The mountain city rose high and sheer, and the rainy night was dim and lightless. Black Snake Tlilcoatl stood expressionless on the stockade wall of the rear stronghold, gazing out at the mountain road he could not see clearly, waiting for a future he could not see clearly either. Beside him, the thin, small Dark Snake wore Leather Armor, hope in his eyes. He looked up at his father for a while, then silently lowered his head again.
Farther back, dozens of Black Snake Personal Guards and over a hundred Cloud Snake Warriors had gathered by the stockade wall, drenched in rain, waiting in silence. Under the sparse firelight, many of them were so starved their faces were yellow and their bodies gaunt beyond recognition. Some were severely short of salt, so swollen all over they could barely stand steady; others wore deathly, lifeless expressions, while drops of blood kept dripping from the weapons in their hands, with no telling whose blood it was...
At this moment, everyone was silent together, heads bowed, as if unwilling to face what came next, yet forced to face it, placing their life and death in the hands of others.
On this quiet rainy night, they took that step... From then on, every one of them had betrayed the God of the Hunt passed down through their lineage, betrayed the Cloud Snake Divine Descendants in the front stronghold, betrayed the three and a half years of holding fast!... And yet, in truth, they had no choice... Their choice was merely to struggle with all their might to live on in a long night without hope, to survive long enough to see the dawn.
The night rain pattered down. A large formation of Imperial Guard Warriors, draped in black cloaks and hiding a few torches,