Black Iron Territory lay beneath an iron-gray gloom before dawn.
Only the footsteps of patrolling knights remained on the walls, and cold seeped through the gaps in their armor into their bones.
Earl Doran stood behind the battlements in a thick cloak, looking down over the plains swallowed by night.
He did not expect anything to happen that night. Even with the Empire's recent turmoil, he treated his nightly inspections as a routine, even a pleasure.
Especially when his subjects instinctively lowered their heads at the sight of him. The fear in their eyes gave him a certain satisfaction.
Because of the recent struggle over the Empire's crown prince, Lord Raymont had ordered the entire region placed on alert. But in Doran's eyes, distant Greyrock Province could not possibly be affected.
He had five thousand knights under his command. If any enemy dared come, he believed they would die on this black soil.
But real danger never arrived the way he imagined.
At first, only the sound of the wind changed.
Doran frowned and was about to call someone over to investigate...
Then a dazzling streak of white light struck the southeastern corner of the wall, a spot the knights ordinarily could not even be bothered to patrol.
The next instant, an explosion tore through the silence.
Boom! Boom!
"What?" Doran's heart lurched.
When the fire struck, Doran initially thought it was only a probing attack. But the blast was far too concentrated, like a nail driven precisely into a crack, striking the weakest joint in a single blow.
The wall that had protected Black Iron Territory for centuries, that massive shield of black iron stone which had never bowed to fate through countless storms, was shaking violently under an unknown force.
The tremors erupted deep within the masonry and