. Maxim didn’t give them time to recover. His weapon rose again, swift and brutal, cutting down another guard mid-shout.

More royal knights rushed to block the gate, pressing forward in a desperate wall, but then the rest of the Borgia vanguard struck. Their halberds moved as one, precise and lethal, shattering shields and snapping spears. The narrow stone passage darkened with blood.

On the left flank, Mara cut through the shadows like a streak of crimson fire, her movements too fluid to follow, too decisive to be chance. The battlefield around her felt almost softened, blurred at the edges, while she remained the only sharp thing in motion.

Her blade slipped beneath ribs, into joints, and under raised shields; she didn’t waste breath shouting and didn’t grant her enemies the dignity of a warning. Knights simply dropped where she passed, and others learned to fear the color red long before they could understand what had happened.

Crimson Fang had never been a title granted through ceremony nor whispered in admiration during courtly parades; it had been hammered into the marrow of every Borgia Knight who fights together with Mara Fenclade, a knowledge that if she arrived, death had already been decided.

Her speed isn’t only physical but instinctive, shaped by countless battles and the unspoken vow she carried: Her lord must reach the palace, and nothing would stand in the way of that fate—not even armies.

Behind the Borgia line, as precise as gears in a siege clock, came the Wyndham knights. Their movement is less brutal but no less deliberate, a flowing current designed to break what had already been shattered.

Anton de Wyndham rode at the front, his shield strapped firm across his arm, heavy enough to turn a cavalry charge and wide enough to cover the knights that ran beside him. He didn’t swing wildly; he pushed, pressed, and advanced, creating space where none existed. He’s a wall given direction.

Ian trailed the rear, as a tactician who understood the rhythm of collapse. His eyes measured gaps, faltering lines, and opportunities blooming like cracks in frozen glass.

He knew when to surge forward and when to hold, and the knights behind him trusted him with all their lives. They didn’t need to ask why he waited or when he would call them forward. When he moved, they moved. When he raised his hand, the battlefield turned.

If the Borgias burned the field and split open the imperial guard, Wyndham scattered the remains to the wind.

Behind them came the five thousand knights of smaller banners, of smaller noble houses. Their armor didn’t match, their boots marched at an uneven rhythm, but there’s a conviction in their steps that no uniform could replicate.

They were men and women who had seen the empire rot while being told to kneel and be grateful. They hadn’t come for honor. They hadn’t come to be remembered. They come to stop kneeling in front of the unwise emperor.

And together, they made the ground tremble.

Yet despite the royal knights’ overwhelming numbers, fifteen thousand strong, the empire’s finest, something felt wrong. These were men trained from childhood to defend the emperor, clad in spell-forged armor, wielding weapons crafted by imperial smiths. They should have been unstoppable.

But the air itself had changed.

Vivianne sat astride her warhorse, Roxanne a solid presence behind her, as the spirit kings descended upon the battlefield, not with fanfare, but with the quiet, inevitable weight of the world itself turning against its oppressors.

The royal knights, knights forged since childhood into the empire’s unbreakable blade, staggered mid-stride. The air around them thickened, clinging like unseen hands.

Their limbs dragged as if submerged in deep water. Blades slowed mid-swing. Shields sagged without a single strike landing. Some blinked rapidly, disoriented, as if the very laws of battle had rewritten themselves around them.

Undine came first.

Moisture seeped from canals and hidden cisterns, coiling around the knights in phantom tendrils. Water frosted their armor joints, numbing fingers and fogging visors. Breath crystallized in their throats. The chill didn’t bite; it possessed, leaching warmth until every movement felt like dragging themselves through ice.

Tempest answered next.

No gale, no thunder, just pressure, ceaseless and suffocating. The wind pressed from all sides, turning precise sword work into drunken staggers. Knights braced, knees buckling, as if the sky itself leaned down upon their shoulders. Their formations frayed; footwork failed. The air isn’t empty anymore. It’s an enemy.

Afrit’s turn.

No inferno erupted, just heat, slow and insidious. Sword hilts seared palms. Breastplates baked like desert stone at noon. Gauntlets became ovens. Men ripped them off with strangled cries, fingers blistered, discipline crumbling under the agony of metal turned against its wearers.

And Terranova finished it.

The earth stiffened beneath imperial boots, robbing them of footing. Precise fissures split the cobblestones, swallowing cohesion, dropping knees into sudden trenches. The ground didn’t rage. It simply chose, and the chosen could no longer stand.

No grand spell lit the sky. No war cry shook the walls. The empire’s finest collapsed under the quiet horror of a world that no longer obeyed them.

And that’s the kind of fight that Vivianne gives to the same people who were in her past life and made her life a living hell. Roxanne didn’t do anything, simply let her wife do whatever she wanted, and stopped her when she saw Vivianne getting weak.

The spirit kings roared their power, and the battlefield listened.

Roxanne didn’t need to exert her power or raise her sword. Her dominance radiated in slow, crushing waves. Imperial alphas felt their authority slipping like sand through their fingers. Betas gritted their teeth, muscles locking against an enemy they couldn’t see.

The royal ranks tried to rally, to reform their crushing lines, but Mara tore through their flank, and the Borgia halberds drove them back. The air reeked of blood and distant pine, and the sunlight dimmed as though something ancient had cast its shadow over them.

The imperial banner wavered. The war drums faltered.

Maxim raised his halberd, his voice calm and commanding. "Forward. No hesitation."

The Borgias moved as one. The Wyndhams pressed in behind them, shields locked, driving the imperials back step by step.

Mara reappeared at Maxim’s side, her armor streaked red. "Flank’s open," she said, breath steady.

Maxim nodded. "Then we end it." The royal knights, once unshakable, now struggled just to stand.

The battle didn’t end in a single, glorious clash; it’s a slow, inevitable tide, rolling over the empire’s heart. The screams of the wounded and the roar of steel filled the gate, and above it all, the banners of Borgia and Wyndham unfurled like the first light of a new dawn.

Dietrich’s reign as the emperor starts to falter.

Vivianne sat motionless in her saddle, her stillness more commanding than any battle cry. When she raised her arms, the gesture alone silenced the chaos around her. Tempest answered first, wind curling around her fingertips before surging outward in a vast, controlled wave. It rushed down the main road, not as a storm, but as a guide, sweeping terrified citizens aside with impossible gentleness.

People staggered at first, eyes wide, but the wind steadied them, nudging them to safety with the patience of something beyond mortal hands. It herded them not with force, but with inevitability, like a tide pulling back from the shore.

Alley by alley, street by street, the people of the capital found themselves pressed back toward their homes, unharmed but unable to resist the power of Vivianne’s will.

Then she called Terranova, and the earth itself listened.

A ripple passed through the cobblestones. Side alleys sealed shut as walls of packed earth rose unbidden, blocking off escape routes not to trap, but to protect. The city gates groaned as stone and soil surged to bar the exits. No prison—just a line drawn in the land itself, a boundary to keep the innocent from being crushed between armies.

She lowered her hands, her voice clear and unwavering. "Spare the people. They never had a choice." No plea. No cold decree. Just truth, spoken as fact.

The knights around her, Borgia and Wyndham alike, stood taller. Some touched their helmets in respect; others simply tightened their grips on their swords, steeling themselves for what came next. They advanced, not as conquerors reveling in bloodshed, but as those who understood the difference between ending a tyrant and punishing his subjects.

The city held its breath.

Vivianne rode with Roxanne seated close behind her, their shared saddle a single line of warmth and steadiness as the city unfurled before them. The streets are quiet now, held in the stillness of her command.

Each breath she drew tasted of iron and smoke, the remnants of resistance dissolving behind them. Roxanne’s arm rested at Vivianne’s waist, not possessive but grounding. To let Vivianne know that she’s close with her and will be her no matter what. To support and protect her.

The palace loomed ahead, its towering walls creating long shadows that covered the courtyard. Vivianne didn’t hesitate. She already knew who waited inside—Dietrich de Erengard, the emperor who had once been the source of her nightmares, the man who had turned her past life into hell itself.

But this time, she wasn’t alone.

Now, she had Roxanne, her mate, her wife, and her alpha, standing firm at her side. And with that bond came a truth that steeled her resolve: nothing could stop her anymore. Not fear, not doubt, not even the so-called strongest alpha in the empire.

Not even Dietrich.